Food inspection

“ That for the purposes hereinbefore set forth the Secretary of Agriculture shall cause to be made by inspectors appointed for that purpose an examination and inspection of all meat food products prepared for interstate or foreign commerce in any slaughtering, meat-canning, salting, packing, rendering, or similar establishment, and for the purposes of any examination and inspection said inspectors shall have access at all times, by day or night, whether the establishment be operated or not, to every part of said establishment ”

“ Whenever in the course of any such inspection of a factory or other establishment where food is manufactured, processed or packed, the officer or employee making the inspection obtains a sample of any such food, and an analysis made of such sample for the purpose of ascertaining whether such food consists in whole or in part of any filthy, putrid or decomposed substance, or is otherwise unfit for food, a copy of the results of such analysis shall be furnished promptly to the owner, operator or agent in charge. ”

“ Any medical officer or inspector of nuisances may inspect any meat, &c., exposed for sale or deposited in any place for the purpose of sale or of preparation for sale and intended for the food of man. This power of inspection is, in districts where the Public Health Act 1890 has been adopted, Unsound meat. extended to all articles intended for the food of man. ”

“ Such inspection is never complained of by those tradesmen who take a pride in their occupation, and who endeavour, by ordinary attention to business, to secure the purity of the milk they sell. It might be added also, that if other articles of food are duly liable to official examination, and if the articles sold by grocer and butcher are duly supervised and examined, there is no reason why the premises of the dairyman should not be similarly inspected. ”

“ Our food supply is the most bountiful in the world. And for 7 years now, our administration has been committed to making it the safest in the world. We've improved dramatically the Nation's inspection system for meat, poultry, and seafood. We've added new safeguards to protect families from unsafe imported foods. ”

“ The principle involved is that a declaration respecting the uses to which a food may be put does not in any way affect its inspection when offered for entry and delivered to the consignee. If a food product be regularly offered for importation into the United States the subsequent use to which it may be put is not a matter which can affect in any way the duties of the inspecting officers. It is not the duty of these officers to follow the food into consumption nor to see what becomes of it after it is delivered to the consignee. ”

“ Article 17
⁠People's governments at all levels and their relevant departments shall establish supervision and inspection mechanisms against food waste, and promptly urge the rectification of food waste problems identified.
⁠Where a food producer or operator seriously wastes food in the course of food production or marketing, market regulation authorities, commerce authorities and other authorities under the local people's government at or above the county level may admonish its legal representative or principal leader. ”

“ Good beef is largely obtained from the cattle ranges of the West, but there is no reason why cattle should not be raised to greater extent in the East. Sheep for mutton are best raised where the climate is not too severe. Methods of slaughter, transportation, and preservation210 all affect the quality of beef. The pure food laws and Federal meat inspection law are valuable to the consumer in their control of the quality of the meat, that it shall be free from disease and from adulterations. See Chapter XVII for the discussion of preservatives and pure food laws.
Fig. 58.—Cuts of Beef. ”

“ The rules governing the handling of food materials before they reach the consumer are subject to inspection by law, but the housekeeper or nurse has no such rules to guard or govern her; hence she may be wantonly careless or ignorantly unsanitary unless taught the right way to care for the food in her charge. Perishable fruits and vegetables must be kept in a cool place to preserve their freshness. ”

“ Inspection of the factory and of the material was provided for explicitly. Confiscation of the finished product was authorized upon a finding of its unsuitability for food through the use of unhealthful or unwholesome materials, a finding that might be based upon visual or delicate laboratory tests, or upon observation of the use of such materials in the process of manufacture. I.R.C. § 2325; 9 C.F.R. §§ 301.41-301.43. By the statutes and regulations, [22] the Department of Agriculture has authority to watch the consumer's interest throughout the process of manufacture and distribution. ”

“ The supervision of the national government does not extend, however, to articles of food which are produced, 526distributed, and sold within the territory of a single state. As regards such articles, the task of protecting the public against impurity and adulteration rests with the state and local health officers. These officers perform their work by frequent inspection at places where food is produced and sold. Makers and vendors of impure or adulterated foods are prosecuted in the ordinary courts. ”

“ State inspectors, active at all times throughout the State, send samples for analysis to this laboratory, where trained chemists make the tests. Constant inspection of food and dairy products, feeds, fertilizers, water, oils, and paints is maintained. ”

“ The importance of the inspection of dairy and food products grows out of the fact that not only is the consumer, hence all the world, interested, but the execution of these laws touch large commercial interests. Not only are meat packers, distillers and brewers deeply interested, but the wholesale and retail grocers and, more recently, the manufacturing and prescribing druggists, are vitally concerned. ”

“ In the case of two experts of like honesty and like industry, one employed for the purpose of giving a certificate to the article of food and one whose researches are entirely independent of any commercial relations, the public will generally give the decision of the latter a greater weight. Inspection officers under state and national food and drug acts should give especial attention to the subject of confectionery as an article of diet almost universally employed and consumed by a class of the community most susceptible to injury. ”

“ It is there only that the character of the materials employed and the quality of the condiments or other substances added can be determined. The day is doubtless rapidly approaching when consumers will be perfectly protected in this matter, and when no canned, potted, or deviled meats of any description will be allowed to enter into commerce without bearing the certificate of competent inspection officers as to the kind of meats used, their sanitary character, etc. ”

“ The city inspectors destroyed these cattle. The Government inspectors refused to allow the city meat inspectors to remove glands and other organs suspected of being diseased, for the purpose of microscopic examination by the laboratory bacteriologists.
At the close of the Spanish War there was held a court of inquiry which took testimony that shed a flood of light upon packing-house methods. I quote a few facts which were brought out dealing with this question of the efficiency of the Federal inspection, concerning which Mr. Armour boasts so boldly. ”

“ They exercise a very considerable control over the individual dairy farms. Some of them keep inspectors traveling constantly among the farms, spending $10,000 to $15,000 yearly in such inspections. They will receive no milk from a farm until after an inspector has visited it and looked into the hygienic conditions of the dairy, even sometimes going so far as to make an analysis of the water used in the dairy. Only after such inspection has been declared favorable is the milk received in the city. ”

“ The sanitary inspectors, who are kept more steadily at work now than ever before since the organization of the Department of Health, in addition to their other labor, destroyed 600,000 pounds of vegetables unfit for food, 300,000 pounds of meat, 13,000 pounds of fish, and 50,000 pounds of confectionery, so called—the poisoned sugar stuff sold to children at the penny shops all over town. ”

“ Foods, both fresh and preserved, must be inspected and rendered safe for the thousands of people who are to use them. All raw foods exposed on stands should be covered so as to prevent insects or dust laden with bacteria from coming in contact with them. Meats must be inspected for diseases, such as tuberculosis in beef, or trichinosis in pork. Cold storage plants must be inspected to prevent the keeping of food until it becomes unfit for use. ”

“ Of impurities in water, we shall treat hereafter; hence nothing need be said at present regarding this class of food-dangers. Our milk-supply and our meat-supply, however, are matters over which every householder may and should exercise supervision. Special dangers attach, for example, to the incautious treatment of milk. If milk is suspected to be adulterated, or of poor quality, the determination of the error or fraud is a matter of scientific examination; and with regard to the detection of milk-dangers, arising from disease-contagion, the same remark holds good. ”

“ The Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources shall, within 15 days, organize and establish the National Meat Inspection System with its defined functions and procedures as promulgated in this Presidential Decree. ”

“ Government protection must be given us here, but the housekeeper too has a responsibility. If the raw meat has failed to receive proper inspection, we can protect ourselves by cooking the meat to a degree that will kill any parasite present. For this reason meat should not be served that looks raw or too underdone. The cooked meat should be pink rather than red. ”

“ Another theory attributes souring to a diseased condition of the meat. Prior to the enforcement of the Federal regulations governing meat inspection there might have been some ground for such a supposition, but this theory could not hold at the present time, in view of the thorough and efficient inspection now in force, for it can be safely said that no diseased meat now passes the Government inspectors, and therefore no diseased meat goes into cure in inspected houses. ”

“ The possibility of detecting any effects of disease in meats by inspection at the time of or after delivery is very remote and therefore the inspection before killing and during the process of manufacture should be a most rigid one in the case of these fragments. ”

“ The markets for meat, fish, fruit, and vegetables are also regularly inspected, and the large amount of these articles seized by sanitary officers from time to time and removed to the offal docks as unfit for human food have improved the supply, checked the sale of whatever is unwholesome, and secured more care and caution on the part of dealers and consumers. ”

“ Inspection to be effective should include the entire twenty-four hours. Federal inspection is probably effective in daylight. City inspectors work during City Hall hours. The railroads and express companies bring animals into the city every hour of the day. When the chief inspector has access to every room in the packing-houses and knows what is done there every hour in the twenty-four; when his army of inspectors know the disposition of the meat brought into the city by more than thirty railroads ”

“ Said inspectors may enter all places where milk is stored or kept for sale, and all [286] persons engaged in the sale of milk shall, on the request in writing of an inspector, deliver to the person having the request a sample or specimen sufficient for the purpose of analysis of the milk then in his possession from such can or receptacle as shall be designated by the inspector or the person bearing the request. ”

“ When one recalls the statement made before the congressional committee by the chief of the United States meat inspection service that if all animals, any part of which was diseased, were rejected by inspectors, not more than one in a hundred would pass muster ”

“ It is evident that all these conditions are to be secured by proper inspection of the animals while preparing for the market. The time will, doubtless, soon arrive in this country when the supervision of the preparation of animals for the market, the sanitary conditions under which they live, and the general environment which surrounds them shall be subjects of local, municipal, and state inspection. ”

“ States are encouraged to adopt scientifically based food safety standards, including standards for additives, contaminants, residues of veterinary drugs and pesticides, and microbiological hazards, and to establish standards for the packaging, labelling and advertising of food. ”

“ Because of the recent agitation of the pure food question throughout the country, health officers, food-inspectors, and chemistry teachers and students are constantly called upon to test the purity of various foods. And this usually involves nothing more than making simple qualitative tests for adulterants. ”

“ The bureau inspects all imported live animals and under certain conditions will inspect live animals intended for exportation. It inspects all meat products intended for export. Its inspection of meats intended for interstate commerce is less rigid than that exported. Meats sold within the state in which they are slaughtered cannot be required by the federal government to undergo inspection. It thus happens that the people of the several states enjoy less protection in the consumption of meat than the foreign purchaser of American meats unless 263 there is a state meat inspection law. ”