Mad Cow Scare Hits Ethnic Delicacies

No more kishka? What about tripas?

Jan. 28, 2004

WASHINGTON - A traditional Polka song poses the question, “Someone stole the kishka. Someone stole the kishka. Who stole the kishka, from the butcher’s shop?”

Finally, there’s an answer.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture stole the kishka, not to mention the tripas and the pho tai sach -- all ethnic delicacies made with cow and bull small intestines.

The discovery in December of the first case of mad cow disease in the United States prompted USDA this month to put a stop to human consumption of cattle intestines.

Battling mad cow disease

Steps planned by U.S. officials to help protect the food supply from bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)

• 'Downer' cattle
• Test and hold
• Advanced meat recovery (AMR)
• Cattle tracking system
• Specified risk material (SRMs)
• Air stun guns
• Further bans on feed

All cows considered non-ambulatory -- those that cannot walk by themselves -- when they reach a slaughter facility will be banned from human consumption. Even so, the USDA will continue to test them for BSE.The meat of any animal selected for BSE testing by USDA inspectors will be held until the test results return as negative. (It can currently be sent into the food supply.)

Any animal condemned by inspectors for signs of 'systemic disease' during pre-slaughter inspections is barred from use for food.In this process, machinery is used to remove muscle tissue from cow skeletons.

The USDA has called for more testing of AMR products, since some outlawed brain and spinal tissue has been found in this meat during testing. The agency will also ban AMR techniques on skulls and spinal columns of cows older than 30 months.The USDA says it will speed up development of a system already being planned to identify and track all head of cattle in the United States. Groups inside and outside the beef industry have long called for a national tracking system.Parts of some cattle known to be at high risk of transferring the proteins that cause mad cow disease will be banned from human food.

SRMs will include include brains, eyes, skulls, spinal cords and some other neural tissue of cows older than 30 months. Small intestines of all cattle will be banned.

The USDA also wants better procedures to ensure all these parts are separated from human supply.Air-injection stunning devices will be banned. These guns use high pressure to ram an air blast, often through a bolt, into a cow's brain, killing it instantly. They make the slaughter process more humane, but can force bits of brain tissue into the rest of the animal, potentially tainting its meat.

The industry has been phasing out these devices and the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service was already working on a rule to prohibit them.The FDA currently prohibits the feeding of mammal protein to ruminant animals, such as cows, sheep and goats. But the feed can be given to other livestock, and their protein can be fed back to cattle.

The agency may face pressure to strengthen its ban, for example to prohibit the use of all high-risk cattle parts in any animal feed.Source: MSNBC • Printable version

Banned animal parts

For the cattle and beef industries, which have long prided themselves on being able to market just about everything except the “moo,” the USDA decision marked one of the few times an animal part was banned for human consumption.

It was taken out of fear that cattle intestines carry the abnormal protein thought to cause mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), a fatal neurological illness humans can get from eating contaminated beef.

‘The actions we are taking ... are steps to enact additional safeguards to protect the public health.’ — Ann Veneman

Agriculture Secretary“The actions we are taking ... are steps to enact additional safeguards to protect the public health,” Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said.

The government decree means that Mexico, the second-biggest importer of U.S. beef, no longer can buy the small intestines of American cattle. The guts typically are chopped, then fried or barbecued, and sold as “tripas” by Mexican street vendors.

The same goes for Vietnamese restaurants in the United States that offer up hot bowls of noodle soup called “pho tai sach,” complete with beef stuffed into intestines or stomach linings.

Kishka casings

The ubiquitous kishka, a favorite at Polish festivals, will have to adopt a new casing for the blood, beef or barley that is the stuffing for this delicacy, depending on the chef.

And lest anyone think they can skirt the USDA regulation by buying imported small intestines, think again.

USDA sent letters this month to 10 beef-exporting countries, including Australia, Argentina, Canada and Brazil, warning their shipments would be cut off if they don’t adopt the Bush administration’s regulations.

“It’s caused great consternation in the (American) sausage industry,” said Shirley Coffield, secretary of the North American Casing Association.

Calling the USDA regulation “misguided,” Coffield complained that it prohibits imports of small intestines even from countries that are internationally recognized as being free of mad cow disease.

The $150 million U.S. natural casing industry also fears the mad cow crisis could prompt government regulators to look at a wider ban on intestines, such as sheep guts, which are widely used in frankfurters and breakfast sausage, according to one industry official who asked not to be identified.

Sheep suffer from a fatal nervous system disease called scrapie, a transmissible illness in the same family of diseases as mad cow.

The Washington state Holstein found to have BSE is having a culinary impact that reaches beyond small intestines.

Grass-fed vs. grain-fed

Japan has been looking to Australia to fill a gap in its beef supplies since Tokyo banned American meat because of mad cow fears. Australian cattle are largely grass-fed, unlike grain-fed U.S. cattle.

Jason Sawyer, assistant professor at the Department of Animal Science at Texas A&M University in College Station, described forage-fed beef as having “a more intense flavor and a different color” from grain-fed beef.

And while American beef might be more tender when cooked because of its “marbled” quality, grass-fed enthusiasts boast that beef has nutrients that reduce bad cholesterol and fight cancer.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4085300/