Day 241 - 26 Apr 96 - Page 57


     
     1        Once foreign beef has been inspected by USDA officials at
     2        the port of entry, the meat enters the general US market of
     3        beef products and is no longer required to be labelled
     4        'imported'.  As a result, although some fast-food
     5        restaurants admit that they use imported beef, others can
     6        claim to use only US domestic beef.  The fact that imported
     7        beef becomes 'domestic' beef once passed by USDA Inspectors
     8        makes it difficult to disprove such statements.
     9
    10        As a USDA official in Washington DC explained, 'Once we
    11        have inspected a shipment of imported beef we have no way
    12        of knowing what products it goes into, where it goes and
    13        what people call it after we approve it is out of our
    14        hands'.  In fact, fast-food franchises may not know the
    15        original source of all the beef they sell.  'Sometimes',
    16        says Miami based USDA Inspector Dick Abelet, 'A beef
    17        shipment changes owners two or three times before it even
    18        leaves the warehouse'.  But US imports of Central American
    19        beef did introduce more than cheap beef into American
    20        diets.  They also bring in some undesirable ingredients
    21        such as toxic residues of chlorinated hydrocarbons found in
    22        DDT and other agricultural pesticides.  'In recent years',
    23        states US State Department Researcher Douglas Shane, 'the
    24        quantity of Latin America beef refused by the United States
    25        Inspectors -- quantity of beef refused by United States
    26        Inspectors has more than doubled'."
    27
    28        It includes Guatemala in the next sentence.  Reading the
    29        last paragraph before the heading, "The Search for
    30        Solutions":
    31
    32        "Regardless of such problems, all indications point to
    33        increased US use of imported beef during the coming years.
    34        A few statistics:  45 per cent of the beef Americans eat is
    35        consumed in restaurants in fast-food chains.  By 1990 half
    36        of the nation's food budget will be spent on meals outside
    37        the home.  The US already supports more than 67,000
    38        fast-food restaurants and spends more than $29 billion per
    39        year on fast-food."
    40
    41        The last paragraph on this page is on the right-hand side
    42        that I would like to read.  Just under half way down there
    43        is a sentence in the middle of that paragraph starting
    44        "Importing beef":
    45
    46        "Importing beef to compete with US produced beef is said
    47        to have held down the price of hamburgers by 5 cents per
    48        pound.  In fact, some US officials have claimed that beef
    49        imports have done more to hold down food price inflation
    50        than any other single government initiative." 
    51 
    52        Then, finally, on the last page, the first sentence in the 
    53        last paragraph talks about various changes that are needed
    54        to save the situation:
    55
    56        "All of these changes will take time and that time will
    57        take its toll on Central America's remaining rainforests.
    58        Each year that current patterns persist means another 4,000
    59        square kilometres of tropical rainforest eradicated."
    60

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