Recall Alert: Organic Beef

by Slashfood Editor, Posted Jan 3rd 2011 @ 12:00PM

ground beef recall Photo: Corbis

More than 34,000 pounds of organic ground beef has been recalled by California-based First Class Foods because of a possibility of contamination with E. coli 0157:H7, the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service reported. The beef is sold under the "Nature's Harvest" and "Organic Harvest" labels, and was shipped to stores in California, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Washington State. (The meat was produced on 12/7/10 and 12/16/10).

The recall began on December 30, when the company discovered a positive result for E.coli O157:H7 after an internal sampling of the beef products. No illness has been reported so far.

Specific products include 16-ounce packages of Nature's Harvest Organic Ground Beef Brick, Organic Harvest Organic Ground Beef Brick, and Nature's Harvest Ground Patty.

For more information, see the FSIS press release, or contact First Class Foods at www.firstclassfoods.com.

Filed Under: Recalls
Tags: beef recall, fsis, Recalls, USDA

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

1-03-2011 @12:17PM Mark S said... No wonder the meat was tainted. It probably is a result of cross contamination with non-organic meat. Look at their industry "partners": http://www.firstclassfoods.com/our_partners.aspx

Tyson and Cargill are both industrial agriculture at its worst.
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1-04-2011 @7:39PM jeepgram said... Red-winged black birds and 100,000 dead drum fish,,,organic,,,has to go somewhere

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1-04-2011 @8:12AM Steven Ruza said... I agree with Mark. - Steven Ruza
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1-03-2011 @7:07PM Scott said... Organic beef is just as likely to be contaminated as non-organic. E. coli is a bug in a cow's intestine, so it has to do w/ the slaughter of the animal and how the carcass is processed, not how it was raised or what it was fed during life. Organic meat is no safer from that standpoint, just like organic chicken is no less likely to harbor salmonella.
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1-03-2011 @8:44PM Suzy said... So which stores was and is this beef located?
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1-04-2011 @3:09PM hisgirlhoward said... Just goes to show how speculative the word organic is. Its been proven that "free range cattle" do not have issues with e-coli. So, more than likely this beef was not free range but was fed an "organic" feed, probably a corn or corn meal which is not natural to a grazing animal. Grass and hay are natural to a cud chewing animal. Factory farms (corporations) are in it for the money and the pockets of our government officials. The quality of our food has become dangerous. Please don't think FDA is watching out for you. There is a lot of information out there on this and it is our responsibilty to educate ourselves. I reccomend watching Food Inc. It's a wake up call on what the food industry is doing to our food. I have since become vegan, but am still concerned with the safety of my vegetables and fruit.
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1-04-2011 @6:53PM Susan said... Corn is a grass .

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1-04-2011 @3:23PM hisgirllhoward said... When the animal is fed food that is unnatural to it, yes, it developes e-coli in the intenstinal track which gets into the feces. Then through the slaughtering process it is spread. So agree with half of what you say and yes, organic is just a word that will be used and twisted to make a profit. But again, farmers and ranchers that feed an animal what is natural to it, have had no issues with e-coli. So it does start with the feed.
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1-04-2011 @7:35PM Tom said... To hisgirllhoward: I'm not sure of the sources of your information, but here are a few things I've gleaned from a bit of research:

"Organic" has more to do with the injection/addition of hormones and antibiotics to animals than it does about where they were raised or the general bulk of their food.

By strict definition, "free range" means there was no confinement.
In most cases, that is a modern misnomer and a marketing ploy to get "tree-huggers' to pay more for meat, eggs, etc.
Except for portions of the western US, all US cattle are confined to a pasture (albeit may be large) by some sort of fence; they may just not have been confined to an overcrowded feedlot.

"Free range cattle" means only that they were in a pasture for some unspecified and unregulated length of time instead of being confined to a feedlot for their entire life.
So, cattle that spend only a week or two in the pasture could be called "free range".
It has nothing to do with the type of feed they consume.
They could have been fed grain and corn the whole time.

Cattle that eat only grass and hay have a lower concentration of E. coli in their intestinal tracts than grain- and corn-fed cattle, but they still have it.
It has to do with the acidity of the intestinal tract.

Other than the prevalence of bacteria in the cattle intestinal tracts, the presence of E. coli in meat at the store is totally the result of the way the meat was (mis)handled and processed after slaughter.
It is not an issue of the cattle food.

This is somewhat different from the presence of salmonella in chicken eggs.
The eggs can be processed perfectly and still contain salmonella because it was in the biostructure of the hen's body and was incorporated into the egg since the day of its creation.

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1-04-2011 @3:29PM Holly said... Instead of the government requiring nutrition labels on meat which are worthless since how meat is prepared is what's relevant, for the public's safety they should require that the origin of all meat be listed on the package. A few years ago at a Kroger store, a hamburger package had a label that said it may have come from Mexico and I did not buy it knowing unsanitary conditions there. That was the only time that I had ever seen an origin listed. The public has a right to know whether it's meat is coming from a US producer or a 3rd world country. Just because it's processed and packaged in the US doesn't mean the animals were raised here.
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1-04-2011 @6:59PM Susan said... Then you should skip McDonalds . They insulted out American ranchers by saying they could not meet their needs and are buying ther beef from South America. I'm sure that beef sees chemicals that our ranchers are forbidden to use .

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1-04-2011 @7:03PM Len said... Regardless of the kind of production practices or the feed fed, all animals (including people!!) have coliform organisms in their intestines. To think or assume that an animal that is fed "organically grown" feed will not have those organisms is simply false.

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1-05-2011 @3:15AM Brian Workman said... Organic Product being recalled ?? !! I'm shocked!!!!! I thought that these organic products were the end of all problems in the world of finger pointing causes!!! So much for green solutions!!??
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1-04-2011 @5:42PM vince said... Organic my ass!!The cow already is organic,its alive.What is the difference?
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1-04-2011 @10:52PM jone said... An article on internet said they use unborn ground up chickens in Dunkin Donuts. Have ate my last processed organic food or any food from Dunkin Donut