A ground beef recall for more than 545,699 pounds of meat has been expanded to states from North Carolina to Maine on fears of E. coli contamination.

Fairbanks Farms of Ashville, N.Y., expanded its ground beef recall on Monday after learning packages of its meat produced between Sept. 14 and 16 may have been distributed to more states than first thought. The recalled ground beef was sold in Acme, BJ's, Ford Brothers, Giant Food Stores, Price Chopper, Shaw's and Trader Joe's.

Get the full recall list after the jump.

I think it's been a while since we had a beef recall. And by "a while" I mean about a week.

JSM Meat Holdings and the USDA have issued a recall for meat that was distributed to 11 states. The beef was distributed in 30 pound, 60 pound, and 47 gallon containers (the beef was used in ground products). The containers are labeled with the words "Morreale Meat" and the number "EST 6872." They could possibly be contaminated with e.coli.

The states affected are Pennsylvania, Florida, Massachusetts, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Georgia, Nebraska, and Wisconsin.

I bet that when you heard about the recent recall of 143 million pounds of beef from Westland/Hallmark you didn't think you'd have to worry about sauces and bouillon cubes.

But that's what's happening. Although much of the frozen beef from the past two years has probably already been eaten or discarded, there might also be some of the meat in canned and packaged foods, including soup, sauces, and bouillon cubes. And some of those foods can sometimes stay on shelves and in the cupboards of consumers for a couple of years.

There have been no illnesses reported and no evidence of actual contamination, but officials don't want to take any chances.

When I posted about the latest meat recall yesterday - 143 million pounds of meat by Hallmark - I remember wondering to myself why they were worried about meat that was sold two years ago. Wouldn't that meat have been eaten already? Even if we freeze meat, isn't two years a little long to keep it in the fridge, especially in this instance when it wasn't private homes but schools and restaurants?

The answer comes from the Slate's Explainer column today. Simply put, it's because some of it still might be out there, not eaten. Now, that's highly unlikely, but the recall had to happen just to make sure (and to also alert the public to what happened at this particular company). In fact, they say the recall could be extended beyond those two years.

We posted a few weeks ago about several schools banning the sale of beef that originated in California. At that time, the USDA was investigating.

It's now official.143 million pounds of frozen beef has been recalled by the USDA.

That's not a typo. It really is 143 million pounds. It's the largest meat recall in U.S. history. The beef comes from the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company and goes back to February 1, 2006. The USDA says that cattle at the California factory was mistreated and that there were other health regulations that weren't met. Officials have undercover video that shows sick and crippled cattle being mistreated by employees.

And this isn't just frozen meat that you get at the supermarket. Westland/Hallmark is a big supplier to fast food chains and schools. Officials think that most of the meat has already been eaten (though no sicknesses have been reported as of yet).

First we had the Topps frozen hamburger patty recall that eventually closed the company, and now comes this.

Cargill Meat Solutions has recalled almost 845,000 pounds of frozen patties. Several cases of sickness have been reported, and the company did find E. coli in their plant. The patties are sold under the name American Chef Selection of Angus Frozen Ground Beef Patties. The meat was produced in August and has been sold in Sam's Clubs locations across the country.

We've had so many food recalls this year, and they are usually over fairly quickly and the companies move on. But that's not happening in this case.

Topps Meat Company has announced that they are going out of business because of the beef recall it had to do last week. The recall was one of the largest in history, amounting to over 21 million pounds, and hurt the company so much that they can no longer stay in business. The company faces two lawsuits about the beef (so far) and the USDA has also been criticized for not acting sooner. Most of the beef was eaten by consumers who bought it, and 30 cases of E.Coli-based illness have occurred.

The closing of the Newark, NJ company means that 87 people will be out of work.