Imagine biting into a hamburger and instead of the loud crunch of a pickle, it is the sound of biting into a 3 millimeter piece of metal. This is exactly what happened to four people in Texas. This is what might have happened to you if you had eaten the beef from Sam Kane Beef Processors of Corpus Christi, Texas.
More than 90,000 pounds of ground beef distributed by Sam Kane Beef Processors were recalled after several people reported finding small pieces of metal in their beef. One person even reported a chipped tooth from biting into the metal. The beef had all been distributed to retail stores in Texas, with unsuspecting buyers purchasing and ingesting contaminated meat.
If you’re not surprised yet, imagine this: the general manager of the company, Alfred Bausch, stated in an interview that this was not a food safety issue. Why? Because, according to him, the metal was simply a foreign object. Aside from a possible chipped tooth, what if someone swallowed a piece accidentally. The metal could have had a long-lasting effect on the consumer, one for which the Sam Kane Beef Processors may not have taken responsibility.
In order to allow consumers to identify the contaminated meant, the USDA has given batch numbers of beef that has been recalled. While this particular situation seems to be under control, it seems that we always have to wonder: what exactly is in our meat?