Basics about Beef - 5

Baby beef and calf are 2 interchangeable terms used to describe young cattle weighing about 700 pounds that have been raised mainly on milk and grass.

All meat transported and sold in interstate commerce must be federally inspected. The larger cuts are usually shipped to local stores where they are ground. The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) carries out USDA's responsibilities under the Federal Meat Inspection Act. These laws protect consumers by ensuring that meat products are wholesome, unadulterated, and properly marked, labeled, and packaged. For meat being transported and sold within a State, State inspection could apply. State inspection programs must enforce requirements at least equal to those of Federal inspection laws.

Although USDA establishments need to comply with a limited percent of fat for ground beef products, there is no requirement to specify fat percentage on the label.

All fresh meat qualifies as natural. Products labeled natural cannot contain any artificial flavor or flavoring, coloring ingredient, chemical preservative, or any other artificial or synthetic ingredient; and the product and its ingredients are not more than minimally processed (ground, for example). All products claiming to be natural should be accompanied by a brief statement that explains what is meant by the term natural.

Brain and a portion of the small intestine could have been in products, but only if the product label indicated that these materials were present. Very few products contained these components. Tonsils have never been allowed in a meat product. Spinal cord tissue could only have been present in edible rendering.

When light hits a slice of meat, it splits into colors like a rainbow. Wrapping the meat in airtight packages and storing it away from light will help prevent this appearance. Additionally, there are various pigments in meat compounds that can give it an iridescent or greenish cast when exposed to heat and processing. Iridescence does not represent decreased quality or safety of the meat.

According to the "Food Lovers Companion," The name "hamburger" comes from the seaport town of Hamburg, Germany, where it is thought that 19th-century sailors brought back the idea of raw shredded beef (known today as beef tartare) after trading with the Baltic provinces of Russia. Some anonymous German chef decided to cook the beef. The hamburger made its first U.S. appearance at the St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904. The hamburger is one of America's favorite foods. It consists of a cooked patty of ground beef sandwiched between two bread halves, usually in the form of a round bun. The meat can be mixed with various flavorings including finely chopped onions and herbs, and is sometimes topped with a slice of cheese, in which case it becomes a cheeseburger. It's also commonly referred to as a burger and hamburger steak.

The highest amount of beef consumed per capita since statistics have been kept beginning in the 20th century was 85 pounds in 1970-75. The lowest was 46 pounds in 1920-25. Today, Americans consume yearly about 64 pounds.

In 1994, FSIS declared that E. coli O157:H7 is an adulterant in ground beef and instituted a testing program for the pathogen. FSIS established an end-product sampling program for ground beef to keep contaminated product from reaching consumers and to spur industry to institute pathogen reduction and HACCP-associated verification programs to reduce the risk of this pathogen in beef products.

Tripe is the lining of beef, hog or sheep stomach although most sold is from beef. This part of the animal is tough and requires long cooking for tenderness. Beef tripe is most often obtained from the first three of the four stomachs of beef cattle (rumen, reticulum, and omasum). The most tender and mild flavored is called honeycomb because one side has a honeycomb pattern. All tripe is USDA-inspected. When buying tripe, look for a pale, off-white color and refrigerate it only one or two days before cooking it. After cooking, you can keep tripe refrigerated up to four days. In Spanish-speaking countries, menudo (tripe soup) is a well-known favorite.

The protein myoglobin is the major pigment found in all vertebrates and can exist in various forms which determine the resulting meat color. The major reason that poultry meat is much lighter in color than beef is that it is dramatically lower in myoglobin. Also, as an animal becomes older, its myoglobin content usually increases. Turkeys today are young -- 4 to 5 months old at the time of slaughter. Color of Meat and Poultry

Brain, skull, eyes, trigeminal ganglia, spinal cord, vertebral column (excluding the vertebrae of the tail, the transverse processes of the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae, and the wings of the sacrum) and dorsal root ganglia of cattle 30 months of age and older are specified risk materials (SRMs). SRMs also include the tonsils and distal ileum of all cattle. However, to ensure that the distal ileum is removed, the entire small intestine shall be removed. These SRMs are prohibited for use in the human food supply.

Refrigeration slows but does not prevent bacterial growth. Therefore, it's important to use food in a timely fashion before it spoils or becomes dangerous. For raw ground meats, poultry, seafood and variety meats (liver, tongue, chitterlings, etc.), refrigerate them only 1 to 2 days before either cooking or freezing. Beef, veal, lamb and pork roasts, steaks and chops may be kept 3 to 5 days. After cooking, meat, poultry and seafood can be safely stored in the refrigerator 3 to 4 days. Because there are so many types of ham and other meats, please consult the extensive charts for your particular meat or poultry at: Fact Sheets on the FSIS website.http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Fact_Sheets/index.asp

Pastrami is cooked, cured beef with spices, generally made from the plate but other cuts can be used. The product must be smoked or treated with smoke flavoring. The term "Unsmoked Cooked Pastrami" must be used when the product is not smoked or does not contain smoke flavoring. Pastrami may or may not be coated with spices. When the product is coated, a qualifier is not required.

The spinal cord, a part of the central nervous system of the beef animal affected by Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), does not extend into the tail. Oxtails are safe to cook. From USDA