Do you want to eat a hamburger?

It’s been a while since I wrote the last blog. I have been preoccupied by other stuff like job search. There is the news catching my eye recently; Japan halted American beef imports again.

Japan resumed importing American beef while ago because the US agreed to prevent spinal column and other bone tissue from being shipped to Japan. Japan considers that these parts are likely to contain the material causing mad cow disease. Recently, Japan found spinal column in a shipment from a US beef supplier and decided to close its market to American beef again.

The tissue Japan found, spinal column from veal, is allowed in the American food supply because it comes from animals younger than 30 months of age. The US meat industry pointed out that mad cow disease has never been found in an animal that young. The industry also emphasized Americans eat the same product with confidence.

I wish we are as confident as the US meat industry believes we are to eat the spinal column of a young cow. I think we just don’t know what part of meat we are eating when we are munching a hamburger. We might be even eating a mature cow’s spinal column and bone tissue when we believe we are enjoying juicy-cooked-ground beef.