Manitoba family finds a needle in roast beef during dinner

[RayTurner]

Look what the CBC is reporting…

“Needle found in roast beef during dinner, family says”

Well this story shakes consumer confidence in our beef. The family who claims to have found a needle in their roast beef dinner wants a recall…but Cargill has launched an investigation instead. Do you think that there should be a recall?

Story here:
A Manitoba woman says she may not eat beef again after her son bit down on a piece of steel, similar to an injection needle, from his roast beef during a recent family dinner.

Sheila Lamb of Cooks Creek, located northeast of Winnipeg, says she doesn't know how the hollow tube, which was almost four centimetres in length and had a sharp point at one end, could have made it into the roast beef she had cooked for her family on Sunday.

"I think we were just in shock," she told CBC News. "You don't have any other feeling but sickness to your stomach."

Lamb's 25-year-old son, Orry, said he made the discovery as he was chewing on his dinner.

"I was just chewing a piece of meat and I felt a sharp poke in my gums, in my cheek, and then bit down on something hard," Orry Lamb said, adding that he initially thought it was a piece of bone.
Sheila Lamb

Sheila Lamb said she didn't notice the foreign object in the roast while she was cooking or carving it, but she's relieved no one was injured. (CBC)

Said his mother, "He took it out of his mouth and we looked at it and he says, 'It looks like a needle.' It looks like a piece of a needle that's broken off."

Sheila Lamb said she feels terrible because she didn't notice the foreign object while carving the roast for her guests, but she's also relieved no one was injured.

"Orry was lucky to find it and bite down just the right way," she said.

"What if it had been someone else — a smaller child that maybe wouldn't have reacted the same way? They just would've, you know, bit harder or it got stuck in their throat."
Family wants beef recall

Lamb said the next morning, she phoned the Co-op store in nearby Oakbank, Man., where she purchased the roast and was told the meat had been shipped in from a Cargill Ltd. meat processing plant based in Alberta.

Both Lamb and her son say they want a recall of the beef product in question, as they wonder how the object in the meat would have made it to their dinner table.
Needle in roast beef

Lamb estimates the hollow metal tube is about four centimetres in length. (Submitted by Sheila Lamb)

"How did an inch-and-a-half piece of steel get missed?" she said.

"I keep using the analogy that we can't get on a plane without being scanned.… How does a cow with this steel in his body get from the farmer's field to my table and into our mouths without being detected?"

The Co-op store that sold the beef has apologized, while Cargill said it has launched an internal investigation.

"Cargill is committed to safeguarding the wholesomeness and integrity of the products we produce and sell across our operations," spokeswoman Brigitte Burgoyne wrote in an email to CBC News on Wednesday.

Burgoyne said Cargill does not use needles in its facilities, "and at this point nothing further is ruled out."

"We are currently looking for answers throughout the entire supply chain and would like to apologize for any concerns this may have raised with the consumer," she added.

Burgoyne said the company contacted the customer and issued a full refund.

But Sheila Lamb said the incident has shaken her confidence.

"I'm not a big meat eater and this just completely killed it for me," she said

[grassfarmer]

What would you recall? all beef, beef from the same animal, all the beef from that feedlot, or originating from that rancher, all beef from that plant?
Sounds far out to me but they say it can happen. I've never broken a needle in 30 years of injecting animals, bent plenty but don't know how guys break them.

[15444]

It's long past time to ban sale of all non-detectable needles. I use all detectable and I never have broken any. Bent many.

[kato]

We use disposable plastic syringes. They are more accurate, and the syringe will break long before a needle would. And besides, when you're deadly accurate with your doseages, you soon find that every ten dose bottle of vaccine contains at least eleven, and sometimes twelve doses.

My son found a needle in a hot dog once. He chipped his tooth on it too. It was a sewing needle planted, likely in the store, no doubt by some twisted vegan with an agenda. It was in the grocery department that used to be in the old Eatons store in downtown winnipeg, a couple of blocks from the CBC building for that matter... Mmmm...

Joking aside, even though they offered us a whole bunch of free meat, and we knew the problem was in the store, not the factory, we turned them down. He brought burger from home until he graduated instead.

[kato]

P.S. We also didn't go running to the media....

[BFW]

There is no reason for a recall here obviously. Though unfortunate, there is no risk of widespread contamination here. Also I think the vast majority of commercial sized feedlots have not given a needle in any region of the animal but for the neck for near 25 years.

[RayTurner]

As beef producers… I am sure we can all understand that a recall is unreasonable and unnecessary. But what about the PR impact this will have on our industry? Do you think that people will lose faith in our food safety system because of something silly like this?

[KoolRanch55]

I don't think we should worry. It's just the CBC making noise. We have the best food safety system in the world!

[kato]

Sometimes I think there is an agenda in the minds of some at the CBC.

[littledoggie]

An agenda, yes - but perhaps not with the CBC.

[grassfarmer]

"We have the best food safety system in the world!"

Must be drinking too much Koolaid on the Koolranch!
What have you got as evidence to back up that claim - the XL fiasco?

[KoolRanch55]

This is more of a crop-based example…but here you go:

"Canada’s food safety system is one of the best in the world"

The Windsor Star’s article on Dr. Shiv Chopra’s “food safety” presentations may have needlessly caused some readers unnecessary concern by drawing unfounded conclusions about Canada’s food production system.

For Dr. Chopra to declare that “Canadian food is the most toxic on Earth” is irresponsible and preposterous. I am confident that any rational consumer will see the absurdity of such a statement.

Canada’s food safety system is one of the best in the world due in no small part to its well-respected science-based regulatory system.

Pesticides and genetically modified crops are helping us fight pests and diseases, grow more food on a limited land base and help people access healthier, affordable food.

Canadians have never lived longer, healthier lives. Take life expectancy in the 1950s as an example where the average female lived to 71. Today, on average, women can expect to live to 82.

Yet, it seems like Chopra wants to roll back the clock to the “good old days” when farming practices were more damaging to the soil, yields were up to 50 per cent less, and humans lived much shorter lives. Is this rational?

Overall cancer rates continue to decline year after year.

We have year-round access to a tremendous variety of foods with known health benefits, and we spend less of our disposable income on food than at any time in our history. This sounds like a country to be proud of.

Chopra’s comments about Canada’s food system will only put consumers at greater risk by brewing unwarranted fears and having unintended consequences of making poor food choices like skipping fruit and vegetable consumption.

Consumers should feel confident that the products used to grow our safe and abundant food supply have been thoroughly assessed for safety.

TED MENZIES, President, CropLife Canada, Ottawa