RISK MATERIAL REMOVAL

[ALICIA]

do you's know that the main risk material is the tenderloin, sirloin and all the T-Bone.
Frank Witt of Pembroke filled a meat order after July 24 2003. The animal was said to be older than the 21/2 years because of the teeth, so all the meat he got was hamburger and some good roasts. He said if he had thought the animal was older than it was he would of never fattened her up.
It costed him a additional cost of $20.00 to remove the specified risk materials and an extra six cents a pound for cutting and wrapping. The charges would likely very depending on the abattoir.
So he had to get a smaller animal to fill the order. He remains soured by the whole experience. He's the last owner and he's getting out.
REALY, that is the whole point in buying a beef is for the best cuts of meat, and if that goes in the garbage. Well I don't think I have to spell it out. And I think every one knows that the best beef is a 2 or 3 year old steer or hiefer.

[grassfarmer]

Specified risk materials are defined as the skull, brain, trigeminal ganglia (nerves attached to the brain), eyes, tonsils, spinal cord and dorsal root ganglia (nerves attached to the spinal cord) of cattle aged 30 months or older, and the distal ileum (portion of the small intestine) of cattle of all ages.
Sirloins are not included !!

[ALICIA]

Oh yes they are. The artical is in Better Farming January issue.

[Bruce14]

Can someone quote the article and author Alicia is mentioning in Better Farming because if what she is saying is correct it is not accurate.

[dalek]

The magazine is at www.betterfarming.com, but they don't have this month's issue online yet. They usually wait a couple of weeks after it gets mailed out. Article is by Wendy Adams. It says the farmer lost the sirloin, tenderloins and T-bones after the animal was found to be over 30 months old, but doesn't really make a direct link between that and the SRM ban or whether it was a decision by the processor to turn everything into hamburger.

[dalek]

In my opinion, there's plenty of younger animals to be filling freezer orders with. Article says if he'd known she was over 30 months, he'd never have fattened them up. If someone's serious about raising beef these days, there's no excuse for not knowing how old an animal is that's been born in recent years, and the last thing we need is to start selling "older" animals to customers and risk turning them off with tough beef. I don't mind eating animals that are a bit over 30 months myself, but I'm not going to start selling them to customers I want to keep.

[rodb]

This sounds like another greedy processor with an excuse to steal the good cuts and replace them with some ground chuck.

Sorry to be so cynical.

[ValueChainFX]

The rules tell us to remove the back bone when we are cutting older animals. This means the sirloin steaks would be boneless, the tbones would have one side turned into striploin steak and the other side tenderloin. Same goes for the rib it would be boneless rib steak or ribeye and the chuck would go as chuckeye or boneless chuck roll. Anyone that is telling you to through meat out has not read the rules (or knows you haven't read the rules). If the animal is being processed outside the processing plant the backbone must be removed. The original rules were calling for the backbone to be removed on the kill floor. We already kow this is not happening.

Bottom line the only thing that is removed is the backbone from the carcass. You never did get the brains and eyeballs back unless you asked.

[ALICIA]

I hope Mr. Frank Witt is reading this. But I feel I have opened a can of worms between him and his cutter.

[dalek]

Alicia, considering that the local abbatoirs here have nearly doubled their prices and are still booked solid until late spring, some of the more short-sighted feel they can afford to screw over a few farmers.