Having some nice rashers for breakfast
Posted on December 7, 2008, by Conor O'Neill, under Food, Health.
So 47 farms used contaminated pig feed. Unless the FSAI confirms that Gubbeen or Caherbeg are two of those farms, I’ll be having a lovely bacon sarnie for my breakfast.
If the State’s Chief Medical Officer says that dioxin is only dangerous if a person is exposed to it over a long period of time, then why the hell are we destroying millions of Euro worth of food?
We all eat chicken that spends its life sitting in its own faeces in the dark and lots of the pork we eat is dosed up to the eyeballs in sub-therapeutic antibiotics, so how is a slight possibility of a touch of PCB going to make our health any worse?
Related to this, I’ve met with a few small food producers recently and I don’t know how they stay in business with the nonsensical levels of paperwork and measurement that they have to deal with. Is this actually part of the problem? An unbelievably bloated bureaucracy unable to measure and react quickly because they are drowning in irrelevant form processing? A bit like Sarbanes-Oxley in the US causing people to be so obsessed with process, they forgot about the intent and allowed the banks to trade recklessly for years.
Finally, I thought we had full meat traceability from field (or concrete pen) to fork? Why not just release the tracking codes of all the individual batches we need to destroy? Or are we all a bit too thick to manage that?
This Sunday’s rasher sandwich brought to you by the letter P and the Caherbeg Television Workshop:
20 Replies to "Having some nice rashers for breakfast"
Niall on December 7, 2008
Was going to write the same blog post about my rasher sandwich today but you bet me to it! Looks lovely BTW
Conor O'Neill on December 7, 2008
PCBs are nasty buggers so it leads me to suspect this may be a much bigger and more long term problem than they are admitting. A tiny chance of eating a tiny amount of PCBs over a three month period doesn’t look like enough reason to react as they are. Conspiracy theory bloggers, don’t you just hate us 
Conor O'Neill on December 7, 2008
Wondering if that’s a football in the Gubbeen picture above? If it is, that’s so awesome.
Little Links - Sunday December 7th 2008 | Joe Scanlon on December 7, 2008
[...] Conor is having some nice rashers for breakfast. [...]
cgarvey on December 7, 2008
Good point!
I’m confused by the wording of the release as well. We have statements like:
“Contaminated feed was used at a total of 47 farms.”
“Nine of these were pork producing farms”
OK, I’m with you so far.
“The remaining 38 were beef farms, with one of those also producing pork products”
So out of 47 farms, 38 were beef-only? If so, given that there are so many more beef farms involved than pork, why isn’t beef being banned, and not pork?
Either way, this recall seems a little OTT, but maybe it’s not being reported correctly (by the authorities, I mean, not the media).
Anthony on December 7, 2008
Trouble is that they really don’t know what they have, apparently. The number of pig farmers using the contaminated food is increasing as the Vets and FSAI dig into records.
It is very much OTT and I have serious misgivings about how it has been handled to date.
Conor O'Neill on December 7, 2008
Just saw headline in UK Times. Basically one Irish mill has been taking stale bread and dumping it into the crumb processor without removing the plastic packaging. This is the source of the PCBs. So it’s pretty damned clear that all organic pork can be excluded from this panicked knee-jerk response.
Conor O'Neill on December 7, 2008
Ah just saw your tweet saying that the plastic bag thing has been discounted. Contaminated syrup? Weird.
The Great Irish Pork Recall — Ummera Weblog on December 8, 2008
[...] can recommend you to look at Conor’s Bandon Blog for some great comments! If your a twitter (and better still if you are not) then go to [...]
Damien Mulley » Blog Archive » Fluffy Links - Monday December 8th 2008 on December 8, 2008
[...] subscribe to my site using a feedreader or email. Thanks for visiting – Damien.Not a sausage… Rashers [...]
cloudsteph on December 8, 2008
Had a rather tasty ham on Saturday done Christmas style coz we didn’t hear a thing about the frenzy all day. We finished it off in sandwiches yesterday. Seems to me like the FSA are panicking to save face after getting a media roasting over the bottled water scare a few months ago & seeing as pork is such a huge export, we have to be seen to be taking this super seriously. Enjoy le rashers, save us some?!
Cheese sandwiches for school today « Food Culture West Cork on December 8, 2008
[...] Conor O’Neill has got a bit of discussion going and it worth viewing for the rasher sandwich photo alone. Apparently we’ll be back on the bacon in a week – but will that be Irish bacon or the imported sort. It will take quite a while to test and reopen the pig farms around Ireland. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)No TitleHam Sandwich Dhimmitude [...]
The Sexy Pedestrian on December 8, 2008
I’m thinking the same, I got carried away with the hysteria and dumped a GIANT ham this morning. I’m considering rescuing it from the wheelie bin, but I’d imagine that would, actually, kill me.
Q on December 8, 2008
Seems to me that they ought to clear those farms that aren’t contaminated, and clear those processors that haven’t been using contaminated meat tout sweet. I can’t imagine how stressfull it would be to have your hard work destroyed when you can prove its safe.
Especially during a recession, and particularly in the lead up to christmas.
Tragic
Bernie Goldbach on December 12, 2008
It’s tough getting totally healthy food today so when my local butcher says she hasn’t changed a thing in how she sources her product, I continue buying it. Sure, some rogue ingredient may occasionally flow into the food chain but I also know the diesel that washes down the front of my home every fortnight is also getting into my water, and I’m drinking that day after day.
I don’t want to burden the Irish taxpayer by living past the age of 80 so I’ll keep rashers in my fridge until my daughter finishes college.
Conor O'Neill on December 12, 2008
Still waiting for the bungling incompetents who are responsible for this farce to resign. Maybe they could learn something from the ex-head of FÁS.
Anthony on December 12, 2008
I seem to recall that a couple of years ago they executed the head of Food Safety in China for covering up various potential health hazards.
We can assume that the government and their advisors here wished to avoid a similar fate!
The Precautionary Principle!
As Dr. Patrick Wall has said, “Damned if they did, damned if they didn’t!”
Still our bacon is back and better than ever for it’s extra 4 day maturation!
What you read here in 2008 on January 4, 2009
[...] Rashers [...]
keith bohanna on December 7, 2008
Go for it with your rashers Conor
The reason why everyone is sensitive around PCB’s is that they are persistent – they accumulate in flesh and never degrade. However what I learned about them was a long time ago in Wales and beyond that you will have to Google them.
keith