It was more than just the 10+ pgs in The Jungle that led to the Pure Food and Drug Act. Patent meds, rancid army food rations, and the improving quality of chemical analysis made the calls for the P F&DA too much to ignore.
those ten pages were a major catalyst (albeit an unintended one).
"Upton Sinclair originally intended to expose "the inferno of exploitation [of the typical American factory worker at the turn of the 20th Century],"[4] but the reading public instead fixated on food safety as the novel's most pressing issue. In fact, Sinclair bitterly admitted his celebrity rose, "not because the public cared anything about the workers, but simply because the public did not want to eat tubercular beef"[4].
Sinclair's account of workers falling into rendering tanks and being ground, along with animal parts, into "Durham's Pure Leaf Lard", gripped public attention. The morbidity of the working conditions, as well as the exploitation of children and women alike that Sinclair exposed showed the corruption taking place inside the meat packing factories. Foreign sales of American meat fell by one-half.
Many of the book's assertions were confirmed in the Neill-Reynolds report, commissioned by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906[citation needed]. The President was leery of aligning himself with Sinclair's politics and conclusions in The Jungle, so he sent Labor Commissioner Charles P. Neill and Social Worker James Bronson Reynolds, men whose honesty and reliability he trusted, to Chicago to make surprise visits to meat packing facilities. Despite betrayal of the secret to the meat packers, who worked three shifts a day for three weeks to clean the factories prior to the inspection, Neill and Reynolds were still revolted by the conditions at the factories and at the lack of concern by plant managers[citation needed].
Even though the meat packers had forewarning and time to clean up, the only claim in Sinclair's work which they failed to substantiate was that workers who had fallen into rendering vats were left and sold as lard[citation needed]. Roosevelt, not a Socialist himself, and not in favor of the heavy regulation the public outcry would have caused, did not release the findings for publication. Instead, he helped the issue by dropping hints from the report, alluding to disgusting conditions and inadequate inspection measures.
In order to calm public outrage and demonstrate the cleanliness of their meat, the major meat packers also lobbied the Federal Government to pass legislation paying for additional inspection and certification of meat packaged in the United States.[5] The combined pressure, coupled with the public outcry, led to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which established the Bureau of Chemistry that would become (in 1930) the Food and Drug Administration.
Sinclair rejected the legislation, as he viewed it as an unjustified boon to large meat packers partially because the U.S., rather than the packers, was to bear the costs of inspection at $30,000,000 a year.[6][7] He famously noted the limited effect of his book by stating, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."
Quality control is just that, it controls quality, it is not "zero tolerance." If it was "zero tolerance," no one would eat anything from a commercial food processing/packing business.
as the article that was posted states, no food can be 100% free of contamination and those standards set out a certain margin of appreciation like a few rodent hairs or whatever, it doesn;t say anything about entire dead rat carcasses. clearly that would breach the standard.
I have read somewhere that consuming a large amount of store bought truly whole wheat or rye bread in one sitting can be the equivalent to a tiny dose of lsd. Albert Hoffmann synthesized LSD from ergot alkaloids.
Ergot poisoning is also one of the proposed explanations for the hallucinations suffered by the Salem children that propelled the Salem witch trials forward.
Hey slick, I'd recommend a great book for you if you're interested in the Salem Witch Trials. It's called "In The Devil's Snare" and it essentially blows up the ergot poisoning theory to smithereens. These were young girls who did not wanna do the hours of work they were assigned to do during a day and found willing and stupid listeners to buy into their bullshit.
It was more than just the 10+ pgs in The Jungle that led to the Pure Food and Drug Act. Patent meds, rancid army food rations, and the improving quality of chemical analysis made the calls for the P F&DA too much to ignore.
those ten pages were a major catalyst.
"Upton Sinclair originally intended to expose "the inferno of exploitation [of the typical American factory worker at the turn of the 20th Century],"[4] but the reading public instead fixated on food safety as the novel's most pressing issue. In fact, Sinclair bitterly admitted his celebrity rose, "not because the public cared anything about the workers, but simply because the public did not want to eat tubercular beef"[4].
Sinclair's account of workers falling into rendering tanks and being ground, along with animal parts, into "Durham's Pure Leaf Lard", gripped public attention. The morbidity of the working conditions, as well as the exploitation of children and women alike that Sinclair exposed showed the corruption taking place inside the meat packing factories. Foreign sales of American meat fell by one-half.
Many of the book's assertions were confirmed in the Neill-Reynolds report, commissioned by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906[citation needed]. The President was leery of aligning himself with Sinclair's politics and conclusions in The Jungle, so he sent Labor Commissioner Charles P. Neill and Social Worker James Bronson Reynolds, men whose honesty and reliability he trusted, to Chicago to make surprise visits to meat packing facilities. Despite betrayal of the secret to the meat packers, who worked three shifts a day for three weeks to clean the factories prior to the inspection, Neill and Reynolds were still revolted by the conditions at the factories and at the lack of concern by plant managers[citation needed].
Even though the meat packers had forewarning and time to clean up, the only claim in Sinclair's work which they failed to substantiate was that workers who had fallen into rendering vats were left and sold as lard[citation needed]. Roosevelt, not a Socialist himself, and not in favor of the heavy regulation the public outcry would have caused, did not release the findings for publication. Instead, he helped the issue by dropping hints from the report, alluding to disgusting conditions and inadequate inspection measures.
In order to calm public outrage and demonstrate the cleanliness of their meat, the major meat packers also lobbied the Federal Government to pass legislation paying for additional inspection and certification of meat packaged in the United States.[5] The combined pressure, coupled with the public outcry, led to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which established the Bureau of Chemistry that would become (in 1930) the Food and Drug Administration.
Sinclair rejected the legislation, as he viewed it as an unjustified boon to large meat packers partially because the U.S., rather than the packers, was to bear the costs of inspection at $30,000,000 a year.[6][7] He famously noted the limited effect of his book by stating, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."
Quality control is just that, it controls quality, it is not "zero tolerance." If it was "zero tolerance," no one would eat anything from a commercial food processing/packing business.
as the article that was posted states, no food can be 100% free of contamination and those standards set out a certain margin of appreciation like a few rodent hairs or whatever, it doesn;t say anything about entire dead rat carcasses. clearly that would breach the standard.
My point of mentioning other situations surrounding The Jungle is to offer a counterpoint and shade in the "rest of the picture." I am a historian, I research things like this for a living. Boiling the PF&DA down to The Jungle and a mad public completely overlooks enormous "other stuff" that was happening at the same time. Harvey Wiley, Theodore Roosevelt's experiences in the Spanish American War, and other progressive crusaders should not be lost in the shuffle because a tangible document like The Jungle is a lightning rod and easy to read. It's more than just The Jungle was my point, not that The Jungle was not important.
As to the food, the mouse shouldn't have been in the can. Duh. I was mostly playing devil's advocate about American food standards.
I'd recommend a great book for you if you're interested in the Salem Witch Trials. It's called "In The Devil's Snare" and it essentially blows up the ergot poisoning theory to smithereens. These were young girls who did not wanna do the hours of work they were assigned to do during a day and found willing and stupid listeners to buy into their bullshit.
It's moderately interesting, but not really full-book follow-up worthy. I'll take your word on this one.
as the article that was posted states, no food can be 100% free of contamination and those standards set out a certain margin of appreciation like a few rodent hairs or whatever, it doesn;t say anything about entire dead rat carcasses. clearly that would breach the standard.
Of course, but it's an outlier; a fluke. To rule out an entire line of food because of one very unusual incident is illogical.
Your reaction reminds me of a story a teacher told me about a friend of theirs. They had a family member that was in a car accident. Somehow, b/c of the way the seat belt fit this particular person, when the accident happened the belt ended up actually killing them instead of saving them. So from then on out, this friend refused to wear a seat belt ever again.
To which one would look and say that the likelihood of being killed by a seat belt (or by not wearing one) is far, far outweighed by the likelihood of being saved by one. But the person in the story was being completely irrational because of one highly unusual incident.
Same deal here. I'm sure anyone on the board can assure you they've gone a lifetime with no rats in their Chef Boyardee, and have enjoyed the sodium-laden processed goodness with the usual amount of unseen contaminants.
A million ways to die...choose one. The only canned food I eat is tuna. I'm sure some people will quickly let me know that it's loaded with deadly mercury, though. Anyhow, as much as the idea of canned pasta, cheese and such turns my stomach and as cynical as I am about big companies' corny "cover our asses" protocol after incidents like this, this lady doesn't seem to be as well-meaning as she says she is.
Jennifer contacted ConAgra, the manufacturer of the product, who asked for a photo of the tainted goods. Instead[/b], Aker's nephew shot a video of the can and its contents and put it on YouTube.
"I'm not looking for money, I'm just looking to let people be aware of this. It's just really gross."
as the article that was posted states, no food can be 100% free of contamination and those standards set out a certain margin of appreciation like a few rodent hairs or whatever, it doesn't say anything about entire dead rat carcasses. clearly that would breach the standard.
Apparently ground pepper has one of the highest allowed percentage of insect parts of any food.
We were allowed to use a certain percentage of rotten salmon at the cannery. They would use fish that were entirely white and had the consistency of a wet sock.
I never saw the person whose job it was to monitor that percentage.
Apparently ground pepper has one of the highest allowed percentage of insect parts of any food.
We were allowed to use a certain percentage of rotten salmon at the cannery. They would use fish that were entirely white and had the consistency of a wet sock.
I never saw the person whose job it was to monitor that percentage.
Did that many rotten fish really come through that it would be economically worth their while to make sure they were included?
Apparently ground pepper has one of the highest allowed percentage of insect parts of any food.
We were allowed to use a certain percentage of rotten salmon at the cannery. They would use fish that were entirely white and had the consistency of a wet sock.
I never saw the person whose job it was to monitor that percentage.
Did that many rotten fish really come through that it would be economically worth their while to make sure they were included?
I don't doubt it (at all) but it seems weird.
Actually, most of the fish was quite fresh, but sometimes a dead one would end up with the others one way or another.
I think it was more of a matter of going through the extra trouble to weed them out.
Comments
those ten pages were a major catalyst (albeit an unintended one).
"Upton Sinclair originally intended to expose "the inferno of exploitation [of the typical American factory worker at the turn of the 20th Century],"[4] but the reading public instead fixated on food safety as the novel's most pressing issue. In fact, Sinclair bitterly admitted his celebrity rose, "not because the public cared anything about the workers, but simply because the public did not want to eat tubercular beef"[4].
Sinclair's account of workers falling into rendering tanks and being ground, along with animal parts, into "Durham's Pure Leaf Lard", gripped public attention. The morbidity of the working conditions, as well as the exploitation of children and women alike that Sinclair exposed showed the corruption taking place inside the meat packing factories. Foreign sales of American meat fell by one-half.
Many of the book's assertions were confirmed in the Neill-Reynolds report, commissioned by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906[citation needed]. The President was leery of aligning himself with Sinclair's politics and conclusions in The Jungle, so he sent Labor Commissioner Charles P. Neill and Social Worker James Bronson Reynolds, men whose honesty and reliability he trusted, to Chicago to make surprise visits to meat packing facilities. Despite betrayal of the secret to the meat packers, who worked three shifts a day for three weeks to clean the factories prior to the inspection, Neill and Reynolds were still revolted by the conditions at the factories and at the lack of concern by plant managers[citation needed].
Even though the meat packers had forewarning and time to clean up, the only claim in Sinclair's work which they failed to substantiate was that workers who had fallen into rendering vats were left and sold as lard[citation needed]. Roosevelt, not a Socialist himself, and not in favor of the heavy regulation the public outcry would have caused, did not release the findings for publication. Instead, he helped the issue by dropping hints from the report, alluding to disgusting conditions and inadequate inspection measures.
In order to calm public outrage and demonstrate the cleanliness of their meat, the major meat packers also lobbied the Federal Government to pass legislation paying for additional inspection and certification of meat packaged in the United States.[5] The combined pressure, coupled with the public outcry, led to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which established the Bureau of Chemistry that would become (in 1930) the Food and Drug Administration.
Sinclair rejected the legislation, as he viewed it as an unjustified boon to large meat packers partially because the U.S., rather than the packers, was to bear the costs of inspection at $30,000,000 a year.[6][7] He famously noted the limited effect of his book by stating, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle
as the article that was posted states, no food can be 100% free of contamination and those standards set out a certain margin of appreciation like a few rodent hairs or whatever, it doesn;t say anything about entire dead rat carcasses. clearly that would breach the standard.
Hey slick, I'd recommend a great book for you if you're interested in the Salem Witch Trials. It's called "In The Devil's Snare" and it essentially blows up the ergot poisoning theory to smithereens. These were young girls who did not wanna do the hours of work they were assigned to do during a day and found willing and stupid listeners to buy into their bullshit.
My point of mentioning other situations surrounding The Jungle is to offer a counterpoint and shade in the "rest of the picture." I am a historian, I research things like this for a living. Boiling the PF&DA down to The Jungle and a mad public completely overlooks enormous "other stuff" that was happening at the same time. Harvey Wiley, Theodore Roosevelt's experiences in the Spanish American War, and other progressive crusaders should not be lost in the shuffle because a tangible document like The Jungle is a lightning rod and easy to read. It's more than just The Jungle was my point, not that The Jungle was not important.
As to the food, the mouse shouldn't have been in the can. Duh. I was mostly playing devil's advocate about American food standards.
Only my Mom calls me Slick.
It's moderately interesting, but not really full-book follow-up worthy. I'll take your word on this one.
Of course, but it's an outlier; a fluke. To rule out an entire line of food because of one very unusual incident is illogical.
Your reaction reminds me of a story a teacher told me about a friend of theirs. They had a family member that was in a car accident. Somehow, b/c of the way the seat belt fit this particular person, when the accident happened the belt ended up actually killing them instead of saving them. So from then on out, this friend refused to wear a seat belt ever again.
To which one would look and say that the likelihood of being killed by a seat belt (or by not wearing one) is far, far outweighed by the likelihood of being saved by one. But the person in the story was being completely irrational because of one highly unusual incident.
Same deal here. I'm sure anyone on the board can assure you they've gone a lifetime with no rats in their Chef Boyardee, and have enjoyed the sodium-laden processed goodness with the usual amount of unseen contaminants.
what you saying about northern italian food?!?!
i grew up on that stuff and it is the most unfukwitable cuisine on the planet
olive garden/applebees/tgif....ive been to each once and never will set foot again
We were allowed to use a certain percentage of rotten salmon at the cannery. They would use fish that were entirely white and had the consistency of a wet sock.
I never saw the person whose job it was to monitor that percentage.
Did that many rotten fish really come through that it would be economically worth their while to make sure they were included?
I don't doubt it (at all) but it seems weird.
Actually, most of the fish was quite fresh, but sometimes a dead one would end up with the others one way or another.
I think it was more of a matter of going through the extra trouble to weed them out.