What swear words would Jesus use?

No regulations: 1877 48.3% of foods analysed were found to be unadulterated.
Regulations: 1881 75% of foods analysed were found to be unadulterated.
 
People will cheat for profit. It's a fact of life. Harsh, but true.

Question is, what do we do? Close our eyes and throw our lives at people who only think in terms of profit, or accept that those people can be stopped with legislation?

I wonder if shanek thinks of himself as a humanist.
 
CFLarsen said:
People will cheat for profit. It's a fact of life. Harsh, but true.
Click to expand...

And will do so for very short-term reward. We all tend to be selfish, it's part of our human nature and I think it is very naive to think that if we just ignore that part of our behaviour it won't influence us.

CFLarsen said:
Question is, what do we do? Close our eyes and throw our lives at people who only think in terms of profit, or accept that those people can be stopped with legislation?

...snip...
Click to expand...

I don't think legislation can ever stop it however the evidence is that it can help to reduce it. But as with most things in the real-world (i.e. not in the world envisioned by ideologists of any kind) it's a compromise, and it's a compromise that evolves over time so what may be OK today may not be OK tomorrow and vice-a-versa.
 
Orwell said:
Woa, so much certainty over something written over 100 years ago! It's like he was there, man!

That's our Shanek.
Click to expand...

Where's the evidence? Don't you demand evidence? Or do you throw skepticism out the window when it confirms something you already believe?
 
shanek said:
Where's the evidence? Don't you demand evidence? Or do you throw skepticism out the window when it confirms something you already believe?
Click to expand...

Evidence is against you in this case, Shanek. And I find your certainty regarding the falsity of what's written in "The Jungle" to be very... Ahh, how to put it... Quackish?
 
Last edited:
The Unadulterated History of Food Dyes
Likewise, in the United States, there appears to have been little organized opposition to the adulteration of foods and beverages until after the Civil War. Until this time in the United States, it was virtually impossible to find any food, drink, or medicine that had escaped extensive contamination. For example, cod liver oil was adulterated, almost to substitution, with train oil mixed with iodine. Yellow tinged milk, colored with lead(II)chromate (PbCrO4), was so common that people refused to purchase white milk, thinking that the latter had been doctored. In 1856, the English chemist, William Perkin (1838–1907) prepared the first synthetic organic dye, “aniline purple” or “mauve”. Within a few years, a variety of these potentially safer organic dyes began to replace mineral pigments as food colorants. However, in the United States, toxic colored metal salts of arsenic, mercury, lead, chromium, and copper continued to be used as food colorants until the beginning of the 20th century. In the United States, it was common to color pickles and canned vegetables with copper sulfate until about 1905.
Click to expand...
 
Philip J Hilts. Protecting America's Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation. University of North Carolina Press 2004; p. 49.

Five publishers turned down the book, mostly because of the few sickening pages on sanitary practices. But it was not as if these things were being mentioned in public for the first time. Charles Edward Russell had already written about them, and in Britain Adolphe Smith had written in detail for the medical journal Lancet the horrid practices that had grown up in American abattoirs. He was an expert on the practices of the meat trade around the world, but found nothing to compare with the unregulated Americans.
Click to expand...
Adolph Smith, "The Stockyards and Packingtown; Insanitary Condition of the World’s Largest Meat Market," The Lancet, January 7, 1905, pp. 49-52.

It must be clearly understood that no one possessing technical knowledge of the question would buy meat from Chicago if it were possible to obtain it at about the same price and quality from an efficiently controlled municipal slaughter-house such as exists at Brussels, Berlin, Paris, and many other great railway and canal navigation centres. It will scarcely be believed, but it is nevertheless a fact, that at Chicago not only is there no municipal abattoir but there are no private abattoirs in the technical sense of the term. It is true that millions of animals are slaughtered annually:but they are not slaughtered in slaughter-houses. For many hours I wandered about the stockyards and I saw many animals killed but nowhere could I discover the smallest trace of a slaughter-house. The animals were killed not in abattoirs but in mills or factories-huge, hideous box-shaped buildings five and six storeys high. The pigs notably were killed on the second or third floor of these buildings. As for all the principles of sanitation laid down to govern the construction of abattoirs, these were ignored from the first to the last. Consequently the insecurity is so great that several nations of the more civilised parts of the world have thought it necessary to enact special laws against Chicago. The exportation of pork products from Chicago to Germany, Austria, France, and Denmark is prohibited unless accompanied by a certificate issued, not by any local authority, but by the Government of the United States itself. The entire American nation thus pledges its honour that no product that has not been carefully examined under the microscope shall be exported from Chicago to those countries. As for American citizens or for British citizens it does not matter. They may swallow trichinae wholesale; no one seems to think it is worth while to attempt to protect them. [p. 50]
Click to expand...
 
Adolph Smith, "The Dark and Insanitary Premises Used for the Slaughtering of Cattle and Hogs-The Government Inspection," The Lancet, January 14, 1905, 120-123

In a short time the bullock, whether it has bled sufficiently or not, and while still warm, will reach one of the darkest, lowest, and worst ventilated portions of this huge and gloomy building. Here the entrails are taken out. The dirtiest work is done in the closest, the darkest, and the dirtiest place, instead of being carried on in the open air or under such slight shelter as would not prevent the free access of air and sunshine. It would be quite impossible to disinfect such premises. There are innumerable rafters, sharp angles, nooks, and corners where blood, the splashing of offal, and the sputum of tuberculous workers can accumulate for weeks, months, and years. It does not look as if the floors are ever really cleaned, though I am told they are occasionally scrubbed. Nevertheless, it is difficult to believe in any genuine cleanliness, for here is the evidence of the windows about which there can be no doubt and they are heavily caked with dirt. Where are the impermeable walls and floors which everyday, and sometimes more than once in the course of the day, should be flushed out with the fire hose and so thoroughly scoured that not a speck of blood, dirt, or dust should remain? Where, again, are the portable fire and boiler which can be wheeled or carried up any corner of the entire premises and where with hose a jet of steam under pressure can be thrown into the smallest crevice or crack? Thus with superheated steam disinfection is rendered doubly sure. In many towns of Europe where there are not nearly as many animals killed as at Chicago purifying machines of this description are used. Why are they unknown at Chicago? As Chicago is the greatest slaughter-place in the whole world the greatest possible precautions ought to be taken. The reverse, however, is the case and it is safer to buy meat from the small retail municipal slaughter-house of a petty provincial town than from the world-wide provision packers of Chicago. [p. 122]
Click to expand...
 
Adolph Smith, "The Dark and Insanitary Premises Used for the Slaughtering of Cattle and Hogs-The Government Inspection," The Lancet, January 14, 1905, 120-123

In these dark places the meat falls on the floor and comes in contact with the dirt from the boots of the workers and the bacilli from the sputum of a population among whom pulmonary tuberculosis is more prevalent than among any other section of the inhabitants of Chicago. Close at hand there are closets [toilets] and they are in some places only a few feet from the food. These closets are at times out of order, deficient, defective, or even entirely devoid of flushing. They are all the more offensive as they are not sufficiently numerous for the large staff of workers who have to use them. This is especially the case in one of the rooms where soup is made for preserving in tins. In one department there were two closets, neither of which could be flushed, provided for 80 women. Little or no thought has been taken as to the welfare of the workers. It was only after much agitation that the work was more evenly distributed by killing during four instead of two days. Then there used to be no provision whatsoever for the workers’ meals and they had to eat amid the filth in which they worked. Even to-day and after many protests and agitations there are no proper lavatories for the workers to wash themselves conveniently and to change some of their clothes before they begin handling the food which is sent from Chicago to all parts of the world. [p. 122]
Click to expand...
 
True story, and one of those times when I wish I had a camera.

Driving down to town today behind a truck. There was a 5 gallon plastic can dangling unter a spigot on the back of the truck. The can had a label "Apricot Pastry Filling". Swear to god, the truck was "Al's Septic and Sewer Cleaning".

Made me think of this thread.:)
 
shanek said:
The Food and Drug Act came about as a direct result of the outcry from The Jungle. Read your history.
Click to expand...

The Pure Food and Drug Act and the Food and Drug Administration are two different things, one being an agency, and one being an act of congress. When you say "FDA," you mean the agency, and that agency existed under another name long before the book was written. To reference the act, you should use the acronym "PFDA."

You really need to be more clear to avoid confusion.

Oh, wait....

That's our Shanek!

:D
 
Adolph Smith, "The Dark and Insanitary Premises Used for the Slaughtering of Cattle and Hogs-The Government Inspection," The Lancet, January 14, 1905, 120-123

It is obvious that the destructors should be placed in a far off and isolated corner. Any condemned carcass should at once be removed well away from all the buildings where food is prepared. Nothing of the sort is done. They are kept under the same roof on the same floor where food is being prepared for human consumption. Indeed, worse than this, the diseased carcasses are brought nearest to the windows so that there may be a better light to examine them. But, on the other hand, such air as may gain admittance into the huge building from these windows passes round, over, and between these diseased carcasses before it can reach the moist meat that is being cut up and prepared at a short distance. When, finally, the carcass is taken to the destructor the opening of this tank, at least of the tank which I saw, is inside a large building in the floor and round it many people were working. The place is dark, wet, and altogether in a most unsuitable condition for the handling of meat. Nevertheless, not only is human food prepared here but diseased carcasses condemned as unfit for human food are dragged through the compartment. The lid of the destructor is removed within a few feet of meat that is to be eaten. The promiscuity of the two occupations, the examination and destruction of diseased carcasses and the preparing, the cutting up, or the washing of carcasses that are not diseased, is most disgusting and reprehensible. [pp. 122-123]
Click to expand...
 
Adolph Smith, "Unhealthful Work in the Stockyards - Shameless Indifference to the Insanitary Condition of the Buildings and the Cattle Pens - Pollution of the Subsoil - the Need for Legislative Interference," The Lancet, January 28, 1905, 258-260

In regard to tuberculosis, it was pointed out that there were so much blood, water, steam, and damp about that even if some of the workers suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis and did expectorate on the floor this could not dry and therefore could not be breathed by others because there is no dust in the atmosphere. The atmosphere might have all kinds of unpleasant qualities but it did not contain any dust. On the other hand, with the aid of steam, grease, and dirt which abound in these buildings the bacilli of tuberculosis are believed to be capable of multiplying rapidly and they may live for a very long time. As for being taken up so as to come in contact with living human beings this is done by the boots of the persons going to and fro, by the pieces of meat which fall on the floor, by the carcasses, notably of the big cattle, which are deliberately laid on the floor, by the wheels of the trucks which roll over the floor, and by cases, tins, and boxes of all descriptions pushed and dragged about. Then there are the rafters, the dark nooks, and the corners where all the conditions necessary to form good culture grounds abound. [p. 259]
Click to expand...
 
Adolph Smith, "Unhealthful Work in the Stockyards - Shameless Indifference to the Insanitary Condition of the Buildings and the Cattle Pens - Pollution of the Subsoil - the Need for Legislative Interference," The Lancet, January 28, 1905, 258-260

As already explained, anything like a thorough disinfection of the premises is impossible and is never attempted. Nor can natural disinfection take place because daylight and the direct rays of the sun cannot reach the greater part of the interior of the buildings where the work is done, the meat is handled, and the tuberculous attendants expectorate. That the surroundings are foul, that in any case there is something wrong in the conditions of the work or of the workers, is shown by the fact that the smallest scratch or cut will result in blood poisoning if the wound is not at once treated with a strong antiseptic. Then there are the festering sores of the men who work in the ham-curing department and who are constantly plunging their hands and arms in the brine. It may also be noted that rendering vats are most dangerously placed. The lids are on the level of one floor and the vat or tank is on the floor below. If the lid is taken off there is no rail to prevent anyone falling in. It is asserted that several persons have thus met with an awful death. In these rendering vats the fat is converted into oil or oleo-margarine and the steam escapes into the rooms where people work, adding to the unwholesomeness of the premises. [p.259]
Click to expand...
 
"What swear words would Jesus use?"

 Mainly son of a b**** and the "F word". Maybe sh** when he'd stub his toe. Those were the only three swear words they had back then...the "3 dirty words" (later expanded to 7 of course).

ETA: Son of a b**** is no longer in the modern day list. Just wanted to be clear.
 
Last edited:
Adolph Smith, "Unhealthful Work in the Stockyards - Shameless Indifference to the Insanitary Condition of the Buildings and the Cattle Pens - Pollution of the Subsoil - the Need for Legislative Interference," The Lancet, January 28, 1905, 258-260

Therefore, in the perfection of cleanliness and drainage, of scientific appliances, of bacteriological and well appointed laboratories for microscope work, and of disinfecting apparatus the Chicago stockyards should excel far and away what is done in such places as Anderlicht. It may be considered only natural that the State or a municipality the first object of which is not profit but the health of the public and the welfare of its employes, should at least in some circumstances manage better than a private business undertaking. But at Anderlicht we have only private enterprise the main object of which, as at Chicago, is profit ; yet Anderlicht presents to Chicago all the difference between civilisation and barbarism. [p. 260]
Click to expand...
 
Why are we debating a book that describes conditions of almost a century ago in a thread that asks questions about food regulations in the present? For an excellent overview of problems in the meat packing industry today, I recommend Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser.

As to health regulations for restaurants, where I live the inspections are carried out by the municipal authorities (I believe. It may be Provincial, but I think municipal) and each eatery has to display the result of the inspection prominently. And this is a good thing. There is no one else performing these inspections. The free guides that Shanek refers to are nothing more than a superficial overview, if that, of restaurants that paid to be in the publication. I don't think that even the famous Zagat guides do health inspections. There is simply no one else doing health inspections, and if you walked into a restaurant and asked to inspect the kitchen before eating your meal you would be told to shove your head in a most uncomfortable place or perhaps to simply copulate with yourself.

The idea that consumers can somehow independently verify that appropriate health standards are followed in every restaurant they eat at is problematic at best, and laughable at worst.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom