The Jungle, Modern Revision

Gino inspired this one.  Unless you're blessedly ignorant of recent news, there has been a spate of cases where DNA testing has revealed horseflesh in meats labeled as pork or beef in Europe.  In some cases, it's a large portion of the meat--up to 60%--and in others, trace amounts have been found. 

What does this mean, you ask your ASQ-certified host?  Well, first of all, it means that government inspectors, far from abolishing the horrific conditions that Jurgus Rudkus was said to have endured in Sinclair's classic, apparently are incapable of even determining that the slaughterhouses they "police" aren't even slaughtering the right species.  Who knew that USDA/European inspectors were drawn from the ranks of hung-over Midwestern deer hunters?

Then the "trace" amounts indicate that those same "crack" inspectors (as in "smoking crack", evidently) aren't figuring out that the abbatoirs aren't even bothering to clean their equipment.  If you wonder why we have periodic e coli scares here, this would be it.

Seems to me that if you like to eat meat, you'll do well to find an independent you trust, rather than trusting regulators.   Here is a video of some of those European regulators on a team-building exercise.