Cow abuse, beef recalls and shady company presidents.

I spoke with my mom today and in her usual fashion, she told me some major, terrible news bite. Today's was that there was a huge beef recall. Much like when the pseudo-storm of the century was supposed to bury the Detroit area, I dismissed my mom's news bit as slightly exaggerated. Well, I was wrong.

According to an article in the latest Wall Street Journal, there's a lot of beef with a lot of beef, at least for me. The article reported that the following items were added to the recall. Both items I've enjoyed a lot in the past. The entire article is worth a read (Packaged-Food Companies Join Recall of Meat Products).

• Progresso Italian Wedding soup - General Mills is recalling 35,000 cases, which hold between 6-12 cans.
• Hot Pockets - Thank goodness I don't eat these (any more). Nestlé Prepared Foods said about 49,000 cases of Hot Pockets were affected. Flavors include Philly Steak & Cheese sandwiches as well as some Hot Pockets Croissant Crust Philly Steak & Cheese sandwiches that were sold in two-pack boxes.

So, another queer part of this story is that Steve Mendell, the president of the California company at the center of the recall, "failed to appear before a congressional food-safety hearing, and leading Democrats are now considering whether to subpoena him to testify."

There's related news items at the USDA's Newsroom, including a story about the Humane Society's video that was played at the same hearing that Mendell skipped.

The link to the video is here. It is very short, but also very graphic. I couldn't make it through 30 seconds. It was so terrible, that I almost didn't want to ever eat beef again.

One, last interesting note is that Michigan man John Dingell is the Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.