Org Newsroom Menu Beef. Deets said the NCBA Executive Committee, which met here this week, has decided to expand litigation aimed at gaining a court decision that would end several poultry inspection practices that beef producers consider unfair. And the time has come to expand our efforts to end these unfair practices now. Deets referred to six specific poultry practices, including carcass chilling requirements, zero-tolerance standards, sanitation requirements, product identity standards, fresh product moisture limitations and the use of detached skin. The legal action authorized by the Executive Committee is in concert with a petition filed in March 1996 by NCBA, National Pork Producers Council and the American Sheep Industry Association which spelled out the scope of the current inequities and called on the Secretary to correct them.
Red meat is held to a higher standard in every case.
For example, few consumers know they're buying water at chicken prices every day. Based on these '94 figures and the fact that USDA standards allow for an amount of water equal to 8 percent of the product weight to be retained, consumers could be buying up to 2.4 billion pounds of water instead of the poultry they think they're getting. By contrast, USDA considers water retained in red meat to be an unallowable adulterant. The NCBA Executive Committee action would fund the expansion of a suit already underway in the United States District Court for Southern Iowa. The suit, Kenney vs. Glickman, asks for the regulations permitting the addition of water to poultry to be invalidated as arbitrary and capricious.