In 1998, after two years of negotiation between the meat industry, consumer groups, and Congress, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) introduced a dramatically new system of meat inspection. "Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point," or HACCP (pronounced "hassip"), was the first major meat inspection overhaul in America since the early 1900s when Upton Sinclair's expose
The Jungle provoked a closer look at meat-industry practices.
Under the aegis of the USDA, the "poke and sniff" method emerged as the first comprehensive American meat-inspection system employed in slaughterhouses around the country. USDA inspectors were given the authority to physically monitor all carcasses and cuts of meat as they moved down the slaughter line. Inspectors would literally touch, smell, and prod the meat to test its wholesomeness.
The "poke and sniff" system was designed to prevent rotten, blemished, or damaged meat from entering the food supply. Cuts of meat with lesions, growths and abrasions were routed out by inspectors, who used their sense of smell and touch to distinguish contaminated meat from clean cuts. But the "poke and sniff" system had its drawbacks, most troubling of which was the inability of the system to detect invisible pathogens and microbes.
After the 1993 Jack in the Box
E. coli outbreak, in which four children died and 700 people fell ill, both consumers and politicians lobbied for a revised system that would pay greater attention to microbiology. The common consensus in food safety was that invisible germs posed as great a danger to consumer health as visible contamination such as legions and diseased parts, and that the "poke and sniff" system was neither stringent nor scientific enough to ensure the safety of American meat.
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