Meat + Poultry - July 2005 - 93

The Insider
'Extreme' feeding

Can you hear me now?

A six-member cooking team from Tyson Foods' Dardanelle, Ark., poultry plant helped feed hundreds of volunteers as they renovated a
home of an Alma, Ark., family for the ABC reality show
"Extreme Makeover: Home
Edition" this past month.
Tyson donated the food
and employees donated their
time to feed crew members for several days, as workers
took a week to rebuild the home of Colleen Nick, whose
daughter has been missing for more than 10 years. "This
is a very
worthwhile
project,
and we're
pleased to
help out
this way,"
said Doug
Cook, a Tyson propane
manager
who is leading the Tyson cooking team. "It's exciting to be part of
such a unique effort to support this family, especially
considering what they've been through."

The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture's announcement of the second positive case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in
a U.S. cow was painful enough. In an admirable attempt to
display its faith in technology, U.S.D.A. posted a link on
its Web site to take visitors to the live announcement of the
test results by Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns.
What ensued was the announcement in stuttering sound
bites and interrupted video footage that could apparently
only be streamed in bits and pieces, even through our
high-speed Internet connections. Technical issues even
caused Johanns to pause and stammer, as a female operator's voice continually overlapped the secretary's opening
remarks. While we appreciate the attempt, M&P editors
concluded that a simple teleconference format would have
been perfectly adequate and would give the already overwhelmed U.S.D.A. communications personnel one less
thing to have to explain.

Brought to you by
MEAT&POULTRY Magazine
Cartoon by Bob Bliss

Prime Ribbing

Over herd
"We're going to have to tackle
this the way we did smoking -
with a variety of big strategies."
- Ken Thorpe, professor at Emory University's public
health school and author a study published in Health
Affairs, which indicated U.S. spending on obesityrelated medical issues is more than $36.5 billion

Smokehouse tip
During the Koch College Seminar on Processing
Techniques, hosted by Kansas City, Mo.-based
Koch Equipment this past May, one attendee mentioned that his plant was threatened by a fire that
started in the smokehouse, which sparked conversation about preventing similar incidents.
Koch Equipment experts pointed out that many
processors use sawdust from soft woods and fruit
woods in their smokehouses to get a desired flavor
profile. To prevent fires, smokehouses burning primarily soft woods need to be cleaned more often
than those where cleaner-burning, hardwoods such
as hickory or oak are used. Residue from the softer
woods accumulates faster in the exhaust part of the
smokehouse ventilation systems and the resulting
tar build up can become flammable.
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MEAT&POULTRY

July 2005

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Meat + Poultry - July 2005

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