In 1906, in response to public outcry that came after Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle detailed the revolting conditions in Chicago’s meatpacking plants, the US government passed the Federal Meat Inspection Act. The legislation created what would become known as the Food Safety and Inspection Service, a force of federal employees who would spend their days in stockyards and packing plants, checking livestock for disease both before and after their slaughter. They did their work organoleptically—with their eyes, noses, and hands—an approach soon dubbed “poke and sniff.” This 100 percent testing method worked well enough for spotting the lesions that signaled tuberculosis and cysticercosis (a tissue infection caused by tapeworms), and the federal presence discouraged plants from using illegal preservatives and generally unsanitary practices.
\n\nBut by the end of the 20th century, as American taste for beef mushroomed, the system was clearly and woefully inadequate. The gotta-catch-’em-all approach was no match for plants butchering hundreds of animals an hour. The bigger problem was that testing had once more fallen behind in the arms race. Decades of poking at hearts, bile ducts, spleens, lungs, lymph nodes, livers, and kidneys had effectively rid the country’s meat supply of diseases that could be spotted…
Original source: https://www.wired.com/