Journalist goes undercover at Cargill plant

A journalist writing for Harper’s Magazine spent two months as a USDA meat inspector at a Cargill Meat Solutions plant in Nebraska. Ted Conover, an investigative journalist and author, wrote the piece "The Way of All Flesh", which appears in the April issue of the magazine. In an explanatory essay, Conover said he waited two years to get a job with the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service. He was hired at Cargill’s Schuyler, Neb., beef processing plant in October 2012. "Given its intimate connection to my body and my health, I’m interested in how meat is made," Conover wrote. "This seems natural enough in an age in which farmers and feedlots and meat companies fill animals with hormones and antibiotics, and grow animals in factories in order to maximize production." He also expressed concern about so-called "ag-gag" laws which seek to criminalize whistleblowing on slaughter plants and other facilities. Read More