Around the last Fourth of July I penned a blog about grilling hamburgers for three young grandkids and my OCD handling of ground beef.

Ray Kallner of Smith’s Provision Company responded I should have grilled previously cooked, all-natural casing, hot dogs for them and not worried so much; then he shipped me a freezer full of natural casing hot dogs of multiple varieties and some other yummy stuff.

I grilled a few last night, enjoying the crunchy, crisp texture of natural casings and remembered back to my very first weeks as the undersecretary for food safety at the USDA.

When the “Cow that Stole Christmas” was diagnosed as having the first case of BSE in the United States, FSIS worked 24/7 to get an interim rule published that included removal of specified risk materials, or SRMs. The list perhaps overreacted and listed the entire small intestine, material for natural casings, as an SRM that could not enter the food supply from cattle of any age.

Science confirmed that only the distal ileum (the small intestine has three parts, the ileum attaching to the colon) had ever been shown to contain the prions that cause BSE in cattle, vCJD in humans.

The casing industry was in my office frequently lamenting the fact that their supplies of previously harvested casings were running low.

To complicate the issue, intestines were under the jurisdiction of the FDA, so if FSIS were to inspect for adequate removal of the distal 80 inches of ileum, the industry would have to pay and FDA would have to be on board.

My deputy chief of staff told me one day we were going over to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to seek their approval of a change of policy that would allow the non-affected portion of the small intestines to enter the food chain with the mark of USDA inspection if companies were willing to pay.

FDA was also there, and said they had not brought any decision makers with them. I had been on the job just a few weeks and my deputy said, “Well, I did, and he has made his decision and we are moving forward.”

Welcome to my new world of D.C. politics.

I started at USDA in July, 2005. The new policy was published in the Federal Register on Sept. 7, 2005.

Never again would I see that much urgency and that quick of a result. Of course, FSIS had been working on this for more than a little while, but just needed to wait for an undersecretary that could walk into OMB and take the political heat from consumer groups.

And that, Ray Kallner from Smith’s Provision Company, is “the rest of the story” as Paul Harvey used to say weekly.

And thanks again for the Cheddarwurst. They were simply awesome.

The case for all-natural casings

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