I ate WHAT?

December 29, 2009 4:35 PM

Are there any restrictions on what kind of meat is allowed to be served in U.S. restaurants?

I was at a buffet earlier today without any labels, and thought, "This could be anything, really". As long as the restaurant is not deliberately deceiving the customer, are there federal or state laws that regulate this?

Are there any repercussions (besides bad word of mouth) that a customer would have if they found out that their meatballs contained dog meat rather than sausage? And has this happened?

posted by amicamentis to Food & Drink (21 answers total)

It is illegal in some jurisdictions. Take this, for example from California Penal Code section 598b:

(a) Every person is guilty of a misdemeanor who possesses,
imports into, or exports from, this state, sells, buys, gives away,
or accepts any carcass or part of any carcass of any animal
traditionally or commonly kept as a pet or companion with the intent
of using or having another person use any part of that carcass for
food.
(b) Every person is guilty of a misdemeanor who possesses, imports
into, or exports from, this state, sells, buys, gives away, or
accepts any animal traditionally or commonly kept as a pet or
companion with the intent of killing or having another person kill
that animal for the purpose of using or having another person use any
part of the animal for food.
posted by HotPatatta at 4:41 PM on December 29, 2009

horse is, for all intents and purposes, not sold for human consumption in the US
posted by nadawi at 5:00 PM on December 29, 2009

You can be pretty sure it's not horse meat. You may find others in the wikipedia Taboo Food and Drink article.
posted by Houstonian at 5:04 PM on December 29, 2009

Also, I'm positive I've read about lawsuits over being served food that was not correctly labeled. For example, if you only eat halal or kosher meats or vegan foods, and are served something not halal/kosher/vegan. If you search for lawsuits regarding the intersection of food and religion, you are bound to find a few.
posted by Houstonian at 5:07 PM on December 29, 2009

The Endangered Species Act and Lacey Act make it a federal crime to knowingly traffic in endangered or otherwise illegally captured or killed wildlife (for example, out of season game) for any purpose, including using its meat.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 5:08 PM on December 29, 2009

Foie gras is illegal in some jurisdictions in the US, but that's not going to be on a buffet.
posted by Sidhedevil at 5:10 PM on December 29, 2009

It has happened, probably more than once, but definitely at Jake's Pizza in Kalamazoo, when I was a kid. If you read the accompanying article, the authorities jumped through hoops to say that dog meat wasn't used, but they found a partially butchered dog carcass, and next door was a garage with over 30 dogs locked inside. The restaurant was shut down and seized due to back taxes.

It's a shame, though, they had really good pizza.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:13 PM on December 29, 2009 [3 favorites]

Another reason it's not likely to be horse meat? Horse meat is expensive, at least horse raised for consumption. Some horse meat in Japan is raised in Canada, and possibly the U.S. and it's hundred's of yen per hundred grams, something like over 9 or 10 dollars a pound.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:16 PM on December 29, 2009

Horse meat is legal and esteemed in France and Canada, but is outlawed almost everywhere (maybe everywhere) in the US. Likewise dog and cat, though the poor live on dog food. When a lion at the Bronx Zoo died of old age about 35 years ago, The French Shack, an NYC restaurant, bought it and served a Lion Feast.

Rattlesnake and other reptiles are permitted, even if you don't find them on many buffets, except for alligator in Louisiana. They all taste like chicken, which is logical since birds are descended from dinosaurs.

Endangered species are certainly outlawed for eating. Imagine Panda steaks or Spotted Owl fricassee.

Some organ meats (e.g., lung), which are part of many traditional dishes in other countries, are banned under federal law, for no discernible reason. If intestines are OK, why are lungs bad?

Kapchunkas, which are un-eviscerated, salt-cured, air-dried whitefish, were long a delicacy among Eastern European Jews on NYC's Lower East Side. However, they must be handled carefully to avoid botulism, and when an aged couple died of it, the NYC authorities panicked and banned them completely.
posted by KRS at 5:20 PM on December 29, 2009 [2 favorites]

And of the animals allowed to be consumed, there are generally bits that are not served to people in the US. These include uterus, udder, spleen, lymph node, lung, and any nervous tissue from animals from BSE or scrapie-infected countries. Pretty much any other organ or muscle is fair game (but organ meat looks a lot different than muscle, so you'd have an idea if you were getting liver in your beef stew, but maybe not if you were getting tongue instead of some other muscle).
posted by marmot at 5:37 PM on December 29, 2009

Not an answer to the question, per se, but there are many examples of unethical restaurants changing the label on foods just to save money. Pork is served as veal. Farmed salmon stands in for wild. Chicken or turkey is served as pheasant or wild game. Cod or pollock becomes "Chilean sea bass," which is itself a made-up marketing term for Patagonian toothfish.

It's all illegal and unethical, it doesn't cross the line to eating pets, but it's far more common. Hell, it's an everyday occurrence.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:46 PM on December 29, 2009

Having eaten part of an over-sized bark eating rat that was busy trying to re-establish a half-million acre swamp in South East Missouri (until the county commissioner dispatched and barbecued it) I have to assume it's not automatically illegal to serve up some not traditionally thought of as food animals.

If that offends your ecological sensibilities, consider a certain southern state that has an invasive species that is cheerfully devouring the roots of the Cypress trees that are the only thing keeping it from being replaced by the the Arkansas gulf coast. They're apparently OK with the preparation and sale of said species for human consumption.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 5:51 PM on December 29, 2009

To add to Cool Papa Bell's comment, check this out.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 5:52 PM on December 29, 2009 [2 favorites]

The Code of Federal Regulations has various prohibitions:

Livestock thyroid glands and laryngeal muscle tissue shall not be used for human food.

Livestock lungs shall not be saved for use as human food.

Lactating mammary glands of cattle, sheep, swine, and goats shall not be saved for edible purposes.
posted by jedicus at 6:02 PM on December 29, 2009

I think ultimately, there are repercussions, but you wouldn't know. What does cat meat taste like? Who the hell knows? My understanding is that the FDA was gutted under Bush but is beginning to be funded again under Obama. City restaurants, I would guess, are subject to city ordinances and inspectors.

In short, I suspect we're all taking our chances, just as we've been for the last few hundred years.

Let's not think about it, and enjoy our "wiener schnitzel".
posted by A Terrible Llama at 6:15 PM on December 29, 2009

I thought of another prohibited meat in the US: Kangaroo. I can't find a specific law, but I remember the Jack-in-the-Box scandal of 1981 when they received horse and kangaroo meat from an Australian meat supplier. The US Dept. of Agriculture got involved.
posted by Houstonian at 6:40 PM on December 29, 2009

Kangaroo is not prohibited in the US (ex here and specialty butchers shops). Google says it could be in California, but there's no good reason for it to be.
posted by jacalata at 7:01 PM on December 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

Are there any repercussions (besides bad word of mouth) that a customer would have if they found out that their meatballs contained dog meat rather than sausage?

Are you talking legal or healthwise? I seem to remember a lawsuit filed against Taco Bell from [someone with a religious pork exception] for accidentally serving him pork, though I can't seem to Google it at the moment.

More practically some things can cause all sorts of trouble. Organs generally have a chance of carrying more disease than flesh, so preparation needs to take that into account. Fugu (blowfish) is illegal in much of the US because it can kill you if prepared wrong. There are a few other fish that can't (or shouldn't) be served raw or they can easily cause food-bone illness. This is why mackerel (saba) and eel (unagi) are virtually always brined before serving as sushi. So getting mackerel sushi prepared like white tuna could easily get you sick.

Also you're generally unable to get whale in the US, unless you're Aleut, who I think can get an exception.
posted by Ookseer at 8:10 PM on December 29, 2009

Kangaroo is not prohibited in the US (ex here and specialty butchers shops). Google says it could be in California, but there's no good reason for it to be.

Indeed, ed's kort haus, in seattle, serves a 'roo burger, along with alligator, venison, camel, and more...
posted by nomisxid at 7:36 AM on December 30, 2009

It happens all the time with fish, in a way. Pretty much any "sea bass," or "snapper" is neither. As Cool Papa Bell said, it's a complete marketing term, sez Anthony Bourdain. Because those magic words add a couple of dollars per pound.
posted by cmoj at 10:32 AM on December 30, 2009

And of the animals allowed to be consumed, there are generally bits that are not served to people in the US. These include uterus, udder, spleen, lymph node, lung, and any nervous tissue from animals from BSE or scrapie-infected countries.

Lymph nodes (from pigs) are a major ingredient in chorizo, and are listed on the label as such -- I see chorizo made with lymph nodes in major supermarkets all the time (though, to be fair, I do live in New Mexico). The use of lymph nodes may well be banned in food production in the US, but it seems as if it must be legal in imported foods...
posted by vorfeed at 3:39 PM on December 30, 2009