It's easy to shut down all brain activity when you take a bite of the salty, addictive wondermeat that is Spam.
“Don't wanna know what's in there, nope, don't wanna know, nom, nom.”
But once you know something, you can't really unknow it, and after reading Ted Genoways' journalistic beast, “The Spam Factory's Dirty Secret“, in this month's issue of Mother Jones, you might just give up Hormel's famous gelatinous pink pork for good.
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The piece investigates The Spam Factory, aka Minnesota's Quality Pork Processors Inc., where employees started developing mysterious ailments–a loss of bowel control, numbness to the point of complete collapse–after being slathered in pig brains day after day. For one worker, the inhalation of “aerosolized brains” caused his body to produce antibodies that permanently destroyed his own nerves.
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On the other side, Garcia inserted the metal nozzle of a 90-pounds-per-square-inch compressed-air hose and blasted the pigs' brains into a pink slurry. One head every three seconds. A high-pressure burst, a fine rosy mist, and the slosh of brains slipping through a drain hole into a catch bucket.
Yum.
Then, after filing workers comp claims, several sick employees were canned for working under fake names with false papers.
The story is horrid, heartbreaking and a must-read.
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