While packing John’s lunch for tomorrow, I made the mistake of reading the back of a peppered beef jerky package. I was just going to glance at the nutritional info, but the box titled “EXPORT STATEMENT” caught my eye. Half of its text is in English and the other half is Chinese characters.

EXPORT STATEMENT

The meat contained herein is derived from animals that received ante- and postmortem inspection and were found sound and healthy and has been inspected and passed as provided by law and regulations of the FSIS/USDA.

Am I alone in thinking that the word “mortem,” and especially “postmortem” should never, repeat, NEVER be on the packaging of food people consume? Especially meat? Because when I read that, it didn’t matter that the USDA said it was good to go, I had a sudden bloody image of a cow being hacked to death so that my husband could eat peppered jerky in his lunch.