Serious Eats
TraceBack, DNA Authentication For Meat
Johnny from Popgadget discusses how beef with a pedigree could make us safer: "TraceBack is a new system for DNA testing cattle and swine, and then recording the movements of the butchered meat. A butcher would be able to take a small sample of beef and cross-reference the DNA against an IdentiGEN database to verify that the meat is from a healthy animal." Alternately, health departments can use TraceBack to identify the source of contamination during outbreaks, from the point of sale all the way back to the farm and to which particular animal was sick.