In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries.

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Oh, you wanted those burgers without harmful residues! Sorry, the USDA’s meat-inspection service can’t really help you on that score. Next time you’re at an eatery whose sourcing practices you don’t trust, avoid the veal. Skip the burger, too. Those are the immediate takeaways from this stomach-turning report (PDF) from the USDA’s Office of the Inspector General. The long-term takeaways are more profound—and disturbing.

The report focuses on the USDA’s system for keeping hazardous chemical residues—“veterinary drugs, pesticides, and heavy metals”—out of the meat supply. You know, meat—the stuff that Americans eat more than a half a pound of per day, on average.