When backyard grills are fired up across America this Labor Day weekend, they'll be covered with hamburgers, steaks and ribs, despite the nation's largest recall of meat.

"I've given some thought to it but I've got to eat meat," said Ira Hayes of New Orleans who was stocking up for the weekend. "I've got to have it. I'll just make sure it's well done and hope for the best."

Americans will eat just as much beef this weekend as they always do, predicted Chuck Lambert, chief economist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

"We don't expect that (the recall) will have a significant impact," Lambert said.

Traditionally Americans consume 57.5 million pounds of beef per day, or nearly a quarter pound for each man, woman and child in the country, over the Labor Day weekend -- the last big cookout holiday of the year. That's 20 percent more beef than the country's average daily consumption of 46 million pounds.

An outbreak of E. coli contamination reported this month in Colorado sickened more than a dozen people and was traced to a Hudson Foods Inc. plant at Columbus, Neb.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is now investigating food safety practices at the plant.

The contaminated meat is believed to have come to the plant from an outside supplier.

While there have been no deaths or illness reported, the plant has been shut for a week and 25 million pounds of beef were recalled Aug. 21.

The company is in the process of selling the plant to IBP Inc., the nation's leading meatpacker.

When a food contamination scare does not result in many deaths and is taken care of quickly, it typically doesn't have much of a lasting effect, said A. Dwayne Ball, a marketing professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who specializes in consumer research.

An Omaha, Neb., grocery store, 80 miles east of Hudson Foods' plant, has seen no slide in the demand for beef.

"People have been buying about the same amount as they always have and the price has stayed about the same," said Jim Grob, an assistant market manager at the Hy-Vee supermarket.

At the New York State Fair this week, there was little evidence that people are wary about the safety of beef.

"Sales are going great," said Kim O'Casey, who manages the West End Sports Deck Bar and Grille.

Burger King is heading into the Labor Day weekend hoping meat lovers will go for the new Big King sandwich it introduced Thursday.

With 5.6 ounces of beef, it is designed to compete with the Big Mac, weighing in at 3.2 ounces of beef, from industry leader McDonald's.

The launch of Big King comes just a week after Burger King pulled all the hamburger meat supplied by Hudson Foods from its stores and said it would no longer buy beef from the Arkansas-based company.

There is no indication any tainted meat wound up in Burger King products.

One thing the recall has done is heighten consumers' awareness about how to cook meat safely, said Timothy Hammonds, president of Food Marketing Institute, an association of 15,000 supermarkets.

"I think people do understand that ground beef needs to be properly cooked and if it is properly cooked it kills the E. coli bacteria," he said.
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