It's enough to make me want to eat vegetarian. Which I could easily be happy with if only someone would cook for me. Too much involved in trying to figure that out, married to the meat and potatoes guy that I am. I do my best to buy Kosher chickens and wild caught fish/shellfish. That's easier than searching for hoof meat with provenance out here on our sandy penninsula. I never buy premade hamburgers. I buy beef and pork from the butcher who sells the Kosher chickens, so I know the meat is fresh and the ground meat is ground today. I think that's as close as I can get to a cow treated to powdered sugar donuts instead of antibiotics.

seagrass

Antibiotics are so cheap and overused, in both humans medical care and in raising food animals, that more drug-resistant strains of bacteria are emerging and spreading, and some antibiotics are becoming less useful. A search will turn up many articles on drug-resistant bacteria in hospitals and other dense community settings. This over-use of antibiotics is effectively unregulated. Things are bad, or worse, in some other countries.

For decades, the drug industry was not very motivated to develop new antibiotics because there were many effective generic antibiotics on the market, and due to a quirk of US law the intellectual property protections for antibiotic drugs are weaker than on other drugs.

The situation is a growing threat to all of us, even vegetarians. Get infected with a drug-resistant strain during medical care or even daily life, and it won't help that you never eat meat.

Antibiotic development is now somewhat more active, but it takes 4+ years for a new drug to be developed and approved.

I don't see any increased regulation of current antibiotic overuse, and the behaviour will not stop of its own accord.

This really concerns me.

I applaud the small farmer who doesn't use antibiotics, and kosher and wild caught foods, but - it is not enough. Using antibiotics in such a callous way creates drug resistant bacteria.

Solutions????

Once again, I guess we're all going to die. Again.

Seriously, what can you do. As long as we mass produce babies we must mass produce food for them. And we can't expect every cow to live happily in Annie's back yard. Is vegetarian really the answer? Dunno, seems to me in the past few years we've seen more sickness and recalls surrounding produce than meat/poultry make national headlines.

Food, ecology, economy... it's all going to hell in a handbasket. Anyone want to debate population control?

That definitely isn't good. How is there not a crazy staph outbreak from rare beef?

The only advantage to kosher is that you know the animal must be healthy at slaughter - so the whole mad cow disease and 'downer' animals issues are taken care of, but not the feed lot and antibiotics. AFAIK.

FOAS, are you channeling Jonathan Swift?

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2010/january/food/chicken-safety/overview/chicken-safety-ov.htm

I had a longer post with useful links going, but GW ate it. Infuriating. The link above is the only one left, and it is worth reading.

The bottom line:
- About 1/2 of national brand chicken is contaminated with one or more types of dangerous bacteria. A significant amount of that is antibiotic resistant. About 1/4 to 1/3 of ground beef is contaminated. Similar results regarding antibiotic resistance. That's based on numerous tests reported in the New England Journal Of Medicine and other academic journals, not just on Consumer Reports. I deliberately did not look at any vegan or hippie-freak sources :-)
- The frequency of outbreaks of antibiotic resistant bacterial infections related to food is increasing. Something like 20,000 hospitalizations and 4,000 deaths/year, according to a study whose link GW has eaten.
- Sick people still have their immune systems, and we still have other antibiotics to use. That's why most people do recover. But they get sicker, are treated with more toxic and more expensive drugs, and spend longer time under care.
- The EU restricts antibiotic use in livestock farming. The US does not. The FDA has asked the industry (farmers and drug companies) to restrict the practice voluntarily. The industry has generally resisted. Some large buyers (fast food chains etc) have said they won't buy meat raised in this manner.
- Personally, I do not buy ground meat. It only takes a couple minutes to sear the exterior of a cut, cut it into chunks, and then pulse in the food processor. I do buy national brand chicken - but am reconsidering that. On the one hand, I fully cook my chicken (no fetish for raw poultry here) and organic chicken at Whole Foods is 2X the price of Perdue Tyson etc at Safeway. On the other hand, I now know that 1/2 the chicken I have been buying is contaminated, and that bugs me not a little.
-

I know not all beef can be raised in my backyard, or even enough to feed a neighborhood, let alone the world. Heck, there aren't enough powdered sugar donuts available for that. :-)

The answer to feeding the world, I think, is to eat less meat, which is a painful thing for the daughter of a beef farmer to admit. It's something that takes a lot of resources to produce and there's just no way around that.

The antibiotic thing is something else entirely. We have the regular and not always necessary dosing of animals with antibiotic as a matter of business. If we'd raise the animals in cleaner and healthier conditions, they might not need all those antibiotics. Now, I know it would be a bit less profitable and would produce a bit less food, but it could be done far better, healthier and more humanely than it's being done.

So, maybe vegetarianism isn't the answer, but maybe eating a bit less of things is. I see signs for 32 ounce Porterhouse steaks at restaurants here, that should be about 10 servings. Maybe just don't eat meat one day a week, or two, or if the meat eater in your family must have meat every day, then they can have it, but you don't have to. Or not, it's a personal decision and one I certainly can't make for people.

I think everyone has to find their own way around whatever problem is presented, but it's up to agri-business to make their product safer and healthier for the consumer, instead of just more profitable to them. I do know the answer to that, they aren't going to until/unless they have to and asking nicely isn't going to be enough.

Annie

I guess I don't understand how cows without antibiotics are automatically disease-free, unless donuts are a new antibiotic? While I think of it though, I don't recall seeing any major outbreak in cops.

This is nothing new. Chickens have been filthy for as long as I remember and people scream for the government to do something.

Two years ago a former GF died from MRSA so I have a closeness to some of these issues. What we should be doing is kicking some of these people out of hospitals and doctors' offices and quit pandering to the hypochondriacs. Quit running to the doctor when you have the sniffles. Drink some water, make some soup and get a box of Puffs. Norway has proven it's far more effective than lining up for flu shots and unnecessary prescriptions.

Meat animals are not fed antibiotics because they are sick but because they grow faster. They also get hormones like estrogen for the same reason. Farms that use the chemicals can sell at a lower price and still make a profit which puts the others out of business. GMO seeds are popular for the same reason. Pick up a farm magazine and they are singing the wonders of Round-up Ready seed... meaning GMO seed.

This is why we have the USDA and FDA... ummm... where are they anyway? I'd better shut up now before I go all political...

: )
lyra

I'd like to know how much more yield they get by using antibiotics. In my reading, I came across a number of 3%, but I didn't research enough to know if that is accurate.

Annie:
Was there a Date ( year ) when they discovered all this good news.
***********************
Seems like your animals , would be concerned with your household being sick. LOL !

Only problem is, they couldn't make you any Chicken Soup.
LOU

Part of the answer is to support sustainable animal agriculture--grass fed and grass finished animals (the grasslands of America are not suited to row crops but are perfectly suited to ruminants who turn sunlight (through eating grass) directly into high quality protein without the need of corn and soybeans). This type of agriculture is not only better for the land, it's better for the farmer and the consumer, and it frees millions of tons of grain that have no business being fed to ruminants. Their digestive systems not only don't need it, they can't tolerate it; makes them sick, and that's one of the reasons for the antibiotics.

The other step is to fight the consolidation of the food supply, and encourage the re-regionalization of farming. Locavore stuff and all that.

This proves yet again that factory farming is not only horrible for the animals, but also potentially detrimental for anyone who eats them.
I am with Laceyvail, grass fed and grass finished is the way to go. But, like FOAS mentioned, that would require population control as there aren't enough farms to feed everyone who wants to eat meat. But of course, we should already support population control for environmental reasons, not just to eat healthier.

This comes from what you guys will view as the nut sector since few of you are probably educated in this.

I'm 58 and in nearly 10 years have not been sick with anything nor has my wife. In every pitcher of iced tea goes 4oz of colloidal silver we make at home. This kills viruses and bacteria since none can live in the presence of silver.

Yea I know all the Blue Man stories.. Urban myth really. Big Pharma scare tactics. You can also use about 5 drops per gallon "35% FOOD GRADE" peroxide and accomplish the same thing. Oxygen kills virus strains.

Much of this has to do with s e x.

Every life form, all animals and plants, on earth employs sexual selection as a means to create the next generations to be competitive in the complex web of food chains.

That is, every single life forms except us humans. We feel that we are a special creation by God, and therefore we are not animals. We have decided that s e x should be for recreation and not for procreation. Our mating practices have very little to do with survival. (for instance, $17 billions in USA alone in cosmetic surgery) .We have resulted today the weakest bodies ever. Rampant obesity, premature births, coronary diseases, allergies, immunological disorders, genetic cancerous traits, substance abuse tendencies --------------.

Since we can no longer survive in a natural way in the food chain anymore, we must do it artificially. Therefore we need antibiotics, fertilizers, hormones, GMO foods, -------. Alas, by definition, all this smart artificial ways are also smart ways to produce the nastiest critters.

It is true that we are living longer, but looking at human history, that is no proof that we will continue to be able to do that. All it takes is one new strain of virus that finds us delicious, and we may find ourselves left with no effective device to face our demise. We have almost reached the end of our ability to create miracle chemical alchemy.

We are Frolicking on a raft on whitewater. Oh yes it is so much fun. But do we all know at the end of the journey, there is a precipitous massive thousand-foot waterfall waiting to swallow us all?

dcarch

Dcarch, IMO, this is mainly because there is no longer survival of the fittest. Before medical advances, people with genetic predispositions to certain diseases usually died before being able to pro-create or, if they did pro-create and their children inherited the same weak genes, the entire blood line would die out. Nowadays, many diseases are treatable and people pass them on from generation to generation, which creates a more sickly population.

The study was released on Friday, so it's brand spanking new.

Cynic, I don't think powdered sugar donuts have a darned thing to do with my healthy animals, but they make them very happy. (grin) I do think that my healthy animals are that way because they have clean living space, lots of room to move and they are all grass/hay fed and finished. Cows are ruminants and were not meant to eat copious amounts of corn, it's not healthy for them. We didn't feed cattle all that grain until the 40s or 50s, when we had a big surplus. That's when farmers realized that cattle would get fat fast on corn and that meant more pounds of beef for sale in a shorter time. Now a good dose of growth hormones is also added.

Anyway, my herd is healthy because they have healthy food and healthy living conditions, and not because of anything else.

Here, BTW, is a more in-depth article, that says the FDA and USDA are "monitoring" this issue, they want to know why. Yeah, but they didn't test themselves....

High bacteria levels in meat at U.S. stores

By Aman Ali Fri Apr 15, 4:58 pm ET

.

NEW YORK (Reuters) � Researchers have found high levels of bacteria in meat commonly found on U.S. grocery store shelves, with more than half of the bacteria resistant to multiple types of antibiotics, according to a study released on Friday.

While the meat commonly found in grocery stores is still safe to eat, consumers should take precautions especially in handling and cooking, the chief researcher for the study said.

The study by the Arizona-based Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen, or TGRI) examined 136 meat samples from 26 grocery stores in Illinois, Florida, California, Arizona and Washington D.C.

Dr. Lance Price, the head researcher on the study, said high levels of Staphylococcus aureus (S.Aureus) bacteria were found in the meat.

"Staph causes hundreds of thousands of infections in the United States every year," Price said in an interview. "It causes a whole slew of infections ranging from skin infections to really bad respiratory infections like pneumonia."

Staph infections also kill more people in the United States each year than HIV, he said.

A spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration said that the agency was aware of the TGen findings, and similar studies of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in meats, and was working with the U.S. Agriculture Department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the causes and effects.

"FDA has been monitoring the situation. The TGRI study points out that the public health relevance of the findings is unclear. FDA continues to work with CDC and USDA to better understand this issue," the FDA spokeswoman said.

Price said the most significant findings from the study aren't the level of bacteria they found, but rather how the bacteria in the meat was becoming strongly resistant to antibiotics farmers use to treat the animals they slaughter.

The study found that in 96 percent of the meats with staph bacteria the bacteria were resistant to at least one type of antibiotic, and 52 percent were resistant to three or more types.

"The bacteria is always going to be there. But the reason why they're resistant is directly related to antibiotic use in food animal production," Price said. "Antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest threats to public health we face today."

"This is one more reason to be very careful when you're handling raw meat and poultry in the kitchen," Price said. "You can cook away these bacteria. But the problem is when you bring in that raw product, you almost inevitably contaminate your kitchen with these bacteria."

Washing hands and counters before and after handling meat and keeping other foods away from uncooked meat are ways to prevent disease from spreading, Price said. But consumer initiatives aren't going to solve the bigger problem, he said.

"To put it all on the consumer is really directing blame at the wrong end of the food chain," Price said. "The bacteria is always going to be there, but the reason why they're resistant is directly related to antibiotic use in food animal production."

Of all the types of meats where bacteria was resistant to three or more antibiotics in the study, turkey was the most resistant, followed by pork, beef and then chicken. Price said it's not clear why turkey was the most resistant.

The TGen study was published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases on Friday and is available at http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/04/14/cid.cir181.full

OK, so I might just raise a few turkeys too!

Annie

There's an answer. The answer is the small, local, organic, family farm.

I'm not sure of this, but I think antibiotics are not so much to encourage growth as they are "preventative." If an animal gets sick, its growth will be slowed, so factory farms (honestly, lots of small family farms, too) give antibiotics so that doesn't happen.

We can certainly replace a good portion of our meat with vegetables and legumes, but even those are marred by mass production and modern shipping. Basically, we can grow our own (or find someone we trust to grow it for us), or we can (hope to) live with the current system. I, at least, don't see any other viable option--and I have a small garden and some fruit trees. Just my way of feeling like I'm doing something.

I eat a vegan diet, buy only organic produce, and hope for the best. :( It's scary and it's only going to get worse. I believe the human body is capable of living much longer than the average lifespan, and, more importantly, healthy and vibrantly into old age. We just feed ourselves crap from birth and take pills to fix any issues instead of addressing the main problem.

Mass production of unhealthy animals to address the ridiculously high meat consumption of the country. My vegetarian beliefs aside, it's an ecological nightmare for the almighty profit margin. If some of that land for cattle could be turned to produce fruits and vegetables, it would make a big difference. However, that would require less consumption of meat and more demand for local produce that is probably more expensive, and that's not going to happen.

People are outraged at unhealthy practices introduced into the food supply to save money, but they also get angry at rising food prices or refuse to pay for premium/organic so until the demand shifts, we can't expect the supply to make any changes. It's just basic economics, and the vast majority of Americans aren't willing to pay for quality food, and the industries know that and base their (unhealthy but cheaper) practices around it.

Chi83, you said exactly what I was thinking. I haven't had time to add to this thread until this morning, but what you said is right on. Same with what everyone else has said, really.

Sally

cynic, you made me laugh....

"Drink some water, make some soup and get a box of Puffs."

We have enough land to feed people. The issue is feed them what. And of economics. The modern agricultural system is designed to deal with the glut of agricultural products on the US market. We grow way too much corn for farmers to make any money growing, so one way to create demand for all that excess is to feed it to cows, hence the development of the modern feedlot system of producing meat. Of course all that excess of corn production is because of all the petroleum-dependent chemicals and technology that is used on the farm. And of course if some farmers can produce way more than others that way and make more money doing it, it is hard to justify not jumping on the bandwagon. What is the true cost of a petroleum-based agricultural system to our society?? I think we are just beginning to see some of the problems associated with that arise. Things will get worse as oil gets scarcer, as it will as population rises and more people try to adopt our petroleum-intensive lifestyle. Eating, IMHO, is an extremely political activity, if you define politics as the way people make decisions and get things done, which is my definition. I've been interested in it most of my adult life, and the alternatives to a petroleum-based agricultural system aren't necessarily hellish. I have friends who are trying to make it happen every day, and their lives are no more or less difficult than anyone else's these days. They do struggle economically. But who isn't these days?

"I have friends who are trying to make it happen every day, and their lives are no more or less difficult than anyone else's these days. They do struggle economically. But who isn't these days?"

Lpink, can you elaborate on what your friends do? Or would that be a different thread? Curious minds want to know. At least, this curious mind.

Sally

Annie, it has been proved time and time again that stress level and happiness influence health. So, I am almost sure that the powdered-sugar doughnuts make your cows healthier.

LOL, Jessica, maybe you are right. I keep thinking I need to make homemade organic cow treats, but they just really like those cheap pwodered sugar donuts that I get on the day old racks for 50 cents a dozen. Plus, they are a great "training aid", I've trained them to follow me anywhere for a donut, including right back in the gate if they get out of their pasture.

I suppose that means that my beef isn't really organic after all, because in the summer time they like those freezer pops that come in a tube. Any flavor, they'd follow me off a cliff for a popsicle, I think.

Annie

This kind of thing makes me really glad my freezer is full of elk meat...though when it's gone, it'll be a decision to buy local range-fed meat, learn to hunt, or befriend more hunters.

Also, if we learn to eat more other parts of animals like the rest of the world, there will be much less need to mass produce meat.

Meats will be cheaper, and meals will be more delicious. I am happy that people have learned to enjoy chicken wings and I am begining to see chicken feet in supermarkets.

dcarch

dcarch, some of us have always eaten all parts of the animal. I've grown up knowing about jowl bacon, liver dumplings, pickled pig's feet/knuckles, head cheese, cracklins, liver and onions. We ground up the heart to use in chili, usually, and made sandwiches from tongue and made soup from the oxtail way before it was popular. We always ate the "giblets" when we had turkey or chicken or game birds too, grandma would save gizzards and pressure cook them until they were tender and made "chicken ala king" out of them. I had to smile the other day at the grocery store, I found chicken gizzards for sale in pints. Chicken feet were always used for stock, as was fish heads, soup bones and pretty much everythng else, including the testicles/mountain oysters.

I was taught that wasting any part of the animal was disrespectful, that animal was killed to feed us and so everything must be used. Of course, we were also taught that if we killed it, we ate it. Period. Nothing was ever killed for horns or display or for the "sport" of it.

I still think that a big part of the problem is the sheer volune that we think we must eat. Half pound burgers and steaks that weigh a pound or more and whole racks of ribs. Cut our comsumption in half and we can afford the "good stuff" without increasing the grocery bill substantially.

Annie

I have one "friend" (really more professional associate, but I tend to call lots of people "friend!"), who runs an organic, pasture-based farm where he raises and sells beef cattle, along with a small amount of dairy. Two others run CSAs, one of which sells organic turkeys, two other friends run a small farm where they grow high end micro-greens and other things for the NYC restaurant market. Another one of my students runs a produce farm. Another friend runs a honey farm.

The friend who runs the beef farm spoke to my class, he has a degree in animal husbandry, worked as a consultant for many years, and says he has seen the life of a large farmer and much prefers his small business. But his wife is a vet and I'm sure that helps pay the bills at their place.

Hi everyone, I read this forum often but usually post on Kitchens or Home Decorating. Anyways, I thought this story I came across yesterday was pertinent to the thread's subject.

Holy cow! (sorry, bad pun), but all of this is making me want to go vegetarian.

Here is a link that might be useful: Industry-Wide Use of Meat Glue....

I read, I think on Slate.com a month or so ago, about how we used to sell our dark chicken meat to the Russians, but the demand is going down there, too, so there's going to be a surplus of dark meat. Notice how all the fast food places are now advertising their "all white meat" chicken nuggets? And the irony is that my husband and I love the dark meat and it's getting harder to find.

I know I've posted the link for Deep Nutrition in a few places lately, so I'll refrain here, but I learned from that book how our bodies need the nutrients from organs and bones (broth). I hadn't thought about dcarch's point that widespread use of all the parts would also lead to cheaper food and less mass production.

We need a food revolution or something.

Use the cheaper but more flavourful cuts, smaller portions with tastier preparation - you can eat better, spend less, and even lose weight if you want. In my experience. The only drawback is that the cooking requires more time and attention.