What’s with all the E.Coli????

I seem to be on a “beef” theme this week. I thought it was interesting that there’s been an increase in E. coli contaminated beef recently (25 million pounds in 2007 vs. less than 200,000 pounds in 2006). According to Consumer Reports (March 2008), it may be because:

1) We’re growing more corn for ethanol, and what’s left over is being used to feed cows. I wrote earlier this week that I would talk more about what happens when you feed cows grain. Basically, a cow isn’t meant to eat grain, and when they do, it disrupts their digestive system and makes it possible for the toxic strain of E. coli to flourish. They also get sick and have to be given antibiotics, which then end up in the meat and our water supply (more about that in some other post).

2) Then, the cows are taken to a slaughterhouse that processes too many cows too quickly (up to 390 per hour, more than 50 per minute!), which means, inevitably, errors occur. That’s my polite euphemism for saying that “shit gets in the meat.” I stole that line from the film adaptation of Fast Food Nation, a movie that I highly recommend for its depiction of what the meat-packing industry is like today. Not only is its treatment of animals suspect, it isn’t particularly humane towards people, either.

3) Nonetheless, the article concludes, “the main obstacles to preventing the spread of E. coli are inadequate government inspection and meat-handling practices, particularly in slaughterhouses, where contamination is most likely to occur.”

4) There’s also a couple of other problems. Most disturbingly for me, is that if meat tests positive for E. coli, it can still cooked and sold for use in products like tacos and pizza. I didn’t know this, and my gut reactions is “Yuck!” Of course, the cooking is supposed to kill E. coli, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this might be a potential source of cross-contamination.

What stands out for me, though, is again — sounding like a broken record here — cows are not meant to eat grain and we should be thinking more about how we raise and slaughter our animals. If cows were eating grass, there wouldn’t be enough E. coli to contaminate the meat. And if were treating the animals and the people who work in the slaughterhouses humanely, shit, contaminated by E. coli or not, would be much less likely to end up in the meat.

I’m not trying to convert anyone to veganism. Believe me, I still am known to eat a cheeseburger, and I made beef chili on SuperBowl Sunday. When I can, though, I try to buy grass-fed beef. It tastes better, is better for me, the environment, the farmer/rancher, the land, and the cow. I know it is more expensive, but I remind myself that 1) a portion of meat should only be the size and thickness of your palm and 2) quality, with animal protein, is more important than quantity.

Grass-Fed Beef Hits the Mainstream….

Well, not quite. But when the March 2008 edition of Consumer Reports had a small article acknowledging that the possible validity of the many health claims surrounding grass-fed beef, I felt hopeful that it will now be something a greater number of consumers demands.

Here’s the deal. When cows eat grass instead of grain (as they were doing for thousands and thousands of years before the advent of industrial farming), the meat from those cows is leaner. According to Dr. Mark Hyman in Ultrametabolism, grain-fed cattle have 500% more saturated fat than grass-fed cows. Grass-fed beef also has higher level of omega-3 fatty acids, which have been shown to help prevent heart disease and stroke. Other conditions that may be helped by omega-3 fatty acids include lupus, eczema, and rheumatoid arthritis. Grass-fed beef also has more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) which may enhance the immune system, reduce abdominal fat, increase the metabolic rate, and make it easier to maintain weight. For an interesting article on this: http://www.mercola.com/beef/cla.htm

The health perks are exciting, but to me eating grass-fed beef makes sense from both a humane and environmental perspective. Cows aren’t meant to eat grain, and when they do, they tend to get sick. That sickness has other implications for us eaters, including antibiotic resistance and E. coli contaminated meat, but I’m focusing on the cows for now. Also, cows that eat grain are housed in factory-farm feedlots that are not only horrible for the cows (a picture is worth a thousand words — to see more, watch this http://www.themeatrix1.com/ ) but horrible for the environment; the waste & run-off from these farms contaminate our water supply and are implicated in global warming.

Call me old-fashioned, but when I do eat a burger I would rather that it came from an animal that lived as it was meant to live — outside, grazing in a pasture, instead of penned up with thousands of other animals for all of its life without space to move or appropriate food to eat. And it’s nice to know that when I make the better choice, it’s better for me, too.

Freaky Fast Food Facts

There’s a big fight going on now between the restaurant industry and public health officials about whether or not the caloric content of foods should be listed on menus. Of course, restaurants are reluctant to do this.

One of the best arguments that I’ve seen for doing this can be found in a little item in BusinessWeek (February 11, 2008). In an article on this very topic, the magazine featured a picture of a Quiznos Tuna Melt sandwich (12 inches long, 1.3 lb.). Guess how many calories? A whopping 2,090!!!! Although I am not a proponent of calorie counting, 2,090 calories is an absolutely ridiculous amount of calories for something that is 1) just a sandwich and 2) just one meal in an entire day. If the restaurant industry insists on tempting Americans with huge quantities of cheap, caloric-excessive food, I think that they should have to put that information where it is easy to read. I am sure that they would find a decreased demand for their large tuna melt at Quiznos. Here’s the link to the article: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_06/b4070036764931.htm?chan=search

If this information were to appear on menus, what would Americans do? For one thing, I bet more people would buy donuts than muffins at Dunkin’ Donuts and feel virtuous for doing so. In the March issue of Consumer Reports, there is a delightful little quiz about which of two items has fewer calories and less fat. It turns out that a Dunkin’ Donuts French Cruller has 180 calories and 13 grams of fat while a Dunkin’ Donuts corn muffin has 510 calories and 18 grams of fat! In another person favorite, a Ruby Tuesday Triple Prime Burger has 883 calories and 56 grams of fat while the Ruby Tuesday Parmesan Shrimp Pasta has 1,221 calories and 64 grams of fat. And did you know that 3 Big Macs have fewer calories and less fat than one individual Uno deep-dish Schroom pizza? How is that possible? It makes you wonder about what, exactly, is in that Schroom pizza.

I’m not advocating any of these choices, but I do think it would interesting to see what Americans would do if the caloric information were readily available to them. Perhaps restaurants would discover that there was more of an appetite out there for healthy choices and reasonable portions than they imagined.