Meat
contaminants are not likely to go away because they stem from Big
Meat's desire to maximize profits by growing animals faster.
September 20, 2013
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Recently, the US Department of Agriculture
announced plans to
"relax" federal meat and poultry inspections, allowing meat processors
greater leeway in policing themselves, already the agricultural trend.
Most food activists ask how standards could be relaxed any further when
drug residues, heavy metals, cleaning supplies, gasses, nitrites,
hormones and other unwanted guests contaminate the meat supply. They are
almost all unlabeled.
Is seafood safer?
Dream on. Mercury-filled tuna is what inspired Fischer Stevens to make the Oscar-winning documentary
The Cove, about the Japanese dolphin-fishing industry when he
personally came down with
mercury poisoning. The Chicago Tribune, New York Times and Consumer
Reports have reported high mercury levels in almost all red lean and
fatty tuna tested, in recent years.
Aquaculture is so festooned with antibiotics, veterinary drugs and
pesticides that it can make factory farming look green. Commercial
shrimp production, for example, "begins with urea, superphosphate, and
diesel, then progresses to the use of piscicides (fish-killing chemicals
like chlorine and rotenone), pesticides and antibiotics (including some
that are banned in the U.S.), and ends by treating the shrimp with
sodium tripolyphosphate (a suspected neurotoxicant), Borax, and
occasionally caustic soda," says a
review of the book, Bottomfeeder:
How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood.
Meat contaminants are not likely to go away because they stem from
Big Meat's desire to maximize profits by growing animals faster,
squeezing them into small living spaces and keeping meat looking "fresh"
on store shelves longer. Here is a list of the worst offenders.
1. Antibiotics
Most people know that antibiotics are part of the diet of US
livestock to make them grow faster (feed is metabolized more
efficiently) and prevent disease outbreaks in cramped conditions. But
they'd be surprised at how many animals destined for the dinner table
have drug residues that exceed legal limits.
Each week the
USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) finds dangerous
antibiotic levels in animals including penicillin, neomycin and "sulfa"
and "cipro" drugs, many from "repeat violators."
Excessive levels are also found of risky antibiotics like tilmicosin,
whose label tells the farmer, "Not for human use. Injection of this drug in humans has been associated with fatalities," and
gentamicin, which
the FDA, American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and Association
of Bovine Practitioners warn against using at all, except under rare
circumstances. Unlike bacteria which antibiotics are supposed to kill,
"No amount of cooking will destroy [drug] residues" says a
USDA Office of the Inspector General report.
2. Bacteria
You'd think with the antibiotic party going on, meat would be free of
bacteria. You'd be wrong. Bacteria are rife in conventionally grown US
meat including antibiotic-resistant bacteria also known as superbugs.
Almost half of beef, chicken, pork and turkey in samples tested from US
grocery stores contained staph bacteria reported the
Los Angeles Times in 2011—including the resistant MRSA staph bacterium (methicillin-resistant S. aureus). Pork tested by
Consumer Reports in 2013 also contained MRSA and four other kinds of resistant bacteria.
Two serious strains of antibiotic-resistant salmonella, called
Salmonella Heidelberg and Salmonella Hadar, forced recent recalls of
turkey products from Jennie-O Turkey and Cargill and chicken products from Schreiber Processing
Corporation. The resistant salmonella strains were so deadly, officials
warned that disposed meat should be in sealed garbage cans to protect wild animals. Even wildlife is threatened by the factory farm-created scourges.
MRSA is no longer limited to healthcare settings, either. Researchers have found it on
Florida public beaches and on the top of unopened soft drink cans in a car that was
following a poultry truck.
3. Cleaning Products
Since antibiotics are no longer doing the job, meat producers are
getting creative. They are trying radiation, gases, nitrites and even
sprays made of
viruses called bacteriophages to quell the germfest.
Still, nothing has caused such reflexive revulsion as the news last year that meat scraps once earmarked for pet food were being resurrected as "lean finely textured beef" (LFTB) also known as Pink Slime.
While the product looked like human intestines, what really turned
the national stomach was that it was treated with puffs of ammonia to
kill the bacterium E. coli. The public was also outraged that the Pink
Slime was supplying the National School Lunch Program. Its main
producer, Beef Products, Inc., announced it
was closing its production facilities, soon after the hoopla began.
But another cleaning product used in meat production is starting to
make news: chlorine. According to the website MeatPoultry.com, "99
percent of American poultry processors" cool their "birds by immersion
in chlorinated water-chiller baths." The European Union and Russia are
duking it out with US trade officials over the chlorine-dipped poultry that few Americans realize they are eating.
4. Hormones
Americans eat another product every day that the European Union doesn't want: beef. The
European Commission's Scientific Committee on
Veterinary Measures says the U.S.'s hormone-heavy beef production poses
"increased risks of breast cancer and prostate cancer," citing cancer
rates in countries that do and don't eat US beef.
As with "lean finely
textured beef," aka Pink Slime, Americans are blissfully unaware of the
synthetic hormones zeranol, trenbolone acetate and melengestrol acetate
that are part of the recipe for production of US beef.
Melengestrol acetate, which is
not withdrawn in
the days before slaughter, is 30 times more active than natural
progesterone, says the European Commission. The powerful estrogenic
chemical, Zeranol, is associated with
early puberty and breast cancers charges the Breast Cancer Fund, a group dedicated to identifying and eliminating the environmental causes of cancer.
"Consumption of beef derived from Zeranol-implanted cattle may be a
risk factor for breast cancer," agrees a recent article in the journal
Anticancer Research. And trenbolone acetate, a synthetic androgen? It is on scientists' radar because it
masculinizes fish. Too bad the USDA is not as cautious as the European Commission.
5. Mad Cow Disease
Many people have forgotten about Mad Cow Disease, but the risks are
far from gone, especially because the government has obfuscated. In its
final report about the first US mad cow, found in December 2003, the
government said "all
potentially infectious product" from the deadly cow "was disposed of in
a landfill in accordance with Federal, State and local regulations."
But the
San Francisco Chronicle reported
that 11 restaurants received the meat. Big difference. The sources of
the Mad Cow Disease seen in a second and third cow
were never found but the government protected the identities of the Texas and Alabama ranches and let them
sell beef again within a month.
Mad
Cow and related diseases like Chronic Wasting Disease in deer are
transmitted by prions which are "rogue proteins" that are not destroyed
by cooking, heat, autoclaves, ammonia, bleach, hydrogen peroxide,
alcohol, phenol, lye, formaldehyde, or radiation, and they remain in the
soil, contaminating it for years.
Because Mad Cow Disease could destroy the US beef industry, officials
are quick to dismiss possible human cases. When suspicious cases arise,
officials call them "spontaneous" illnesses, not from eating bad
meat—even before tests are in.
6. Asthma-Like Drugs
There is another way factory farmers make animals grow faster besides
antibiotics and hormones. The asthma-like drug ractopamine is used in
45 percent of US pigs according to Bacon Bits, the Canadian Pork
Industry newsletter.
It's also used in 30 percent of ration-fed cattle
and a growing number of turkeys. Unlike most livestock drugs,
ractopamine is not withdrawn before the animals are slaughtered even
though its
warning label says,
"Individuals with cardiovascular disease should exercise special
caution to avoid exposure. Not for use in humans. Keep out of the reach
of children," and recommends protective clothing, gloves, eye wear and
masks.
Cardiac stimulating drugs like ractopamine cause stress and
hyperactivity in animals and they are "not appropriate because of the
potential hazard for human and animal health,” wrote researchers in the
journal
Talanta.
"Adding
these drugs to waterways or well water supplies via contaminated animal
feed and manure runoff," is also a concern, said David Wallinga of the
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in an interview, "because
this class of drugs is so important in treating children with asthma."
Could ractopamine, added to the food supply in 1997 with little
public awareness, be contributing to skyrocketing rates of obesity and
hyperactivity in children?
7. Heavy Metals
The charge that heavy metals lurk in US meat doesn't come from food
activists and consumer advocates—it comes from the USDA Office of the
Inspector General. Its
2010 report found
high residues of copper, arsenic and other heavy metals and veterinary
drugs in beef released for public consumption including.
Animals with
violative levels of metals, anti-parasite vaccines and medicines were
knowingly released into the human food supply by inspectors, says the
report.
Pesticides are also a disturbing gray area with only one of 23
high-risk pesticides tested for, the Inspector General's office said.
The presence of arsenic in poultry made food news in 2011 when a
government study found inorganic arsenic, “
at higher levels in the livers of chickens treated” with arsenic-laced feed than in untreated chickens.
This prompted
Pfizer to stop marketing
its arsenic feed, 3-Nitro, since arsenic is a carcinogen in its
inorganic form. Worries are not over, though.
The FDA still allows
arsenic in poultry feed for weight gain and feed efficiency, to control
parasites and to improve “pigmentation.” Other arsenic-laced feeds
besides 3-Nitro remain on the market.
8. Carbon Monoxide
Why is the meat so red?
A few years ago, consumer groups tried to
stop the practice of "modified atmosphere packaging" (MAP): exposing
meat to carbon monoxide to keep it looking fresh. They weren't
successful. Today as much as
70 percent of
meat packages in stores are treated with carbon monoxide to keep the
meat's red color (oxymyoglobin) from turning to a brown or gray color
(metmyoglobin) through exposure to oxygen.
While the
meat industry compares meat losing its red color to the harmless discoloration of apples and says MAP keeps products affordable, both the
European Commission's Scientific Committee on Food and USDA's
Food Safety Inspection Service have
expressed concerns that the artificially hued food can appear fresher
than it really is. Thanks to MAP, meat can stay red
an entire year!
Consumers do not need to worry about being deceived, said Ann Boeckman, a lawyer with a
firm representing major
meat companies. "When a product reaches the point of spoilage, there
will be other signs that will be evidenced—for example odor, slime
formation and a bulging package—so the product will not smell or look
right." That's a relief.
9. Nitrites and Nitrates
Ever wonder why processed meats stay on store shelves for so long,
retaining their color and flavor and not spoiling?
You have the
preservatives nitrite and nitrate to thank. Nitrite and nitrate may make
money for food processors, but they are so linked to cancer (when they
become "nitrosamines" in the human body) the
American Cancer Society tells people not to eat them.
After a 2008 report from the American Institute for Cancer Research
and the World Cancer Research Fund that showed eating just one hot dog a
day increased the risk of developing colorectal cancer by as much as 21
percent, there were
calls to ban processed
meat products, especially in schools.
Nitrite and nitrate are found in
hot dogs, luncheon meats, bacon, Slim Jims and most processed and cured
meats. Colorectal cancer is not the only cancer associated with
nitrosamines, which have been carcinogenic suspects since the 1970s.
They have also been linked, in scientific articles, to
lung cancer,
kidney cancer, stroke, coronary heart disease and
diabetes mellitus. If processed meats sound a lot like cigarettes, you are right. Cigarettes also contain
nitrosamines.
Meat
contaminants are not likely to go away because they stem from Big
Meat's desire to maximize profits by growing animals faster.
NOTE: Don't be further deceived by the signs in meat departments of all supermarkets boasting "Natural Beef" or "natural bison" or natural any other meat. What does that mean? All it means is that it's possibly NOT a cloned animal, it was a living, breathing cow, chicken or pig. It cleverly doesn't mention how the natural cow was raised, or the antibiotics, steroids, hormones and GMO Whiskey distiller grains it was fed.
Unless you buy your meat products directly from a rancher, as we do, or from an ethical Naturally raised or organically raised rancher, you ARE buying CAFO garbage, unfit for consumption.
