Mad Meat

The latest discovery of a mad cow is bothersome.  Especially after a recent Vanity Fair article written by Eric Schlosser the man who wrote "Fast Food Nation."  In his article he explains how governmental spending to test our food has been cut and we are misled to believe the FDA is really checking the safety of what we eat.  Also in the article is the story of a young child who died from eating tainted beef.  Apparently the E. Coli and other meat diseases affect children the worst. 

What do you moms do about this?  Do you buy from smaller meat companies who have a more holistic philosophy about raising and slaughtering meat?  Do you skip beef altogether?  Am I being paranoid to consider this a real problem?  I'm curoius what your thoughts are.

Comments

[DuckyMama]

Your comment about what's in breastmilk makes me laugh!

Considering cows live on our polluted earth, too, and their milk is processed until there's nothing worthy about it, concentrated and rehydrated with chemically treated water, I wouldn't feed it to my baby!

Putting formula into a baby means more pollution. Consider the cows and everything they put out (we live in a rural community, and man, do the cows put out!), the machinery and pollution to create the substance, all of the packaging, various stuff you need to formula feed a baby (refrigeration, bottles, heaters...)

The answer is to breastfeed your baby, and work to clean up our earth.

[Jamie]

Brooke, I'm going to see if I can put together a post about what's in human milk. Bottom line: human milk for human babies. There's some nasty stuff in the environment, though, that gets concentrated as it moves up the food chain.

I'm at my parents' house for Thanksgiving and the connection is
s o
p a i n f u l l y
s l o o o o w
that I'm not sure I'll post before I get back home. But I'll drop you an email when I get it up. Have a good Thanksgiving.

[Dawn]

Our solution is to not eat red meat. I was vegetarian before getting pregnant with Noah and remained so up until I was 8 months pregnant and ate some salmon (it tasted so-o-o-o good!). Then I started eating fish and then about three years ago, I started eating poultry. Same goes for Noah. He eats fish and poultry but he also had a beef hotdog at our synagogue's Purim carnival last year. That was kind of a bummer for me. :P

Noah was a complete vegetarian (not even fish although I was eating it) throughout his nursling years but then I started worrying about his soy intake and that's when we introduced turkey to him.

It's so difficult and there are so many contradictory points of view. I have friends who have gone from vegan to "nourishing traditions" (whole, raw milk; grain-fed beef -- do a search on "Sally Fallon") and their arguments as vegans are just as compelling as their arguments as meat-eaters. But the consistency of their discussion has always been on eating earth-friendly food, as in low processing, organic and free-range.

[Melissa.]

The simplest solution?

Impart your ideals of kindness and compassion to your boy three times a day.

Raise a vegetarian child.

:)

[Brooke]

I did see Super Size me and that movie is revolutionary. We are pretty healthy to begin with but seeing that movie confirmed so much about consumerism and food and the American relationship with junk. It made us want to be even more diligent about eathing whole, unprocessed foods.

We also buy a part of whole, locally grown and butchered meats when possible. A half a pig is in our freezer right now. And we do feel better eating meat this way - not only does it feel safer but it also supports what we believe in about small business and puts our money where our mouths are related to farming and all of that.

The book Having Faith has got me curious - what the hell turns up in human breast milk??? ACK! Want to give me any hints? I'll probably read the book anyway, but you've got me dying to know.

We are on about one month of our natural food plan guided by the nutritionist I mentioned. A whole month without additives or processed foods. A whole month without sugar (for my birthday I had a homemade pumpkin pie with an almond/oat crust and pecan topping - all sweetened with maple syrup. delcicious.) But I cannot say I have kept to the no-wine rule. Instead, I have limited it to one small glass of red wine in the evening.

Mostly the changes are not difficult. And we feel like we are eating real food and nourishing our bodies the way we should all the time. Matt's doctor was about to put him on medication for blood pressure and in one month, Matt's bp and cholesterol are down so much the doctor can't believe he has accomplished this with diet alone! If that isn't proof in the pudding...

Btw, sorry I said "moms" in my invitation to post. Of course I value non-mom opinions. I don't know why I said that. Stupid I guess. But I sort of assume anyone who reads my diary followed me over from iparenting and were moms too. Thanks for writing anyway Erin. Please keep coming back!

[Sierra]

I think it's best to eat mostly whole pieces (steaks, etc) and if you eat ground, then cook the crap out of it. I also buy organic whenever I get the chance.

Fast food is nasty! I hope I can hold out on ever feeding it to Aidan.

[Jamie]

I haven't bought ground beef since I read Fast Food Nation because of what Schlosser said about E. coli. When I was pregnant with my third son I read a book called Having Faith, by Sandra Steingraber. She's an ecologist who had her first baby (Faith) in her late thirties, and the book is all about the crud that babies are exposed to while they are gestating and nursing. (Steingraber is unequivocal that nursing is the way to go, but she is also candid about what can turn up in human milk.) I was horrified by the book, to the point of saying, "Okay, we're going semi-vegan when this pregnancy is over."

Now I'm pregnant again, wondering what's best. No real answers here -- we aim to eat low on the food chain but I don't want to do a vegetarian pregnancy. So far our approach has been no ground beef, very limited fish (and no freshwater fish), and hoping for the best.

[Erin]

I am not a Mom, but a firm believer in organic/natural/local products. You should definitly see "Supersize Me" if you are worried about this type of thing -- it will give you more information about fast food hazards. Now, I like my fast food fix as well as the next person, but I also realize the dangers in the processed food. The biggest risk of "tainted" beef comes from fast food and other overly-processed beef. The reason it can become so dangerous has to do with how it is processed -- hundreds of pieces of hundreds of DIFFERENT cows going into ONE processed hamburger patty -- you can see how it becomes difficult to monitor just WHERE the beef comes from . . .

My solution? Very little fast food, and almost none for my kids someday. Also, none of the processed, already made hamburger patties from Sam's or Costco that come frozen in the huge boxes. The biggest culprit here is ground beef -- so stay away from ground beef if/when you eat out.

My husband and I are not big beef eaters, but we recently invested in 1/4 of a cow from a local farm. The farm is not certified organic, but the cattle was raised without hormones, antibiotics and is grass fed -- I feel good about eating this kind of ground beef on occasion, because I know it's safe.

Hope that helps answer your question.

Love your posts -- have been reading you since you were part of the I-parenting community!