Meat eaters: What will you do now that Mad Cow disease is in the US?

[ecstatic]

[BlueEyedSon]

1. Heat does not "kill" the Mad Cow prion.

[ecstatic]

3. oh no!

I told my family about it, and of course, they are not trying to give up meat (neither am I)... But I guess I gave them bad info when I told them to at least make sure the meat is well done.

[Conservativesux]

105. Prion, Shcmion; something is gonna kill us all one day....might as

well eat, drink and be merry, because this 100 year oil glut is coming to an end soon.

MCD?

Forget about it !!!

[Bluebear]

2. "Well done" has no influence on the offending problem

Just fyi

[Lindacooks]

90. Yep, you're right - there's no way to cook meat enough

freeze it, or treat it in any way to make it safe if it has the prions.

[sybylla]

4. Other

I just stocked my freezer with 35 pounds of hamburger from a cow raised by my brother's friend. If Mad Cow becomes an apparent factor (I think it has been here for years) it will be a good reason to buy animals locally from non-factory farms (probably my Amish neighbors but not necessarily) and send them to the butcher shop specifically for my family.

It won't eliminate the risk, but it will cut it down. If necessary, we'll start raising our own beef.

[undergroundpanther]

5. This is a problem

Because I have a metaboloic issue that makes my body do stuff with protiens.If I don't eat meat I get sick.My sister is vegan and she has sores and nerve damage and it effects her emotionally.And she knows what she is doing food wise yet the inherited metabolism thing is hurting her. I don't want this to happen to me,too. It is miserable.

I feel damned if I do Damned if I don't.

And it makes me so pissed off at the factory farms it makes me want to get the fat executuves running the farm and send them through the blue chute with the stumbling sick cows.

Here's A rant I wrote a looong time ago about mad cow.
Called Fuck the Beef industry

.....The Beef industry bullies the whistleblowers who try to tell the truth because they are scared of the truth of what they do getting out to the public. They are SCARED of losing profits. Well boo fuckin' hoo, you ain't gonna be able to afford a new Rolls.

I'm scared. I ate prions and I might suffer a horrible death, and if I do ... All the money in the world you made at my expense is worthless to me if I am gonna die. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose, and if enough people have nothing left to lose what's gonna hold them back from tearing apart the beef industry - the people that murdered them -- before they die?..............

http://www.unknownnews.net/040204d-up.html

[BlueEyedSon]

6. Can you eat pork/lamb/chicken/fish for protein?

[undergroundpanther]

15. already do

but you know if mad cow infects cows,by the nature of the disease you know it also infects the pork the chicken etc too. The way factory farms raise these animals and what they feed them is the problem.
Greed is the problem.People NOT caring where their food comes from as long as it is Cheep is the problem,Abuse PROFIT and cruelty is the problem. A culture that thinks it is OK to be turning living animals into a product/object to be exploited on a MASS scale by a few people who put themselves in control of an industry that WE ALL depend on,that can corrupt itself, pay off people who would force regulation..Privacy invading the publics needs is the problem.No corporation providing things we need to exist,like food,water, shelter etc should be allowed privacy or profits because the temptation to corrupt and cost cut is too great and when the cost cutting does damage it can hurt millions. IMHO
By time the damage is detected the bastards are too wealthy and can use their money to suppress the truth,by time the truth breaks through the damage is worse and too many people are hurt to make food growing as a for profit venture a sane option for ANY culture.Take the profit and privacy out of the production of the necessities of existence and we will not have a poisoned food supply because the greed factor will be less,the excuse of corporate secrets etc.can't be used,and no one can get rich enough to pay people to suppress the truth as easily.For some(most things) privatization is an excuse to do evil and make money at it...
More on madcow
http://www.unknownnews.net/madcow.html

[ElsewheresDaughter]

57. sheep also have "Mad Cow Disease".........

rarediseases.about.com/cs/priondiseases/a/080600.htm

Article describes USDA seizure and slaughter of sheep in 2001 that were suspected to be infected with TSE.
rarediseases.about.com/cs/priondiseases/a/032701.htm
SearchRare / Orphan Diseases
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Sheep Slaughtered for Suspicion of Mad Cow Disease
From Mary Kugler,
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Vermont sheep targeted as possible carriers
The uproar started in July 2000. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), testing seven Vermont sheep chosen at random, found that four of the animals carried what appeared to be the sheep version of mad cow disease (known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, or TSE).
The Vermont sheep, a total of 360 on two farms, are the only imported sheep in the United States, and the USDA decided that, in order to prevent TSE from spreading, it needed to not only seize the sheep but slaughter them as well. The government offered the farmers a settlement, but the farmers decided to take challenge the USDA in court.

USDA proceeds with slaughter
In early 2001, the USDA decided to take matters into its own hands and ignore the court hearing scheduled for April 10. On March 21, federal officials herded farmer Houghton Freeman's 234 sheep onto trucks and took them to a USDA lab and slaughter facility in Iowa.

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Mad Cow Disease
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Mad Cow Disease
Free Mad Cow Disease info from the Agriculture Dictionary!
www.AgricultureDictionary.com
Several days later, Larry and Linda Faillace saw their 126 sheep carted away. "These are the first sheep in the world that will be killed for suspicion of mad cow disease," Mr. Faillace said in an article in The Boston Globe, "and that shows you how stupid this whole thing is."
Craid Reed, administrator of the animal and plant health inspection service of the U.S. Agriculture Department, countered, "The USDA has no choice but to take this decisive action based on the threat the sheep pose to the health of America's livestock nationwide."

Sheep support
There was a lot of "pro-sheep" sentiment in Vermont; supporters of the farmers wore fleecy white ribbons on their chests and drove by the farms calling out their encouragement. Now, however, Houghton Freeman and the Faillaces are looking at a future without their sheep, and wondering whether the uproar was all for naught.

"Mad cow disease" in humans
The public has good reason to be concerned about mad cow disease (or mad sheep disease, called "scrapie"). Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), when transmitted to humans, causes a disease called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. It is a degenerative, fatal brain disorder. There is no cure.

In Europe, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease seems to have been caused by people eating contaminated beef products. It is believed that scrapie-infected sheep products were used in cattle feed, and thus the cattle became infected.

Scientists have found that what causes BSE, scrapie, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is not a virus or bacteria as in other diseases, but a protein agent called a prion. The prion transforms normal proteins into infectious, deadly ones. Unfortunately, these prions are invisible to the immune system, and are very hardy--you can freeze them, boil them, or soak them in chemicals, and they still survive.

Difficult to diagnose
There is not, as yet, a definitive medical test for diagnosing Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Since the disease is rare, some physicians might not even consider it as a diagnosis, and might mistake the symptoms for other brain disorders like Alzheimer's disease, Pick's disease, or Huntington's disease. Scientists suggest that new, sophisticated laboratory testing will in the future be able to detect the prions in an infected person's blood or tissues.

Restrictions on imports and blood donations
In the meantime, in the years since BSE was recognized as a threat to humans the U.S. government has banned the importing of cattle feed from affected countries, banned the importing of European livestock, and even outlawed blood donations from people who have spent more than three months in Britain.

Within the U.S., the government prohibits the use of cow and sheep byproducts in animal feed. The USDA also examines brain tissue from ill cows. Some people contend the government isn't looking hard enough for BSE, since cows can look healthy for up to five years yet still have the infection.




Mad Cow Disease - What the Government Isn't Telling You - by Dr ...
Mad Cow Disease is the common term for Bovine Spongiform Encepholopathy (BSE),
... of sheep afflicted with scrapie, essentially the same disease as Mad Cow ...
www.drday.com/madcow.htm

[sybylla]

8. Nice rant. I'm sorry to hear about your trouble.

There are sources for organically raised beef (though I only have local contacts). I'm sure you can find a few reputable places on the internet, some might even be near you so you can visit to see what they do. Keep in mind that this doesn't eliminate the risk, but should reduce it dramatically.

Also, remember that the prions don't reside in the muscle. They are in the brain and spinal column predominantly. If an animal with BSE is butchered with consideration for that, it should still be relatively safe to eat. So avoid store-bought or factory hamburger, including McDonalds. Grind your own if you have to, and stick to roasts and boneless steaks if you have a concern about prions.

[ecstatic]

10. So, prions are found near bones?

Also, it would seem as though smaller farmers would be more inclined to try to shove a sick cow through. Can they afford to just toss cows aside?

[undergroundpanther]

20. Nope

The cows that get tossed aside if any go to the rending plant to become chicken food that eventually gets fed to cows or soap or oils we use..

[undergroundpanther]

17. And when cows

are butchered how to the cut the carcass?

They SPLIT IT right down the middle smearing prions all the way down the carcass.

And organic is not able to fit into alot of peoples budgets.
Poor people eat the shittiest food alot of poor folks can't get decent veggies and fruits.Until wages get better and people join unions people on minimum wage will not be going organic.
Organic would be a better answer if organic was affordable.
I can't afford squat organic on 500 bucks a month.(This is the SSI disability the asshole parasites on corporate welfare in Washington think is too much for me to live on btw)

[Arianrhod]

26. It sucks that we have to die at the hands of our fellow men. n/t

[Horse with no Name]

56. You need to be sure it is a reputable butcher shop

There have been reports of meat lockers taking in cattle privately and taking the really good cuts of meat (roasts, steak, brisket) for their own use or sale and replacing it pound for pound with meat from culls. Same with pigs with hams, etc.
Just make sure that you know people who have done business with them--this isn't specifically for you but just general information.

[newswolf56]

7. I stopped eating beef nearly three years ago because...

...I believed then (and still believe) the administration was/is covering up the magnitude of the threat -- this to protect the agrobeef monopoly -- also that this profits-uber-alles administration was refusing to take the necessary steps (such as cleaning up the cattle feed and the plants in which it is processed) that would protect from further infection. Obviously I was right...

I still eat pork, chicken, fish etc., but they are all so much more expensive than the cheaper cuts of beef, I eat these meats very seldom, and get more and more of my proteins from beans, peanuts, lentils, dairy products, etc. Unfortunately however -- luckily I am old (so it really doesn't matter) -- such a diet dooms one to getting ever more over-weight. It also contains a built-in compulsion to over-eat: no other food on earth is as psychologically filling as meat, even in small quantities.

[sybylla]

9. At the moment, beef prices are pretty high in my area

Pork and chicken are cheaper than everything but hamburger and even that is close.

I'm impressed with your diet shift but I'm surprised at your troubles with it. I never thought about the satisfaction factor. I suppose it's like the old slam against Asian cooking, that it doesn't last long in the belly. I'm not a bean and lentil person myself. Life would be much easier if I was. I just can't stand the texture of most of them and the taste of some. Though I could probably eat peanut butter and jelly one meal a day.

[newswolf56]

16. I'm fortunate in that I live in the land of...

...Adams Peanut Butter, like the peanut butter of my long-ago childhood: you have to mix it to blend in the oil, which means it is genuinely natural: contains none of the carcinogenic additives and is neither sugared nor hydrogenated. Best tasting peanut butter in the world, too.

As to meat prices, I think that depends on where you live. When I quit eating beef, lean hamburger here in the Puget Sound region could be had on sale for $1.89 a pound; cheapest pork or chicken was $2.49; fresh salmon was about $5.50. Last chicken I bought -- breasts -- was $3.49 maybe a month ago, but hamburger still hovers around $1.99.

[ecstatic]

12. I thought it was the other way around

That meat curbs the appetite and carbs make you want to eat more... At least that's my understanding and experience.

[newswolf56]

21. That's what I said:

"No other food on earth is as psychologically filling as meat, even in small quantities." A single small steak can satisfy you for a whole day, but even the biggest carb-heavy meal leaves you frantically jonesing for more.

[Warpy]

11. Life just plain aint safe

and is 100% fatal.

I'm a vegetarian because I never liked meat and feel lousy when I eat it. However, were I a meat eater, I'd go with the statistics.

Out of millions of cattle slaughtered for meat, on dairy farms, and used for breeding purposes, only two have had the disease. Those are pretty good odds.

You're far likelier to get hepatitis A or e coli from unwashed veggies.

[RC]

24. Those two cows are only because word leaked out...

How many other infected animals made it through without detection? No one really knows because they don't want to know. How many "downers" are made into animal feed and served back into the livestock food chain. No one wants to know that either.

[NashVegas]

13. Grind My Own

..

[UdoKier]

62. The problem is at the slaughtering stage, not the grinding stage.

The problem is the way they slaughter. As cows are led through a corral, a large heavy metal cylinder is shot through the cow's brain, effectively pulverizing it and "painlessly" killing the terrified cow. The still-beating heart can carry the pulverized bits of diseased brain tissue throughout the body before the throat is slit.


So you will need to slaughter your own.

[kestrel91316]

83. Home-grown organic beef would be best.................

barring that, grass-fed commercial beef would be ok. As for slaughter technique - kosher or halal slaughter by slitting the throat is ok, but no captive blot slaughter or preferably no bullet to the head. As for eating beef if you must - choose the whole cuts like round steak or chuck roast and grind it at home yourself to minimize risk of all sorts of diseases, not just BSE. If you do as much as possible to minimize risk, and that includes eating only a little beef occasionally rather than lots all the time, you have done what you can. For those who choose to go vegetarian, more power to you, but some of us love our beef. I plan to eat even less than the 5 lb/yr I have averaged recently. I do NOT trust the USDA at all. They need to test random healthy young cattle too, just to be on the lookout. These are not the only 2 cows in the US with BSE, just the only 2 that have been found.

[UdoKier]

88. We have a big old-fashioned meat grinder

It's nice because you know exactly what's in your ground beef, and you can make much leaner hamburgers.


Not that we only ever eat ground beef...

[HeeBGBz]

14. Will eat cheaper beef

I know something is out to get me, but T-Bones are the least of my worries.

[zapped 1]

18. too much meat=the Rove "look"

www.rawfoods.com

[Mist]

19. I've been buying ALL meat and fish at an organic grocery store

All the beef is grass-fed, so no chance of mad cow disease. The poultry is raised "cleaner" too. I feel safe buying meat from this source.

[eShirl]

22. remember when * said beef was safe to eat because he eats it all the time?

From that day forward I STOPPED eating beef! Now I am wondering if I should stop eating other meats too. :(

[Kipling]

40. Now that explains a LOT.

[crowcalling]

23. Don't eat beef anymore

Haven't eaten beef for at least year or more and have tried to become vegetarian. We only eat buffalo meat perhaps once a week, and chicken, free range from time to time. I suspect the problem is bigger then what is being reported. However, Republicans will just think it is Liberal spin - so they will probably eat MORE beef. Except for well heeled hypocrites who will tell folks all is safe but buy their own high priced alternatives.

Anyways, I worry about those who have less money to spend because frankly organic is a lot more expensive and many poor families rely on cheap fast food.

I can see prices for alternatives going through the roof based on demand. What do you think?

[Arianrhod]

33. I absolutely love your bird.

Got a name? :)

[crowcalling]

36. Re - Bird name

Thanks!

His name is Octavian. He is an African Pied Crow.

[Arianrhod]

41. Marvelous.

Octavian = Augustus. Caesar Augustus honored my ancestors by preserving the name of the settlement they founded in 800 BCE; he called it "Augustus Treverii", after the Celtic tribe of Trever that lent me my surname. (It's now known as the German city of Trier.) Augustus was an honorable man, a man of intellect and compassion, of the line of Caesars who actually meant something. It is a fitting name for such a noble creature as the Crow/Raven, the Keeper of the Gates of Eternity. :)

I apologize if my enthusiasm seems overstated.

[crowcalling]

48. Wow - great info! No apology necessary!

His name was given to him by a child of a good friend of mine. I really agonized over an appropriate name at the time. I continue to be amazed at how appropriate it has turned out to be! Recently learned that Octavian: Augustus kept ravens in his own personal aviary. Also my own name is somewhat tied to the Caesars.
So there you have it! By the way, we kid around in that his full name also includes "Maximus Mischievous". He has lived up to it!
:evilgrin:

[Arianrhod]

63. Name given by a child. Wonderful!

Ravens and crows are incredibly intelligent--and very spiritual.

I encountered a raven last winter that was far too interested in what I was doing. I was in the woods to light a Yule Log at the Solstice, and it hopped up to me from out of nowhere. It kept pecking at the hunk of wood in my hand, looking in my face with its red-black eyes, as if trying to judge whether or not I was worthy of such a sacrifice. As it turned out, I wasn't, as I never did get the log to light. The wind was strong out of the north, and I didn't have the right kindling to do it. As I left the woods, defeated and depressed, a hawk that was standing by the side of the road turned its back on me. All the noble birds understood my failure. :(

This year, I'm returning, and I intend to light that log! hahaha

I envy you your avian friend.

[crowcalling]

64. Hope you are successful this time!

And thanks for sharing your thoughts and knowlege on ravens and crows! Once in Miami, I mentioned to this fellow employee I had just met that I had a crow/raven as a companion.(Pieds are sort of in-between) He replied "Oh! And how is your relationship?" Most enlightened response I have ever gotten! Yes I agree they are VERY spiritual but in a "Testing - hard teacher" sort of way.. Make sense? Being a crow slave can be difficult at times, but I wouldn't want things any other way.

[Arianrhod]

113. Yes, they are hard teachers.

I've learned some good lessons from them, though. And I think that all animals are stern masters. Try living with a cat! hahaha

I think your companion is marvelous. :)

[Arianrhod]

25. I probably have BSE already.

The year it was discovered, I spent a week in London eating beef.

I don't care about scares of this sort. Eating is dangerous; always has been. It's one of the conditions I accept for being alive.

[DireStrike]

27. Same here

I eat tons of ground beef...

Changing your eating habits is extremely difficult. I consume ground beef, whole milk, and white bread. I always have. Probably the only way I will stop is if I marry somebody very good at cooking with other foods.

[Arianrhod]

32. Yes, I agree.

Changing any deeply-ingrained habit is difficult. That's why I'm not a Zen Buddhist monk. . . .

I've been looking, for about the past 8 months, for a vegetarian cookbook that doesn't emphasize tofu and steamed vegetables. It's difficult to drop meat when the alternative is utter boredom. . . .

Life is tentative, impermanent, and fragile. It is fraught with danger, beset on every hand. No matter how many precautions we take, it always has the same outcome. No religious practice, philosophical outlook, or ascetic lifestyle has ever avoided death. I always like to keep in mind, that Siddhartha died of mushroom poisoning.

The Pagan lifestyle, free of such worries in a celebration of just being what I am, is perfect for me. :)

[crowcalling]

37. Changing lifestyle

I agree that it is hard to do..and can be expensive. However, after husband was in hospital for a week over Christmas - almost died, we changed diet right then and there. Very hard..especially since we didn't know the best way to prepare non-meat alternatives! Used lots of Mustard and Spices! In less than four months, his medical tests showed better than previous healthy baseline.

Far from fanatic regarding diet - but have to say our experience changing to all organic mostly vegetarian has been amazing!

[Arianrhod]

42. My sympathies for your husband.

I hope he's doing well now.

I eat organic when I can, and am increasing the amount of vegetables I eat. I actually avoided all meat for 4 months, but was unable to continue because I found I was always hungry. (An interesting side note: During that period, I found myself enjoying the taste of vegetables I could never before tolerate. I guess when you're hungry, everything tastes good. hahaha) It's still my goal to do away with meat in my diet altogether--even though I'm not fully convinced that humans can live without it. We've evolved a "meat stomach", and of course our 3-meals-a-day regimen is based on meat, which is difficult to digest and makes us feel "full" for hours. Still, I think it's the lifestyle I was meant to adopt, and I would like to pursue it.

Do you have a recipe book you could recommend? I'd love to dive more fully into this.

[crowcalling]

50. Just trial and error

What we did was go shopping in our local organic store, and it was just trial and error. We don't have recipes, although I looked for a few, it seemed too much for our busy lifestyles. Ended up buying a few organic pre-prepared meals with a lot of variety to get ideas on what to do. Made lots of mistakes! Tried garden burgers - but settled on non-soy varieties, since soy made husband ill as well. Soups - made our own soups with organic stock and vegetable mixes. Switched to healthy bread. Love bread! Salads with fresh greens and sprouts, flax oil dressing, nuts, etc.. Organic pastas with yummy sauces and fresh veggies mixed in. Gave up sugar.

First shopping experiments were very expensive. Now we spend just a little more than we ever did in buying groceries. We just treated the whole thing like a new adventure and that has seemed to help.

We do buy buffalo meat and use sometimes as well as organic chicken. Octavian eats meat and so do my other animals. I prepare their meals - organic as well.

[Arugula Latte]

85. Ethnic food is a good way to go.

There are many wonderful vegetarian dishes in, say, Indian or Thai or even Mexican cuisines. The flavors just burst through.

With good spices and herbs and moisture-enhancing sauces (such as a plain yogurt mixed in with herbs and spices) and using things like fruit salsas, I think you'll find plenty of delicious, satisfying meals.

[Arianrhod]

115. Might be a bit too late getting back to you--but thanks! n/t

[Viva_La_Revolution]

49. Prime rib Friday's !

My weekly indulgence.

$12.95 - 12 oz

George's Corner Sports Bar & Grill
Best in Portland

I'll give it up when they pry it from my cold dead hands!

[HamdenRice]

28. BooooHooooo Bwaaaawaaaa NO MORE OXTAIL!!!!

I don't eat a lot of beef anyway, but my favorite beef dish is slow braised Oxtail -- absolutely one of the most delicious dishes on the planet. Unfortunately, oxtail, the tail of a cow, includes part of the spinal cord and is one of the most dangerous parts of the cow to eat from the mad cow angle.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

29. Avoid going outside to prevent being hit by lightning.

Which is more likely than getting mad-cow disease by eating beef.

[Arianrhod]

38. We had a marvelous, powerful, intense thunderstorm

roll through here last night, from midnight till 4am. Lightning struck an average of every minute, pounded against my windows, scattered the darkness, caused the Earth to tremble, stole our souls, drained us of sleep, lit up our nervous systems. We trembled with anticipation and hope and fear. It engulfed everything; it was utterly enlightening, deliriously ecstatic and profoundly revelatory. It sucked up all the air and blew it back into our lungs as a fire from God.

Beef doesn't scare me in the least.

"Land and Liberty": The Celtic ideal. :)

[LisaL]

55. Definitely stop driving. You chances of being killed in a driving

accident are much higher than getting mad cow disease.

[kittenpants]

30. Gonna have to end my cow-brain diet I guess...

[DireStrike]

34. My local grocery store actually sells cow brains...

maybe I should stopg etting meat from there.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. I've been buying grass-fed beef at a coop for quite a while

I'm also lucky to have an organic butcher down the street. They're expensive, but is the meat ever of high quality.

On the whole, I'm not too worried. Even in England, where the mad cow epidemic was first noticed, there have been only a few dozen cases.

Who knows? All of us or none of us could be infected right now.

[whatelseisnew]

35. Local Harvest website has a search feature for organic beef

http://www.localharvest.org/beef.jsp

[mondo joe]

39. My partner is interested in purchasing "Boutique Beef" - I was thinking

of giving it up for a while now, but feel I ought to hear my partner out on his idea.

[BiggJawn]

43. "Oink-Oink" "Cluck-Cluck"

I don't know if it's worth worrying about. Doesn't most our cheap beef come from New Zealand and 'Strylia?

Chicken and pork and fish for me, please!

[Modem Butterfly]

44. We've stopped eating marrow

BSE lives in brain, spinal and marrow tissue. So we dont' eat that anymore. No headcheese, no sweetbreads, no oxtails, no bonemarrow. But other than that, it's not a problem for us.

[Flammable Materials]

45. Every time we eat corporate-processed food we throw the dice.

If you must eat meat, the only alternative is to start farming. Or make friends with someone who does. Otherwise, cross your fingers.

[RebelOne]

46. Won't matter to me. I'm a vegetarian now anyway. n/t

[greendeerslayer]

47. Eat Organic Meat and Buffalo..

...or at the very least natural grass fed animals.

[TankLV]

103. You can eat an entire city?!

[ElsewheresDaughter]

51. we have been meat free for almost 3 years now

[helderheid]

52. Wild Oats.

[LisaL]

53. You might as well ask if we will continue to cross the street

since there are people killed by crossing the street? While obviously a problem, is hardly so wide spread that I would stop eating meat.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

54. Other: sneer at you guys while eating my Brazilian beef. (nt)

[kevsand]

58. I guess we'll just have to eat vegans ;-) nt

[flvegan]

93. Hey! You never know, you might get

the "vegan disease" which causes you to feel holier than thou, self-important and righteous. It's not so much a brain wasting disease as it is a wasting your brain disease.

Please be careful, and spare me, your humble messenger.

[kevsand]

99. Ow!

:spray:
Every time I think I've stuck my neck out a little too far, someone else comes along and sticks theirs out even further. I've been laughing at this off and on for half an hour now. Thank you for that. You are a much braver soul than I, and my hat's definitely off to you!:toast:

[Radio-Active]

112. holier than thou, self important and righteous

like you? See.. meat-eaters can do it too.

[Horse with no Name]

59. I have started replacing some meats in my recipes for vegetables

Last night made a great dish with sauteed zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes and onions (all purchased from a local farmer). Added some jar spaghetti sauce and served it over spaghetti.
Was delicious. It was cheap.
Also--was a dish I had previously made with hamburger.
I will definitely eat less beef--not necessarily strictly because of the mad cow disease, but specifically because the Secretary of Agriculture basically said he wouldn't have tested it and was upset because the meat was tested.
You can't trust a food supply governed by liars and people willing to look the other way.
I grew up on a dairy farm. Our milk was clean as it came. In all the years of testing we never had milk kicked back. Yoplait actually purchased our milk directly from AMPI for their yogurt.
One time during a milk pickup, my mom was watching the driver. The driver is responsible for taking a milk sample from each tank of milk he picks up so that if when it is tested at the plant and comes back contaminated or too high of a concentration of water (milk is purchased from the farmer by the pound), the farmer that is responsible for allowing the contaminated or watered down milk to be put in the tank has to pay for the entire truck of milk--which was thousands of dollars. Anyway, my mom saw the driver take our sample and put the test tube in the refrigerator.
She then saw him take 3 more test tubes and get more samples. She confronted him. Apparently, some of the farmers KNOWINGLY put contaminated/watered down milk in the tank and then paid the route driver a bribe to take a sample from another farmer's tank in lieu of theirs so it wouldn't be detected. It ended up costing the milk driver his job, but he willingly allowed contaminated milk (could have contained trace amounts of antibiotics to which some could have allergic reactions to, etc) into the food supply.
There shouldn't be any room for this in our country. Those that aren't willing to protect our food, need to find another job--and I believe the SOA needs to find another job.
:shrug:

[lonestarnot]

60. Throw some calves in the back yard to graze!

[alfredo]

61. Other: Eat the rich.

You know, it might be too late for most of us. We don't know how many "walkers" were slaughtered, added to the big vats of hamburger meat, mixed in with thousands of pounds of uninfected meat.

By the time we get sick, bush, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz will be in their second decade of prison, Cheney long gone, Gale Norton living in a trailer, and Ashcroft in the loony bin.

[leesa]

65. I'm certain we have been ingesting these prions for years. No one was

checking for them and farmers were feeding their cattle brain parts pretty routinely. Do the math.

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

66. No "processed beef" products. All else is highly likely to be o.k.

Processed beef products, like hotdogs, potted meat, etc., use the scraps from the slaughter process and get meat close to or including neural tissue and facia. It is the neural tissue that is the vector for infection for prions, not muscle tissue in general.

JB

[Eloriel]

67. Grass fed beef -- healthier for you in other ways as well

Nutritional benefits of grass-fed beef:

http://www.eatwild.com/nutrition.html

[OnionPatch]

68. The media is NOT overreacting....it's UNDER reacting

From what I've read, there is a cover-up about mad cow disease. Here are some links:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/coverup5505.cfm
http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/Greger122403.cfm
http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/delayed060305.cfm

Sorry, but I don't trust the beef industry anymore than I trust Haliburton or Enron or the pharmaceuticals. My family and I have been eating only grass-fed beef for a couple of years now. And by the way, from what I've read, it's true that the prions are in the bones only, but it's not impossible, in fact it may be probable, that other cuts of meat can be contaminated by using the same cutting blades, etc. Also, they don't feed dead cattle directly to cattle anymore but they feed them the waste from chicken factories which includes left-over chicken food that DOES contain dead cattle. Some people might think I'm worrying too much, but it's worth it to me to just be safe and eat organic, grass-fed beef. It's better for the planet, too.

[Stirk]

69. Bleh.

Was going to bait you... but sarcasm doesn't play in type.

[dansolo]

70. I'm thinking of avoiding ground beef

It is my understanding that the prions that cause mad cow disease is only present in the brain and spinal tissue, and it is contamination through the overly aggressive processing that poses the risk. I don't believe that normal cuts of beef (muscle tissue) would be risky.

[davsand]

71. I think we have ALL been exposed to it at one time or another by now.

Frankly, this kind of feed lot commercial farming has been going on a LONG time, and I really think we have all been exposed to Mad Cow by now.

I honestly think they will do more legitimate research and realize that a lot of the Alzheimer's diagnoses that have been made over the last ten years (remember--it was on the upswing) have got a root cause that is related somehow to Mad Cow or some other type of environmental factor. Cancers are in that same category as are some of the other autoimmune diseases.

After I started reading about cancers and how some of those have been tracked to cellular changes related to stuff like the Epstein Barr virus, and specific viral infections, I really stared to wonder about how much illness we now have. Is it a case of better diagnoses or is it honestly more common? I think it is more common, and i think it is probably an environmental factor we just haven't realized yet.

I'm gonna continue to eat meat and I'm gonna continue to live the way I always have. If it kills me, then so be it. There comes a point where you might live longer but it will feel like a living, ETERNAL hell. I'm rapidly coming to that point with all the shit that is "bad" for me.


Laura

[yewberry]

73. About the Alzheimer's thing:

Researchers do acknowledge that 5-10% of those diagnosed with Alzheimer's actually suffer from CJD (human version of Mad Cow Disease). There is little study done on this, though, partly because prions are not destroyed by sterilization and so autopsies would contaminate instruments.

Niiiice.

[Arugula Latte]

84. Ew. Okay, that is really scary.

Those prion things are like science fiction creatures.

Glad I haven't eaten red meat for about 24 years, since I was a teen.

[Squatch]

72. I will change none of my habits.

Shit, if I flinched at every scare-de-jour, I'd be living in a padded cell.

Red meat constitutes about 10% of my total meat intake. I think that a rare seared flank steak with a glass of pinot noir is one of life's great gastronomic pleasures.

[LifeDuringWartime]

74. ive always only eaten beef thats cooked well

very little or no pink/red. it just didnt seem possible to me that there was no mad cow in the US, considering how many cattle farms there are.

[yewberry]

75. Cooking doesn't destroy prions.

No matter how well done.

Hell, sterilization doesn't destroy prions. Amazing.

[judy from nj]

76. Don't eat prepacked ground beef

The disease comes from scraping the backbone and brain of diseased cows for meat. It would only show up in prepackaged ground beef. Either Buy a chuck roast or sirloin steak and grind your own, or buy grass fed cattle. The disease results from feeding cattle sheep brains.

[Swede]

77. More people will die in one week going to the store than all that

have died from BSE,which is 150 worldwide in the last 15 years.

[ecstatic]

79. How do we know it's only 150?

I heard one of the main symptoms is psychosis. What if the killers, psychos, etc. are just victims of this disease? What if people are being wrongfully diagnosed with schizophrenia when in reality, they have BSE?

[yewberry]

80. We don't.

The US deosn't require that CJD be reported. (BSE is the bovine form.)

CJD doesn't usually present as psychosis--it looks like dementia. Like Alzheimer's. It is not uncommon for CJD to be misdiagnosed as Alzheimer's disease. We don't know unless there's an autopsy performed.

[kestrel91316]

86. Aside from the 15% or so of Alzheimer's cases...............

that turn out to be CJD/vCJD, there is the tiny matter of the NEW form of BSE (BASE= bovine amyloidotic spongiform encephalopathy)that looks in cattle exactly like Alzheimer's looks in people. Somebody please tell me that this doesn't mean that ALL Alheimer's could ultimately be due to BSE in its many forms.............

[shockra]

89. There's a new book coming out next week...

called Dying for a Hamburger by Dr. Murray Waldman that argues Alzheimer's in general is related to high meat consumption:

After researching the spread of Alzheimer’s disease over the last century, Waldman concluded that Alzheimer’s disease behaves like an infectious disease, not something congenital. He has linked the spread of the disease to industrialized nations that have started relying heavily on factory-farmed chicken, pork, and other meats as their main source of protein. He argues convincingly that just like the recent outbreaks of mad cow disease, Alzheimer’s disease is very likely the result of the modern factory farm and our increased meat consumption in the last century.

Waldman demonstrates that Alzheimer’s disease first showed up in medical records at about the same time that world meat consumption began to rise. There is a direct correlation between the rates of meat consumption and the rates of Alzheimer’s disease in various cultures across the world. In Africa and China and other Asian countries, where meat consumption is relatively low, the rates of Alzheimer’s disease are much lower than in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and other developed countries, where meat consumption is high.

http://www.goveg.com/feat/alzheimers/madcow.asp

[Warren DeMontague]

78. "Eating Meat" and "Eating Beef" are not the same thing.

I haven't eaten red meat in over five years. I still eat fish and free range poultry.


My wife eats the occasional steak but it's always grass fed beef from one of the Northern California organic farms.

[MrSlayer]

81. Ummm...Continue to eat it.

I'm not buying into the panic.

[yurbud]

82. I'm going to say pretty often what Jeffrey Dahmer said to Lorena Bobbit...

Can I have that if you aren't going to eat it?

Hillbilly Hitler art:



Blog:

[Endangered Specie]

87. Nothing really...

Im not going to live life scared, i suspect its another MSM scare tactic to keep people distracted, now that MJ is over.

[BearClaws]

91. For Every Steak You Don't Eat, I 'll Eat 3!

Cant wait till the market slows down and the T-Bones go on sale!

I've been a butcher for over 25 years.

QUESTION!
Why do these "Outbreaks" happen right before a big beef eating holiday????????
Any answers?

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

92. Nothing at all. It's only two cows! Leave my meat alone!

[flvegan]

95. Heh heh. Only 2 cows. You believe that? Really?

Yes, the USDA is protecting you. You are safe. More Kool Aid?

[bigwillq]

94. I had a cheeseburger today.

It was yummy.:)

[deacon]

96. I will wait it out-- i don't get why i have to trust it was only two cows

given there was suppose to be NO cows infected.

So i will lay off beef for a while.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

97. You really think its only 2 cows?

mad cow just doesn't appear in two random cows....it gets into herds cause people feed cow brains and hooves to other cows to save money. if one cow from one ranch has it, chances are most of the other cows do too.

Do you really think in the entire population of US cows theres ONLY 2 with mad cow?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

98. Other: Read these websites....it's been in UK for a while, and I...

...suspect it's also been in the US for a while. That means IMHO just about everybody in the US has come into contact with it over the past 10+ years.

====================================

Mad Cow Disease
Mad Deer Disease
Chronic Wasting Disease,
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
<http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow.htm>

=====================================

BSE may cause more CJD cases than thought
13:20 28 November 2002
<http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3122>

=====================================

Ten new CJD cases raise fears of cattle-cull fraud
-ecoglobe news 21 December 1999
<http://www.ecoglobe.org/nz/news1999/d219news.htm>

=====================================

Why We Aren't Hearing Of More US CJD/Mad Cow Cases
From Patricia Doyle, PhD [e-mail] 1-20-4
<http://www.rense.com/general48/cjdd.htm>

=====================================

[Beelzebud]

100. I will continue eating beef. n/t

[Bravo411]

101. I would eat oultry ... except

We know crazy chicken disease has already infected Bush. So I guess that's out of the question now.

[TankLV]

102. Nothing.

[Pobeka]

104. Statistically, it's a few hundred head.

Last I knew, only 1 in 200 (maybe 300) animals were tested.

So finding 1 means you have to multiply by the inverse of the sampling proportion (200 / 1) to get the estimated number of animals infected.

[slutticus]

106. Eat more Bison

Mmmmm....

[catchnrelease]

107. Grassfed and bison

We still eat beef, but only go for grassfed and/or bison. It is more expensive but once in awhile it's worth it as a change from chicken and fish.

Ironically, just the other day I spent some time reading several articles by a man who claims that the BSE etc is not caused by the feeding of animal products, but organophospates used on, in and around the cattle. I don't know if this guy is way off the mark or not, but he appears to have done a lot of research all over the world. (I found the articles on the Weston A. Price website, which deals with traditional nutrition, farming, etc. Many of the ideas on this website are out of the mainstream.)

Here's links to the Mad Cow articles......

http://www.westonaprice.org/mythstruths/mtmadcow.html

http://www.westonaprice.org/mythstruths/mtmadcow2.html

http://www.westonaprice.org/mythstruths/maplegrief.html

http://www.westonaprice.org/mythstruths/madcow4.html

[Redleg]

108. I haven't had beef since the first mad cow scare.

I will continue to eat poultry and pork.

[nonconformist]

109. Nothing.

Mad Cow disease is the least of my worries.

If I freaked out and changed my lifestyle in response to every single warning or danger out there, I'd be a Bubble Girl by now.

[shockra]

110. There's more reasons than Mad Cow not to eat beef.

There are plenty of health, cruelty, environmental and economic issues. Didn't Bush just say the other day we need more nuclear power plants?

In Diet for a New America, John Robbins describes the amount of energy it takes to sustain cattle in the Pacific Northwest:

"You may think the Pacific Northwest is amply supplied with rain and rivers. But the people of this area are paying an onerous price for spending so much water to produce so little meat, a price concealed in the region's soaring electrical costs. These states get over 80 percent of their electricity from hydropower plants, many of which are located along the Snake River in Idaho, and the Columbia River in Washington. The water flowing in these rivers is the source of much of the state's electrical power. But the water used for livestock production in the Pacific Northwest also comes mainly from these same rivers, and it is taken from the rivers at points upstream from the power plants. The quantity of water taken from these rivers to grow livestock feed and otherwise produce meat is so huge that the amount of water left in rivers to generate electricity is substantially reduced. Thus electricity becomes more expensive to produce, the price rises, and the government must look elsewhere for sources of electricity. Hence the need for nuclear power plants in the area."

The Departments of Interior and Commerce produced a detailed study in 1978 that showed the value of raw materials consumed to produce food from livestock is greater than the value of all oil, gas, and coal consumed in this country. The same study revealed that the production of meats, dairy products and eggs account for one-third of the total amount of all raw materials used for all purposes in the United States.

Robbins writes:

"A new direction to America's diet-style would save an immense amount of energy. If we kicked the meat habit there would be no need for nuclear power plants. Our electric bills would be far lower than they are now. Our dependence on foreign oil would be greatly reduced. We would have the time and resources to develop solar and other environmentally sound energy sources. Our children might yet live in a world abundant with energy resources."

And it's harder to complain about somebody else's SUV when you eat the standard American diet:

"It is actually quite astounding how much energy is wasted by the standard American diet-style. Even driving many gas-guzzling luxury cars can conserve energy over walking -- that is, when the calories you burn walking come from the standard American diet! This is because the energy needed to produce the food you would burn in walking a given distance is greater than the energy needed to fuel your car to travel the same distance, assuming that the car gets 24 miles per gallon or better. This remarkable fact does not arise because our cars deserve a gold medal for energy efficiency. They don't. They burn up enough energy to blow up a bridge every four miles. But today's meat production systems are an energy conservationist's worst nightmare come true."

Is it not apropos that we have a president who's a cattle rancher starting wars for oil and advocating nuclear power plants?

The amount of oil it takes to feed one cow, in How Our Food Choices can Help Save the Environment by Steve Boyan, PhD:

http://www.earthsave.org/environment/foodchoices.htm

The modern factory farming system is a prolific consumer of fossil fuel and a prolific producer of poisonous wastes....At a feedlot of a mere 37,000 cows, 25 tons of corn are dumped every hour. It takes 1.2 gallons of oil to make the fertilizer used for each bushel of that corn. Before a cow is slaughtered, she will eat 25 pounds of corn a day; by the time she is slaughtered she will weigh more than 1,200 pounds. In her lifetime she will have consumed, in effect, 284 gallons of oil. Today’s factory-raised cow is not a solar-powered ruminant but another fossil fuel machine.

[shockra]

111. delete

[realcountrymusic]

114. Much ado about almost nothing

Everything we do is eventually fatal. Driving to work is far FAR riskier than eating beef. Breathing urban air is riskier. This is a distraction.

There are good reasons for not supporting the meat industry -- it's a huge polluter, an exploiter of labor, a waste of resources on a hungry planet, and a purveyor of obscene cruelty to animals. But the same could be said of the computer or auto industries (sans the cruelty part). In the big picture, the Mad Cow scare doesn't amount to a hill of beans as a problem in this world. And if you like meat, can deal with the damage we all do by eating it (and buying cars and computers and plastic crap, for any holier-than-thou vegetarians who might be itching to respond on their plastic, made-in-China, full-of-toxic metals computers) and can tolerate the risk of dying of much more common diseases (coronary artery disease, obesity, etc.), then go right ahead. I am the first to admit my hypocrisy here. I had a hamburger last night, and will probably have a steak tonight. I'm only human. And you gotta die sometime, of something. And at the moment I am more worried about something that kills more people every week than Mad Cow has *ever* killed, namely a senseless brutal war in a place called Iraq.

rcm

[Totally Committed]

116. Grass-fed Beef, Locally grown

The following link will take you to a website where you can find family farms where grass-fed beef is grown/sold near you:

http://www.localharvest.org/

If you find you cannot give up eating beef, this is an excellent alternative.

TC