E-COLI FOR THE MASSES

Sunday’s LA Times had an eye-opening article on a young woman who, after eating a hamburger her mother grilled for her, became very sick and after being in a coma for nine months ended up paralyzed. The doctors think she will never be able to walk again. The hamburgers that her mom bought were frozen and from a large, well-known company. They were labeled “American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties.”

Let me tell you that reading this article made me shudder. Ground beef is usually not simply a chunk of meat run through a grinder, like we suppose. Instead, records and interviews show that a single portion of hamburger meat often contains various grades of meat from different parts of cows and maybe from different slaughterhouses. The Times reports that grinding logs and other company records showed that hamburgers were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria.

These cuts of meat are particularly vulnerable to E. coli contamination, food experts and officials say. Despite this, there is no federal requirement for grinders to test their ingredients for the pathogen.

The article goes on, allowing what happened to this beautiful young woman illustrate at every step just what these dangers can mean, in part because our government lets each company to decide for themselves what precautions they want to take. And as jaded as it sounds, I’m sure the “decider” in this case is M-O-N-E-Y.

Nothing against Uruguay, but frankly I want to eat beef from that hasn’t been shipped from another continent. The other day at our local supermarket I found a packet labeled “the meat might be from Australia, New Zealand or Canada.” To be perfectly honest with you, I never was a big meat eater, and I’ve now decided I will no longer knowingly eat ground beef. The thought of it simply turns my stomach.

I know e-coli gets in other things, like packaged salads. I also know you don’t have to literally eat something to get e-coli. I have read the reports of what goes into wieners. When Consumer Reports told me about the percentage of maggots allowed in canned mushroom, I never again have used canned mushrooms. Instead, I buy fresh mushrooms and inspect them as carefully as I can before I use them. At least I can eat them with a clear conscience. I bought plastic boards to use when I cut up chickens, instead of my nice but unsafe wooded cutting. I know I can’t stop eating because of all the things I don’t know about. But all along I have little by little decided to eliminate certain things from my diet just because I feel better about doing it. And ground beef is next.

I am sending along the URL to the NY Times article, because you should do yourself a favor and read it. Might be the best thing you ever did for yourself.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/health/04meat.html?_r=1