Why STOP buying most beef....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 6-25-2013

Buying most beef today is like casting a deciding vote to bring back the days when life was very short and often ended suddenly and people spent a lot of their time going to funerals.

The much better news is if you don’t eat that kind of beef either your health will be dramatically better.

If you think this is totally bogus and an over-reaction, PLEASE read this post.

It’s completely real.

I truly wish it wasn't so.  But it really is that bad.

My wife is a history buff and loves to read history from before the revolutionary war to the end of the civil war.

One thing she remarks on occasionally reading about what life was like then is the number of people with friends or children or relatives who die rather suddenly at almost any age.  And, by today’s standards, the surprising amount of time people spent going to funerals.

There are two reasons for that.

Since then we've developed public health methods that have slashed the number of people who get sick.  And, things that, back then, very often caused fatal diseases from bacterial infection that were once untreatable have mostly been curable with antibiotics.

1.  The factory farms and processors of various kinds, in the United States, that raise and process beef have decided that making a bit more money is more important than the side effect of causing almost all our antibiotics to stop working.

2.  The factory farms and processors of various kinds, in the United States have used their money to prevent our governmental agencies from doing the right thing and banning these practices.

A majority of total antibiotic use in the United States now is to give cattle antibiotics EVERY DAY even when they aren’t sick.

The cattle raised in criminally crowded and filthy conditions don’t get sick so far.  So the growers and processors can get away with not spending any time or money to provide healthier and more humane conditions.

And, growers found that when cattle didn’t need to fight off being sick, they gained weight faster and cost less to feed for that shorter time.

The problem is that all our antibiotics are now on their way to NOT working because of the antibiotic proof bacteria this is producing.

Worse, if you eat the beef with the antibiotic resistant or antibiotic proof bacteria in it, it will tend to cause antibiotics to NOT work in YOU anymore.  You eat them and they can teach  bacteria you get infected by to stop being killed by antibiotics too.

So, maybe you saved a quarter on your hamburger.  And, there’s lots of it around because the growers and processors make an extra quarter or so per hamburger too.

For THEM this is a LOT of money. 

But for you, it’s totally not worth it!

Are the countries in the rest of the world that stupid?

No. 

Denmark found that eliminating this practice did NOT drive beef producers out of business.  They adapted to healthier ways of raising cattle and it wasn't THAT expensive to do so.

And the number of other countries that are doing the same is growing – as it should be!

Don’t count on the FDA or the USDA here to protect you.  They clearly should have already done so by about five years ago!

But the industry has had too much money for them to be able to regulate.

So, how do you protect yourself?

You actually need to do a lot.  Wash your hands more often.  Be fanatic about cleaning cuts and keeping a bandage on them until they heal. Take probiotics.  Take at least 500 mg a day of vitamin C and at least 3,000 iu a day of vitamin D3.  Make a special effort to NOT have surgery if you possibly can. 

But the simplest thing is to just stop buying this kind of beef and stop eating it.

Not only can you do that, it will improve your health dramatically to do so.  That kind of beef has MANY other health problems you can also avoid. 

(That kind of beef is fed, even stuffed with, GMO corn and soy which are heavily sprayed with pesticides and herbicides.  So that kind of beef is sky high in omega 6 oils which helps cause heart disease and many cancers from the high chronic inflammation it causes.  And, the fat has bioconcentrated pesticides and herbicides.  So, don’t eat that kind of beef ever -- or at the very least eat the most fat trimmed and lean versions only if you value your health!)

Do you have to eat an all vegetarian diet to do that?

No!  You don’t even need to completely stop eating beef -- because some growers feed their cattle only grass or organically raised spouts.  Whole Foods carries it.  And, you can buy it online.  It costs more, so you will eat less beef.

But protein from other sources works fine the rest of the time:

Eating beans and nonfat cottage cheese works well with extra virgin olive oil and spices.  So does eating eggs from hens fed only on natural pasture and eating wild caught fish.  And there are dozens more ways to get health OK protein foods.

If enough of us vote with our money to eat other foods and far more sanely raised beef, despite our ineffective government, we CAN make a difference.  Beef growers and processors are businesses.  If half the population stops buying their stuff, they will pay attention!