Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Meaty subjects

I'm really not anti-meat; I just don't eat it.  I think those who enjoy meat should have small quantities of meat from animals pastured on land that won't support nutritious food crops.

But it's amazing to me how defensive big meat eaters are.  I wish I hadn't looked at the comments on this Science Friday story:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/04/12/2013/red-meat-s-heart-risk-goes-beyond-the-fat.html
I figured my gut flora had changed from years (pushing two decades I think, though I haven't really kept track) of not eating meat, but I did not realize that discouraging those bacteria lowered a risk factor for heart disease.  It's not just the fat and cholesterol in meat, but the bacteria that help us digest it, which lead to coronary risk.

Last Friday's SciFri was a bonanza for foodies, as it also included coverage of the book Gulp. Adventures on the Alimentary Canal,  by Mary Roach.   I caught most of it at the beginning of my trip to Eureka via suburban Laytonville. 

Meanwhile, today's news brings another scary (or scarier) report on antibiotics in meat animals.  It's worse than you thought.  Heavens, it's worse than I thought!  The prophylactic use of the drugs in animals in confined feeding operations is escalating resistance in E. coli, salmonella and Campylobacter and these disease resistant strains are increasingly found in your meat supply.  53% of samples from supermarket raw chicken contained resistant E. coli, for example.  
The short article on NPR's "The Salt" blog is here:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/04/17/177601237/in-meat-tests-more-evidence-of-human-illness-tied-to-farm-antibiotics?ft=1&f=1001 


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