American Politics  » Eating Low Carb? Be Informed About Mad Cow

Eating Low Carb? Be Informed About Mad Cow

Finding Mad Cow in Oregon puts a new wrinkle in the high protein

diet, doesn't it? What's a person to do that wants to eat more

meat, not less?

Are you Eating Less Meat Due to Mad Cow Disease?

Not the people I've spoken with. Most are saying, "Yipee, beef's

on sale!" The food industry has done a great job of convincing us

they are providing a safe food supply and we've been lulled into

a false sense of security. Nothing could be further from the

truth.

In July 1988, a ban was introduced in the UK which prohibited the

use of the remains of sheep in cattle feed. BSE is thought to

have spread to cattle from feed including meat and bone meal made

from sheep suffering from a similar brain disease, called

scrapie.

Ban Not Properly Enforced

Unfortunately the ban was not enforced properly for many years

and remained a paper exercise (exactly as it has been in the US

ever since).

Francis Anthony, a Herefordshire veterinary surgeon, and the

British Veterinary Association's spokesman on BSE said, "If the

ban had been enforced properly from the start, I have no

hesitation in saying categorically that we should be seeing only

a few cases today. But that contaminated feed was being given to

animals until at least 1995, and possibly a year later."

The false sense of security for us in the US came from it being

widely reported that the practice had been banned. They failed to

make it clear that this was a "voluntary ban." Even I falsely

Mad Cow Facts...

believed they had long ago ended this practice until the recent

news reports that it is still being done. Despite there being a

clear connection between feeding rendered animals to animals

causing Mad Cow disease, the meat and dairy industry continues

the practice to this day. Why? Corporate greed, plain and simple.

It is a cheap source of "protein" and makes cows and other

animals fatten faster. A fatter animals weighs more, and they are

sold by weight.

I have no doubt that people in the US aren't getting excited

about the threat or beginning to avoid beef simply because no

people have been reported with the disease. After all, this was a

sick cow, not a human. Hence, people do not consider it a direct

threat. Amazingly they don't consider those with CJD

(Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) a variant of Mad Cow as being related

when clearly it is.

The Costs of Clean Meat Supply

The meat and dairy industry will now begin a campaign to make the

higher cost of clean meat seem a ridiculous indulgence rather

than a possibly life saving measure. It does cost more to have a

clean food supply. I and my family are worth it, are you and

yours?

For excellent reference materials read Fast Food Nation by Eric

Schlosser, The Crazy Makers by Carol Simontacchi, and Mad Cowboy:

Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher who Won't Eat Meat by Howard

F. Lyman. Be informed then make the choice for you and your

family.

Food politics aside, I'm interested in my and my families health

and well being, and I'm not interested in supporting an industry

that doesn't care about the quality of their products or whether

those products are potentially dangerous or even deadly.

What You Can Do to Avoid Dangerous Meat

Buy all your meat from the local butcher. He gets the animals

from local farmers, and can tell you which Farms, if you ask.

Buy all your meat from local stores that certify it is grain fed.

Visit sites such as EatWild.com

Cut back on your consumption of all meat in general, substituting

beans for instance for protein.

Eat a "special occasion" steak at the best restaurants such as

Ruth Chris' Steak House. Now that's a steak!

More Info on Mad Cow and it's Variant CJD

MadCow.org: Everything you ever wanted to know about Mad Cow.

Human BSE Foundation: An organization for those with CJD (the

human variant of Mad Cow)

Mad Cow Facts

You don't have to be a fanatic, just be informed and then make

the best choices you can for yourself and your family.

About the Author

Kathryn Martyn, Master NLP Practitioner, author of the free

e-book: Changing Beliefs, Your First Step to Permanent Weight

Loss, and owner of http://www.OneMoreBite-Weightloss.com

Get The Daily Bites: Inspirational Mini Lessons Using EFT and

NLP for Ending the Struggle with Weight Loss.

http://www.onemorebite-weightloss.com/getnews.html