Posted on 08/24/2015 9:47:29 AM PDT by Red Badger
Store-bought ground beef often contains a variety of bacteria that can make humans sick and is resistant to the drugs used to treat it, according to new data from Consumer Reports.
While most bacteria in meat can be killed when cooked correctly, many Americans prefer to eat their meat rare, putting them at a greater risk for illness—especially when the meat comes from conventionally raised cows, which are treated with antibiotics and hormones, according to a new Consumer Reports study. The study found that nearly 20% of ground beef in the U.S. tested from conventionally raised cows had bacteria resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics. Only 9% of ground beef that was sustainably made had antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
For the report, Consumer Reports purchased and tested 300 packages of conventionally and sustainably produced ground beef sold in stores around the U.S. The meat was tested for five common types of bacteria that can be found in beef: Clostridium perfringens, E. coli, Enterococcus, Salmonella and Staphylococcus aureus. Bacteria of some kind was found in all of the beef samples,
[snip]
More than 80% of conventional ground beef had two types of bacteria and nearly 20% of the samples contained C. perfringens, which causes close to a million cases of food poisoning every year. “There’s no way to tell by looking at a package of meat or smelling it whether it has harmful bacteria or not,” Urvashi Rangan, executive director of the Center for Food Safety and Sustainability at Consumer Reports, said.“You have to be on guard every time.”
The research also found that 10% of the samples had a strain of S. aureus that produces a toxin that can make people ill and is not killed even when the meat is cooked properly.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/255645.php
“due to significant safety improvements in beef handling, the study reported that deaths associated with beef accounted for less than 4 percent of the food-related deaths, and less than 7 percent of sicknesses.”
Close to half of all reported illnesses were caused by “produce”.
Poultry was responsible for the most deaths, affecting 19 percent of fatal cases.
Fish and shellfish made up for 6.4 percent of deaths, while dairy and eggs made up 15 percent of deaths.
It doesn’t matter what kind of meat it is, beef, chicken, pork, armadillo, it all has the potential to make you ill because of bacteria. Take a food safety course sometime and will put you off eating altogether for a while. Personally I remember being a school kid with our lunches sitting in a cloakroom for 3 or 4 hours unrefrigerated and no one getting sick or field trips with them cooking in the bus storage and no one died. The more advanced we seem to get the sillier we get about what is gonna kill us.
armadillo:
Experts warn Floridians to steer clear of armadillos to avoid leprosy exposure
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3314894/posts
That adds up to only about 45% for meats of all kinds, so produce was over 50%........................unless they attributed 5% or so to ‘unknown’......................
I know, that’s why I threw that one in ;^)
It just makes sense. That pre-ground poison is processed from a lot of cattle. One sick animal poisons all of it. If you grind your own, or have it ground at the time of purchase, you don't get that mixture.
Another finding of the study is that grass fed organic beef is healthier than the standard stuff, which is grain fed and contains antibiotics.
Please enlighten us to the difference between "ground beef" and "filet mignon" if both are rare when served. Do you include T-bone, Prime Rib, Rib-eye, Porterhouse, Tenderloin, Top Round, et al?
Thanks so much for making me hungry for a big piece of beef this early. I thank the cattle industry for raising, killing, and slaughtering stupid cows. "Where's the beef?" Har.
Rare? As a kid, I used to eat it raw with just salt and pepper.......
As a former Lab guy who worked testing ground beef for a major beef producer I can say that we only tested for TOPSTEC- or Top Six Toxins E. Coli. We used to test for Salmonella but stopped, I believe its because Salmonella is ubiquitous in meat of all kind and is easily killed at safe temps.
I grind my own. It’s easy, and I also don’t have to worry if the butcher has kept his grinder clean.
people who buy filet mignon can afford to sue if they get sick ;)
No it’s more expensive because it takes longer to get to the table. Still subsidized if the farmer has a large enough operation.
“We only eat grass fed beef from local sustainable farms. It’s more expensive because it’s not subsidized.”
Meat production isn’t subsidized. Cattle grow much slower on grass; is why it would cost more.
There is a reason people having been cooking their food for thousands of years.
I can’t believe there are people who don’t know those nice, fat grain fed feedlot cattle have been fed grain full of drugs to make them grow fat and fast-every ranch kid knows that-it is why most of us insist on grass fed beef...
I buy beef at a local butcher shop-from grass fed cattle, raised in this area and free of the growth hormones that feedlot cattle are given. I like my beef rare-medium and well done is no better than eating one of my rawhide work gloves, as far as I’m concerned...
So did I, but ECOLI 157 wasn’t around back then... It evolved and was discovered in 1982. Ecoli has been around forever, but variant o157, the one that can kill you came about in the 80s.
Eating commercially available undercooked ground meat since then is just a matter of when, not if, you will get yourself sick from it.
And yet we have survived all these years...
Vegetarians, shut yer pie holes!
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