Have you reduced/eliminated beef consumption due to the risk of Mad Cow?

[UdoKier]

Cattle Industry Awaits Mad Cow Results
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041122/us_nm/madcow_usa_dc_3



Have you reduced/eliminated beef consumption due to the risk of Mad Cow?

[tk2kewl]

1. i cut down simply to eat healthier/lower cholesterol

[FloridaPat]

2. I've stopped eating ground beef unless it's been ground locally

which is not done anymore. That is the disaster waiting to happen. They way we process hamburger guarantees that most of the population will get hit with the same thing at one time. Too much risk for me!

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. I found a source of grain fed beef

as well as buffalo, grain fed.

They are not cheap, so we don't eat it too often, otherwise we cut it completely

[Bridget Burke]

4. I tend to eat less & buy beef from the healthier sources.

Whole Foods or Central Market.

I gave up on ground beef some time ago due to a nasty case of food poisoning.

[Redleg]

5. My family stopped eating beef since last December.

We stopped because of the last mad cow report. Boy do I miss eating a nice medium-rare steak.

[Synnical]

6. I cut it out almost completely after reading

Fast Food Nation. Our food sources are not safe. Still enjoy a good steak occasionally, but it's rare anymore.

[kayell]

7. I eliminated beef and other meats for environmental, human rights,

economic justice and animal cruelty reasons. Approximately in that order. Lowered health risks are a pretty nice benefit.

A good resource http://www.earthsave.org/

[fugue]

8. Me, too, although different order

But I may already be done for. I was still eating beef when I lived in Britain in 1986-87. I can never give blood because of that.

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

9. Mother Nature Recoils

To right the wrong.
The industrialized farming industry is beyond cruel and sadistic,
and absolutely, completely, totally unnecessary in a modern society.

meat doesn't grow in cellophane packages.
Cows are so trusting of people, and some of the most loving mothers in nature--
why don't we eat dogs, or stupid people for that matter ?
oh I guess it's "we've always done it this way"
Same argument for slavery , womens' rights, civil rights...etc.,


USA consumes 60% of the worlds cow meat
USA= 6% of the world's population----
go figure

[TroglodyteScholar]

10. You need another choice:

"Mad Cow doesn't concern me personally because I was already a vegetarian"

[RawMaterials]

11. Yes all but one thing skyline chile (cincy thing)

[Lorien]

12. The Beef council is also a huge GOP contributor

as is the pork council. Florida's #1 industry is beef cattle (not citrus or tourism).

[DrWeird]

13. Switched to organic beef.

I occasionally play russian roulette and eat at fast food places.

[northzax]

14. how about another option?

no, and I don't really plan to. BSE is really a non-player in the disease world. Last year 35,000,000 cows were slaughtered in the US. One tested positive for BSE. that ain't a big risk factor, you know? Even if 10,000 tested positive, that is still a negligable amount.

vCJD, the human disease believed to be related to BSE has, in fact, killed roughly 50 people in the UK (and one in the US who moved from the UK.) there are no cases of vCJD reported in the US that were developed domestically. none.

So maybe we're simply not reporting them, no one knows what to look for? It could happen, right? well, let's assume that some of the cases of CJD reported in the US are, in fact, vCJD that no one bothered to ID. It would surely show up in statistical analysis. Especially in the UK, home of the highest incidence of BSE, and of vcjd. But in fact, it doesn't. Despite 25 years of potential exposure to contaminated meat, the overall incidence of CJD remained constant. That means that when you combine the incidence of CJD with that of vCJD, the same percentage of the population gets sick. It appears that vCJD may simply be early-onset CJD. You would think that if the presence of CJD prions in beef transmitted the disease, more people would get sick. But that simply isn't the case. The same number of people get sick, some get sick earlier, perhaps, but the same number get sick and die. You would think, in fact, that increase lifespans would lead to MORE people getting sick, since 98% of CJD victims are over the age of 40, but it doesn't work that way. Indeed, the number of people felled by vCJD remains below 100 worldwide, a full decade after increasingly strict precautions were put in place to prevent the entrance of BSE Prions into the food of humans. Surely it is a good thing to continue to work to prevent the introduction of diseased cattle into food, all diseases, but to focus on BSE is to overlook other, more dangerous alternatives. Perhaps we will, in time, find a connection between the two diseases, but right now there isn't one.(statistical analysis provided by:http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/3/25) Caveat: it turns out that if yo uinject monkeys with huge doses pf BSE prions, they die or a similar disease. No one has show that feeding monkeys infected meat is a hazard. No one has shows that these prions are, in fact, able to escape the intestinal tract and infect humans. no one (obviously,) has infected humans with prions directly to see what happens. No BSE prions have been identified in a human at any time.

So why do I care so much? I grew up in England at the target time, in the most exposed population. I now (knock on wood) find myself to have avoided vCJD, wherever it comes from, given tht the median age for onset and death is 29, and I have successfully made 30. In two years I will be free and clear.