Have Any of You Stopped Eating Beef Because of Mad Cow?

[Stevendsmith]

I was just sitting in a restaurant with some workmates. I was about to order beef, but I decided right there on the spot that I'm just too wigged out to eat it. I ordered vegetarian.

I've been leaning towards going vegetarian for years now--mainly for ethical reasons, but also for health. I think I'm ready to make the big step. A major deciding factor is that I just don't trust the meat industry--especially under the current administration.

[Superfly]

1. Nope...had Taco Bell yesterday

...

[MsFlorida]

3. I'm a little wary

about beef. We've been eating a lot of seafood, etc. However, I did a little research and found out that "organic" beef is most likely very okay.

[Superfly]

I'm a little skeptical

that what Taco Bell puts on their tacos could be considered beef.

But, it is muy tasty!

[commander bunnypants]

2. MMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

or

oooooooooooommmmmmmmmm


I am the mad cow


DDQM

[el_gato]

19. stopped eating all beef

a little pork fish venison and chicken
but mostly i've eat veggie

[SheepyMcSheepster]

4. i have been eating less

and each time i do order it, i hear mad cows taunting me in the distance.

[trotsky]

13. Same here

Personally I believe the risk is incredibly small, but since I don't have an overwhemling urge to eat lots of beef, cutting back isn't a big sacrifice. I had a steak on my birthday, no regrets there! YUMMY.

[Loonman]

5. No, I've been eating more, actually

Prices lower.

[Momof1]

6. YESSSS n/t

[thebaghwan]

7. Yes, and I urge others to do so to help beat Bush

If enough of us quit or at least vut back the beef industry will be all over Bush who will then have to do something. We can see how many Bush alienates over this one.

Boycott Beef!!!

[Democrats unite]

8. Wheres the Beef?...

I need beef!

[TrogL]

9. Eating more of it

the price has come down and it's the patriotic thing to do up here.

[wryter2000]

10. Still eating beef

I won't be eating any brains, though. Not that I ever did.

However, we've always bought Laura's Lean Beef for ground beef. She only feeds her cows grain.

[demnan]

11. I didn't eat it for a couple of weeks

but I've started back. Hell now even salmon gives you cancer so who gives a damn?

About vegetarianism - what about the pesticides they put on all the vegetables, or are you just going to eat certified organic? Hope you're rich.

I do try to stay away from processed butchered meats when I can - that means deli meats and ground meats.

[mars_clover]

12. Nah...

The odds are way against anything bad happening from eating beef.

Clover

[supernova]

14. Stay away from ground beef

it's the one most likely to come in contact with infected brains and spinal cords. It can only be transmitted through eating the infected nervous systems.

But regular muscle steaks should be ok.

[RhodaGrits]

18. actually....

the prions have also been shown in blood. They were feeding cow blood to calves as a supplement (probably not the vealies).

We have done so little testing in this country that no one knows the extent of the problem.

I was horrified to learn that they are now permitting downer cows to be slaughtered for human consumption. This is something that has only been permitted recently.

I am a companion animal veterinarian who has not eaten meat in 12 yrs or so. I advised my meat eating relatives to only consume organic beef and never eat beef in fast food outlets. (I quit eating meat when I moved to an old farm, raised some chickens and found I could kill them, clean them, cook them but not eat them. I have also worked in the past milking and caring for dairy cows and done testing of cattle for the Dept of Ag and Mkts before going into small animal practice.)

Prions are just about impossible to destroy and I don't think you can be too careful about this.

This is one of the best articles I've seen on this and I would strongly urge you to read it:

http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20040101-100629-9509r.htm

[Stevendsmith]

24. Thank You

That was both informative and troubling.

[BigMcLargehuge]

15. yep, after I read Fast Food Nation two years ago

I think I might have eaten a pound of beef, in total, since then.

[DinahMoeHum]

16. I eat lean muscle cuts, nothing with bone on it.

But I don't eat it too often, anyway.

:9

[supernova]

17. Kosher beef

is the other alternative, since slaughtering practices are so different.

[damnraddem]

20. Yeah, I stopped and paused about 30 seconds over my steak ...

before finishing it off.

I do try to avoid ground beef, however.

[arwalden]

21. No... I Don't Eat (much) Beef Because

I'm maintaining my weight... 180 and holding.

-- Allen

[forgethell]

22. Gotta keep the

chloresterol up. Gimme another steak

[NoPasaran]

23. Yes

I'm not really all that worried about getting sick (since I never eat at Taco Bell anyway). Mostly I'm just disgusted with the beef industry.

[geniph]

25. Haven't eaten red meat in 20 years

so it's not like I've had to change any habits. If I had still been a beef eater, I'd have quit after reading Fast Food Nation, anyway.

[mouse7]

26. Yep... I'm in ground zero

They found it all near here, and they have no freakin' idea which distributors got the beef and which didn't... so...

I'm still eating my chicken soup... yep... that chicken soup. That pot of chicken soup made 12 quarts. I still have 4 quarts left in containers in the fridge.

[geniph]

33. Well, hi, neighbor!

Are you on the wet side or the dry side? (I'm in Auburn, on the wet side.)

[Pobeka]

38. Howdy neighbor!

From Tacoma :hi:

[lazarus]

27. Hilarious

You stood a much much much higher chance of catching something nasty because the guy who made your taco didn't wash his hands in the bathroom, you know.

[scarlet_owl]

28. I stopped.

At first, I wasn't worried about it. But since Chimpy is urging people to eat it, I thought that it might be a good idea to stop. I don't trust him as far as I can throw him.

[INTELBYTES]

29. I stop eating long enough to bless my food.

Then I tear into it!!

[dawn]

30. Yes, and this is why:

I read that the USDA is not banning the feeding of renderings (leftover cow) to the cows, like the British did after their mad cow outbreak. They will also not examine each cow, like the Japanese, Europeans, and British do, to ensure that the cow isn't sick.

I just don't see why they don't ban the feeding of the renderings to the animals. It's a proven method of mad cow transmission from cow to cow. Of course, Shrub doesn't want to enforce that because it will piss off ConAgra and the other agribusiness companies.

I'm pretty much vegetarian, anyway, besides the occaisional sushi outing.

[trof]

31. no

[ScreamingMeemie]

32. No, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. I live for today.

:hi:

[htuttle]

36. Personally, I find it somewhat safer to...

...watch out for buses when I'm crossing the street, and not eat beef or pork (just poultry and fish). I try to avoid playing Russian Roulette, too.

:hi:

OTOH, smoking will probably kill me first. But since I wasn't actually addicted to beef, it was a lot easier to give up than cigarettes.

:shrug:

[Th1onein]

34. A low carber here.....

I eat a lot of beef and I don't plan on quitting. It's better for me, I think, than eating all of those carbs and getting cancer or heart disease. Of course, I could eat chicken, pork or fish....but it just doesn't provide the variety beef does....

[Kathy in Cambridge]

35. Naturally-raised beef (Coleman, Whole Foods, etc)

I won't buy the store stuff generally...I don't eat a lot of beef, maybe every other week or so.

[Trainman91765DB]

37. Stopped eating beef

At first I wasn't going to. However about 2 weeks after the initial announcement the news said that a local chain in Sacramento had bought beef from the herd in Oregon. Although I don't shop at that chain, that news was enough for me. My wife and I are taking a break - its healthier anyway.

[bigwillq]

39. Nope. Had a cheeseburger yesterday

It was delicious

[MrSlayer]

40. No. I'm not worried at all.

My eating habits remain the same. Plenty of Filet Mignon at the Eagles game this Sunday.

[Pobeka]

41. Yes. The USDA has NO CLUE as to the extent of the problem.

They sample something like 1 in every 3600 animals. The point of their testing was not to determine the extent of the problem, only to determine if the disease was resident in cattle in the U.S.A.

Now, they know BSE is here, it's resident. They cannot tell us how long it's been here. They cannot tell us the percent of cattle infected. They've allowed cattle by-products to be fed to other livestock, and I'd guess they then allow those other livestock types to be fed back to cattle. Given you can't even incinerate a prion and get rid of it, cow-pig-cow does not give me any confidence at all that the industry as a whole, or the government is concerned about safeguarding the meat supply.

If I eat beef again, I'm going to thoroughly investigate the ranch it comes from. I do like a good steak, and will be buying beef from a source I can completely trust, which is probably the small ranch/farm operations.

On Edit: Make that "Yes". Stopped eating beef

[silverlib]

42. Only from Whole Foods

and only once a week. This is a BIG change for my family. Previously, we ate beef four to five times a week, with chicken and pork the other two nights.

I started cutting down after reading fast food nation - that book certainly stopped my fast food habits, as well as the processed meat, but I continued eating beef from the local grocery store.

Everything is Fast Food Nation is coming home to roost. I'm trying to implement more vegetables and fruit, but never buy organic from Mexico because of the onion/hepatitis A epidemic.

[Katarina]

43. Ground beef...

We stopped eating ground beef here. This past weekend I went out and bought a meat grinder and will grind my own beef from now on. Besides that though, nothing has changed here. To be honest, we stopped eating much beef before then because it had gotten so expensive. Right before the mad cow happened I noticed that the ground beef I usually buy (8% fat) had went up about $1 a pound. With 4 boys, there is no way I could afford that so my teenagers went without cheeseburger for a few weeks. You would have thought I was abusing them if you could have heard them. :eyes:
As far as fast food goes...I didn't go there often before and I will probably never step another foot in there now.

[Coventina]

44. I quit eating beef because of mad cow 10 years ago

when I read about it in "In These Times". I believe it was 1993 when they ran a lengthy article about Mad Cow that scared the owl poop out of me.

Now that I have been away from it for a decade, I can honestly say that I don't miss it. In fact, the thought of eating beef slightly nauseates me. In the meantime, I've also quit pork and *almost* quit eating poultry as well. (I lapse every now and then).
I could never give up seafood. I wouldn't even set myself up for that failure.

[joeybee12]

45. I eat little beef as it is, and haven't had any since the case of MC was

reported.

Probably will hold off for a while longer, too. It's not much of a sacrifice for me!

[Iris]

46. I haven't eaten ground beef since reading Fast Food Nation last summer,

but that's the only type of beef I'm really afraid of.