Contaminated Veggies Are the Meat Industry’s Fault

[Guest guest]

Contaminated Veggies Are the Meat Industry's Fault

By Allison Kilkenny, Buffalo Beast

Posted on June 24, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/89015/

Despite being one of the most grotesquely overfed populations in

recent memory, Americans remain preoccupied only with the quantity,

not the quality, of their food. They don't mind if scientists inject

their french fries with high-fructose corn syrup as long as

McDonald's super-sizes their order for a nickel.

Yet, the attitude toward vegetarianism is changing in the United

States. While it's difficult to quantify how many vegetarians live

within our borders, it's easier to observe the attitude toward

vegetarians. Twenty years ago, " What're you, a Commie? " was a

typical response to a confession of veggie brotherhood. Nowadays,

despite the occasional stink eye, meat eaters at least understand

that vegetarianism is healthy, if not a lifestyle particularly

suited for them.

Even though the United States is more veggie-friendly these days,

it's still difficult to avoid crappy food, even if one chooses to

become a vegan, as I did six years ago. Despite my decision, I found

myself projectile vomiting into my toilet last week. Diagnosis: food

poisoning. Suspect: tomatoes. Unfortunately, becoming a vegetarian

or a vegan doesn't ensure healthiness. Sure, vegetarians enjoy many

health perks (low rates of: heart disease, obesity, diabetes,

cancer, etc.) but we're still at the mercy of the meat industry in

many ways.

For starters, the meat industry poisons the environment. A 2006

United Nations report described the devastation caused by the meat

industry as " one of the top two or three most significant

contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every

scale from local to global. " Aside from global warming, meat

production is a large factor in deforestation, wasted land, and air

and water contamination.

Water contamination may play a large part in increasing reports of

vegetable and fruit contamination. In 2007, a California produce

company recalled bagged fresh spinach after a sample tested positive

for salmonella. Nearly a year before, an outbreak of E. coli in

fresh spinach killed three people and sickened 200. The recent

tomato salmonella outbreak has affected at least 145 people,

resulting in 23 hospitalizations, and many believe water

contamination is the cause of the affected tomatoes.

It's not the veggies that are to blame. The problem is the meat.

Salmonella is an animal pathogen, so it doesn't originate from

tomatoes. Most experts agree that the bacteria probably come from

groundwater contaminated with animal feces.

You read that right: Cow shit is in your tomatoes. Actually, cow

shit is in everything: the water, hamburgers, other plant life, and

if one ascribes to the hippie New Age belief that we are all one

pulsating organism upon Mother Earth, then cow shit is in all of us.

But in a realer, more concrete sense, frenzied production lines

coupled with lax management have resulted in a dramatic increase in

food poisoning. The shitty (literally) food is so prevalent that

it's affecting non-meat-eaters. While salmonella prefers fleshy

fruit like tomatoes, our friend E. coli prefers leafy greens like

spinach.

The problem is prevalent. A recent census of produce outbreaks

between 1996 and 2007 counted no fewer than 33 epidemics from

salmonella-contaminated fruits and vegetables.

Some scientists claim the cure for salmonella and E. coli

contamination isn't scrubbing clean the fruits and vegetables

because doing so could remove the good bacteria humans rely upon for

survival. The solution will come from the government and outraged

citizens demanding that the meat industry clean up its practices so

fresh produce doesn't suffer.

The outrage has already exploded in other parts of the world. While

cows poison groundwater and otherwise healthy plant life here at

home, Americans remain mute about the diseased slabs of meat they're

consistently forced to choose from at their grocery stores.

Meanwhile, angry mobs took to the streets of South Korea when their

government resumed importing beef from the United States. This

wasn't some kind of fervent anti-American protest, but rather

concerned citizens protecting themselves from potential mad cow

disease.

In America, the only way citizens can protect themselves is to grow

their own food or to buy their food from local, trusted farmers who

don't use chemicals or unethical farming practices. But many poorer,

urban citizens have no choice but to buy whatever food is cheap and

readily available.

Still, all of this isn't cause for concern. Unless, of course,

citizens are worried about the expanding legion of rotund American

children who despise vegetables, binge on bagged chips and walk only

if the landscape slopes downhill. The obesity rate is so wildly out

of control that Americans collectively celebrated this year -- not

when the child population began to lose weight, but when they ceased

to get fatter and obesity rates finally plateaued for the first time

in 20 years.

Unfortunately, Americans can't fix their unhealthy eating until

supposedly " healthy " food is clean of bacteria originating in

diseased cows. Of course, the crazy practices of the meat industry

shouldn't concern citizens ... unless they're worried about global

warming. The Environmental Defense Fund reports that if every

American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted it

with vegetarian foods, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same

as taking more than a half-million cars off U.S. roads.

In fact, the crazy practices of the meat industry probably won't

rock citizens at all until they find themselves knelt over their

toilets, hurling. Right about then, they'll understand how cow shit

affects them all.

© 2008 Buffalo Beast All rights reserved.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/89015/