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Post by kimmsr๐ on Feb 23, 2018 5:52:17 GMT -5
From The Organic Consumers Association
Cheap and Dirty
If you live in the U.S., youโre far more likely to get hit with salmonella or some other foodborne illness, than if you live in the U.K. You can thank the factory farm industry for that.
An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) and the Guardian found โshockingly highโ levels of foodborne illness in the U.S. The Guardian reports that annually, around 14.7 percent (48 million people) of the U.S. population is estimated to suffer from an illness, compared to around 1.5 percent (1 million) in the UK. In the U.S., 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die each year of foodborne diseases.
Driving these grim statistics is the multi-billion-dollar industrial factory farm industry that not only makes us sick, but pollutes our water and air, exploits workers, is causing an antibiotic resistance crisis and is unconscionably inhumane.
They do it all in the name of โcheap food.โ
TBIJ and the Guardian conducted its investigation based on U.S. government documents containing data on 47 meat plants across the U.S. According to the Guardian:
Some of the documents relate to certain companies, including Pilgrimโs Pride, one of the USโs biggest poultry producers, and Swift Pork. Although not a comprehensive portrait of the sector - there are around 6,000 US plants regularly inspected by Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) - the documents provide a snapshot of issues rarely detailed in public which has rung alarm bells with campaigners in both the US and UK.
Those rarely detailed โissuesโ include: meat contaminated with fecal matter; meat processing equipment contaminated with grease and blood; and chicken dropped on the floor then rinsed with chlorine and put back in the production line.
Itโs enough to make anyoneโs stomach turn.
Itโs also enough to make consumers and entire neighborhoods revolt, and citizens to get more politically active.
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Post by tom ๐ on Feb 23, 2018 8:55:54 GMT -5
If you live in the U.S., youโre far more likely to get hit with salmonella or some other foodborne illness, than if you live in the U.K. You can thank the factory farm industry for that. Are you sure that the main source of food poisoning is contaminated meat? I think the main source is improper food handling at the retail level. I have never had food poisoning from food prepared at home.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Feb 23, 2018 9:06:42 GMT -5
My thoughts too, tom ๐. Besides that major infection that I had (which docs thought I may have gotten in rehab or hospital), I can't begin to tell you how many times I have come down with something after a restaurant meal. Another reason I rarely eat out!
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Post by tom ๐ on Feb 23, 2018 10:45:08 GMT -5
I can't begin to tell you how many times I have come down with something after a restaurant meal. I enjoy cooking. Many do not and find cooking and cleaning up a burdensome chore. My view is each his own. I have a neighbor who does not cook. When his car is gone, I figure, Buddy's out looking for food. Had an uncle who did not cook. I asked him, Don't you get sick from all this eating out? He said he did, once or twice a year, but would take something to keep from getting sick. Uncle lived to be 99, so fast food can't be too toxic.
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Post by davidjp on Feb 23, 2018 10:48:41 GMT -5
Theres a few stories in the British press about this at the moment.
A lot of it is to do with Brexit and the fear that once out of the EU and able to conduct independent trade deals any free trade deal with the US will involve having to accept US farm products with generally lower standards. Chlorinated washing of chickens and salmonella are the main things they talk about, but also the generally lower humane standards in US food production.
They have had great success in the UK with vaccinating against salmonella in their laying flock so its really almost eliminated that source of contamination. I don't understand why the US hasn't done that, I'm sure cost is the issue.
They also handle eggs very differently as well, eggs in UK aren't allowed to be washed which removes the protective antimicrobial layer that the hen deposits on it and so eggs are sold unrefridgerated. But also has something to do with shorter supply lines
www.forbes.com/sites/nadiaarumugam/2012/10/25/why-american-eggs-would-be-illegal-in-a-british-supermarket-and-vice-versa/#2bce5e0f4050
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Post by tom ๐ on Feb 23, 2018 11:17:43 GMT -5
They have had great success in the UK with vaccinating against salmonella in their laying flock so its really almost eliminated that source of contamination. I don't understand why the US hasn't done that, I'm sure cost is the issue. Isn't the purpose of vaccinating chickens against salmonella just to protect the chickens against infection? It doesn't mean that meat and eggs is free of salmonella since chickens carry it in their intestines. I am not clear on this point.
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Post by davidjp on Feb 23, 2018 11:25:05 GMT -5
Isn't the purpose of vaccinating chickens against salmonella just to protect the chickens against infection? It doesn't mean that meat and eggs is free of salmonella since chickens carry it in their intestines. I am not clear on this point. No its just for human health, I think chickens can carry salmonella without too many effects in their digestive and reproductive tracts. That's my understanding anyway. It just means the incidence of salmonella in eggs has been virtually eliminated so that source of infection has been effectively removed. I don't think they vaccinate meat chickens so that remains a source which is probably the bigger concern, and I'm not sure if that's even been tried or whether its not effective. I'm sure there's plenty of other ways to contract it but its one aspect that has been found to be significant in the past.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Feb 23, 2018 15:12:53 GMT -5
Have there ever been any statisics about what % of salmonella was injested from meat and eggs? Was it a lot more from eggs in the UK, which is why they didn't bother with the meat chickens?
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Post by tom ๐ on Feb 23, 2018 16:04:32 GMT -5
Have there ever been any statisics about what % of salmonella was injested from meat and eggs? pepperhead212 , after spending several hours on this interesting topic, I apparently put all my notes in the wrong computer folder and so cannot find them. Here are my impressions: British improvement in handling salmonella is a consequence of a national disaster -- massive deaths from salmonella inside eggs. Think Mad Cow. There is no law in the UK compelling chicken vaccination. Rather, major grocery chains will not sell eggs from hens that are not vaccinated. Thus, all mass-marketed eggs in the UK are from vaccinated hens. Most mass-marketed eggs in the USA are now from vaccinated hens. This is because growers must assume a massive loss if any of their eggs are found to contain salmonella. There is no law compelling vaccination in the USA, and it is uncertain that vaccination alone is sufficient to prevent salmonella infected eggs. The reduction of human infection from salmonella in the UK may be as much from improved inspection and sanitation as from vaccination. Vaccination is not a 100% guarantee against salmonella infection of an egg. Eat a raw egg and pray to God. Thorough cooking 100% eliminates the possibility of salmonella infection from an egg, provided proper sanitation is followed in handling the egg. Chickens raised for meat are unvaccinated in both the UK and USA.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Feb 23, 2018 16:25:57 GMT -5
So I guess I still can't lick beaters and bowls, when making anything with eggs. ๐ฅ
I would think that the handling of chicken meat would be a more likely way to transmit salmonella than eggs, but I'm just guessing, given my way of cooking.
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Post by davidjp on Feb 23, 2018 16:39:38 GMT -5
I don't know about the massive deaths from salmonella. I don't remember that happening but I might not have been living there at the time.
There was a big political drama when a junior health minister, Edwina Currie, in Margaret Thatchers government went on record saying pretty much all British eggs were contaminated with salmonella. At the time the dept of health was also responsible for farming and agriculture I think and so she was forced to resign even though it was a true statement. Of course at the time egg sales plummeted and I think one of the main reasons they went to vaccination was an attempt to win back the confidence of the consumer.
I think theres was also some element of wanting to get her out as well as she was an up and coming politician and I think she thought she might be in the running at some point. Years later it turned out she was having an affair with the next Prime Minister John Major which was quite surprising to everyone I think.
I actually think she wasn't well treated at the time, she was basically telling the truth but the industry wasn't happy so she had to go. After that they decoupled responsibilities for health away from agriculture which is probably a good thing
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/12131435/Runny-eggs-are-safe-experts-say-28-years-after-salmonella-crisis.html
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Post by tom ๐ on Feb 23, 2018 16:46:17 GMT -5
So I guess I still can't lick beaters and bowls, when making anything with eggs. ๐ฅ I would think that the handling of chicken meat would be a more likely way to transmit salmonella than eggs, but I'm just guessing, given my way of cooking. My opinion is: Don't eat raw eggs, although I had a friend with stomach problems whose doctor told him to eat raw eggs. I will not eat raw fish either. I know what it has done to people in thailand and what happens to Americans who eat sushi, unless you have a hankering for tapeworms. Prometheus brought us fire so we could cook and save ourselves from parasites and diseases. Chicken meat is infectious because of the way it is handled in slaughter.
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Post by tom ๐ on Feb 23, 2018 16:58:03 GMT -5
There was a big political drama when a junior health minister, Edwina Currie, in Margaret Thatchers government went on record saying pretty much all British eggs were contaminated with salmonella. Of course, all weren't, but who wants to play Russian roulette with an egg? Edwina Currie, in my opinion, ought to be considered a British Joan of Arc. She took the heat, and, I suppose, has been burned at the political stake. That woman deserved to be immortalized.
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Post by tom ๐ on Feb 23, 2018 21:13:54 GMT -5
I don't know about the massive deaths from salmonella. Don't want to overstate, but specific numbers are hard to come by. โThese studies found that the number of cases fell from 1.6 cases per 1,000 person years for a study conducted from 1993 to 1996 to 0.2 cases per 1,000 person years for the same study conducted from 2008 to 2009.โ โ...the number of laboratory-confirmed cases of illness dropped from more than 18,000 in 1993 to just 459 in 2010." www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/01/poultry-vaccinations-credited-for-uks-big-drop-in-salmonella/#.WpDFUtQrLn4My reasoning was, there are no "laboratory-confirmed cases" unless the illness is severe. Among these 18,000, many were young and old who are more susceptible to death from salmonella. So total deaths could have been as high as 1 in 18, or 1000. Don't know the real number.
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Post by kimmsr๐ on Feb 24, 2018 6:03:26 GMT -5
Tom wrote; "Are you sure that the main source of food poisoning is contaminated meat? I think the main source is improper food handling at the retail level. I have never had food poisoning from food prepared at home."
First understand that I did not write what you quoted me as having written, the authors of the article did.
Second, there have been, over the past few years numerous news accounts of people getting food poisoning from home prepared foods. Simply because you have not experienced this does not mean it is not a problem. There have been numerous recalls of meat and vegetable products that have been found to be contaminated with listeria, salmonella, E-Coli, etc. as well as glass shards and other not edible products due to lax inspections at the source of those foods.
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