Interesting Article

[noname]

http://gristmill.grist.org/print/200...ow_comments=no

Raise your own food, folks.

[Togg Lovers]

I think we need to become much more aware of how we handle our food, esp. meats. I know I rarely will touch uncooked meat with my bare hands. I use a fork to move it around or I put sandwich baggies on my hands. Always wash with antibacterial soap and hot water after. I wash everything that I buy and even scrub fruits and veggies. my grandmother told me years ago to wash everything and never touch uncooked meat because of worms and other parasites. There will always be some sort of risk out there because most of us cannot poss. raise or grow everything we need. We just need to be more aware.

[ladycat]

Originally Posted by noname

http://gristmill.grist.org/print/200...ow_comments=no

That link doesn't work for me.

[tomstractormag]

Yes another reason to grow your own or at least deal locally. How did people deal with meat for centuries without our >modern< conveniences? It is painfully obvious big ag does not work. Nothing wrong with being careful. Remember anti bacterial soap has its own problems. I will not use it if possible.
Clean is good but its so great to grab something directly from the garden and eat it... Maybe knock the dirt off first.
Of course the >>>love me daddy, serf types<<< think chipping will save us... lol
Tom

[watcher]

Most of the problems isn't with how things are grown now its how people handle the food at home.

Today you'll find very few commercial farms using the muck from horse stalls, the 'litter' from the chicken coop and such on their crops but 'in the good old days' they did. You also won't find a commercial slaughter house with flies landing on the hanging beef as they cut it nor a hog laying on a plank of wood nor rendering lard in the same tub they wash laundry in.

[Terri]

Originally Posted by watcher

Most of the problems isn't with how things are grown now its how people handle the food at home.

Today you'll find very few commercial farms using the muck from horse stalls, the 'litter' from the chicken coop and such on their crops but 'in the good old days' they did. You also won't find a commercial slaughter house with flies landing on the hanging beef as they cut it nor a hog laying on a plank of wood nor rendering lard in the same tub they wash laundry in.

In the "Good old days", they boiled vegetables for 20 minutes (According to old cookbooks), and 95% of the people were farmers who raised their own pork.

So, they produced the food differently AND handled it differently!

[uyk7]

That link doesn't work for me.

The small part I read was saying how pork now contains MRSA. Originally, MRSA was caught in a hospital setting but now it is out.


"Earlier this year, Schneider reports, a Canadian researcher found MRSA in "10 percent of 212 samples of pork chops and ground pork bought in four Canadian provinces." The Canadian pork industry, which exports some 762 million pounds of pork into the U.S. annually, has also embraced the concentrated-animal feedlot operation (CAFO) model, with its heavy reliance on antibiotics."



.

[Beltane]

How unsettling. Thanks for posting the info.

[Togg Lovers]

I really do think it comes to handling. Around here the few cases I've heard about involved teenage boys from the burbs. Now considering that they more than likely didn't do any cooking my guess would be that they picked it up either from the counter or the garbage. It is so easy to just toss stuff in the garbage not really looking to see where all the splatter goes. So Mom makes pork on Wed. tosses wrapper in garbage where it splatters on bag, Bobby takes garbage out on Sunday, is in such a hurry he just wipes his stickey hand on his pants and takes off with his freinds. At the basketball court they all handle the ball. 2 wks later Billy is diagnosed with MRSA. No connection is made because Billy's family doesn't eat pork.

[Rocky Fields]

Hey.

Moral of the story: buy a farm and raise your own or you will get sick from superstore meat and produce.

[anniew]

Buy Local, Buy Fresh, Know your Farmer, or be your own farmer...

[MariaAZ]

I think one should add "and if you are your own farmer, be really, really careful when processing meat." It's not difficult to inadvertently contaminate meat with fecal matter, especially when you're just learning like I am. A patch of manure on the hide, an ever-so-slight nick on the intestine... there are several other ways I can think of. I'm actually MORE careful when handling ALL meats now (including what I raise) after doing it myself and seeing how quickly (and easily) contamination can happen.

[luvrulz]

I think what it boils down to is all the antibiotics people use and all the antibiotics big ag uses automatically. They get sick and off they go to the doctor. This sptaph infection has always been around - just not as prevalent as now and now, it had to be bigger to survive against the antibiotics. Once you get it, you keep getting it.... like malaria or herpes. We're killing ourselves, unless you're raising your own food. And it's hard, but yes, it can be done!

I agree with AnnieW.........

[CowgirlGloria]

Self-sufficiency is becoming more and more important.

But, since everyone is so quick nowadays to blame anything and everything for illness, even without evidence, I do not sell anything off my homestead.

Here we had a recall of tomatoes. Now, they say they don't know what caused the salmonella outbreak. After all of that, after wreaking havoc on the producers, grocers, restaurant owners, etc., now they say they don't KNOW if the tomatoes were responsible or not. Imagine, though, if you sold tomatoes and someone got sick and decided to blame you. Your homeowners' insurance would not cover you. You could be in big trouble, trying to establish your innocence. In today's world, I won't sell ANYTHING off the homestead.

And when people ask me if they can buy milk or cheese, I absolutely refuse. If someone got sick (whether or not my product was to blame) I'd have the government all over me, in addition to the problems of dealing with false claims from a former customer. I offer to sell them a goat, but NEVER the dairy products from the goats.

[whiterabbit454]

Originally Posted by CowgirlGloria

Self-sufficiency is becoming more and more important.

But, since everyone is so quick nowadays to blame anything and everything for illness, even without evidence, I do not sell anything off my homestead.

Here we had a recall of tomatoes. Now, they say they don't know what caused the salmonella outbreak. After all of that, after wreaking havoc on the producers, grocers, restaurant owners, etc., now they say they don't KNOW if the tomatoes were responsible or not. Imagine, though, if you sold tomatoes and someone got sick and decided to blame you. Your homeowners' insurance would not cover you. You could be in big trouble, trying to establish your innocence. In today's world, I won't sell ANYTHING off the homestead.

And when people ask me if they can buy milk or cheese, I absolutely refuse. If someone got sick (whether or not my product was to blame) I'd have the government all over me, in addition to the problems of dealing with false claims from a former customer. I offer to sell them a goat, but NEVER the dairy products from the goats.

wow never thought about it like this

[piglady]

We had an outbreak in our highschool just this year. No one ever found the source. You can be as careful as you want around meat but that won't keep your kids from catching it from school. All it takes is one person getting it, just one small mistake with the meat (or dad works at the commercial hog house) and This thing starts spreading from person to person. For my vote, I say stop it at the source and get back to raising meat the way it should be raised. I know one taste of our pork and our customers never buy another walmart pork chop.