The Truth about Hamburger

For those of you who enjoyed a hamburger over Memorial Day, here are some facts for you:

One hamburger can contain the meat of hundreds of different cows, even from different slaughterhouses. Most beef cattle spend the last months of their lives at feed lots.

At the feed lot, cattle are pumped full of hormones, antibiotics, and fattening feed. Their feed is corn-based, but often contains the meat of pigs, chickens, and turkeys. It also legally can contain road kill and euthanized cats and dogs, as well as fecal waste from cattle, pigs, or chickens. As cows are designed to eat grass, they need roughage in order to digest their food. Plastic pellets are often used instead of natural fiber.

After a few weeks on the feedlot, cattle are sent to the slaughterhouse. The cattle are stunned before they are hung upside down and bled to death. The stunning process often does not render them unconscious and they remain kicking as a knife is stuck in their throat.

Beyond the cost to the animals, there's also the environmental impact of a hamburger. The manufacture of a single hamburger takes enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 25 miles. According to The Rainforest Action Network, 55 square feet of rainforest are destroyed for the production of every hamburger.

What's the harm in one hamburger? Well, if you ask Stephanie Smith, a lot. Stephanie Smith was a former dance instructor, and thanks to one hamburger, she will never walk again. Stephanie ate a largely vegetarian diet, rarely eating hamburgers. But the one she happened to eat was contaminated with fecal matter, which carries E.coli bacteria. She suffered seizures after eating the burger and was kept in a medically induced coma for three months. She is now paralyzed, with cognitive problems and kidney damage. Stephanie's case against beef producer Cargill Inc. was settled earlier this month.

Natural Resources Used Up in Food Production-

User of more than half of all water used for all purposes in the U.S.: animal agriculture
Amount of water used in production of the average cow: sufficient to float a destroyer
Gallons of water needed to produce a pound of wheat: 25
Gallons of water needed to produce a pound of California cow meat: 5,000
Years the world's known oil reserves would last if every human ate a meat-centered diet: 13
Years they would last if human beings no longer ate meat: 260
Calories of fossil fuel expended to get 1 calorie of protein from beef: 78
To get 1 calorie of protein from soybeans: 2

Amount of meat imported to U.S. annually from Central and South America: 300,000,000 pounds.

A new report authored by an Ohio State University professor estimates food-borne illnesses cost the U.S. $152 billion each year in health care and other losses.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that foodborne diseases cause approximately 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths in the United States each year.

For every foodborne illness case that is reported, as many as 40 more illnesses are not reported or lab-confirmed.

More than 30 million people in the United States are likely to be particularly susceptible to foodborne disease. Very young, elderly, and immune-compromised persons experience the most serious foodborne illnesses.

It is estimated that chronic, secondary complications resulting from foodborne illness occur in 2-3 percent of cases.

The Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the annual costs of medical care, productivity losses, and premature deaths due to foodborne illnesses caused by the five major pathogens to be $6.9 billion.

Still need more convincing?

Phyllis K. Fong, the Agriculture Department's inspector general, looked at how beef is tested for harmful substances.

According to her new report, inspectors charged with checking cattle for disease and meat for contaminants were, "unable to determine if meat has unacceptable levels of... potentially hazardous substances [and do] not test for pesticides... determined to be of high risk."

The inspectors also failed to test beef for 23 pesticides, the report says.

The study -- entitled the National Residue Program for Cattle Audit Report -- says there are no standards for how much of certain dangerous substances, such as copper and highly toxic dioxin, is too much for someone to eat.?? As a result, meat containing these substances has gotten into the nation's food supply, it finds.

The report says the health danger to people who eat this beef is a "growing concern," and calls for better coordination among the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ensure the safety of the country's meat supply.

Yearly:

20,000 others suffer from poisoning by E.coli 0157-H7, the mutant bacteria found in contaminated meat that generally leads to lifelong physical and mental health problems. A more thorough meat inspection with new technologies could eliminate most instances of contamination--so would vegetarianism.

Facts speak for themselves.

Health Related Foodborne Illness Costs Report.pdf 1