Well, this is very a propos, on the heels of my thinking about food and food safety again. Even though we fell off the vegetarian wagon, dead cows haven't been making it to our plates; dead chickens and dead pigs - yes. But cows, no. Between e.coli O157:H7 and BSE, I just could not trust the product again.
CBC News reports: "a former U.S. agriculture inspector, during testimony at a House of Commons committee, accused his own government of covering up suspected cases of BSE.....Lester Friedlander repeated a claim he has made before – that cases of BSE surfaced in the U.S. long before the disease showed up in Canada."
I don't like the risks that the industrialized food system has introduced into our lives. Each year you hear governments say things like "well, we thought that was safe but we've discovered it wasn't. But don't worry, we now know that this is safe." Yeah right. Until you do more tests, and find out you were wrong after all. It seems to be happening with food and medicines with scary regularity.
Remember how you've been told BSE prions are only in the brain and nervous tissue? That those are now scrupulously removed (well, they say that) and that you're all safe. No worries. Keep on buying beef. Well, the New York Times reported on January 21, 2005 that "the proteins thought to cause the disease can travel to other organs as well. The research is based on experiments with mice, but if it is borne out in other species, it may suggest that no part of an infected animal is safe to eat."
How much do you trust governmental organizations when they are being lobbied constantly by colossal agri and pharma corporations?
3 comments:
Good day hornblower,
Normally, I'm a lurker but I noticed that you haven't had many comments on your blog recently. I thought it was a shame because I enjoy reading it. I originally found HMS Indefatigable when I was doing some research into home schooling my kids. Most homeschoolers on the web seem to have overtly religious reasons for their choice. I started to read your blog posts, simply out of curiosity to ascertain if you also homeschooled for that reason. I don't know if religion played a part in your choice or not and truthfully I don't care. I kept on reading your posts because you seem to have let things influence your life in a similar manner to me. I find your thoughts entertaining and thought provoking, and I felt that needed to be said given the low rate of comments you've been receiving of late. Keep up the good work.
P.S. please forgive the typos, if there are any, I didn't have time to proof before sending this along.
You can eat liver if you want, there won't be any prions in there.
Thanks for the comments. I had comments disabled earlier so that's probably part of the reason nobody is writing. Or else, nobody likes me...... (wail!) LOL.
No, I don't homeschool for religious reasons. I wrote a bit about why we homeschool here http://www.indefatigable.ca/homeschool.html
Liver - I just don't think I can do it. I used to love liver and onions and then one time got really ill after it. Having tasted it in reverse now, I just can't face it again. I have the same problem with rum. Plus, the filtering blood role means to me that it's not the 'cleanest' thing to eat. And last but not least, the research I was referring to indicated prions could be found in any tissue which was inflamed. So if Daisy had BSE and also happened to have an inflammation of the liver, then the prions could be there. Yeah, slim chances and probably way more chance of being hit by a cement truck but still......
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