Feces in ground beef...?

[Church_Key_Kid]

This site: http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/press/mcds/distributedbyfo270402.html

states that:

Every time you eat a hamburger, you are eating anabolic steroids, antibiotics, and fecal matter. You can read it again. And it will still be true. You are better off eating a carrot dropped in your toilet than eating one dropped in your kitchen sink if you buy and use packaged meat.

Is this true? Can anyone point me to online studies that back this up? Is this true for all hamburger or just McDonald’s (or other fast food) hamburgers?

[alice_in_wonderland]

I think unless you buy your ground beef from small source, such as a hala or kosher butcher, you wind up getting the mass produced stuff.

There is doodoo in mass produced ground beef and you only have to visit a slauter house to find out why. (It could potentially put you off meat for a long, long time.) This is the source of many of the e-coli outbreaks in Canada and the US. I belive that the many deaths associated with Jack-in-the-Box were traced from the undercooked meat in the restaruants to unsanitary conditions at the meat packing plant, IIRC.

Al.

[Hippy144]

there is no real danger in the stuff we’re eating if it’s cooked propery. There are limits as to how much can be in the product, as with rat hair and dirt.

[3waygeek]

You might want to check out Fast Food Nation – a friend of mine is reading it, and mentioned similar stats.

Note, however, that In & Out Burger (a West Coast chain mentioned in several other threads on this board, and in the aforementioned book) grind their own beef daily – presumably, it would have less fecal contamination since they start with cleaner meat.

Similarly, some supermarkets also grind their own beef, which again should be a bit cleaner than stuff ground at the slaughterhouse.

[friedo]

Just about anything that comes from an animal has shit in it. That’s because there’s shit in just about all animals.

The FDA regulates the percentage of shit allowed in meat products, (and it is quite low.) There is no danger if meat is properly cooked.

[mhendo]

[Apu voice]And our beef jerky is now nearly rectum-free[/Apu voice]

[Sakurako]

This is from FRONTLINE News/ Info. from PBS at http://www.pbs.org/

’ “Cows tend to produce feces [and] feces is primarily bacteria,” says Glenn Morris, a microbiologist at the University of Maryland and a former USDA official. “In the larger feedlots,” he adds, “there’s a greater chance for the passage of microorganisms back and forth. All of that contributes to the spread of microorganisms like E. coli.”

Dr. Robert Tauxe is also concerned. “The new highly industrialized way we produce meat has opened up new ecological homes for a number of bacteria,” says Tauxe, head of the Centers for Disease Control’s Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases branch. Gone are the days, Tauxe says, when a hamburger patty contained the meat from a single cow; with enormous numbers of cattle now being herded, fattened, slaughtered, and ground up together, it’s virtually impossible to determine how many cows contribute to a single burger.

The meat industry, however, is confident that America’s meat is safer than ever, and it has resisted new federal regulations. But the fact remains that contaminated meat is getting through the system. Last year, more than 100 million pounds of meat had to be recalled.

This FRONTLINE report tracks how the consequences of bacterial contamination can be deadly. In 1993, Jack in the Box hamburgers contaminated with a deadly strain of E. coli killed four children and caused more than 700 illnesses. Carol Tucker Foreman, head of food safety at the Consumer Federation of America and a former USDA official, points to another case in which 16 deaths and five stillbirths were connected to hot dogs contaminated with listeria. Just last summer, the nation’s largest meat processor had to recall 300,000 pounds of beef contaminated with E. coli bacteria.’

It seems to me that a lot of beef and hamburger (and chicken too) is contaminated with all kinds of bacteria.

For more information, you can check out the book ‘Fast Food Nation’ (recommended above by someone else).

Or ‘Mad Cowboy’. Its an expose of the US meat industry by a former rancher and cowboy. I just read it, and I’m considering never eating meat again! (Its a funny book too… the guy definaltely has a sense of humor)

His website is: http://www.madcowboy.com/

[zigaretten]

I hate to break it to you, but birds shit on your wheat too.

I used to work counting insect parts in grains and herbs, and where you find insect parts there must also be insect feces.

Just remember that, in general, food today is the cleanest it has ever been in all of human history.

[Mandarax]

The Master Speaks:

As Professor Gerba’s research would later determine, however, the bathroom was hardly the most dangerous part of the house, microbe-wise. The real pesthole: the kitchen sponge or dishcloth, where fecal coliform bacteria from raw meat and such could fester in a damp, nurturing (for a germ) environment. Next came the kitchen sink, the bathroom sink, and the kitchen faucet handle. The toilet seat was the least contaminated of 15 household locales studied. “If an alien came from space and studied the bacterial counts,” the professor says, “he probably would conclude he should wash his hands in your toilet and crap in your sink.”

[heresiarch]

So, yeah, there’s feces in all processed meat. But it’s just a tiny amount - not a shitload.

[stockton]

*Originally posted by zigaretten *
**I hate to break it to you, but birds shit on your wheat too.

I used to work counting insect parts in grains and herbs **

How do you break into that racket? You probably have to know somebody or something…