YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) - Five cows from the same herd that contained a Holstein with mad cow disease have been traced to a facility in central Washington, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Friday.
Yesterday, I read an alarming article published in Indiana where, apparently, cow-brain sandwiches are the luncheon delicacy of choice. Not one of those interviewed was willing to forego a fried brain sandwich. "We've all gotta go sometime!" was the overwhelmingly popular response from these happy (already infected? ) folks...
posted on January 16, 2004 06:26:18 PM new
Well,I have to say even without the existanceof Mad Cow Disease, I wouldn't be willing to eat a fried brain sandwich!
Other than that--yes, I am still eating beef. The odds on getting it are very low, especially if you avoid hamburger & beef sausage (I only eat pork sausage, anyway).
Variant CJD is a disease in humans that has been linked to ingesting meat infected with the prion that causes mad cow disease (BSE). Variant CJD tends to occur in younger people (average age 29 rather than 65 for classic CJD) and has slightly different symptoms than classic CJD. People with vCJD tend to live slightly longer than people with classic CJD.
Variant CJD was first recognized in the UK in the mid-1990s, over ten years after the beginning of the BSE outbreak in cattle. Because of this and other similarities, vCJD is believed to be the result of consumption of prion-contaminated meat products. Muscle meat itself does not contain prions, but in processing of ground beef, sausage and other meat products, contamination of the product with nervous tissues containing the infective prion may occur.
How common is vCJD, the human disease related to ingesting meat products infected with Mad Cow Disease (BSE)?
The risk of vCJD is thought to be related to exposure to animal products contaminated with the prion that causes BSE in cattle. Nearly all the cases of vCJD in humans have been in the UK or have been in people with exposure to cattle meat products from the UK.
There have been 153 cases of vCJD reported in the world since the first case was identified in 1995, with 143 of these in the UK. Although many millions of people in the UK and around the world have been exposed to UK beef, and approximately 200,000 cases of BSE in cattle were reported and removed from the food supply over the past twenty years, the number of cases of vCJD remains low.
How do people get vCJD?
It is thought that a very small percentage of people who eat meat products infected with the BSE agent will get vCJD. Experiments done with cattle and other animals suggest that almost all of the infectivity is in tissue from the cattle’s brain, spinal cord, and intestine, and that muscle meat itself is not infectious. Milk products from cattle are also not associated with any risk of infection with BSE.
Only 153 cases in 9 years worldwide.
Every year we have Chicken Little episodes over some supposed threat, plague, what-have-you that is blown WAY out of proportion & has people in a panic. Looks like Mad Cow disease will be this year's "Disease of the Year."
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
posted on January 16, 2004 06:40:59 PM new
I don't envision myself eating fried brain anytime soon but I eat beef on a nearly daily basis.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on January 16, 2004 08:31:38 PM new
I eat beef, including brains (yum..call me Hannibal)..but I bred, raised, killed and butchered it. From the grocery store??? Surely you jest. I didn't trust it BEFORE the cows got mad....Commercial chicken??, don't get me started....
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Mi abuelita me dijo "en boca cerrada no entran moscas".
posted on January 16, 2004 10:45:16 PM new
I'd just like to mention with the weather so cold lately, I went to the store today and thought..hmmm...how about making a nice pot of beef stew with some fresh veggies?
Then I hesitated at the meat freezer. I couldnt decide if I should be wary of it. Even though they say the beef here is not from wherever they import it or been found to be infected.
I think I'm may go back tomorrow and buy lamb to substitute even though that is much more expensive. I really want some home-made stew!! lol.
posted on January 17, 2004 04:48:55 AM new
KD: Brain has a soft texture, not unlike liver, but not really like it either. Remember, the brain isn't a muscle, so it doesn't have the texture of regular meat, which is muscle. It's flavor is very mild, having the ability to absorb whatever flavors it's cooked with. Not unlike mushrooms in that sense.
helen: It's early here and we're getting ready to leave for a livestock show so I don't really have time. Grocery store chicken bothers me for two reasons. First, the birds are a specially bred fast growing variety. They reach slaughter age at only 2 or so months. Keep in mind that a free range chicken can easily live 8 years! This rapid growth, IMO produces weak flavored, watery meat. I've talked to people at poultry shows who have had experience with the large poultry companies, like Tyson in Arkansas. The companies control all aspects of production. If you want to be a chicken farmer and have 20 or so acres and start up capital, Tyson will build your brood houses, supply you with all your feed and starter chicks each growing cycle, and send trucks to pick up the birds when they are ready. You'll raise them 5-20,000 at a time. The company sets all prices and you MUST use their feed. Therein lies the problem. There are feed supplements which augment growth and fattening that by law must be withdrawn so many days before slaughter. I talked to one couple who got out of the business because their company would not let them follow the legally prescribed feeding rules.
Second, It's my opinion that commercial slaughterhouses are inhumane, and it has certainly been proven that they are easy sources of contamination. Here's a link for starters but there's lots of info out there. I wouldn't read this until well after breakfast if I were you.
Thanks for that information and for the link, profe.
Before reading that article I thought my grandmother's method of killing chickens with an axe on a tree stump was awful. In comparison, her method was humane.
Guess I'll have to buy a ranch or change my menu to beans and rice.
posted on January 17, 2004 07:32:07 AM new
i used to watch someone using their fingers to clamp down on the beak of the bird until it just suffocated to death.come to think of it,we are crueller than lions and tigers.
eat pork,it has thiamine and makes us think faster.
just ask chairman mao.he liked fatty pork for that reason
-sig file -------the lobster in the boiling pot of water who tries to prevent the others from climbing out.
posted on January 17, 2004 12:32:00 PM new
Yes, I'm still eating beef. I have decided for the time being not to eat the meal selections that are most at risk. I have read articles saying American's don't appear too willing to go without their beef.
I kind of expected meat prices to drop with the scare, but they haven't in my home area nor here in central CA.
posted on January 17, 2004 06:59:30 PM new
I saw a fairly good drop in live cattle prices in the auction I went to today. So much so that I bought 6 instead of 4 head. I wasn't a big auction by any means. There were maybe 300 head total. Never the less, everybody was singing the madcow blues. You won't see much of a drop in the stores though. Retailers know that the public 1. is gullible-all it takes is for the man on Tee-Vee to say "Nope, nothing wrong here!!" 2. is spoiled ("don't appear too willing to go without their beef" and 3. has a very short memory. The beef industry is in no danger up to now. Other countries banning US beef? So what, we eat 90 percent of production anyhow. People these days have to be hit over the head repeatedly, with horrible disasters or devastating economic consequences before any of us are willing to change our lifestyle. It's the American way....
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Mi abuelita me dijo "en boca cerrada no entran moscas".
posted on January 17, 2004 09:40:48 PM new
Still eating beef. I live in Washington state too. My grocery buys all its beef from a smallish organic farm on an island in the sound and they grind their own hamburger so I feel fairly safe eating it...for now.Never would eat a brain sandwich anyhow and I've never been a marrow sucker.[my husband always did that...I doubt he will anymore]
posted on January 23, 2004 03:04:27 PM newHerds in Three States Quarantined in Mad Cow Investigation By Mark Sherman, Associated Press Writer
Published: Jan 23, 2004
WASHINGTON (AP) - Herds of cows are under quarantine in three states, and agriculture officials still lack full accounting of meat that was recalled after discovery of mad cow disease in the United States a month ago.
Cows with links to the Holstein diagnosed with the brain-wasting disease have been found in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
