Was watching the news tonight and saw a storey that they are worried that the huge amount of antibiotics used in poultry food and water could be a bad thing. The way I understand it they aren't that worried about us getting the medications by eating them but they are worried about the resistant bacteria they are producing. I knew we were feeding a lot of anitibiotics to animals but I didn't realize that fully 40% of all anitibiotics used in this country is used in animal feed and water. Now this isn't because they are sick but as a preventive measure. Think that with the resistant bacteria we are producing the bacteria in the water will go up and up also. The comment on one of the current threads in regards to a plague destroying a large part of the world's population gets more and more believeable and we are probabley not even producing it in a germ warfare program but in the way we are raising the meat for us to eat. Just a few of my thoughts. gail

-- gail missouri ozarks (gef123@hotmail.com), October 27, 2000

Answers

Hi Gail, I view this as just one more reason to eat very little meat, we use it as a condiment, not a main course. Less than 3 ounces a day, or less, most of the time, and then only meat we have raised humanely, I raise chickens for eggs, I really don't like my food to have had a face! To keep ones blood pressure down and cholesterol below 150, you must just about give up meat entirely, we are, after all, omnivorous (sp.?) beings, our teeth are that of plant type eating creatures, not canine or feline like that of our pets. We have large grinding molars to break down fiber and plants, and the long digestive tract to match, meat-eating creatures have very short digestive tracts to speed up passage of the toxic by-products of flesh metabolism. Anyway, I'm way off the point here, I agree that willy-nilly use of antibiotics is just an accident waiting to happen! Annie in SE OH.

-- Annie Miller (annie@1st.net), October 28, 2000.

What goes on in the commercial meat industry will scare you blue!! Hopefully, special interest groups won't win out on this one, and they'll ban them -- it's just another form of drug abuse (ab= negative). It allows overcrowding in unsanitary conditions to feed the fast food market. (how anyone can eat those is a mystery to me -- of course, the meat is a mystery as well)

Has anyone been hearing about the outbreak of BSE in France in the beef industry there? The BBC has been talking about it a lot. They are making moves to (finally!!) ban the cannibal cow industry, bone meal fed to cows entirely. (DUH!!)

-- Julie Froelich (firefly1@nnex.net), October 28, 2000.

Julie:

The scary part of the BSE outbreak in France is it is being found in herds which have not been fed any animal by-products. New cases are expect to keep popping up until 2002, since BSE is believed to have an average incubation period of five years. Authorities really don't know who it is spread.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), October 28, 2000.

Some how I don't think there is much chance that agri-business is going to return to the closed-loop farming system. More likely they will at least try to create more drugs to combat the problems of their husbandry practices. Antibiotics have been used for a long time in the meat animal industry, even before the massive move to confinement systems. Small doses of antibiotics lead to faster weight gain.

And the UK is estimating something like 132,000 people there will come odwn with "Mad Cow" disease-sorry I'm not even going to try to spell it. Geribl

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), October 28, 2000.

Gerbil:

Are you talking about the number of suspected BSE case in cattle or humans in England? Last I saw about 80 human cases had been confirmed and they expect the number of new cases each year to decline due to being at about the peak of the incubation period.

I not sure 'eating healthy' makes all that much difference. One of my neighbors died last evening in his early 80s. Up until about six weeks ago he could out work other men half his age and twice his size. Hadn't smoked in about 30 years and I have never known him to take a drink. They largely ate out of their garden or livestock they either produced themselves or bought from other area farmers. About six weeks ago he started to complain about dizziness and his stomach hurting. After extensive testing they found he had cancer in several parts of his body. How much more of a healthy lifestyle would one want?

When you think about it no one has ever gotten out of life alive. Noah and Moses may have lived several hundred years, but they eventually died.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), October 28, 2000.

Ken, that's human cases-they say it is because of the long incubation period. It seems way high, and I sure hope they're wrong, but the number was 130,000 something. I'm trying to remember where I was plinking around on the internet (since most of the time I can't get into Countryside anymore), maybe something I linked out to from Yahoo Health? Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), October 28, 2000.

Annie, I have some pretty sharp incisors that make meat eating easy. We ARE omnivorous and that includes meat. I've been vefetarian, macrobiotic even, and prefer the varied diet I have that includes meats of all kinds.

Ken; yes, we all might as well accept it, that whether we smoke or drink, curse or are cursed, we could get hit by a truck (figuratively, of course) and die any time. My childhood friend's dad just died of cancer he didn't know he had until 3 days before his death, after a fall down the stairs that resulted in many broken bones. It happens. My mother was healthy until the last few months of her young life. Which is why I border on the obsessive when it comes to life choices that fit my goals and not necessarily my culture's goals.

-- Anne (HT@HM.com), October 28, 2000.

Gerbil:

I am reasonable sure it was 130,000 something cattle destroyed. It takes only one case in a large herd for the entire herd to be destroyed, whether they test positive or not.

Figure of 80 human cases, with five other suspected cases (they cannot really tell until an altopsy) in England comes out of today's paper where Britian has agreed to pay families of victims. Mostly because the British Health Service withheld findings of BSE transfer to human for six months because of fear of causing panic and damaging British trade.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), October 28, 2000.

Here's something about it-I really hope these numbers are wrong. I believe that the number of cattle destroyed is in the millions.

His computer predictions had originally forecast that up to 6,000 people had been infected between 1980 and 1996. Now that figure could rise as high as 130,000. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001028/sc/britain_cjd_dc_3.html

Yahoo news stories are kind of funny, I don't know how long you'll be able to reach this using this url. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), October 28, 2000.

Read today at the World net daily site 2 related stories. First said Tulane University has 8 cases of cjd. They did brain surgery on one fellow and gave CJD to 7 more. Seems the normal sterilization techniques don't work on the prions that spread this stuff. The equipment has to be destroyed. Rough learning curve for somebody.

The second article which I only got to scan because I was at work, said the # of expected cases in humans was going to be a lot higher than they had thought before. I didn't get to see why. I haven't been really following this all that closely. Maybe I should.

-- John in S. IN (jsmengel@hotmail.com), October 28, 2000.

Annie, if you have roosters than your eggs have faces in them :) While at a major show we were bombarded with PETA brochures. I actually never had a clue as to the many uses of animal products in every day use. I applaud them actually for their vigilance, it would take exactly that to use no animal products. Another one of the many groups of folks these days that you smile nicely at and go on your way! Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), October 29, 2000.

Vicki, you bring up an interesting point, I wonder what the pro-life peoples position is on eating fertilized chicken eggs? To go with their party line, it should be made illegal to eat fertilized eggs! Annie in SE OH.

-- Annie Miller (annie@1st.net), October 29, 2000.

Annie, this actually was a paper that I did as a young adult, about abortion and the IUD back when it was a popular form of birthcontrol. It really was nothing more than either not allowing the fertilized egg to implant or making the implanted egg slough off, either way you look at it, it was a fertilized egg! Pro choice here, Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), October 29, 2000.

Vicki, I remember well the heated debates concerning this matter back then, I had a lot of devout Catholic friends that I argued with. Since I'm pro choice also, I'll go on and continue to eat the fertilized eggs, but I wonder what my old Catholic friends would say about it? Annie in SE OH.

-- Annie Miller (annie@1st.net), October 29, 2000.

Related question: Can a true Vegan (absolutely no meat or by- products) give oral sex?

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), October 30, 2000.

Actually most of us Pro-life people have no problem eating fertilized eggs, because we have no problem eating chickens. On the other hand we do have a problem with murdering people, which is why we don'\t support the destruction of innocent babies. If indeed the eggs you speak of held tiny human lifeforms, you'd better believe that we'd stand in defence of them also. Of course there are a lot of pro- choice people out there who want to save the whales also. What makes whales more important than baby humans?

Little Bit Farm

-- Little bit Farm (littlebit@calinet.com), October 30, 2000.

Little Bit, that is the point that so many of you pro-life folks don't understand. I would never myself choose to have an abortion for most of the same reasons that you would list. But, a choice a woman has to abort is a medical decission between her and her doctor. Even if you choose to label it for yourself as murder, once again, you can't make that same decision for others.

Ken, I think I love you! :) Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), October 30, 2000.

Ken and Vicki....another blonde problem here....!

I don't get it (the statement, not the .....well, you know!)

Email me if you'd rather not have to explain the oral sex stuff on the Forum. (when Prez. Bill explained it to me, I still didn't get it! ROFLMAO!)

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), October 30, 2000.

Thanks, Vicki, I get it now (well, not exactly!) I mean, I get the "joke!" Thanks for emailing me.

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), October 31, 2000.

Thanks Vicki, Ken, and Sheepish!!! This is what I call quality entertainment, keep it up, hadn't had so much fun in years, I swear, we could find something interesting to debate about ANYTHING!!! LOL!!! Annie in SE OH.

-- Annie Miller (annie@1st.net), October 31, 2000.