Anyone Give Up Eating Beef This Week?

[TXvote]

Revelations over the past 7 days:

A> The cow that tested positive for MCD was NOT a downer cow and would not have been found under normal circumstances.

B> The USDA testing system is HUGELY INADEQUATE for insuring food safety when it comes to beef. Kind of a don't ask don't tell policy.

C> They have not been able to identify any of the other 50+ cows from the same herd, born at the same time, fed the same feed as the identified cow.

D> JC, the human manifistation of MCD may take years to appear as untreatable holes in your brain. What you eat today may come back to haunt us.....

E> There has been no change in policy about feeding our livestock remains of other cows, the only primary way this disease is spread.

Just wondering how many in Du may have given up the beef this week.

[bratcatinok]

1. I haven't given up meat.

I think E is incorrect because if I remember the policy was changed in 1997.

[The Blue Knight]

2. Nah, I still love my steak. :)

[RebelOne]

3. I gave up eating any meat 8 years ago.

It's the best thing I have ever done. I will probably live a lot longer. I used to love my bloody rare steaks, and it was hard to stay away from the meat counter for a while. But I became enlightened as to the plight of farm animals (any animal, for that matter).

[ewagner]

4. Gave up ground beef

almost a month ago.

Also, when I absolutely have to eat from a fast food joint, I avoid hamburgers like the plague (pun intended)! Ham and cheese melts are the order of the day.

We've been substituting ground pork and ground turkey for ground beef. It's not bad........ground turkey meatloaf last night was actually good.

[slackmaster]

5. Only beef from Jack In The Box restaurants

Got sick as a dog from a Jack burger last weekend, so I've sworn off that crap for life. I made a formal complaint to the county health department.

In-N-Out burgers rock!

[Arugula Latte]

6. Gave it up in 1982...

...after seeing a truck full of beautiful bovine eyes staring at me on their way to be brutally slaughtered. Haven't missed it at all.

[Chicago Democrat]

7. It tastes so good though...

and I thank every single animal for giving its life for my pleasure. Also I believe in the ethical treatment of animals, especially farm animals. I try to support farmers by buying free range animal products. Eggs are easy to find, birds too.

In beef its harder to be an ethical meat lover. Free range beef tastes funny at first, it has less fat. Its more ethical, no doubt. Cows aren't made to eat corn, it gives them gas. Maybe they are less happy. I don't really know. Has anyone ever bother to ask a cow and find out? I mean give them grass or corn, which do they choose? Free range beef is harder to find, and often cheaper because Americans don't like since they have gotten used to fatty, marbled, tender buttery corn fed beef.

BGH or bovine growth hormone is definitely making those cows uber big and fatty. "People say" that BGH affects people too, like making little girls & boys attain puberty earlier, like at 12-13 not 14-15 like it was 20 years ago before BGH. Maybe it makes boys more violent. I feel like a bio experiment of the milk industry. Its in the beef too.

Now I buy non BGH milk, it tastes better! (Costs twice as much) It comes in a glass bottle. It makes me feel nostalgic. It makes the cows happier for sure! BGH makes their udders swell and produce 2 or 3 times the milk than without BGH. It must be painful. It must suck to be a cow on BGH.

So I believe that cows in farmers fields is a beautiful natural thing. They are there because we humans love to eat them. Its a mutually beneficial relationship, except when we start fucking with them.

Like veal, that's just cruel; and BGH and giant corporate farms. All that sucks.

[FlaGranny]

9. Answer to your question about

whether cows like grass or corn. Every grazing animal I've ever seen goes for any kind of pure grain before grass. The grain is very rich and is about the same as eating (for them) meat and potates as opposed to lettuce and cabbage. They like the grain and will eat it until it kills them from bloat. Farms have to be extremely careful with grain storage for that reason. Animals that get into the feed bin will literally eat themselves to death. I guess it tastes as good to them as candy does to us.

[Chicago Democrat]

15. Thanks FlaGranny!

Cows are like us; liking best what can be unhealthy. I wonder if they would like beer?

I will escape from Chicago someday and have a little farm and raise chickens and goats and maybe even a cow. I will eat them sometimes, and sell their meat, milk and eggs. They will be happy animals, who would not exist otherwise. I will treat them well.

Eating your friends can be hard, so some fairies I know came up with a good system. Only give names to animals you don't plan on eating, or if you must name them, call them "Stew" or "Roast" or "Capon" to remind you of their ultimate fate. So when the butcher time come the parting will be less sorrowful.

These fairies that raised chickens for eggs were too kind hearted to ever cull their chickens when they got too old to lay eggs. So the flock got really old and half weren't even laying eggs. Chickens never usually get this old and there was a heated discussion about what to do. Some of the younger fairies wanted to let the old chickens go free, but were persuaded by the older one who said the chickens would all get eaten by predators. So they all agreed to kill them all in one massive culling. So they separated the doomed old chickens out and killed them all. They were so old their meat was so tough they were only good for stewing, so the vegetarian fairies donated the chickens to the poor.

[ewagner]

18. How do you know?

There isn't any real test to dtermine if BGH is being used.

I worked for 10 years in the dairy industry and I was on a lot of farms. Those guys who said they weren't using BGH probably were just for survival.

[donsu]

8. gave it up yrs. ago

along with all meat and fowl and seafood.

also gave up soft drinks when I could see oily rainbows in the glass of drink and the drinks had a strange aftertaste. (not talking about diet drinks - wouldn't touch them with a 10' pole)

[Burma Jones]

10. Just Ground Beef

Muscle Meat is AOK

[NoPasaran]

11. Gave it up January 1

I figured that if the gov't said there was no problem, they must be lying.

Untreatable holes in your brain, eh? How long has this been going on?

[Momof1]

12. No beef for me since 2nd-3rd week of Dec. n/t

[Alinsky]

13. I will not eat Beef

I have not ate that much Beef in the last around 10 years. Now, no Beef ever again will I eat perhaps Chicken sometimes, but from now on , I will be attempting to be a vegetarian.

[thelocalkgb]

14. I tried to,

But when I cooked it to the required 1,230 (something around there) degrees to kill the prions, it wasn't really "edible" anymore.

[Arugula Latte]

16. Alzheimers -- some really mad cow?

Just to put people off beef even more, do you all realize there is a lot of evidence to show that many cases thought to be Alzheimers could really be a form of mad cow or some type of food-related brain-wasting disease?

[theorist]

21. San Antonio.

San Antonio, TX is pretty famous for its slaughterhouses. I don't know if it's as well known for being the center of an Alzheimer's cluster. Coincidence?

addition on edit:
The human form of mad cow and Alzheimer's can only be differentiated upon a post-mortem inspection of the brain. This is rarely done considering the cost. Sadly, the families of Alzheimer's patients would find this an unnecessary expense.

[Edge]

17. Oooh...My whole diet this week has involved beef.

Beef...it's what's for dinner. :) (and every other meal as well.)

[DemoTex]

19. I'm buying grass-fed beef

It's leaner, too.

[Chicago Democrat]

23. Is it cheaper?

It was when I could get it. About 4 per pound versus 6 per pound.

[alwynsw]

20. If you're born to hang, you ain't gonna drown

So if my ticket is punched with a filet, I guess I'll go out happy.

[theorist]

22. Gave it up almost 2 years ago...

when I heard of BSE in Canada. To think that a country's border will keep you safe from disease is ludicrous. If it had been South America it would have been the same: just a matter of time. I was only surprised that it took as long as it did to find a U.S. case (but considering the testing methods, it's not a huge stretch...).

[Mobius]

24. I did right when the Canadian beef story broke

beef disgusts me. there are other sources of protein. red meat makes people more angry and violent by upping certain hormone levels. BLEH :puke: