Becuase Everything Else Sucks

Our Food Sucks And You Know It

By Allison Kilkenny
Published Thursday, June 12th, 2008, 1:44 pm
Filed under: Health, Environment

Despite being one of the most grotesquely overfed populations in recent memory, Americans remain preoccupied only with the quantity, and not the quality of their food. They don’t mind if scientists inject their French fries with High-Fructose Corn Syrup as long as McDonald’s Super-sizes their order for a nickel.

Yet, the attitude toward Vegetarianism is changing in the United States. While it’s difficult to quantify how many vegetarians live within the borders, it’s easier to observe the attitude towards vegetarians. Twenty years ago, “What’re you, a Commie?” was a more typical response to a confession of Veggie brotherhood. Nowadays, despite the occasional stink eye, meat-eaters at least understand that Vegetarianism is healthy, if not a lifestyle particularly suited for them.

Even though the U.S. is more Veggie-friendly these days, it’s still difficult to avoid crappy food even if one chooses to become a vegan (vegetarian, minus the dairy) as I did six years ago. Despite my decision, I found myself projectile vomiting into my toilet last week. Diagnosis: food-poisoning. Suspect: tomatoes. Unfortunately, becoming a vegetarian or a vegan doesn’t ensure healthiness. Sure, vegetarians enjoy many health perks (low rates of: heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer, etc.,) but we’re still at the mercy of the meat industry in many ways.

For starters, the meat industry poisons the environment. A 2006 United Nations report described the devastation caused by the meat industry as “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” Aside from global warming, meat production is a large factor in overexploited natural resources, deforestation, wasted land, and air and water contamination.

The water contamination may play a large part in increasing reports of vegetable and fruit contamination. In 2007, a California produce company recalled bagged fresh spinach after a sample tested positive for Salmonella. Nearly a year before, an outbreak of E. coli, in fresh spinach killed 3 people and sickened 200. This week, the tomato Salmonella outbreak has affected at least 145 people, resulting in 23 hospitalizations, and many believe water contamination is the cause of the infected tomatoes.

It’s not the veggies that are to blame. The problem is the meat. Salmonella is an animal pathogen so it doesn’t originate from tomatoes. Most experts agree that the bacteria probably come from groundwater contaminated with animal feces.

You read that right: Cow shit is in your tomatoes. Actually, cow shit is in everything: the water, hamburgers, other plant life, and if one ascribes to the the hippy, New Age belief that we are all one pulsating organism upon Mother Earth, then cow shit is in all of us.

But in a realer, more concrete sense, frenzied production lines coupled with lax management have resulted in a dramatic increase in food-poisoning. The shitty (literally) food is so prevalent that it’s affecting non-meat-eaters. While Salmonella prefers fleshy fruit like tomatoes, our friend E. Coli prefers leafy greens like spinach.

The problem is prevalent. A recent census of produce outbreaks between 1996 and 2007 counted no fewer than 33 epidemics from Salmonella-contaminated fruits and vegetables.

Some scientists claim the cure for Salmonella and E.coli contamination isn’t scrubbing clean the fruits and vegetables because doing so could remove the good bacteria humans rely upon for survival. The solution will come from the government and outraged citizens demanding that the meat industry clean up its practices so fresh produce doesn’t suffer at the hands of hasty slaughter and over-crowded holding pens.

The outrage has already exploded in other parts of the world. While irresponsible butchers poison ground water and otherwise healthy plant life here at home, Americans remain mute about the diseased slabs of meat they’re consistently forced to choose between at their grocery stores. Meanwhile, angry mobs took to the streets of South Korea when their government resumed importing beef from the United States. This wasn’t some kind of fervent anti-American protest, but rather concerned citizens protecting themselves from potential Mad Cow disease.

In America, the only way citizens can protect themselves is to grow their own food or to buy their food from local, trusted farmers, who don’t use chemicals or unethical farming practices. But many poorer, urban citizens have no choice but to buy whatever food is cheap and readily available.

Still, all of this isn’t cause for concern. Unless, of course, citizens are worried about the expanding legion of rotund American children, who despise vegetables, binge-eat bagged chips, and walk only if the landscape slopes down hill. The obesity rate is so wildly out of control that Americans collectively celebrated this year - not when the child population began to lose weight - but when they ceased to get fatter and obesity rates finally plateaued for the first time in 20 years.

Unfortunately, Americans can’t fix their unhealthy eating until supposedly “healthy” food is clean of bacteria originating in diseased cows. Of course, the crazy practices of the meat industry shouldn’t concern citizens… unless they’re worried about global warming. The Environmental Defense reports that if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted it with vegetarian foods, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than a half-million cars off U.S. roads.

In fact, the crazy practices of the meat industry probably won’t rock citizens at all until they find themselves knelt over their toilets, hurling. Right about then, they’ll understand how cow shit affects them all.

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14 Responses to “Our Food Sucks And You Know It”

  1. Very informative article Allison. I never knew that giving up chicken once a week would decrease emissions by so much! The overproduction of food is a blaring problem that has a strangle-hold on North America. Like you stated, there is a high percentage of obese children in the United States, and this is definitely due to the ‘junk food’ industry and the massive portions that people eat these days.

    If giving up chicken for one day a week would reduce pollution by the equivalent of removing 500 000 cars from US roads, I wonder what the reduction in portion sizes across the continent would do?

    D.C.
    06/12/08 at 5:36 pm

  2. Great post, Allison.

    DandelionSalad
    06/12/08 at 6:47 pm

  3. I don’t think it’s the meat in our diet that’s making americans fat. It’s the fries, chips, sodas, etc. I’ve seen plenty of fat, sloppy vegetarians. If you want to abstain from meat for ethical reasons, I can fully support that, but don’t pretend that it’s healthier. It’s easier, cheaper, and healthier to eat a balanced diet of meat and vegetables than it is to eat only vegetables.

    KazigluBey
    06/12/08 at 8:31 pm

  4. I was wondering about that. I just threw away what were probably good tomatoes, but I paused for a second, and thought to myself, “isn’t Salmonella a Chicken disease?”

    As far as Meat being a vast evil world killer, I wouldn’t take it quite that far. There are many valid arguments about the benefits of reducing one’s meat intake, or for cutting it out altogether, provided one gets the proper animal supplements elsewhere. I’m not a vegetarian, but due to the simple economics of a “reduced meat” diet, I probably could be considered effectively vegetarian at least part of the time. But just because I eat meat doesn’t mean that I think there’s nothing wrong with the meat industry. I oppose factory farming, support free range produce, and believe in strict health standards, even if it means an extra buck or two. I blew one vegan’s mind recently with this concept. I had to explain to her that an animal that leads a more natural life, that is, free of cages and diseased feed, will accumulate more nutrients during its lifetime, and therefore be more nutritious. AND they’ll taste better! (She wanted to argue, but how can you argue with someone who just signed your petition?)

    As an Omnivore, that’s important to me.

    I also agree with KaziluBey’s assertion that the obesity epidemic in the US has more to do with refined sugars and saturated fats, not to mention a severe lack in physical activity. It goes to show that, even with all the newest diet trends and pills and what have you, the “balanced diet and exercise” routine still remains the most tried and true, not to mention oldest, trick in the book.

    PapaFigue
    06/12/08 at 8:59 pm

  5. Ha Ha Ha… the ‘omnivores’ always have their ‘balanced diet’ fantasy. We should eat veggies and some meat and some humans that’s balanced, right?
    Meat not only putrifies in your gut and causes a stink, but also causes cancer and such. If you eat veggie animals will come up to you because they will not fear that you will eat them. Flesh is really just a blood and pus delivery system. If you cook all the ‘juice’ out of meat you wouldn’t want it… too dry. Killing and eating meat is also a great stain on one’s soul. The pain and suffering of other souls goes onto our karmic account and we will have to pay in kind. This is what keeps us on the wheel of birth and death, continually paying off what we ate last time.
    By the way no one eats ‘just veggies’ we have a much more balanced diet than the typical egg mc muffin, burger and pizza for dinner.
    Much love to you all, but I gotta call you out on the meat love.

    Nando
    06/12/08 at 10:58 pm

  6. @Nando:
    It’s simple biology. Humans, like bears, rats, racoons, and pigs, are omnivorous. This isn’t a fantasy or a religious/philosophical theory, it’s scientific fact. I’d go on and rebut your other retarded points, but I mean, why?

    PapaFigue
    06/13/08 at 4:38 am

  7. You link yourself with ‘bears, rats, racoons, and pigs’. I wouldn’t have gone that low, but I won’t challenge the point.
    Humans are blessed with discrimination and should be using this faculty to advance their soul homeward, not to make their body a graveyard for dead animals. I don’t see what is retarded about avoiding meat, and meat-based antibiotics, estrogen, chemicals and bovine-medicine.
    mmm… it’s what’s for dinner.

    Nando
    06/13/08 at 6:03 am

  8. @Nando: Hahahaha….you’re joking, right? You’re really some steakhouse owner in Texas making fun of vegetarians, right?!

    KazigluBey
    06/13/08 at 6:19 am

  9. I agree with Papa figure.

    A friend of my mothers along time ago was a strict vegetarian for 13 yrs up until she was experiencing kidney failure, when she went to a health specialist, he told her to start eating red meat immediately… months later after eating a balanced diet her kidney started fully operating again.

    It’s scientific that people cannot function properly without healthy protein sources.

    But like Papfigure said, there’s free-range animals… also if your worried about meat being chemically induced with estrogen, etc… then there’s always health food stores that sells only the natural, and healthiest selections… not to mention they taste much better.

    Severed
    06/13/08 at 10:41 am

  10. Hello

    I really enjoyed reading your blog. I have recently become a health freak of some sort.. I search Blogs and many health related sites for alternative remedies and herbal health. In fact I go to http://www.youherbal.com for all my herbal facts and products. Anyways I look forward to all the updates. Thanks again.

    Jessica

    jessica freeman
    06/13/08 at 6:34 pm

  11. “A friend of my mothers along time ago was a strict vegetarian for 13 yrs up until she was experiencing kidney failure, when she went to a health specialist, he told her to start eating red meat immediately… months later after eating a balanced diet her kidney started fully operating again.

    “It’s scientific that people cannot function properly without healthy protein sources.”

    No it is not. I’ve been meat free for 15 years now and am in better health than ever. The kidney failure meme is bull shit. Doctors will tell everyone to eat meat because that is how they are trained. They have little or no knowledge and training in diet and certainly nothing of value if they think meat is medicine. I’ve heard stories like this in the past, ‘meat deficiency’ is a fantasy.

    Hey eat what you will, but you will pay in full for everything you take. THAT my friends is the Law of Karma.

    …and no I don’t own a stinkhouse in Texas.

    Nando
    06/14/08 at 6:31 am

  12. See? THAT’S why I don’t need to say a word to rebut those retarded comments. What an ass.

    PapaFigue
    06/15/08 at 9:53 pm

  13. Fully abstaining from eating meat is too drastic. Food has always been a climatic & regional thing e.g. coastal cities/civilizations have always eaten seafood, (even in India which has the most vegetarians). But I do believe US consumes more beef than is necessary. More white meat & seafood which are known to be healthier should be slowly adapted. Obesity in US is more due to lack of exercise and lack of organic/natural food. For e.g Corn syrup is found even in white bread & corn flakes!!! Fresh vegetables & fruits are expensive and factory processed tinned stuff (with additives) is cheap. Changes are definitely required in the meat industry (more grass fed cows, no artificial fattening etc), but with even the FDA taking the meat industry’s side (they approved cloned beef!!!) this wont happen any time soon.

    @Severed: we definitely need protein. If you have ever tried to buy protein shakes you’ll see that most protein drinks are made from whey protein which has the highest absorption rate (more than beef/pork), so its not necessary to consume animal proteins.

    …the best diet would be a lot of vegetables, fruits, seafood, grains & grass-fed cows, organic dairy

    Xerces
    06/25/08 at 7:59 am

  14. @ Nando: It wasn’t a doctor, it was a Nurtionist. She went to a doctor, they told her that they wanted to remove the kidney and she told them no, so she went with the natural healing method instead..

    @ Xerces: I was unaware of that, thank you.

    The way I see it, if you want to be a vegan, that’s fine… but just have a healthy protein source from somewhere. Most people are allergic to soy, and beans don’t provide that proper elements of protein to regulate your body in the long run.

    Severed
    06/25/08 at 4:26 pm

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