Dr
Bob the Health Builder
Weekly E-Zine for Wealthy Healthy
Wise
Vignettes to make Life a Little Better and More
Prosperous
This week's ezine is about
beef and what you should expect from various types of stores that sell meat.
This should be eye opening as to what is being pushed off on us a
'food'.
1. Butchers are not what they used to be 25 to 50 years
ago. We used to see butcher's in every store. When the meat arrived at the
market, it was an entire side of beef. The butcher's then 'broke it down' into
recognizable parts. These people were very skilled and made sure that there was
no waste. Today the person behind the counter (except in specialty stores) helps
customers, may make a few basic cuts, and tie up roasts, and makes sure
everything is stocked properly and kept clean. In most large chain stores the
meat is prepackaged and you have little choice except what is in the cooler. The
men and women behind the counter get paid very little compared to 'real'
butchers.
2. Special orders don't upset stores because they just
don't do special orders. The term for prepackaged meat is 'case ready,' in which
the product is manufactured in an industrial plant miles from where the consumer
buys their meat products. The reason companies say they have case ready meat
is because pre-preparation helps prevent
contamination, enhance quality control and lower prices. While this might be
true, there are hidden reasons they don't want to talk about.
The first reason is the
stores do not want unions. Many times the term 'butcher' means there is a union
lurking in the back ground. The second item is 'prevent contamination.' In this
day and age, livestock is fed in feed lots and given antibiotics to prevent
disease caused by over stocking (to many animals in a small area). The animals
are fed concentrates of grain which cause a super acid stomach and digestive
system. This acid stomach causes a super E coli bacteria. E coli is in the intestines and if even
a tiny amount leaks out and gets into the meat (usually hamburger), then people
can become deathly ill or die. The big super markets don't want to see headlines
in newspapers that say family of four die or deathly ill from contaminated meat.
Their lawyers will appear in the media and start the spin they never touched the
meat product so that the law suites will be directed at the faceless industrial
manufactures of 'case ready' meats.
3. Today the real money in meat is the
prepared products. Stuffed chicken breasts and pork chops, marinated ribs,
kabobs, and special preformed and seasoned patties are part and parcel of
today's food desires of the public. We seem to be looking for something easy and
I guess 'preformed' patties are the road to simplicity. Andy Rooney once said to
not take advice from a butcher on cooking meat because if he was capable of
giving advice he would be a chef.
4. If you believe that fat on meat is bad,
wait until you find out what is in the beef, chicken and pork today. We have
been made to believe that fat is unhealthy and causes disease. This isn't true
because 100 years ago there were almost no heart attacks, cancer (3 % of
deaths), and very little diabetes. By 1960 there were about 600,000 deaths from
heart attacks.
The meat
today has little flavor and is tough because of breeding and feeding practices.
To off set this problem the meat manufactures inject chicken, pork and beef with
water, salt, spices (when this is on a label you can count that just under 50 %
is MSG - an excitotoxin), and the latest addition to this is ammonia (this
tenderizes the meat while in the packages). Sealed meat in packages have carbon
monoxide put into the package to make the meat look better for longer shelf life
(eye appeal). The latest addition to the meat is radiation to kill bacteria so
that the meat handling will have less risk of E-coli
infection.
5. US residents are consuming a lot of meat. In
2004, the average person consumed 221 pounds of meat and poultry per person, up
from 199 pounds in 1990. To hold the price down the industrial factory farms
feed food that is not natural to animals. Cattle are grass eating 'machines' but
they are being fed corn- and soybean-based feed (both are genetically engineered
to tolerate more farm chemicals - herbicides + pesticides). Another
example of unnatural feed for beef is feathers, poultry manure and bedding from
chickens and it is acceptable by the Food and Drug Administration. Also poultry
may be fed meat and bone meal ground down to an inexpensive, protein-rich powder
that encourages fast growth. This practice may be dangerous because of prions -
proteins that may cause mad cow disease.
6. Meat which is all 'natural' is a great
term if it really meant some thing, but it doesn't mean a thing. To the consumer
we would envision an animal living in the great outdoors as the Mother Nature
meant for our animals to live. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
the term 'natural' on a meat label in no way reflects how the animal was raised
or what it was fed; 'natural' means only that producers have introduced no
colors or additives to the meat after processing. Another mislabeling is
'free range'. This congers up chicken running around a field eating there
natural foods - grass, weeds, bugs, and worms, but this is not the case. To
qualify as free range the only thing needed is to put a 'sun room' on an
industrial chicken house (about 5000 chickens with their beaks cut off so they
will not kill themselves due to stress) so that the chicken can go 'outside' in
the sun if they want (they don't want to because they are fed things like
arsenic that make them crave water and food instead of the great
outdoors).
7. Sanitation is another consideration that
you can check. It starts at the slaughter house some where in the Midwest. To cover for sloppy handling the corporations are
using radiation that kills 'bad' bacteria as well as beneficial things in our
meats. Once the meat gets to your store you are on your own. If it looks dirty,
you need to find a new place to spend your money. Try to develop a relationship
with a 'butcher' so that you will be better protected. The best solution is to
buy meat from a local farmer that raises animals in a healthy environment that
you can witness from pasture, to slaughter, to processing, to packaging, and
freezing. If you know the producer your family will be
healthier.
8. Ground beef is something to be feared
because of what can contain. Your first thought is pieces of meat ground up in a
clean grinder, but that is not necessarily true. There is a term AMR - Advanced
Meat Recovery - extracted by a process where carcasses are fed to a machine that
strips soft tissue from bone. There is also a process where a chemical is used
to help remove the little pieces of meat and tendons from the bone which becomes
'ground beef' for tacos and burgers. Again the only solution is to know the
place where you buy your meat with the best option is to buy from a local
farmer. These people will be glad to let you know how they produce their
products.
9. Where did your meat come from? A good
question but not easily answered. The corporate meat industrial producers want
you to think that US beef is safe and healthy but they don't want you to know
about the hormones, antibiotics, steroids, chicken manure, Advanced Meat
Recovery, etc, etc, and etc. They also don't want you to know what country the
meat comes from as other countries do not have the same sanitation codes - yet
they want the USDA stamp on the meat so you will feel good about its safety. On
the other hand, there is meat that comes in from countries like
Brazil and
Argentina that has no hormones and
other chemicals which is healthy, but their production methods may be seriously
flawed. As you can guess, there is no simple solution except to find local
people that you can trust as well as people you can check their
credibility.
10. Tainted
meat does slip through the cracks. The biggest worries are E-coli, and Mad Cow
Disease. What is a person to do to protect self and family? The only choice is
to buy locally and know the people you deal with or gamble with your health form
'big box stores'.
I belong to
the Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and we advocate that you buy
locally for all of your foods. This includes fruits, vegetables, and meat
proteins. As much as we like 'Organics' that label is not dependable. A food
product labeled organic from China or Mexico, or where ever is not a
healthy product. Even if is healthy when it is grown, it will have no nutrition
because it was picked early and shipped thousands of miles.
There are a
few websites and organizations that you need to know about.
www.westonaprice.org
source of information on healthy foods
www.eatwild.com a
source of grass fed beef and its benefits
www.acresusa.com
wealth of information with books and recordings
www.price-pottenger.org or
www.ppnf.org
www.prestigepublishing.com
www.walthyhealthywise.net
www.drbobthehealthbuilder.podomatic.com
'Minerals for
the Genetic Code' by Charles Walters
The Hundred
Year Lie' by Randall Fitzgerald
Dr Bob the
Health Builder