Are you Eating Less Meat Due to Mad Cow Disease?

Not the people I’ve spoken with. Most are saying, “Yipee, beef’s on sale!” The food industry has done a great job of convincing us they are providing a safe food supply and we’ve been lulled into a false sense of security. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In July 1988, a ban was introduced in the UK which prohibited the use of the remains of sheep in cattle feed. BSE is thought to have spread to cattle from feed including meat and bone meal made from sheep suffering from a similar brain disease, called scrapie.

Ban Not Properly Enforced

Unfortunately the ban was not enforced properly for many years and remained a paper exercise (exactly as it has been in the US ever since).

Francis Anthony, a Herefordshire veterinary surgeon, and the British Veterinary Association’s spokesman on BSE said, “If the ban had been enforced properly from the start, I have no hesitation in saying categorically that we should be seeing only a few cases today. But that contaminated feed was being given to animals until at least 1995, and possibly a year later.”

The false sense of security for us in the US came from it being widely reported that the practice had been banned. They failed to make it clear that this was a “voluntary ban.” Even I falsely believed they had long ago ended this practice until the recent news reports that it is still being done. Despite there being a clear connection between feeding rendered animals to animals causing Mad Cow disease, the meat and dairy industry continues the practice to this day. Why? Corporate greed, plain and simple. It is a cheap source of “protein” and makes cows and other animals fatten faster. A fatter animals weighs more, and they are sold by weight.

I have no doubt that people in the US aren’t getting excited about the threat or beginning to avoid beef simply because no people have been reported with the disease. After all, this was a sick cow, not a human. Hence, people do not consider it a direct threat. Amazingly they don’t consider those with CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) a variant of Mad Cow as being related when clearly it is.

The Costs of Clean Meat Supply

The meat and dairy industry will now begin a campaign to make the higher cost of clean meat seem a ridiculous indulgence rather than a possibly life saving measure. It does cost more to have a clean food supply. I and my family are worth it, are you and yours?

For excellent reference materials read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, The Crazy Makers by Carol Simontacchi, and Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher who Won’t Eat Meat by Howard F. Lyman. Be informed then make the choice for you and your family.

Food politics aside, I’m interested in my and my families health and well being, and I’m not interested in supporting an industry that doesn’t care about the quality of their products or whether those products are potentially dangerous or even deadly.

What You Can Do to Avoid Dangerous Meat

Buy all your meat from the local butcher. He gets the animals from local farmers, and can tell you which Farms, if you ask.
Buy all your meat from local stores that certify it is grain fed. Visit sites such as EatWild.com
Cut back on your consumption of all meat in general, substituting beans for instance for protein.
Eat a “special occasion” steak at the best restaurants such as Ruth Chris’ Steak House. Now that’s a steak!
More Info on Mad Cow and it’s Variant CJD – MadCow.org: Everything you ever wanted to know about Mad Cow.

Human BSE Foundation: An organization for those with CJD (the human variant of Mad Cow)

Mad Cow Facts

You don’t have to be a fanatic, just be informed and then make the best choices you can for yourself and your family.

About the Author

Kathryn Martyn, Master NLP Practitioner, author of the free e-book: Changing Beliefs, Your First Step to Permanent Weight Loss, and owner of http://www.OneMoreBite-Weightloss.com

Get The Daily Bites: Inspirational Mini Lessons Using EFT and NLP for Ending the Struggle with Weight Loss. http://www.onemorebite-weightloss.com/getnews.html

Written By: Kathryn Martyn, M.NLP

Friends’ star, Jennifer Aniston, was a huge follower of low carb dieting, and her super-slim figure encouraged millions of normal people to quickly jump on the low carb bandwagon in the hope of shedding the pounds. Coupling her eating habits with yoga and exercise has helped Jennifer to develop an enviable and world-famous slim figure, making her an icon for millions of women around the world.

The UK’s Catherine Zeta Jones was the envy of millions when she quickly shed the pounds after giving birth to her first child with star husband Michael Douglas. It was soon impossible to tell that Catherine had even given birth, as her figure sprang back to its svelte and firm former state. Jones used a low carb eating plan in order to help her shed the excess weight after giving birth, and this diet along with exercise made it possible for her to be back on screen in record time looking better than ever.

Former UK Spice Girl, Geri Halliwell, was once a curvy and busty redhead. However, with the help of a low carb diet and plenty of yoga, Geri lost a great deal of weight and has spent the last few years sporting a super-slim figure to complement her new, chic look. Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow is also known to be a low carb diet fan, and enjoys supplementing her yoga with a range of low carb foods to keep her waif like figure in shape.

Many stars, both male and female, use low carb diets to shape up for movies, as this enables them to lose excess pounds quite quickly. Movie superstars such as Ben Affleck, have switched to low carb eating plans to get in shape for upcoming movies. Ben was known to favor low carb foods whilst shaping up for his role in Pearl Harbor.

And it’s not just Hollywood actors that use low carb diets to get in shape. Many musicians and pop stars also enjoy low carb diets in order to get them in shape for concerts and tours. This helps them to maintain energy levels as well as slim down and stay trim, an important factor for all stars, who are very conscious of their appearance. Low carb diets have always proven popular with high profile stars, and most low carb eating plans have these celebrities to thank for their popularity and exposure.

About the author:

Find out more about Diet and Nutrition at healthandfinesse.com

Written By: Nicky Pilkington

The challenge for vegetarian seeking to shed a few pounds a la Atkins diet or other low-carb regimens is to find meatless sources of protein, writes Celia Brooks Brown in her cookbook.

Eggs are obvious stand-ins, says the U.K. based cookbook author, but buy organic and limit consumption if cholesterol is a concern.

She offers such recipes as kerala-style eggs (scrambled eggs with tomato and spices) and egg foo yung (Chinese omelet with veggies and bean sprouts), which require a little savvy.

Also featured in a lot of her recipes is tofu. “Nature’s gift to vegetarians,” the rather tasteless soybean by-product just needs “a little loving attention to give it life,” she notes.

In other words, infuse it with flavor or spice it up to the hilt as she does in Chinese-spice tofu and mesclun salad and Thai hot and sour salad with crispy tofu.

Here, the tofu is braised in a sauce and roasted with broccoli.

Teriyaki Tofu With Roasted Broccoli

1/2 cup dark soy sauce
1 cup dry sherry
1/2-inch piece of fresh ginger, finely grated
7 ounces/200g firm tofu, patted dry and cut into two triangles
4 teaspoons peanut or sunflower oil
1-3/4 cups broccoli florets
Cucumber slices, to serve (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. (200C.) Place the soy sauce, sherry and ginger in a small skillet and bring to a boil. Add the tofu and simmer for five minutes, then turn the tofu over and simmer for a further five minutes. Carefully lift tofu from the hot sauce and place in a lightly oiled ovenproof dish. Reserve the sauce. Brush the sides and top of the tofu with 2 teaspoons oil.

Place the broccoli in a bowl and toss with remaining oil. Arrange the broccoli around the tofu. Pour the reserved sauce over the broccoli and tofu. Roast for 25 minutes, until broccoli is cooked and slightly crisp. Serve hot with cucumber slices, if you like. Makes 2 servings.

Per Serving: Calories 255, Protein 11g, Fat 14g, Carbohydrates 10g, Fiber 3g, Sodium 3,090mg (Use low-sodium soy sauce and the sodium content will drop in mg.)

About the Author:

Author: Susan Rutter – Publisher, Nutritionist, and Instructor who assists patients and the public make healthy choices and changes in their lives.
Web Site: Healthy YOUbbies http://www.geocities.com/healthyoubbies/ Contact
Email: sm.rutter@sympatico.ca

Written By: Susan Rutter