This blog is dedicated to health, broadly interpreted. I'm a health care professional. Since childhood I've been deeply influenced by the health care culture. Over the last year, I've switched to a primarily vegetarian diet which has had a profound impact on my health, my understanding of nutrition, and my opinion of American eaters and the dominant food culture. So I've become increasingly sensitive to emerging information on how our contaminated, processed, nutritionally vacant food chain compromises our health. I have grandchildren. And I'm scared shitless over the impact our food sources have on their long-term health.
A top story on MSNBC right now, just fueled my fear.
The story recounts investigative reporting from Prevention magazine: Concerns Growing Over Superbugs in Our Food. Bottom line: a growing proportion of the animal protein in our country is causing outbreaks of MRSA (an antibiotic resistant bacteria) and/or seeding our bodies for future eruptions of the disease. The incidence of workers in factory farms and processing plants with this illness in also increasing. And most worrisome, MRSA is recurrent -- once you get it, you are likely to have repeated outbreaks, each one more resistant to treatment than the last. MRSA can be lethal. It is unwise to dismiss it as 'just a skin infection'.
The story offers a list of ways to protect yourself. One of them is switching to organic meat. However, in my view, that's just trying to soothe meat-eaters into thinking that organic means "safe". But, if that organic meat is finished in a CAFO or processed in plants where contaminated meat was processed, or if it is butchered by workers who've been infected at other plants, then the organic label is less protection than people imagine. Regulation won't protect you: no one regulates the exposure to MRSA promulgated by the food industry.
The meaningful switch is another one suggested by the list: avoid or minimize your exposure by using non-animal sources of protein as much as possible. All the meat eaters I know will be jumping onto their soap boxes, throwing verbal epithets at me, and extolling the virtues of meat, insisting that they will eat what they damn well please, thank you very much. I support free will, OK? But informed eaters can't continue to ignore the increasing flood of information on the risks of eating 'food' supplied by the American industrial food complex -- and that includes the organic and natural food industry, which is increasingly being industrialized, with unanticipated consequences.
We need to eat lower on the food chain, period. We need to attempt to verify our food sources whenever possible, be deeply skeptical of food in restaurants, and take seriously the impact of food on health. The risk is highest for children. At the least, we need to feed our children differently than we eat. We must be vigilant about their exposure to contaminants, possible allergens in processed foods, and minimize their consumption of food that is low in nutrient value. Allergies are increasing in children and I have no doubt whatsoever that this is directly related to the amount of processed food they eat. If you wait for studies to identify the risks, it will be too late for your children. No one wants to fund those studies or take on the food industry, whose campaign contributions have bought them protection from deep scrutiny.
Read the article online. Consider the benefits of a conservative approach to your food choices. Your children will one day thank you!
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