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Please note that Kosher does not prohibit feeding animal products to beef cattle. Therefore it is not possible to say that Kosher beef is immune from BSE (Mad Cow Disease).
On the other hand it is well known that stunning techniques do push brain matter into the rest of the animal therefore non Kosher slaughter, eg. 'stunning' does run a higher risk of spreading diseased brain tissue throughout the animal.
Last edited by Mediocrates; 01-03-2004 at 06:32 PM.
Originally posted by Mediocrates
Please note that Kosher does not prohibut feeding animal products to beef cattle. Therefore it is not possible to say that Kosher beef is immune from BSE (Mad Cow Disease).
On the other hand it is well known that stunning techniques do push brain matter into the rest of the animal therefore non Kosher slaughter, eg. 'stunning' does run a higher risk of spreading diseased brain tissue throughout the animal.
Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooo
I hope a more knowledgeable person chimes in. My understanding is that an animal cannot be used as meat under kosher law if it would not be reasonably expected to survive for one more year on its own. In other words, visibly sick or wounded cattle are disqualified.
In the past week or so, the US government decided that so-called "downer" cows should be kept out of the food supply. These are cows that are too weak or sick to stand on their own. These would definitely be disqualified under kosher law. Previously, an unknown number of cattle marked for "regular" slaughter were "downer" cows. It seems common sense that a sick cow is more likely to spread disease when it is slaughtered.
(When I say "cow", I am referring to both male and female animals in this context.)
I think it can take up to six years (from the time of infection) for the mad cow condition to surface. The prions would be present long before that and so only extensive laboratory testing could establish their presence or not.
It would be a costly proposition to test each and every individual cow. Diseases such as TB are easy to identify by the presence of spots in the liver but that’s not the case of prions although examining the brain matter does give some tentative indication of the disease.
An eight- ounce steak could end up costing several hundred dollars if each cow was tested using our current technology.
MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Originally posted by cerulean
I hope a more knowledgeable person chimes in. My understanding is that an animal cannot be used as meat under kosher law if it would not be reasonably expected to survive for one more year on its own. In other words, visibly sick or wounded cattle are disqualified.
In the past week or so, the US government decided that so-called "downer" cows should be kept out of the food supply. These are cows that are too weak or sick to stand on their own. These would definitely be disqualified under kosher law. Previously, an unknown number of cattle marked for "regular" slaughter were "downer" cows. It seems common sense that a sick cow is more likely to spread disease when it is slaughtered.
(When I say "cow", I am referring to both male and female animals in this context.)
Ok, so according to L@mplighter, it can take up to six years for the disease to manifest itself in cattle. The government may have banned downer cattle, but the cattle industry is still allowed to feed other animals (namely pigs and chickens) to live cattle. Thanks Medio, I was wondering about that very thing.
I think buying meat products from free-range ethical ranchers who don't pack cattle in like sardines until they kick open wounds into each others' legs and are then shot up with all kinds of steroids and anti-biotics weeks after discovering the festering infections, and who feed their cattle vegetarian diets (not old germ infested grains either) is worth the extra expense. As an American, why should I allow myself to be poisoned because of some greedy cattle rancher? This may sound fanatical to some of you, but I eat meat these days and I don't want to eat that junk.
I think you need to keep this in perspective.
Look how many thousans upon thousands of cows were discovered in England, and yet, only just over 100 people got ill.
The media is creating far too much panic.
You'll die in a car crash before getting ill from mad cow disease!
I don't want to sound like a PETA looney and I probably do, but I really think that people should learn more about the cattle industry in this country. I think consumers should be better educated about their practices because that is the only way we will be able to increase their standards. The cattle industry has an incredible lobby and so barring what just happened with the Mad Cow discovery, there is little opportunity for their ways to be changed from capital hill. I'm glad that the media is making a big deal of this. It's the first time I've been on the side of the media in a while.
If the media wins us a better system, then fine.
But one mad cow isn't worth the crippling of both Canadian and American farmers.
One-two sick cows cannot possibly be worth the billions lost.
I read an interesting article earlier today, and there may be some truth in it, for we were crippled last year with this crisis.
Farmers almost went bankrupt, and it was just a catastrophe all round.
The American media was relentless and I felt it was way too overblown.
When I first heard of the American cow, I wondered, will the media pounce on the USA and cripple their industry as much as they did ours?
But they didn't seem to be doing so this time, which surprised me.
Speculation is that the US needs to sell their meat to Japan, and if they slam us and make our cattle industry weaker, it will only cause the Japanese to put up more barriers, for our 2 country's are to interlinked.
Either way, I eat meat and the one mad cow didn't worry me either.
However, I was in Spain during the big crisis in England and I was very taken aback how lax they were.
There was supposed to be a green mat at the airport you would walk over, and it would sterilize you had you been near a farm in England.
Well, they didn't have it set up and the Costa Del Sol is a resort where many British Golfers were heading.
I'm really surprised it didn't at least make it into Spain at the time.
Correct me if I am wrong but I believe I had heard that this one mad cow, was 6 or 7 years old, so had been born before the laws of feed had changed.
Lets just hope that there aren't any more!
I think that was to prevent the spread of the “Hoof and Mouth virus†that can be inhaled and live in the lungs for a couple of days. Humans can also end up with a variation of the disease and have symptoms like a sore throat.Originally posted by Kev
There was supposed to be a green mat at the airport you would walk over, and it would sterilize you had you been near a farm in England.
Well, they didn't have it set up and the Costa Del Sol is a resort where many British Golfers were heading.
I'm really surprised it didn't at least make it into Spain at the time.
Correct me if I am wrong but I believe I had heard that this one mad cow, was 6 or 7 years old, so had been born before the laws of feed had changed.
Lets just hope that there aren't any more!
I think you have to be rather unlucky to end up with a prion/prions(from beef) ending up between your ears. There are several types of prions that are susceptible to acquiring.
Sorry screwed up!Originally posted by L@mplighterM
I think that was to prevent the spread of the “Hoof and Mouth virus†that can be inhaled and live in the lungs for a couple of days. Humans can also end up with a variation of the disease and have symptoms like a sore throat.
I think you have to be rather unlucky to end up with a prion/prions(from beef) ending up between your ears. There are several types of prions that are susceptible to acquiring.
Thanks for the link!
How about Southern China family style farming, the babies don’t wear diapers and the family dog clean up the mess. Excrement from cows is fed to pigs and the pigs’ waste goes into the pond for the little fishes, everything gets recycled.
I have a friend that’s a vegetarian I think because it’s easier to keep kosher when she’s out. When she comes for dinner I cook vegetarian and actually I don’t mind eating some of it as well.
Even if the vegetables are organically certified all kinds of foreign matter can leach into the plants. Actually it’s quite common to end up with lead poisoning from a backyard garden where there are older homes. Apparently the paint leached lead into the soil and it finds its way into the vegetables.
No food is entirely safe from contamination that can be harmful to ones health.
I think that was to prevent the spread of the “Hoof and Mouth virus†that can be inhaled and live in the lungs for a couple of days. Humans can also end up with a variation of the disease and have symptoms like a sore throat.
Shiksa <----Shiks shakes her head at her stupidity
My mistake, yes, you are right, what was I thinking?
No pun intended here but peeeee-euuuw! I'd just as soon not know about that particular Circle of Life, especially since my oldest sister moved to Guangzhou, China in July. You can bet that is not going to be one of the conversation topics in our next phone call.Originally posted by L@mplighterM
[B]Thanks for the link!
How about Southern China family style farming, the babies don’t wear diapers and the family dog clean up the mess. Excrement from cows is fed to pigs and the pigs’ waste goes into the pond for the little fishes, everything gets recycled.
Exactly. I do think our food supply is much safer than that of many other countries but there are areas where we definitely could be doing so much better.originally posted by L@amplighterM
Even if the vegetables are organically certified all kinds of foreign matter can leach into the plants. Actually it’s quite common to end up with lead poisoning from a backyard garden where there are older homes. Apparently the paint leached lead into the soil and it finds its way into the vegetables.
No food is entirely safe from contamination that can be harmful to ones health.
It makes sense that we can't keep pumping antibiotics and hormones into everything without repercussions. And hey, is it really that important (and good for us?) that commercially baked goods can have a shelf life of 3 months or something?
I don’t really know what steps should be taken to modify the production of food by the industry, if any. My parents fought against food eradiation and many people oppose using microwaves. I love using my microwave oven!Originally posted by Donna
Exactly. I do think our food supply is much safer than that of many other countries but there are areas where we definitely could be doing so much better.
It makes sense that we can't keep pumping antibiotics and hormones into everything without repercussions. And hey, is it really that important (and good for us?) that commercially baked goods can have a shelf life of 3 months or something?
The bottom line is that our longevity is/has increased in the last 50 years so we must be doing something right. I oppose feeding animals antibiotics from birth until they end up in the slaughterhouse, perhaps that’ll be what puts us back to square one.
Several years ago I bought acreage so that I could build myself a little hobby farm, escaping from the concrete jungle. It would have been interesting to produce my own food but life had something else in store for me so now I’m stuck in the big city.
I do believe that there’s plenty that we can eat and still maintain a healthy diet. I smoke so it seems silly for me to worry about prions and I don’t although both my kids refuse to eat beef. I don’t feed my dog commercial dog food (contains all kinds of meat byproducts) anymore I bake him roasts and meatloaf (with a lot of fiber), I do that partly because he has been diagnosed with diabetes.
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