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Feb 5, 2011: American Food Service recalls 3,170 pounds of ground beef due to E. coli contamination

Jan 8, 2011: Columbus Meat Market recalls 780 pounds of beef patties due to E. coli contamination

Dec 31, 2010: First Class Foods Inc. recalls 34,373 pounds of organic ground beef due to E. coli contamination

Aug 30, 2010: Cargill Meat recalls 8,500 pounds of ground beef due to E. coli contamination

Aug 6, 2010: Valley Meat Co. recalls 1 million pounds of ground beef due to E. coli contamination

Jul 7, 2010: Rocky Mountain Natural Meats recalls 66,776 pounds of ground bison due to E. coli contamination

Jun 24, 2010: South Gate Meat Company recalls 35,000 pounds of ground beef due to E. coli contamination

May 15, 2010: Montclair Meat Co. recalls approximately 53,000 pounds of ground beef due to E. coli contamination

Apr 21, 2010: Beltex Corporation recalls 135,500 pounds of beef trim products due to E. coli contamination

Feb 3, 2010: West Missouri Beef recalls 14,000 pounds of fresh boneless beef products due to E. coli contamination

January 19, 2010: Huntington Meat Packing Inc.recalls 864,000 pounds of ground beef due to E. coli contamination

Jan 11, 2010: Adams Farm Slaughterhouse recalls 2,574 pounds of ground beef due to E. coli contamination

(And don’t even get me started on the Salmonella and Listeria recalls!)

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More than you ever wanted to know about E. coli

Intestines are filled with bacteria. This is a fact that affects just about every creature with a gut, primitive or complicated. Most of the bacteria there are natural residents, helping to digest the food. Some of the bacteria there come from the water we drank or the food we ate. And much of this bacteria just passes quietly through. But sometimes, a bacteria that doesn’t belong in the digestive tract will end up there and wreak havoc. For humans, Escherichia coli O157:H7 is one of these. (The colon is where the ‘coli’ part of the name comes from and the ‘Escherichia’ part comes from the German scientist who described it in the early 1900′s. The ‘O’ part refers to the type of cell wall it has and the ‘H’ part to the flagella.)

A variety of different strains of E. coli live in the intestines of both humans and animals, and are a natural part of the digestive process, but different species carry different strains of E. coli. The O157:H7 strain is carried by cows, but not by humans. When this strain enters the digestive tract of a human, it can cause abdominal pain and cramps, diarrhea, vomiting, intestinal bleeding, and in severe cases, damage to vital organs such as the kidney, pancreas, and brain, and there is even a possibility of death. (The Centers for Disease Control estimate about 250 deaths per year due to E. coli infections. Here is a NY Times article about a woman who was paralyzed by an E. coli-tainted hamburger.)

The bad news on ground beef

Ground beef is the number one culprit for E. coli infection in people. This begs the question, why is ground beef laden with bacteria that resides in cow colons? One of the first posts I wrote on this blog, What’s Really In Your Hamburger, answers this question bluntly: There is shit in the meat.

E. coli is spread by feces. All animals (including humans) that carry E. coli shed excess E. coli bacteria in their feces. And ingesting cow feces contaminated with O157:H7 delivers the dangerous strain right to your gut.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC):

Infections start when you swallow [E. coli]—in other words, when you get tiny (usually invisible) amounts of human or animal feces in your mouth. Unfortunately, this happens more often than we would like to think about. Exposures that result in illness include consumption of contaminated food, consumption of unpasteurized (raw) milk, consumption of water that has not been disinfected, contact with cattle, or contact with the feces of infected people. Sometimes the contact is pretty obvious (working with cows at a dairy or changing diapers, for example), but sometimes it is not (like eating an undercooked hamburger or a contaminated piece of lettuce).

Inside the slaughterhouse, E. coli contamination can happen at any step.  First of all, the cows come in covered in feedlot feces.  The hides must be very carefully removed to ensure that none of that feces touches the meat.  This is especially difficult for trimmings, which are sliced from the outer surface of the carcass, which are used in ground beef.

At the gutting station, when the intestines are cut out, it is common for them to spill open, dumping their contents (that would be feces) onto the conveyor belt, table, floor, or the meat.  (Ever seen the movie Fast Food Nation?) And, if at any point one cutter’s knife comes in contact with the bacteria, they can spread it down the line to numerous pieces of meat.

Even despite reassuring labels like “sirloin” or “top choice,” ground beef is an amalgamation of cheap, leftover cuts of meat from hundreds (yes, hundreds) of different cows. Many meat producers ship scraps to a central grinding location where ground beef is produced from cows all across the country (or sometimes even world). When ground beef is produced in this manner, there’s more of an opportunity for contamination. A single  contamination from one slaughterhouse will be mixed with the meat from all the other slaughterhouses and can contaminate thousands of pounds of ground beef.

Current US Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations allow fecally contaminated meat to be passed at inspection so long as the “feces are not visible to the naked eye.” Prior to 1978, the USDA required condemnation of any carcass with visible fecal contamination. But now, the USDA allows carcasses contaminated with visible feces to be “reprocessed,” rather than condemned.

What you can do

A 2001 survey by the Physicians Comittee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), found that 84% of Americans do not know that feces are the originating source for food borne pathogens. (Feces are also the source of salmonella, listeria, and campylobacter.) Thus, most consumers do not realize that when they get sick from eating contaminated foods, it is most likely because they ate feces. (Produce contaminated with E. coli, salmonella, listeria, or campylobacter is also a result of the produce coming in contact with manure.) The meat industry has cleverly hidden the link between food borne pathogens and shit. Consumers are led to believe that pathogens are an unavoidable part of meat products, but this is untrue.

So now that you know, should you still choose to eat shit-laced meat, make sure that you cook it thoroughly. The heat kills the bacteria (but you’ll still eat the feces).

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Breakfast: Fresh grapefruit (from the CSA!)

Lunch: Veggie rolls (with tofu) from How Do You Roll?

Dinner: Mixed veggies (frozen), blue potatoes (my favorite potatoes!), and My Favorite Things Salad

Related Posts:

• Downed Cows
• Burgers That Can Shatter Lives
• What's Really In Your Hamburger