I hate to burst a bubble, but finally after a year of being a member here i have found something that i can honestly say, "I am an expert in this field." I can say this because i am. ALL food contains bacteria..SOME of this bacteria is pathogenic...after cooking of foods there is ALWAYS some of the bacteria left..and PART of that bacteria WILL be pathogenic.
However some pathogens are body can easily deal with,..a raw chicken has around about salmonella count of 2000 microbes,..after cooking it has only 400..the human body won't get sick until it has about 1000 or more present...so even when cooked, you are still eating pathogens. The problem with ecoli is that you only need a mere handful of those suckers and your ill. It is for this reason farming practice has become so brutal and ridged in our generations,..to maximise profits and keep bacteria spoilage to a minimum. the problem with ecoli then becomes if you know it exists at a level that could make people sick, you still need not worry if the consumer handles the food as per the law or environmental local policy,..however how many people actually know these rules is not many, and fewer people still own a digital cooking thermometer to check core temperatures of food...so in essence, the retailer has to assume the consumer is an idiot who won't necessarily cook the food how it should be,...hence a recall to avoid any potential law suits. Furthermore ecoli in beef is not a problem if the beef is not minced...if it is minced then the beef must be cooked to at least a temperature of 72 degrees celesius at its core,...and reading one persons statement of "I miss my rare burgers" is exactly the person that these meat companies fear...it is only because of harsh antibiotics in meat that the ecoli was kept to such a low level that the meat could be minced and served rare,..but with all antibiotic treatment there will develop m.r.s.a ,..or otherwise known as super bug strains that will resist such antibiotic agents..in this case the company has probably discovered cattle that had develop bacteria with such resistance and some of those cattle would have slaughtered and processed with all the other meat products,..at this stage the ecoli will only ever grow in numbers despite refrigeration..hence the recall,..because they know there will be people who will still eat rare burgers even though the rule of thumb is always cook chicken and fish you didn't catch yourself and mince until the juices run clear..and in a odd number of elderly or unwell ppl who did cook it throughly, it may still make them ill. The liability of this in the sue happy u.s.a is just too great.

Can carnivores stop asking me why I am a vegetarian now?

What does that have to do with anything?

I love veggies...mmm. good ol not-at-one-point-living-flesh veggies. And fruit. I Prolly love fruit more. Not dissing on meat eaters in any fashion... Its just sad that all of those cows had to live, suffer then die to feed people....and they didnt even get to do that....

I wonder if farmers are still feeding cows corn when corn is now in high demand for fuel production.
Actually if you guys really wanna get serious about your meat (lol), find a high-end local winery/butcher shop ; at least here in Sarasota, the beef from that shop tastes a helluva lot better (and fresher since they don't stock as much) than the crap they sell at grocery stores. That reminds me, have any of you heard the radio ad for really inexpensive steak at wal-mart? Ahh..the precious few dollars people save will pay for a new kidney, right?

Non-Negative means positive, right?

I have been a solid and happy meat loving omnivore all my life. Until I got tired of being sick and getting food allergies. As of last week, I decided to try living vegan for a month and see if I feel better. Within 2 days, the smell of oil and grease was making me sick and tastes are changing for me. I don't know that I'll be a permanent vegan, but I will definitely try to go a different route to eliminate as much of the tainted crap that's being sold from my diet. I'll let you know if I feel better after a month.

So isn't anybody else wondering why we seem to be accepting as much cow wash as we are? It's all over the feed animals at the "bad" companies (and even some of the "good" ones) and it's used in all sorts of cheap fertilizer products for the vegetables.

But at least it isn't ground and chopped into the vegetables the way it is with the ground beef, and it's a lot easier to rinse/wash/scrub a vegetable than it is a half-pound of ground chuck.

I think her post answers the question before you even had to ask.

I say it's your own problem if you still decide to eat meat.

I do. And my mouth waters.



Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... cows...

I have never been so happy that I don't eat meat. I'm almost vegan- I like to think i'm freegan. I don't eat meat, and I'm allergic to most dairy but I'll often eat icecream or cookies with eggs and milk if it's free. I don't pay for stomach aches, thats mostly my deal.

However, other food is still nasty and I've had bad experiences with unpastuerized juice and a western family pickle that exploded with Indian maggots. They gave me a $100 grocery gift card and confiscated my pickles, which I then lost the memory card that had living proof.

PATHETIC.

I feel bad for everyone that had to deal with E coli cow.

oh, nevermind.

I don't know if I should be confused or saddened by the number of "thank my adult imaginary friend that I'm a vegetarian/vegan" style comments there are in this thread given the well documented ability to get extremely ill and possibly die from the EXACT SAME bacteria present on vegetables.

Believe it or not, not every last article that mentions meat is presenting you with a reason why nobody should eat meat.

Just saying.