Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Mad Cow Disease?

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I second Rex's motino: Much Ado About Nothing. Now pass me that Bistecca alla Fiorentina, per favore !

Actually I don't eat red meat either at home or abroad (not for 20 years), but my husband is a CARNIVORE. par excellance.. I have started buying only whole foods beef products at the organic market certified organic... but of course that doesn't help you in a restaurant... also another caveat with the organic stuff is that it is far more expensive then USDA.. I certainly couldn't afford it if we had a family of 4 to feed. Luckily it's just myself and my spouse.. so I can spend the extra on organic dairy and poultry. I'll let you know in 40 years if this decision was worth it...lol.. but I do know that if I eat a lot of non-organic say, chicken, I have a severe reaction to the hormones and get skin discolorations on my face (also known as the "mask of pregnancy"). My endocronologist and I tracked down the source and we determined it was solely from eating regular hormone containing chicken.. scary.. but then maybe I just am super sensitive. Frankly, I feel lucky that the organic option is out there and that I have a choice, when I was growing up no one gave it a second thought..

The source of the problem If I recall correctly, the source of the problem in Britain was the feed. They were including in livestock feed ground up meat/meat byproducts, including infected cow brains/spinal materials. This practice of making cows into cannibals never made any sense on any level, except cost. It was a bizarre idea that (big surprise) backfired. The practice allowed one infected cow to infect 100, then those 100 infected 1000 and so on. American beef was safer because American ranchers don't use this type of feed. People don't eat cow brains for the most part-- that's why it was added to the feed in the first place-- so the chance of infected cattle passing on MCD in the ordinary course of things was always virtually nil. There is, by the way, a similar disease affecting parts of Africa where they eat monkey brains-- some of which are infected with a similar disease. The problem seems to be cleaned up now in Britain/Europe because (a) most of the affected cattle were slaughtered and burned; and (b) they have now stopped using ground up cow brains in cow feed.

You are more likely to get West like niles in America than you are to get CJD in Britain.At least in Britain you can not eat beef and it's by products.Here in America you are at risk just going outside.

Actually, the source of the problem was putting sheeps' brains, spines and other biproducts in cattle feed. Sheep suffer from a MCD like disease called Scrapie and that was passed on to the cattle in the feed and then on to humans when they ate the meat. Then the infected cattle, whose parts were used later in feed, further spread the MCD. France and particularly Germany had few cases of infected cows, but Holland and Switzerland, which imported a lot of English beef stock for their herds, did have more infected cattle. Now, cattle over 18 mo at slaughter are tested for the disease before the beef is offered for sale within the EU.

We ate steak many times in Paris & lived to tell about it.

Sam: For most people, West Nile is like a mild flu that clears up on its own. Jane: Mad Cow incubates for years. Hopefully, you can still tell us about it a half dozen years from now.

D.Phinney, the practice WAS done here for sometime. We visited a dairy in the mid 90's and on the tour they told me that they used byproducts ( bones) in the feed. At the time I thought it was strange but never gave it much thought until a few years later.

Yes, come and enjoy traditional English roast beef, with baked potatoes and Yorkshire pud! The only thing we do avoid eating is any kind of offal (liver, kidneys, brains etc.) which I believe Americans have a thing about anyway.

Why worry? Just skip the beef. My son ate one hamburger in London in 2000 and I lay awake worrying about it every time there's a report on Mad Cow disease. I know that by 2000 the beef was probably safer than in North America but why worry? Skip the beef.

Most people have not got CJD.Also to prevent getting CJD just don't eat beef.West like Niles is going to be far worse than CJD.

The paganistic, unscientific thinking of Judy and her rampantly paranoid parenting are far less appropriate and family-friendly to have on this forum than the post that was removed from here. Judy's son DOES need to know about how to apply a condom correctly. He does not hear about his mother lying awake over the astronomically low risk of his contracting some rare disease.