Health and safety advice for people who eat grain-fed beef

Now that there is a confirmed case of mad cow disease or bovine spongiform encephalopathy in the United States, people who eat beef from grain-fed cattle raised in feedlots have been advised to take more precautions. The following cautionary remarks appeared in a recent article in The New York Times.. (Page A5 "Safety Advice for Eating Meat," December 25th) Comments in italics are ours.

• Avoid eating pizza toppings, taco fillings, prepackaged meatballs, sausages, hot dogs, salami and bologna. According to the article, "The meat is not required to be labeled and often contains small bits of spinal column." Note: In 2002, the USDA's own Food Safety and Inspection Service found that 35% of the products made from meat scraps recovered from beef bones contained spinal cord and other nervous tissue that can convey the disease. This "recovered" meat goes into the products listed above.
• Avoid brains, beef cheeks, and neck bones, "all of which are considered high risk." Note: Since beef cheeks are routinely ground up with other parts of the animal, it is difficult to act on this advice.
• Avoid bone marrow and cuts of beef sold on the bone. Note: this includes all bone-in roasts
  and steaks, spare ribs, short ribs, soup bones, and oxtails.
• Choose beef that is ground on site in the store. "Whenever possible, grind your own meat
  at home from a boneless cut." Note: it is doubtful that hurried cooks and people who frequent
  fast food restaurants will heed this advice.
• You should be aware that "cooking will not kill mad cow disease." Note: Few people are
  going to follow all of this advice. Unfortunately, standard safe handling techniques have no effect on BSE.

There is a simpler way to protect yourself from meat from "mad cows." Visit our Eatwild Directory of Farmers to buy your beef from a 100-percent grass-fed animal. Animals that are fed greens alone from birth until market have no exposure to animal by-products or any other type of unnatural feed. Their diet consists of fresh pasture and stored grasses. Feel free to eat every part of a grass-fed animal, including the hamburger, sausages, oxtails, soup bones, and standing rib roast. Enjoy.