[Sca-cooks] Trying again

[Daniel Myers]

On Friday, January 24, 2003, at 05:22 AM, Laura C. Minnick wrote:

> I'd bet that's becasue the processing destroys anything- good and bad-
> and
> our bodies can't handle stuff that would otherwise be normal part of
> intestinal flora.
>
> I had a doctor once posit to me that the sudden increase (mid 80's to
> mid
> 90's) of people coming in with adult-onset asthma problems at around
> 30 y.o
> was inpart due to environmental factors- we over process our food, we
> over-use antibiotics, our are over-stressed (our overproduction of
> stress
> hormones has been well proven to cause a great many long term
> problems) and
> we have more crap in the air and chemicals in our daily environment
> than
> any culture/society has had before. it all adds up to hypersensitive
> immune
> systems, and chronic immune disorders. As someone who suffers from all
> that. I quite agree with him.


The majority of the food safety issues nowadays are necessitated by
modern food production methods.  Not because the processing removes
pathogens or allergens and our systems get used to their absence, but
for precisely the opposite reason.  Processing *adds* pathogens and
allergens.

A simple example is the beef industry.  To stay profitable they must
process a very high volume of cattle (cutting corners on cleaning) and
ship it further (therefore storing it for longer).  This compounds
problems with bacteria caused because the cattle must be crowded much
closer on feed lots, and are therefore more susceptible to infections
from the excrement around them, so they need to be given antibiotics as
a preventative measure.  This in turn causes resistant and nastier
strains of bacteria to evolve, such as the type of E. coli that has
been troubling the fast-food industry, and in turn led to the "safe
handling instructions" on packaged meat.

Now compare this to the "traditional" model of range-fed beef from
local ranches, slaughtered locally, and cut by local butchers.  There's
less crowding for the cattle which means less infections (leading to
less antibiotics and less resistant bacteria), and since it's local
there's much less time between slaughter and sale.

On a non-meat side, think of what can happen to strawberries grown in
Guatemala before they manage to be served in school lunches in
Michigan.  Strawberries aren't normally contaminated with Hepatitis B
virus when they grow in the wild.

In the area of allergies, it's over exposure to a potential allergen
that leads to an allergy.  It's extremely rare for someone to have a
strong allergic reaction the first time they're exposed.  With this in
mind, look at the ingredients labels on processed foods and notice how
often corn and dairy products appear.  Corn syrup is used as a
sweetener in an amazing amount of foods, and dairy products show up in
a wide variety of forms (whey, casein, milk solids, etc...).

Hey, who left this soapbox here?

- Doc (who eats processed foods, but is learning to do better)


--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
  Edouard Halidai  (Daniel Myers)
  http://www.medievalcookery.com/
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-