I can't find the post now, but someone mentioned the possibility of the beef you get at a fast food restaurant coming from overseas. They are right. A good bit of it comes from Argentina and Australia. It is processed there, made into patties, frozen and shipping to the U.S. When you sell as much a McDonald's does, even a cent per pound less on the purchase price makes a big difference. One positive aspect, chances are very good it is straight off the pasture rather than out of a feedlot.

-- Ken Scharabok (scharabo@aol.com), August 02, 2000

Answers

A while back there was a big controversy over Burger King buying their beef from countries that were cutting down rain forest for grazing land. Seems to me they may have stopped buying from those areas, but I am not certain. Seems like another good reason for not eating fast food! Again, I have solved the meat controversy by not eating it anymore!

-- Dianne (yankeeterrier@hotmail.com), August 02, 2000.

We have no guaranty that Argentina and the other countries where we might get our meat from, use feed that have contaminated filler in it. Mad cow desease IS spreading no matter what the gov. is telling us. I don't eat it anymore either. I wish there was a way we could stop it though, a lot of people are going to suffer.

-- Aagje Franken (Backyard@AOL.com), August 02, 2000.

I'm not sure I buy the mad cow spreading. The last I read stated that it's starting to look like all that in Great Britan was unfounded hysteria. Anmyway, I was wondering if any of you have ever noticed this. I ate a burger at a Burger King, I think it was, and I'll bet there wasn't a spoonfull of meat in the thing. It had so much soybean in it.

-- Joe Cole (jcole@apha.com), August 02, 2000.

I remember when I was younger, the big thing going around was that they found kangaroo meat in the burgers.

-- Dee (gdgtur@goes.com), August 02, 2000.

Hubby worked in meat packing plants for many years-- ( management on kill floor)--if ya knew what was added to that meat & where it came from--more would be vegetarains like I am! ha! I hope that was SOY that was added to that bugger! ha! Sonda in Ks.

-- Sonda (sgbruce@birch.net), August 02, 2000.

Hey, Sonda (sondra), is that punished plum preserve, tortured-olive oil, or punched peach puree that you enjoy? Who gets to decide what is TRULY living? Does it have to be an animal, as you define it? Try eating only what has died naturally and you will truly do less harm. Otherwise, you are a poseur.

-- J.J. (Haha@pa.prg), August 02, 2000.

J.J. This is Sonda not (Sondra), I use my real name!!!!!!! I didn't know what poseur meant /so I looked it up in the book--it said, it meant a person who assumes attitudes or manners merely for their effect upon others.---Well J. J. I'm sure you are a whole lot smartier than I am!!!!!!! All I know is I have toured many meat plants (slauder-side) & felt if people really saw how that meat was processed probably less would eat it! Also, if they saw the truck loads of meat shipped in from other countries that was mixed with the other meat!--- Now I quit, eating meat when I lost my immune system & all the doctors sent me home to die--I Am 5'8" tall & I had lost down to less than 80 lbs. was not able to do anything--had next to no immune system! Well God wasn't ready for me to die yet--& God sent me to a natural healing source---& one of the things I did was change my diet totally! First was giving up meat totally--& many other things also! So if I'm "poseur" it is ok with me! I don't care--I just really believe if more people toured meat packing plants they truely would eat less meat! And I am a vegetarain because it helped save my life--so J.J./ you are the educated one am I a "poseur"????? That is Sonda(not sondra) in Ks.

-- Sonda (sgbruce@birch.net), August 03, 2000.

That doesn't surprise me a bit. It's also one of the reasons why my husband and I stay away from fast food. (the other reason is that full yet still hungry feeling it leaves us with, it just doesn't feel like 'real' food) Way back when we were idealistic in our approach, both of us responded to this by going vegetarian. For me, the final push came after helping a friend take a truckload of hogs to a local packing house for sale. I couldn't believe the brutal way these poor animals were shoved through processing, getting beaten senseless for the very natural urge to look around and try to make some sense out of a strange and scary environment. So there I was, in my late teens, making a moral stand on the situation. The problem was, I felt like I was starving all of the time, no matter what else I ate. I finally came to the conclusion that I was going to have to go back to eating meat, before my insides became disgusted enough to eat me for lack of a better target. I didn't just go back to unconsidered munching out, though. I started looking for things like range fed chicken, and trying to avoid anything I could trace to the feedlot system of raising. That was not always possible, (factors like cost and availability kept intruding) but when possible, it allowed me to avoid the 'guilt by association' feeling that kept creeping in. Now, years later, I am finally in a position to put my money where my heart is. I raise my own. I spoil them rotten, keep them happy and healthy, and when it is time, I thank them for what they give me, and eat. Vegetarianism is a very viable option, for some folks, and I respect anyone who chooses that option, but it obviously isn't for everyone. Responsable food habits, on the other hand, can be practiced by all. I'm not asking you to do without anything, just always keep in mind where it came from.

-- Connie (Connie@lunehaven.com), August 04, 2000.

If you only knew what was in the meat at the places u eat or at the grocery store...it is full of hormones and other implants...which do not always clear form the meat before u eat it. Also the animals are treated terribly...they are scared, some never knowing a nice hand....and others who have learned to trust someone and then one day they have that trust betrayed and are killed for tht person to consume...I know how it goes first hand I lived on a farm for most of my life...I saw that life was not respected. I have changed now, I no longer eat the flesh of living creatures and the farm animals I have left are pets and live out their natural lives with me in peace. I don't betray their trust.

-- Claudette (Clauzilla@aol.com), August 06, 2000.

Now, after reading how the animals are treated before and after their death, the hormones and everthing unnatural done to them, who wants to go to Mcdonalds? I think a nice chef salad with ranch or italian dressing sounds good. But now have you heard about all the pesticides & herbicides the farmers use . . . . . . . . . .!!!!!!!!!!!!

-- Michael W. Smith (kirklbb@penn.com), August 06, 2000.

Scrapie is the disease that sheep get that looks like mad cow, only it's the sheep version...until you feed that sheep to a cow. Because it's not caused by a virus, germ or bacteria, can't be killed by cooking or other methods (it's caused by prions) mad cow is very transmittable.

I reckon that the best way is to go with organically grown (including no animal feed) animals...but Americans still eat too much beef anyway

-- Karen Isaacson (karen@terraceweb.com), August 06, 2000.

Here are a couple of articles on mad cow disease. One is about mad cow and other is about the human version.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/441480.asp

http://www.msnbc.com/news/439861.asp

Also you may want to have a look at a post on the BHM forum entitled "I know someone with Mad Cow disease!!!" Here's the direct url to it:

http://www.backwoodshome.com/forums/genforum.cgi?read=41679

It seems it's "here" whether anyone wants to admit it or not. By the way this womans brother referred to in the post is a doctor. Think I'm going to eat more chicken and turkey! One thing of note, when the mad cow thing was going on in Great Britain it was revealed that Burger King was importing beef from there! They claimed that they had stopped importing from there immediately! If I get this thing some where down the road I'll know where it came from as I used to get my dinner from there from time to time on the way to work.

-- Bob Johnson (backwoods_bob_2000@yahoo.com), August 09, 2000.