Ground Beef October 5, 2009

Posted by Rachel-O | Permalink | Comments ( 10 ) | TrackBack

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One of the first things that made me happy to go vegetarian, was learning that one single hamburger can be made up of over 100 different cows. I'm not sure what grossed me out about that specific fact more than anything else, but even now, thinking about that makes my stomach turn. That thought—combined with the one time I bit into a hamburger from some fast food place that was almost entirely raw in the middle—made me give up ground beef for good when I was 10.

When people learn I'm vegan, the first thing they often say is, "I could never give up my hamburger!". Gag. Hamburger? Really? That's what's so important to you? A writer from The New York Times recently wrote an article on exactly what's behind that gross blob of animal parts known as ground beef, and here's what he found:

"Ground beef is usually not simply a chunk of meat run through a grinder. Instead, records and interviews show, a single portion of hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses. These cuts of meat are particularly vulnerable to E. coli contamination, food experts and officials say. Despite this, there is no federal requirement for grinders to test their ingredients for the pathogen."

Yeah, no thanks. The article focuses on a 22 year old woman—a former dance teacher—who ate a hamburger, went into a coma for 9 weeks, and almost died. She's now paralyzed because of the E.coli from a hamburger her mom made for her on the family grill.

Wow, is anyone else completely at a loss for how anyone can still eat this crap? Cows killed to end up ground up for someone's burger live their sad lives standing in their own urine and feces—and E.coli bacteria happens when feces from cattle comes into contact with their flesh during the slaughter process. Yum?

I am so happy that I don't have to worry about bacteria from someone's colon being in my veggie burger, because really, that shit's nasty. Is there one moment that made you realize that meat was just, well, vile?


P.S. Still looking for that last reason to give up milk? Many cows killed for ground beef are "spent" dairy cows, sent to slaughter because their flesh is too bruised and weak to be sold for anything else. Just go vegan already.

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