Grass-fed meat, safer meat

Yesterday NPR's On Point aired Why is a Burger Still Unsafe? which was an interview with Michael Moss the investigative reporter whose article on E. coli bacteria in ground beef appeared on the front page of Sunday's NYT. If you haven't read the article yet, you definately should. There is also a good summary video that you can click here to view. The central story about a 22 year old that became paraplegic and brain damaged from eating tainted meat, honestly made me cry.


One important question that keeps being asked and rarely answered is how the E.coli got in the burgers and why are the cases getting more extreme? It is the slaughterhouses and processing plants that get sued, but what about how the animals are being raised? Moss' article barely mentions the feedlots and doesn't suggest any preventative measures in how the animals are being raised that could prevent E.coli infections. As the video states, they are looking to sue the last place where the bacteria could have been prevented. Why not start with the first place?


Here is the summary of a Cornell University study about this very issue: a major cause of E.coli is that the cattle are on a grain (corn) based diet. Grass-fed animals have far fewer E. coli than grain-fed animals. What's more, the small amount of E. coli they do have is much less likely to survive the natural acidity of our digestive tracts—our first line of defense against infectious diseases.

Why this marked difference in the survival of the bacteria? Feeding grain to cattle makes their digestive tracts abnormally acidic. Over time, the E. coli in their systems become acclimated to this acid environment. When we ingest them, a high percentage will survive the acid shock of our digestive juices. By contrast, few E. coli from grass-fed cattle will survive because they have not become acid-resistant. When cattle are fed their natural diet of grass, our natural defenses are still capable of protecting us.

Of course, you should still follow all safe-handling recommendations when you prepare meat from grass-fed animals. It takes only a few E. coli bacteria to make us ill. But you can be assured that your risk of becoming infected is much, much lower.

If you want to have safer meat, you need to eat grass-fed meat. If you are looking for kosher, grass-fed meat click here.



Here is a study by Cornell University:
Russell, J. B., F. Diez-Gonzalez, and G. N. Jarvis. “Potential Effect of Cattle Diets on the Transmission of Pathogenic Escherichia Coli to Humans” Microbes Infect 2, no. 1 (2000): 45-53.