E. coli Spinach Outbreak Caused by Cows?
September/October 2006
Stephanie Bloyd, Mother Earth News Assistant Editor
 |
Contaminated ground water from industrial cattle farms may be responsible for the recent E. coli outbreak caused by tainted spinach.
BRIAN PRECHTEL/COURTESY USDA ARS
|
Groundwater contaminated by cattle and used to irrigate spinach
crops in California is under suspicion in the investigation of the
current E. coli outbreak that has infected more than 100 people,
killing one. This particular strain of E. coli, O157:H7, is found
in the intestinal tracts of cattle raised on a grain diet,
according to a recent
RELATED ARTICLES
Talk Back to Your Mother...
Studies showed that regular consumption of cranberry juice cocktail decreased the frequency of urin...
Fungal infection sporotrichosis can be found in some trees and shrubs, and stopping apple scab and ...
It's the middle of August, time to gather your friends for that barbeque you've been promising to h...
New York Times op-ed piece.
U.S. researchers have found that high-grain diets make E. coli more
potent. When cattle are fattened on grain, their digestive tracts
become unusually acidic and kill off most of the E. coli. But the
bacteria that survive are those that have adapted themselves to an
acidic environment. This is a major problem for human health
because our first line of defense is the acidity of our own
digestive juices. Acid-resistant feedlot bacteria can survive our
gastric juices in sufficient number to make us ill.
By contrast, the E. coli from grass-fed cattle remains sensitive to
acid and is quickly destroyed in our stomachs. 'Switching cattle
from grass to grain to speed their growth has created a lot of
unforeseen problems,' says Jo Robinson, grass-fed expert and author
of the book
Pasture Perfect.
For instance, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE, or more
commonly, mad cow disease), has
not been found in grass-fed
animals. Mad cow is thought to be caused by feeding cattle pieces
of brain and nerve tissue from other infected animals. (This
practice was abolished in the United States in 1997.) When humans
consume meat from animals with mad cow disease, they risk
contracting its human form ? Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Mad cow
disease has not been found among grass-fed animals because they
exclusively eat forage materials.
For more on grass-fed beef, see
Better Beef in the October/November 2005 issue of
Mother
Earth News. And you can learn more about factory farming by
watching
The
Meatrix, an award-winning online video.