The Meaty Truth (9 page)

2) Eat more fruits, veggies, grains, and legumes. Eating a plant-based diet does not mean living on salads. Shake up your meals and try new recipes.

3) Get Informed. Read
21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart
by Dr. Neal Barnard,
The China Study
by Dr. Colin T. Campbell, and
Rethink Food: 100+ Doctors Can’t Be Wrong
by yours truly! We have over one hundred doctors from around the world all finding the same answer—the key to a disease-free, healthy life is a whole-food, plant-based diet.

CHAPTER 4

Scary Sh!t

“Just being honest, I don’t think your average consumer probably knows a lot about how food is produced.”

~ Elizabeth Hagen, USDA’s Head of Food Safety

P
ink slime made headlines in 2012 as we shockingly discovered that the majority of our hamburger meat was not only doused with ammonia nitrate—a common component in bombs, fertilizers, and detergents—but also was made up of ground-up, otherwise-inedible beef scraps and cow-connective tissue that could be highly contaminated with the lethal pathogens
E. coli
and
salmonella
.
¹
This disgusting beef product referred to as “finely textured beef” comprised our children’s school lunches and infiltrated our grocery stores. In fact, the US government was buying seven million pounds of it for school lunches.
²
As much as two-thirds of our ground beef contained pink slime and didn’t require labeling. Even though food companies tried to pass off this chemical as non-toxic and benign for our health, let’s cut the crap: even if ammonia
doesn’t kill us on the spot, we should not be eating it. Thankfully, public uproar forced three of the four lean, finely textured beef plants to close, as most major supermarket chains and school-lunch programs refused to buy their products.

The bigger problem is that ammonia is not the only toxin in our food. The stunning truth is that untested growth hormones, arsenic, a wide spectrum of antibiotics, anxiety pills, flame retardants, bleach, animal crap, chemical fillers, and pus are all
allowed
in our meat and dairy by the USDA and FDA. That’s right. We eat
all
of those in our food products. Since this is not advertised or labeled, we have absolutely no idea what chemicals our food contains. These dangerous chemical fillers and toxins are catastrophic for our health. Imagine if every American knew what they were really eating how the industries would be forced to change their habits . . .

Spicing It Up!

Our food products are so loaded with chemicals and toxins that today we could liken them more to science experiments.

Ever wondered what autolyzed yeast extract is? It’s monosodium glutamate, notoriously known as MSG. It is only one of the worst possible toxins that we could ingest. MSG is a known excitotoxin that stimulates our cells to the point of death. It is ubiquitously used in fast foods, and most of our processed food products. It is a known silent killer.

How did MSG get into our food supply? The FDA allowed it. This isn’t to say this practice is remotely safe. The FDA Commissioner that promoted the benign health effects of MSG to Congress cited four studies. Turns out two of these studies didn’t exist and the other two studies were incomplete.
³
And yet, the FDA still allows this known health hazard into our food supply. In fact, the FDA allows about three hundred foods to have secret ingredients—meaning the food companies are not required to specify them on the labels. It is high time we rethink how our food is produced.

Let’s take a brief look at a small sample of some of the added “spices” in our foods.

• Penicillin: Yes, the same antibiotic given to us when we have strep throat is also in our food products. Antibiotic resistance, anyone?
  
• Arsenic: In ancient times, arsenic was used to poison one’s enemy. Food for thought.
  
• Copper: Why do we need metal in our food? Recent studies show excess copper is associated with increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
  ⁴
  
• Sulfuric Acid: Also used to manufacture fertilizer and oil, sulfuric acid is found in lead-acid batteries.
  
• Sodium Hydroxide and Potassium Hydroxide: Both are prominent ingredients in soap and dishwashing detergent. There is a better way to eat “clean.”
  
• Chlorine Gas: This sh!t just got real. This is used to make bombs in warfare. It is also widely used in cleaning supplies as a disinfectant.
  
• Hypobromous Acid: Who wants to drink bleach?
  
• Glyphosate: This is the most common herbicide used in Monsanto’s Roundup. These toxins get in our food when animals eat their genetically modified feed. The result? It is known to damage our DNA and cause cancer in humans.
  ⁵
  
• Sodium Nitrate: This is used in rocket propellant, smoke bombs, and fertilizers. Apparently preserving the bright-red color in processed meats like bacon and hot dogs is more important than not feeding us known carcinogens. Nitrates also affect how our body processes sugar, which can increase the risk of diabetes.
  
• Benzoate Preservatives: Although the FDA classifies this ubiquitous preservative found in many of our packaged-food products as “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS), sodium benzoate is also a main ingredient in fireworks.
  
• Natural and Artificial Flavorings:
  Who likes the taste of coal-tar derivatives? No, we aren’t kidding. This is the best example of a science experiment gone wrong.
  Flavorists can now make anything taste like it is grilled, smoked, or cherry flavored. The only difference between natural and artificial flavors is how they are extracted and created. The problem? This cheap mixture of chemicals that do not have to be spelled out on the labels can actually affect our RNA, which plays a vital role in gene expression.
  ⁶
  We are introducing a concoction of cheap, man-made materials into our bodies and crossing our fingers for the best. Why is this allowed?
  ***
  Please note that this is just a teeny, tiny sampling of what is allowed into our food products. The entire list of chemicals would completely fill the pages of this book.
  ***
  

Do you recognize any of these on our food labels? All of these chemicals and toxins do not have to be labeled. What’s worse is that for many of these drugs, the USDA audit report found that the FDA has yet to set “tolerance” limits. For example, copper does not have a tolerance limit. The newest research implicates copper as one of the main metals related to the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
⁷
As we well know, Alzheimer’s disease has no cure.

While the USDA and FDA claim these so-called ingredients are added in such finite amounts that they have no real effect, it seems our health problems are saying the opposite. There is absolutely no reason we should be eating bleach, disinfectant spray, chlorine, warfare materials, poison, and antibiotics. There is a reason most household cleaning products and detergents state to contact poison control if ingested. It seems ironic then that it is okay to consume these same chemicals in any amount during breakfast!

Drug and substance residues in your meat and dairy products can cause a range of reactions from skin lesions to nerve poisoning and death. We have never experienced such food-related health problems or food allergens before today. As most of these added chemicals are man-made, our bodies have zero experience or history processing these chemicals. Our food is now a disastrous experiment gone very, very wrong. A USDA audit report admits, “Since consumers have no easy way of protecting themselves against the residues of harmful substances in their food, it is important that the national residue program’s controls be as robust as possible to prevent meat contaminated with harmful substances from reaching the kitchen table.”
⁸

This could not be more of an understatement.

Is that Safe to Eat?

The American Farm Bureau Association proudly boasts, “Today’s farmers produce 262 percent more food with 2 percent fewer inputs (labor, seeds, feed, fertilizer, etc.), compared to 1950.”
⁹
Hold the applause, please. There is a very simple reason why they are generating more food. They are pumping the animals with antibiotics, arsenic, and ractopamine that make them grow faster, as well as using fillers in our feed products such as roadkill to curb costs.
¹⁰
That’s right, animals that have been euthanized, slaughtered, or found by the side of the road are all fair game to be ground up and fed to animals produced for food. Animal waste, polyethylene plastic, and previously contaminated human food (such as food that has roach excrement on it) are all approved and used in animal feed. While the industry tries to pass this off as progress, it really comes down to cutting corners
and producing cheap, unhealthy food products that are taking a disastrous toll on our environment and our health.

Let’s review three of the most worrying additives to our meat and dairy products: the reckless use and abuse of antibiotics, the intentional feeding of arsenic to chickens and turkeys, and the not-so-wonder drug ractopamine given to pigs that comprise your bacon breakfast.

The End of Antibiotics

Think about the number of times we have used antibiotics to get back to our healthy, happy selves. What would happen if another swine flu hit? In 2009, swine flu reached near epidemic proportions, and twelve thousand Americans died.
¹¹
Can you imagine a world where you can’t recover from the flu? Sadly, this is a very real possibility, because we are giving factory-farm animals four-fifths of all the antibiotics produced.
¹²
In fact, in 2011, factory-farm animals received almost four times as many antibiotics as humans. The antibiotics are fed to the animals due to the filthy conditions in the factory farms, which are causing an antibiotic resistant epidemic. The CDC, USDA, and FDA all recognize and acknowledge that this overuse of antibiotics in our food supply is contributing to the antibiotic resistance that is becoming a significant threat to public health. Surprisingly, little is done to remediate this problem. In fact, more Americans die from antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year than from HIV/AIDS. The problem is that antibiotic use in our food is not declining but actually increasing. In 2011, more antibiotics were given to animals than ever before. We are rapidly reaching the end of the antibiotic era, placing us on the cusp of a monumental health crisis.

Why do cows, pigs, and chickens need antibiotics? The animals in factory farms are fed our antibiotics because horrendous factory farms produce prime conditions for disease. In order to keep the animals alive and to promote growth at a faster pace (from the growth hormones), animals are given therapeutic doses of antibiotics, so they can survive long enough to make it to slaughter. In other words, antibiotics are being used as preventative measures, rather than cures as they were intended.
Eighty percent of all the antibiotics manufactured in the United States are fed to the over twenty-seven billion animals raised for food each year.
¹³
An added and even ironic problem is that the animals do not even absorb the majority of the antibiotics. Animals only absorb about 15 to 20 percent of the antibiotics. The rest is excreted in their waste, which then contaminates our water and soil. This means we can pick up antibiotic-resistant bacteria from drinking water, swimming in a river, or eating food that has been fertilized with animal manure. No one is safe.

The antibiotics fed to the animals wouldn’t be such a problem if they weren’t the same antibiotics that we use to cure our illnesses. Alexander Fleming, who invented penicillin, warned that issuing non-lethal doses of an antibiotic makes the bacteria resistant. Substantial research reveals that exposure to low dosages of antibiotics like the ones given to animals causes enough stress on the bacteria to increase their rate of mutations. This process, called mutagenesis, is basically creating more virulent, hard-to-kill strains of bacteria that are resistant to drugs. These bacteria cause foodborne illnesses and problems such as urinary tract infections. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in UTIs, especially linked to the consumption of chicken. This isn’t just a coincidence. Tests now show that bacteria continue to multiply in the presence of drugs designed to kill them.
¹⁴

The overuse of antibiotics given to animals is now posing a major threat to human health, as bacteria is developing resistance faster than we could ever come up with new cures. Researchers are frantically pressing the government to act. Citing that antibiotics are the “crown jewels” of modern medicine, at a Congressional hearing the Director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest for food safety pleaded with Congress, “We must not continue to jeopardize the effectiveness of these drugs by using them recklessly for non-therapeutic uses on farms and in animal factories. Otherwise, consumers may face longer illnesses, more hospitalizations, and more fatalities when exposed to resistant strains of common foodborne pathogens.”
¹⁵
Already the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) declared that antibiotic-resistant infections are an epidemic in the United States. Study after study is finding that the
therapeutic dosage given to animals is costing lives. About two million people contract antibiotic-resistant infections, and ninety thousand per year are dying.
¹⁶
Yet the pharmaceutical and animal industries continue to deny the scientific evidence. This is despite the fact that the World Health Organization has also declared that the therapeutic use of antibiotics in farm animals contributes to the rise in antibiotic resistance. Friends, the science is crystal clear. Continuing down this path is a prescription for catastrophe.