We at USDemocrazy were all “laissez les bons temps rouler!” (pardon our French) yesterday in honor of Mardi Gras, but today is a whole different can of worms.
Whether people observe Lent (a Christian tradition of abstaining from some sort of temptation during the run-up to Easter) or not, many like to challenge themselves by giving something up for those 40 days.
Need an idea of what to give up? Well some people might consider meat… but maybe that’s not for everyone. Instead, you could follow in footsteps of UMBC political science professor and friend of USDemocrazy, Dr. Thomas Schaller! In a recent column in The Baltimore Sun, he resolved to eat less meat. Why? Among other reasons, he cites the ethics of meat production:
According to the American Meat Institute, in 2007 the average American consumed 86 pounds of chicken, 65 pounds of beef, 51 pounds of pork, and 18 pounds of turkey. Throw in the occasional serving of lamb, veal and mutton, and that computes to an average of around two-thirds a pound of meat daily. That’s a lot of meat.
A lot of meat, indeed.
Because of the extraordinary amount of meat Americans eat, meat producers have to keep up with the carnivorous appetites by growing their products as fast as possible.
One way they have tried to stay in step with American tastes for meat is by encouraging faster growth in the animals and by trying to ensure their health by adding hormones and antibiotics to the feed. Adding antibiotics especially does not seem like it’d be such a bad thing, but because of this, certain bacteria are becoming resistant to the medicine and are still finding their way into our food supply.
Katie Couric explains how the antibiotics affect the humans who come in contact with animals who are carrying the bacteria, which includes passing on dangerous infections such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. This is one scary infection…
So, what to do about the antibiotics? The Danes seem to know the answer… They’ve eliminated the use of antibiotics in the food of their animals except when the animals really need them. How is that working? Again, Katie Couric explores…
According to this reporting, antibiotic-free animal farming can increase prosperity of the farmers while helping to bring down occurrences of illnesses that can be passed on to consumers. What’s not to love?
(Let’s not forget, the Danes are supposedly the happiest people in the world!)
So, whatever you decide to do about Lent — you now know there’s always giving-up to be done when it comes to antibiotics in the meat supply.
