RODALE NEWS, WASHINGTON, DC—E-mails warning about food safety make almost daily appearances in my inbox, and the inboxes of hundreds of other reporters. Much of the information never makes it out to the public, just the big stuff like the 2009 peanut butter recall. If it did, people would be even more concerned about food recalls than they already are, and about the safety of what they feed their children and what they eat themselves.
But earlier this month, there were two press releases that caught my attention: One announced a new case of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease) in a Canadian cow (America buys beef from Canada); another announced the recall of over 14,000 pounds of ground beef contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 at a Kansas company. That, by the way, follows the recall of 34,000 pounds of organic ground beef that was also contaminated with 0157:H7.
These notices are a reminder of why I never buy ground beef, either conventional or organic, don’t eat beef burgers or anything containing ground beef in restaurants, and why you might want to consider grinding your own beef from certified-organic cattle, preferably ones that are also grass-fed.
THE DETAILS: For those who don't know or might have forgotten, mad cow disease was big news in the 1980s and early '90s in England. Since then, there have been 19 recorded cases of mad cow disease in Canada, and three in this country. Mad cow disease, or BSE, can cause death in humans as well as cattle. The disease is caused by a protein, called a prion, that folds itself into an abnormal shape. The prions form clumps that kill brain cells, leaving the literal holes in brain tissue the "spongiform" part of the disease name refers to.
"The BSE epidemic in England was caused by feeding cattle with animal proteins from sheep," says Jo Robinson, creator of EatWild.com, a website that tells you where to buy organic and grass-fed beef. Sheep are susceptible to scrapie, a disease related to BSE. In the U.S., animal by-products have been banned from all cattle feed since 1997, but one wonders how BSE cases still occur if everyone's really following that rule.
The Department of Agriculture says that whole cuts of beef—steaks, chops, roasts—are generally safe to eat because mad cow disease is not known to affect the muscle meat. The disease occurs in the central nervous system of the animal, so the primary safety concern is in eating any nervous system tissue from an infected animal. And that is why packaged ground beef may be risky. Because the processing system that removes the central nervous system from the animals isn’t perfect. And sometimes, tissue from the central nervous system is left on the carcass and can end up in ground beef, or in a meat product used as a filler in things like hotdogs.
What’s more, store-bought ground beef contains flesh from multiple animals, including old dairy cows. And it's the older animals that are most likely to have BSE. So what's a meat-lover to do? "The combination of organic and grass-fed cattle has the lowest risk of BSE than cattle raised by any other method," says Robinson. "They are fed nothing but grasses and stored forage; they never ingest any animal protein." Organic-certified beef is closely monitored in order to retain its organic label. Inspectors actually go to farms and look at the animals.
Which is not to say that the risk is zero; some grass-fed certifications do allow the cattle to be fed grain as well, and “occasionally sacks of grain have been mislabeled and have contained animal protein." See our Guide to Buying Grass-Fed Beef for advice on finding the best options.
Cooking will not kill mad cow disease, by the way.
If the possibility of holes in your brain doesn’t convince you, there are other reasons to buy organic grass-fed beef. Compared to cases of mad cow disease, E. coli 0157:H7 is a much more prevalent problem. Infection with this bacterium is potentially deadly, causing bloody diarrhea, dehydration, and, in the most severe cases, kidney failure. Seniors, the very young, and persons with weakened immune systems are the most susceptible to this foodborne illness. Healthier people can experience stomach cramps, diarrhea, and other digestive symptoms.
Thorough cooking—and that means no rare burgers, or even medium-rare—kills the E. coli germs. But because the bacterium thrives when cattle are confined to crowded pens and can easily pass the contamination from one to another, people who eat organic beef can enjoy rare burgers without fear. Organic, grass-fed cattle are not confined. Furthermore, the strain of E. coli that thrives in the stomachs of grass-fed cows is less deadly and less likely to cause symptoms in humans than those found in grain-fed cows.
WHAT IT MEANS: It's possible to satisfy a healthy appetite for meat while avoiding the unhealthy contaminants that could be in it. Here's how.
• Look for grass-fed, organic beef. Fortunately organic, grass-fed beef is much more readily available by mail order, online, and in some stores than it was 10 years ago. See our grass-fed beef guide for help in decoding the labeling and certification you may find at the market.
The website www.eatwild.com is an excellent source for finding sellers of organic and grass-fed beef in your area. The best scenario is to buy your meat from a farmer who can attest to how the cattle are fed.
• Rethink your meat needs. Buying organic, grass-fed meat will cost you more, though maybe not as much more as you think; the price difference has shrunk because of the increasingly higher cost of grains, the standard diet for conventionally raised cattle. Enjoying smaller serving sizes of meat—four-ounce servings are recommended—and larger servings of veggies, grains, and fruits, is not only a healthier way to eat, but it also frees up some of your food budget to spend on tastier, better-quality meat cuts.
• Eat defensively. Protect your health if you must buy beef that's not organic or grass-fed by:
Avoiding ground beef. Grind your own whole pieces of muscle meat. A simple grinder that costs about $30 is very easy to use. If you have a KitchenAid mixer, you can buy a grinder attachment.
Avoiding brains, beef cheeks, and neck bones, which are more likely to carry BSE.
Avoiding any meat that comes from the head of the cow, and any meat taken from areas close to the spinal column, and any bone that is part of the spine, such as the T-bone, a cut that was banned in some European countries during the BSE outbreak in Britain.
Avoiding beef pizza toppings, taco fillings, hotdogs, salami, bologna, and other products that contain ground beef. These products use beef from "advanced meat-recovery systems," and bits of spinal column are sometimes still attached to the meat that's used.
Journalist, cookbook author, and former New York Times food writer and columnist Marian Burros covers food and food-policy issues for Rodale.com.