Bse

[JakeR]

There are so many highly knowledgable people on this forum i thought i might ask a few questions.

Does anybody know the situation with BSE? I tend to avoid beef, and i only really ate cheap beef between 1998-2000. I then got a somewhat paranoid. i now only eat beef from our local butchers (who is also a friend) and we know, as does he, the scource of the meat. Black Welsh beef.

I heard on the radio about how some scientists are getting worried that some guy got BSE when they thought he would be immune due to his genes. Is british beef now declared safe? Are we safe? Crikey, i know this sounds a bit morbid, sorry.

Thanks guys and girls.

Jake

 

[tenbears10]

Jake this is just my opinion and not based on hard scientific fact, also if I offend anyone then that was not my intention but here goes:

How many people have contracted BSE, about 10. In which case it is the most overrated and media exagerated disease ever.

Smoking kills thousands of people a year and yet the government still allow the sale of fags. The beef which you buy from a decent butcher is some of the safest in the world. Supermarket meat is often lower quality due to being imported from countries with poorer animal welfare standards than our own but if you buy British these days (and know where it comes from) then you are getting decent meat be it beef or pork or lamb.

The other concern is that this disease was effecting cattle in the 80's and early 90's in which case it is too late to change your eating habits now, we all ate a burger during that time but hey you can't change that now.

My advice is don't worry and try and eat decent food, it is macD's which will get you but for loads of reasons other than BSE.

Bill

 

[ScottC]

I then got a somewhat paranoid. i now only eat beef from our local butchers (who is also a friend) and we know, as does he, the scource of the meat. Black Welsh beef.

Don't forget chenobel (sp?)

 

[JakeR]

You got a real good point with the cigarette laws there Bill. There are links between the tobacca industries and the government, there certainly are in the States.

the thing with BSE is the mystery that fears people!

 

[Realgar]

I work with the stuff, we're talking about around 16 deaths here. The papers don't make a fuss about deaths from alcohol, salmonella, 'flu or food allergies - all of which kill many orders of magnitude more people. It doesn't bother me in the slightest, most of my meat comes from a rare breeds butcher anyway. What bugs me is restaurants that won't serve me a blue steak.

As for the quality of supermarket meat - I won't touch tescos ordinary pork ( factory farmed ) and now their damned 'finest' range has "water, salt and glucose added for extra succulence" Pah! I won't buy that on principle.

 

[tenbears10]

As for the quality of supermarket meat - I won't touch tescos ordinary pork ( factory farmed ) and now their damned 'finest' range has "water, salt and glucose added for extra succulence" Pah! I won't buy that on principle.

Well said. You just can't trust a supermarket these days it is often not the farmer who is to blame. Tescos say the meat will be like this.... or we don't buy it from you. Supermarkets are happy to let their farmers make a loss and go bust as they will just find another farm.

Bill

 

[PC2K]

aren't ALL cows checked for BSE wenn they are butchered ? standard EU regualation isn't it ?

 

[jakunen]

Thankfully I'd got out of the food scientist lark before this one.

AFAIK, British beef has been declared as safe (apart from in France where they still won't buy it last I heard, but nothing unusual there).

I've eaten beef all my life and it never did anything strange to me (yes, I know, most people who know me would say that they wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway...(thought I'd get that one in before anyone else did)).

Yes, there was a chance of getting CJD from eating BSE infected meat, but no the threat wasn't that great (Yes! Another triumph for the media! We hyped the story so much and got the public into such a panic, caused 1000s of uninfected cattle to be slaughtered and lost a lot of people their livelihoods. BUT WE MADE A PACKET SELLING NEWSPAPERS!!! Pass the port please Julian!). By the time the 'report' came out, chances were, if you were goign to get CJD, you'd already have been infected by the time you knew about the threat.

I try to buy meat from proper butchers who can tell me the farm the meat came from (although I do think it a bit bizare when they try to tell me the name of the cow I'm goign to eat. Doesn't bother me, just find it a bit strange...), thereby reassuring me of the quality of the meat.

 

[Realgar]

I try to buy meat from proper butchers who can tell me the farm the meat came from (although I do think it a bit bizare when they try to tell me the name of the cow I'm goign to eat. Doesn't bother me, just find it a bit strange...), thereby reassuring me of the quality of the meat.

I like going to visit them - you get to see what you'll be eating in a months time and tickle it behind the ear, check how the bacons going to be. If I'm really really lucky there'll be a white bull with red ears in the field.

Realgar

 

[jakunen]

I like going to visit them - you get to see what you'll be eating in a months time and tickle it behind the ear, check how the bacons going to be. If I'm really really lucky there'll be a white bull with red ears in the field.

Realgar

Let me guess, she has a gold earring, smiles, laughs and is surrounded by annoying little round red cheeses singing Beach Boys hits...

 

[JakeR]

:roll:

 

[bushwacker bob]

If your at all dubious about beef Jake,Avoid it in processed forms such as burgers and sausages as they contain the bits you wouldn't wish to recognise. Also if the cow makes a Baaa instead of a mooo dont eat it

 

[Ginja]

I think Bill has hit it on the head here ... it's not so much today's meat that we should be worried about, but rather all those dodgy burgers that we chowed down during the 80s/early 90s (school/work canteens, burger vans, etc)!!

BSE certainly ain't a nice way to go, but there are plenty of far nastier ways that are MUCH more likely to come and get ya. Hence, I wouldn't sweat about it - tuck in!

G

PS: I do miss a good T-bone steak mind you ... shame they had to go.

 

[Lurch]

PS: I do miss a good T-bone steak mind you ... shame they had to go.

They haven't gone that far, saw them in Sainsbury's t'other day.

 

[Adi007]

PS: I do miss a good T-bone steak mind you ... shame they had to go.

They're back!!!!! ):

 

[Ginja]

Adi/Lurch - thanks for the good news chaps! I mean it ... off to hunt one down after work tonight!

G

 

[JakeR]

Cheers guys. My parents stopped giving me beef in about '88-89. Its disgusting though, thoe processed burgers. Fresh off the abatior floor. Did i hear something about the animals being powerhosed to get all the meat off ad just be left with a skeleton? err.

Cheers,

Jake

 

[Lurch]

Not far wrong Jake. The slurry recovered from the process is called mechanically recoverd meat and is actually grey when collected.
Beef is a wonderful product and there is no safer in the world than British beef, but you need to be sure of your source. I would extend this comment to any other feedstuffs.
I recommend Hugh Ffflywhtiingoaladfohstttnn's book Meat for anyone who eats commercial chicken.

 

[JakeR]

Is that by any chance a welsh name?

I heard someting about KFC chicken that disgusted me. (probably the same with Mcdonalds, BK and all the others) about the chickens being biologically different? No joints or something. I know that in McDonalds chicken burgers have cardboard in them. The story is: At a processing plant they ran out of glue to put the cardboard boxes of of chicken meat together. They decided to put staples in it instead. At some other processing plant they sent back the boxes because they couldnt put the staples in the machine in order to make the burgers. So by eating there, your eating cardboard!

i dont know why these establishments cant just make good food.

Cheers,

Jake

 

[boaty]

i dont know why these establishments cant just make good food.

The food is bad because it is cheap - so every stage of the process has to be cheap, from rearing and slaughtering through to the wages paid to the staff

Of course it's far cheaper to buy (or forage) your own raw materials and cook the food yourself...