Buying food from good sources–organic farms that pasture their animals–is essential to the future health of our population, animal kingdom and planet. Below is a shocking letter by Al Sears, MD from Florida to one of his patients.
The drugs in the commercial beef you buy at your local supermarket are getting so bad, even the vultures are dying. I just read a report that millions of vultures died in South Asia after eating cattle carcasses tainted with two drugs used to treat livestock. As scavengers, vultures have an iron-clad digestive system. Look at their diet – the birds eat nothing but putrid meat day in and day out. Yet their numbers have decreased – almost to extinction in some cases – because of the deadly effect of drugs we inject into cattle.
Imagine for a moment what would have happened had the meat made its way into your refrigerator. For millions of years, beef has been a healthy part of our ancestors’ diet. But our ancestors never had to deal with the commercial farming practices of today. I want to stress the importance of making certain the meat you eat is not commercially raised. My two biggest concerns are antibiotics and hormones…
Commercially raised cattle are force-fed grain laced with antibiotics – not because they’re sick, but to:
- Increase daily body-weight gain
- Improve food-to-weight gain ratio
- Increase the voluntary intake of food
Did you know that 70% of all antibiotics in the U.S. are used – not in people – but in “healthy” livestock animals? This is a major crisis for us, because antibiotics create drug-resistant strains of bacteria that live in the food we eat. Because of this, many life-threatening diseases – such as E.coli, Salmonella, and Campylobacter – are almost impossible to treat.
The other major issue is hormones. Most beef in the U.S. is injected with synthetic hormones that are transferred to people. They are dangerous to children, dangerous to adults, and also cause cancer. It’s such a health concern that there’s been a ban on hormone-treated U.S. meat throughout the European nations since 1989.
It’s a sad commentary. I was lucky enough to grow up eating grass-fed beef. My mom and dad made sure we had locally grown, healthy, grazing beef from neighboring farms. They simply didn’t trust the commercial beef industry; my dad said they kept too many secrets. But they did trust what they could see in our neighbors’ fields and farms.
Finding quality grass-fed beef is tricky sometimes. Grocery stores often label meat as grass-fed because at one time in their life, a cow grazed on grass, but later was put on a grain diet. So it’s important to investigate.
By Al Sears, MD
Please know the source of your foods! Your health depends on it. The Weston A. Price website has a listing of co-ops throughout our country that have grass-fed, organic meats, poultry and dairy.
For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.
Best in health,
Kathryne Pirtle