American Beef Safe to Eat?

I have been reading news reports about how much Korean people are upset at the Korean government for signing an agreement to import beef from the United States because of the concerns about MadCow. There have been candle light protests in Seoul with more than 10000 people. People are even signing petitions to impeach their new president Lee who has been in office for 2 months.

This led me to think, the beef that I buy at the market to feed me, my hubby, and my two beautiful kids (an old english sheepdog and the most beautiful original breed we call Maupa) is it safe? One might say don’t eat beef, which is pretty easy for me to accomplish, but I don’t think my BBQ loving husband and kids would appreciate the move. I also have read that organic, grass fed beef is safe, but on my salary I can’t afford to shop exclusively at Whole Foods Market.

According to an article called USDA Misleading American Public about Beef Safety on Organic consumer’s Association site, even if the most dangerous parts are removed, because of the way we slaughter cows there is no guarantee that the dangerous parts of the cow won’t get in contact with the more “safe” parts. Also, I am very concerned about the rate of testing USDA conducts on downed cows – only 2% in comparison to 100% of testing in Europe and Japan.

Reuters in one of the article reported,

“The major U.S. safeguards against mad cow disease are the feed ban, a prohibition against slaughtering most “downer” cattle — animals too sick to walk on their own — for human food, and a requirement for meatpackers to remove from carcasses the brains, spinal cords and other parts most likely to contain the malformed proteins blamed for the disease.”

I am not sure where this reporter has been in the past few months because we all know that after seeing the HSUS video, downer cows were systematically abused and tortured then slaughtered and placed into the food chain, which caused a massive recall.

I guess I won’t be eating or feeding my family beef anymore, until i get a big fat raise so I can go shop at Whole Foods.