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Beef - is anyone avoiding it?

Randi

By Randi
in Food Traditions & Culture

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Randi

Randi

Posted
Posted (edited)

Has the recent Mad Cow discovery affected anyone's tendency to purchase/order beef?

I ask because I find myself thinking twice, and also because I am planning a dinner outing for 15 people in 2 weeks and when a local steak house was suggested by a coworker, I found myself wondering if people might be a tad leery about beef.

Any thoughts?

Edited by Randi (log)

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best --" and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called. - A.A. Milne

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curlywurlyfi

curlywurlyfi

Posted
Posted

when we had Mad Cow in the UK it definitely made people wary of offering beef as a choice at formal dinners/lunches. but it was not a problem serving it to friends + relatives at home (assuming, of course, that you'd sourced your beef from a reliable butcher in the first place, and that your friends/relations knew they could be confident of that).

Fi

Fi Kirkpatrick

tofu fi fie pho fum

"Your avatar shoes look like Marge Simpson's hair." - therese

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steakas

steakas

Posted
Posted
Has the recent Mad Cow discovery affected anyone's tendency to purchase/order beef?

No.

One MC case in the US? I drive every day and, my feelings are, I stand more of a chance of getting messed up from driving.

:D

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Holly Moore

Holly Moore

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Talked about it yesterday with the owner of Monk's Cafe here in Philadelphia. Monk's usually ranks in the top two or three whenever anyone writes about best Philadelphia Burgers.

He said that for the weekend following the Mad Cow announcement, he cut back on ground beef and pumped up his orders of chicken breasts and beefless burgers. Turned out his ground beef sales were up and have stayed up.

Guess we live on the edge here in Philly.

Holly Moore

"I eat, therefore I am."

HollyEats.Com

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lala

lala

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I live in Seattle, and enjoyed making a delicious pot roast last week!

“"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"

"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"

"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully.

"It's the same thing," he said.”

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KarenS

KarenS

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I am not much of a beef eater- never have been and did not eat it at all for about 15 years. I did not miss it and would rather eat seafood anyday. I think that people should be wary of premade ground beef. One package of ground beef can come from up to 400 different cows! (this was mentioned in last weeks SF Chronicle, and also in Fast Food Nation). There is a scarey process called "advanced meat recovery". This is used to make some beef hot dogs. Meat is extruded from carcasses under pressure. The meat has been found to contain central nervous system tissue. I feel that if I want to eat a piece of beef, I will make sure it is from a reputable ranch (and hopefully range fed- that is what cows are supposed to do, not eat other cows). It is also better for our world!

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ExtraMSG

ExtraMSG

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I believe the advanced meat recovery system can only get nervous system tissue if the tissue is not removed first. Also, from what I understand, the amount of nervous tissue dispersed in this process is unlikely to be enough to give Mad Cow. Also, interestingly, it's actually an advantage in some ways for a diseased cow's infected material to be spread throughout a larger amount of meat since that means there is a smaller amount of the "poison" per ounce of the meat. Unlike e coli, where I think this can be more of a problem, my understanding from what I've been reading lately is that Mad Cow takes decent amount to infect. However, I'm not a scientist and I think that even science's understanding is rather limited at this point.

PortlandFood.org: Chow and Charity

Extramsg.com: Portland Food Guide and Travel Blog

Kenny & Zuke's Delicatessen

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AzRaeL

AzRaeL

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I love OssoBucco. YUMMY

Do not expect INTJs to actually care about how you view them. They already know that they are arrogant bastards with a morbid sense of humor. Telling them the obvious accomplishes nothing.

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AzRaeL

AzRaeL

Posted
Posted

more likely to get gunned down in California than die of BSE

Do not expect INTJs to actually care about how you view them. They already know that they are arrogant bastards with a morbid sense of humor. Telling them the obvious accomplishes nothing.

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AzRaeL

AzRaeL

Posted
Posted
more likely to get gunned down in California than die of BSE

wOrd :cool:

the BSE scare is all Media OverHype and sensationalism.

More people die from Food Allergies, Food Poisoning, Samonella than BSE.

meanwhile, enjoy cheap cow. MOOOOOOOOO

Where's the BEEF?!

Do not expect INTJs to actually care about how you view them. They already know that they are arrogant bastards with a morbid sense of humor. Telling them the obvious accomplishes nothing.

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budrichard

budrichard

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Posted

I do not believe that the danger is overstated and should not be considered. We already know that downed animals are entered in the nations food supply with diagnostics following. A few years ago a local meat packer here was put out of business after being convicted of processing downed animals without I assume Government Ok. We used to have him process our beef and lamb! In Wisconsin we are also facing 'Chronic Wasting Disease'(CWD) in our whitetail deer herd. A case has just been confirmed in the county in which i live having spread from the initial area where containment was tried by shooting as many animals as possible. . In the future i will go deer hunting to thin the herd, but my venison eating days are over. I am afraid that the governments main response is not assure the safety of the food supply but to assure that financial damage does not result to the beef industry. The state of Wiscosin's response to CWD is mostly concerned with damage to the state economy due to decreased deer hunting. We are consuming what's in our freezers and then will wait to see what the true extent of the infection is which of which i am sure that the one cow was the tip of the iceberg. -Dick

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ExtraMSG

ExtraMSG

Posted
Posted

http://www.cwd-info.org/index.php/fuseaction/about.main

There are no cases of a human contracting the disease. You don't eat the brain and nervous tissue of your deer, do you?

Don't you think it's important to keep such things in perspective? Recognize the real risk from such an action, eg. If venison is no big deal to you, I guess, fine, don't eat it and error on the side of caution. But it seems that a lot of people are geting overly excited about Mad Cow and similar diseases that don't seem to be much of a concern, truly. Way less of a concern than other risks we hardly even consider day in and day out, like owning a pool or driving a car.

Maybe the government should be trying to first ensure the finances of the meat industry since so many people are over-reacting to the news and the health of many more people depends on a secure meat industry rather than secure meat. (At least in the current context.)

PortlandFood.org: Chow and Charity

Extramsg.com: Portland Food Guide and Travel Blog

Kenny & Zuke's Delicatessen

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budrichard

budrichard

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Posted (edited)

I really don't understand why my actions in avoiding venison and beef are so threatening. They are my decisions and are based on a cautious approach. Why try to change my mind or belittle my decision? All I did was to state my position and concern and not attack the viewpoint of other posters.

As to your other questions, I am a Nuclear Engineer by degrees and specialize in Nuclear Safety and Probabalistic Risk Analysis. We also own and drive three Volvo's and don't own a pool.

While not a clinician specializing in these 'Wasting Diseases' , the fact that humans, bovines and deer are all experiencing increases in the numbers of infections leads me to believe that there is some commonality that we have not discovered yet. Since the incubation period is years before evidence of the disease is discovered, it makes my informal risk analysis meter jump to where i will not wait for definitive word but will take action now to preclude contracting the human equivalent of the disease. -Dick

Edited by budrichard (log)
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Line Cook

Line Cook

Posted
Posted

I take back what I said about people ordering beef at work. Out of about 160 guests tonight, two people ordered beef. It was all chicken and shrimp, which we had to start thawing in the middle of the dinner rush. I guess the media hype is starting to sink in.

Kiss my grits

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