The growing concern of eating meat

MAY 14, 2011

Health Risks Of Meat
5:40 AM Vegetarian
Meat Too Tough to Eat by Neal Barnard, M.D.

It's come to this. In mid-August, the Food and Drug Administration approved the spraying of live viruses onto poultry and meat products. The virus spray, manufactured by a Baltimore company called Intralytix, contains six different viral strains designed to kill listeria, a germ that sickens an estimated 2,500 Americans yearly. Meat companies do not have to inform consumers which products have been treated and which have not.
As a doctor, I would like to call for a reality check.

Decades ago, we learned that the fat and cholesterol in meat boost the amount of cholesterol in consumers' blood. And that leads to heart attacks. So doctors advised us to cut back on meat and get to know vegetables.

Then it was carcinogens. As meat is grilled, cancer-causing chemicals called heterocyclic amines form on its surface, suggesting an explanation for the higher cancer rates in meat-eaters, compared with vegetarians. Chicken turned out to produce much higher levels of carcinogens than beef.

Then it was chemicals. Studies showed that mercury, other heavy metals, and various pesticides show up in animal tissues. Suddenly, fish was our worst nightmare: State and federal monitoring agencies issued strong warnings, especially for children and for women in their reproductive years. Vegetables could be washed or peeled, but that wasn't possible with fish or other meats.