Mad Cow

[NETWizz]

As you have probably already read about or seen on the news, Mad Cow disease has been confirmed in Washinton, USA.

It makes you wonder if you should even eat beef anymore. Obviously, cattle should not be fed ground up cattle, cattle should not be served if suspected of not being healthy, and ground up beef should not contain any nervous tissue...

It makes you wonder what kind of crap we are eating in the United States? Think about it, you get ground beef, and you are at the mercy of the meet grinding people. What do they put in there? Obviously, a little brain, a little bone, a little crap... they know you would never know and since they are paid by the pound, they have the incentive to put that crap in there.

As for serving cows which act funny, what else would they do with them? Why would you report an incedent and ask to be inspected. As a company, you would loose a lot of money if you suspect mad cow and act upon it. You would be shut down for a while et cetera...you would incrue finacial loss.

As for responsibility, how can the dairy people be held responsible? You don't know where your meat comes from, it is not marked where it originates from, and it takes a few years to show up anyway.

Mad Cow is believed to be caused by a malformed protien/ prion. Supposenly, when it comes in contact with a normal protien, it changes its function and makes another malfromed protien. The origional fuction is loast. Lysosomes eat the malformed protien; unfortunatly, they cannot be digested, so the lysosomes get bigger and die relaseing more malformed prions. Eventually, ones brain is turned into a sponge like material resulting in cognitave and motor skill loss eventually resulting in death.


What should be done.

Ban feading cattle to cattle.
Inspections... by USDA on a regular basis
Label all beef where it comes from. IE. name of farml/company responsible
Accurate easy to use mad cow test.
Test all cows.
Make it worthwile for people to get government help. IE, have the government pay farmers for any cow that has mad cow. If mad cow is found, shut down the entire facility, do not report the farm to the public, and have the government pay the farm, else they won't report the problem.
Do not grind up crap. Serriously, they need to be supervised!

As for the price of beef. I do not care if the price of beef has to be raised 5 fold really. Paying $8 for a Big Mac would be okay with me provided it was safe from mad cow. In the end, it would be well worth a few extra dollars to me.

For example, paying $20 per pound of steak or something would be just fine too.

I don't want cat food shit; I want good beef!

Facts:

Mad cow disease is not knowingly linked to a bacteria or virus; therefore, it has no DNA or RNA. It is simply a protien.

As such, it cannot be destroyed by bleach, sterilizing solutions, heat, or even a sterilizer unless the temperature is extreme!

Essentially, the protien cannot be alterred via chemical reaction; therfore, must be changed or vaporized to be destroyed. It makes clean up hard to do.

Still going to eat beef?

[AlienCC]

Beef. Its whats for dinner!

[Adm.Wiggin]

heck, if i die, i will go away... so, if anyone goes inactive, we may have to guess if they went to Mad Cow Disease...

[KD5YTX]

Man, if I was a cow, and people forced me to stand around eating grass all day to b e fattened up for burgers, I'd be pissed off too. It's no wonder the cows are mad. Mad cow, jeez, I'd like to see a happy cow. Oh wait, California Cheese, right?


Reverently non-Christmassy... *Sigh*

[Arcane Wizard]

I'm going to keep eating beef, mostly because I don't live in the US.

When Mad Cow disease was reported here all the cows where murdered so we could get new 'healthy' cows, after which everything turned back to normal so we could continue eating beef happily ever after.

[Adm.Wiggin]

they had a huge cow slaughter? and then threw it all out?

[Arcane Wizard]

Yeah, we dug this giant hole of about 10 miles in diameter and 2 miles deep, attacked the cows with chainsaws, hurled the dead ones in the hole, and covered it up with dirt.

just kidding, they put down all the cows that had the disease and those that ran any risk of getting it, cleaned all the farms, withdrew all bad meat and such, and resupplied from healthy cows, etc etc.

[anduril66]

Isn't the cow supposed to be from the Edmonton area?

[DmitriB]

i never heard that exact of a location but they have been saying all along that the cow came from canada.

[Jedd]

I'm a veggie, so I don't eat beef anyway.

[ducttape_87]

We got a freezer full of beef from our neighbor. He runs his cattle through our fields, in turn we get free beef! We got the meat a couple months ago, so its ok.

[KD5YTX]

Just because the first local case of mad cow was recently discovered doesn't mean that beef harvested prior to that discovery is untainted - did you test the meat thoroughly for mad cow disease? If not, you simply cannot be certain. There are likely hundreds of cases by now of mad cow locally, though not nearly the true number will be unearthed and taken care of.


Reverently speaking, how can you eat your pudding if you ain't eat your meat???

[NETWizz]

Supposenly beef isn't from cow.

If I get this right, cows make milk. Milk=dairy

Cow is female.

Stern=male=beef=hamberger

When cow dies, it is put in cat food(maybe)

If in other countries, cow is ground up and fed to other cattle.

[Jedd]

Back a few years ago, before the Department of Agriculture got involved, about 2/3 of your McDonald's pattie was made of kangoroo, the rest was beef. In Australia that's what they have a lot of, so they figured it would make sense to throw that in.

I think beef=cow, but I could be wrong. There are milk cows that are not slaughtered, but milked all day long. And then there are meat cows, which are raised and then slaughtered for food.

In our country, too. Cows are often fed the biproduct (I think that's the word) or the leftover parts of other animals. However you can still buy cattle that was fed only vegetables (grain etc).

I don't doubt cat/dog food has dead (as in died by natural causes) cow in it. But that's merely speculation.

[AlienCC]

Shoot...I eat dog/cat food for breakfast.

[Arcane Wizard]

[Jedd]

I'm a vegetarian because I like animals. I believe God intended for us to eat animals, so if I know where the meat came from (my grandpa raises cattle) and I know it wasn't mistreated, then I'll eat it.

Yeah, I think the bull is only used for breeding.

[Arcane Wizard]

You can catch/breed your own insects and eat them.

[NETWizz]

AlienCC, I seriously doubt you eat animal feed.

As for the US feeding cattle to cattle, they are not permitted to do that.

[AlienCC]

LOL, I do not eat breakfast...I am usually sleeping until after noon.

--AlienCC