Food-borne Illnesses

Pandemics Ahead: Number 13 in a series looking at the link between animal protein and global health disasters.

Excerpt from Meat Climate Change: The 2nd Leading Cause of Global Warming by Moses Seenarine, (2016). Xpyr Press, 348 pages. ISBN: 0692641157. http://amzn.to/2yn7XrC

Animal consumption is a major cause of food-borne illnesses, a preventable public health challenge that causes illnesses for millions of people and thousands of deaths each year in the US alone. Food-borne illnesses come from eating food contaminated with bacteria, like (a) Campylobacter jejuni from raw or unpasteurized cow's milk; (b) raw or undercooked carcass, birds, or shellfish; and (c) contaminated water. 

There are over 2,300 types of Salmonella that can come from raw or undercooked chicken eggs, chicken flesh, cow carcass, unpasteurized cow's milk and juice, cheese, seafood, and contaminated fresh fruits and vegetables. The CDC estimates that Salmonella causes upwards of one million illnesses per year and over 20,000 hospitalizations. On top of that, Campylobacter causes in excess of one million illnesses annually.(1043)

Over 1.1 million Americans are sickened each year by undercooked, tainted chicken flesh. A USDA investigation discovered E. coli (Biotype I) in 99% of supermarket chicken. This shows that chicken butchering is not a sterile process. Feces tend to leak from the carcass until disembowelment, and the evisceration stage itself gives an opportunity for the interior of the carcass to receive intestinal bacteria. So does the skin of the carcass, but the skin presents a better barrier to bacteria and reaches higher temperatures during cooking.(1044) 

Food-borne illnesses are oftentimes caused by other animal-based pathogens including (i) Clostridium perfringens from carcass, animal products, and gravy; (ii) Vibrio vulnificus from uncooked or raw seafood; and (iii) Escherichia coli from uncooked cow carcass, unpasteurized cow's milk and juices, and contaminated raw fruits and vegetables, or water. Another common food-borne illnesses is (iv) Listeria monocytogenes from ready-to-eat foods such as hot dogs, luncheon meats, cold cuts, fermented or dry sausage, and other deli-style flesh and chicken carcass.

Chapter 28: HUMAN DISEASES, page 267.

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For more information, see MeatClimateChange.org