To treat or not to treat? I
just read the blog from NPRFood, Are
Antibiotics On The Farm Risky Business? and I know I'm controversial
on the subject. (On a side note: my husband and I don't argue politics, we
argue food topics, such as this.)
Like
the majority of the population, I'm sure, I don't want to see any living thing
suffer from any sort of an illness, however, I also don't want to have the side
effects of the animal antibiotics. As someone who has worked on cattle ranches
for several years, I'm familiar with quite a few ranches on the west coast. I'm
not saying all, but at least the ones I've been to or have worked on do not use
hormones or antibiotics outside of penicillin.
For
the USDA to consider a beef organic there has to be certified fields, hay, and
no hormones or antibiotics, among other things. Now, there isn't a whole lot of
difference between one field and another, grass is grass, especially if people
leave it alone, but do you think penicillin should be on that antibiotic list?
You can find penicillin on your bread if it's a week or so old. Plus, on the
ranches I'm familiar with a low dose of penicillin treats debilitating
illnesses like pink eye, which if left untreated will cause cataracts and
eventually blindness. So the question still remains...to treat or not to
treat?
If
treated, penicillin will run through a bovine in the matter of a couple of
weeks and it takes longer than that for that specific animal to be transported
to the butcher for slaughter, typically. Once that bovine has been treated
though it can no longer be classified as organic, ever. It can still be termed
natural but because the animal needed this "antibiotic" it is now a
lower in price food source due to a consumer deterrent.
All
of the farmers and ranchers that I have spoken to in recent years don't want to
use anything that would increase growth either as then it would put the mama
cow in jeopardy during her birthing and she is worth a lot more than a few more
bucks at the time of slaughter.
So now that I have rambled
on with all of this information, what do you think? Would you still eat a steak
if the animal had been treated with penicillin at some point in its life? Or
would you pay more for the USDA certified organic even though both animals had
the same quality of feed, the same living conditions in the same area, but one
was just treated so it would no longer be in pain? Could I go so far to even
ask, after knowing all of this, is organic beef still even worth it?
