ColumnIf you eat at a restaurant or fast food chain, you won’t get served a pill of antibiotics with your meal, but big chain restaurants across the U.S. are full of products that are dependent on antibiotics to get them from the factory farm to your table.

We have taken a look at the issue of antibiotic use before. In the U.S., 70 to 80 percent of the antibiotics go to factory farms, and most of the antibiotic use is preventative, called “non-therapeutic” because the conditions at many factory farms are so bad that giving animals antibiotics is simply a way to ensure animals don’t get sick.

Why should we worry if there are antibiotics in our food? First and foremost, because scientists around the globe are warning us about the severe threat of antibiotic resistant bacteria, what some refer to as the issue of “superbugs.”  For World Health Day in 2011, the World Health Organization took on the issue, noting “in the absence of urgent corrective and protective actions, the world is heading towards a post-antibiotic era, in which many common infections will no longer have a cure and, once again, kill unabated.” But that was 2011 and things haven’t really improved.In November, the WHO will hold the first ever World Antibiotic Awareness Week in the hopes of raising awareness and tackling the issue.

There is also a growing group of scientists who are talking about the link between antibiotic use and obesity, the most recent a study focused on children which showed a connection between antibiotics and childhood obesity.

Knowing that so many of the antibiotics in the U.S. go to factory farms, part of solving the problem is putting pressure on not only the farms that are antibiotic dependent, but also the restaurants and food brands that use their products.

Last week Friends of the Earth published a new report that gives a grim look at restaurants and the use of antibiotics in their meat supply. Of the top 25 American restaurant chains, all but five received a failing grade.

There is some movement, but it’s slow. As you can see from the graphic, the majority of the restaurant chains are right at the bottom. Panera and Chipotle are the only two who publicly state that the majority of their meat and poultry served is raised without antibiotics. McDonald’s has established policies limiting antibiotic use in the chicken that they use, along with an implementation timeline. Other chains like many at the bottom have absolutely no policies in place at all.

Given the ramifications of the overuse of antibiotics, the lack of policies at these huge food chains is significant.

“In order to protect the health and wellbeing of humans and animals alike, the way we perceive animals and how we raise them for food has to shift dramatically,” wrote Cameron Harsh in a blog for Center for Food Safety.

The report is a call to action to consumers to challenge these companies to change their policies. While action from the FDA is crucial in applying stricter guidelines on antibiotic use, we as consumers also need to challenge more restaurants and food chains to rethink and change what products they buy. Want to take action immediately? Sign FOE’s letter calling on Subway to change its policies.

We do have power; we just have to use it.

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This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Mike Mozart

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ColumnDealing with antibiotic resistance starts with thinking about what’s on your plate.

I was watching a PSA this week, all about antibiotics. It got me thinking: why aren’t we more pissed off about the problem of antibiotic resistance? Or moved to change our actions that are part of causing it?

Imagine you have an infection . . .

. . . that your child has an infection.

Nothin’ major a few days of antibiotics should clear it up, right?

Wrong!

Well-known antibiotics are proving to be less and less effective every year, and people across America are starting to wonder why.

More and more people are starting to talk about antibiotic resistance. But we shouldn’t just be talking about antibiotics, we should be talking about what we’re eating. Because it is in part our food habits that are fueling this problem.

Antibiotics, originally developed to protect human health, are now keeping the industrial livestock industry alive. About 80 percent of the antibacterial drugs sold in the United States go to livestock, and not even to sick livestock. They’re simply used to keep animals healthy in a system that’s inherently unhealthy for them, raised in overcrowded spaces that are often unhygienic. This non-therapeutic use of antibiotics helps keep the industry producing cheap meat. I’m talking about your bacon. Your hot dogs. Your burgers. Your bologna sandwich. Are people still eating those?

As the industrial meat industry has grown, so has the use of antibiotics. Between 1985 and 2001, the use of antibiotics in feed for industrial livestock production rose by 50 percent. The U.S. isn’t alone. In Britain about half of antibiotics go to livestock.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists:

While the links between animal agriculture and human disease are complicated and in need of additional study, evidence is strong enough for scientists and public health organizations to call for reduced use of antibiotics in agriculture. The CDC has concluded that, in the United States, antimicrobial use in food animals is the dominant source of antibiotic resistance among foodborne pathogens.

Drug resistant bacteria that develops on farms, easily reaches the general public, making these bacteria a national health issue. We’re not talking about just a few cases here and there of not being able to deal with certain infections. We’re talking full-blown health crisis. In fact, according to the NRDC, drug-resistant infections are estimated to cost Americans up to $26 billion per year in additional healthcare costs. That $5.99 steak on sale might seem like a good deal now, but the ramifications and costs of its productions are much higher.

“A post-antibiotic era – in which common infections and minor injuries can kill – far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the 21st Century,” wrote the authors of a recent World Health Organization report on antimicrobial resistance.

Beyond leaving us incapable of dealing with infections, there are also studies on the link between obesity and the use of antibiotics. The use of antibiotics for livestock is making us fatter and keeping us from treating infections. Choosing to eat industrially produced meat isn’t just a matter of your own health, it’s a matter of global health.

Wherever you fall on the eat meat vs. don’t eat meat argument, I think we can all agree that this is a flawed system. Using antibiotics in farming is dangerous. We are keeping an unsustainable alive, while at the same time putting our own health at risk.

We need a different system, and that starts with thinking about what’s on the plate in front of us.

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This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Greg Goebel

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When did bacon become a seasoning?

In case you missed it, bacon is now so much more than just the cured meat of a dead pig. It’s also a flavoring. Like cinnamon. Or chocolate. Sometimes, it is even paired with cinnamon or chocolate.

There are bacon candy canes.

Jack In The Box restaurants were selling Bacon Shakes a few seasons ago. That’s basically: a smoothie with bacon in it. If that’s too heavy, you can swill back a bacony soda. Or Bakon vodka.

There’s bacon in chocolates.

And in cookies.

The Food Network posted an article called “50 Things to Make with Bacon“, including a peanut butter and bacon sandwich with banana slices.

One of the Food Network recipes is for “bacon oatmeal.” Because there’s nothing better than turning a healthy breakfast into the one that causes the heart attack. And forget having a pancake breakfast with bacon only on the side of your plate. Every bacon lover knows you also put the greasy stuff inside your pancake batter (recipes #45, #47).

According to LiveScience, sales of bacon in 2013 reached nearly $4 billion just in the U.S. Of course that’s an all time record high. “And since the introduction of the Perfect Bacon Bowl, anything you can put into a bowl — cereal, pasta, rice, soup — can now be served in a container made of hot, crispy bacon.”

I get it. People love bacon.

But this needs to stop.

We don’t need any more burgers with bacon or bacon with burgers.

We don’t need to wrap slices of bacon around any other food. Or chop it up and add it into foods where it has no business being.

There will come a time when humans will look back at America’s bacon obsession in horror. In shock.

It’s not just because pigs are seriously intelligent. Or that they’re capable of showing love, curiosity, compassion, joy. Although, all of those things are worthy enough reasons to stop this bacon insanity. All of those are reasons to see pigs as much more deserving than being carved up into strips.

More than 65 million pigs—right now!—are wasting away in filthy, dank, dark and otherwise horrific factory farms across the country. If they’re breeding sows, they can’t turn around. They’re in awful gestation crates that would be considered unacceptable methods of torture if we used them on our worst criminals.

And think about the toll 65 million 200+ pound animals take on our environment. On our health. If you’ve ever gotten sick from a salad or a piece of fruit, or even from drinking water, you may have factory farm runoff to thank. “Pork products are known carriers of foodborne pathogens, including E. coli, trichinella, listeria, salmonella, and pork tapeworms. One study of 256 pork samples taken from 36 different grocery stores found that up to 63 percent of the samples were contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus bacteria,” reports PETA.

According to recent research, diets high in meat are more likely to cause an early death. Researchers for the National Cancer Institute have linked meat to an increased risk of prostate cancer. A study from Yale University found that meat-based diets can cause stomach cancer and esophageal cancer as well as lymphoma. “Cured” meats such as bacon, sausage and hot dogs are also linked to a higher risk for pancreatic cancer, which is almost always fatal.

Conservatively, it takes 1,630 gallons of water to produce a pound of pork.

Conventionally raised animals, including pigs, are fed diets high in genetically modified corn and soy. The production of GMO grains involves heavy spraying of herbicides and pesticides, which pollute the air, water and soil, as well as pose risks to human health.

Pigs, like all conventionally raised animals, are also fed high amounts of antibiotics, which make pathogens resistant to treatment with antibiotics.

And then, of course, all those pigs have to go poop. In just the U.S., factory farm animals produce nearly two trillion tons of animal waste per year. The waste is a high pollution and contamination risk that we’ve barely begun to feel the repercussions of.

No, you’re not just eating bacon, or bacon flavored whatever.

You’re eating GMOs, and antibiotics, and fear and anguish. You’re eating away our water supply. Our clean air. Our healthy fruits and vegetables. You’re eating the poop that gets into our water supply. You’re breathing it too. You’re eating the destruction of our nation’s land—land that could be farming low impact foods and empowering small, family farms to thrive. You’re eating pigs who deserve a better reason for living.

So, please. Please stop putting bacon in everything.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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Image: Zanthia, the impulsive buy

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