Thoughts on ongoing outbreaks of E. coli and other contaminants in our food supplies, and how to best avoid such problem foods.
My 4 1/2-year-old son isn't a vegetarian -- he's tasted hamburgers and chicken and steak -- but he doesn't make a habit of eating many of the things other people eat, because I don't either. Considering how many outbreaks of E. coli and other food-borne pathogens there have been in recent months and years, can you blame me?
It's unfortunate that our food supply has been so troubled but, for me, it's also one more reason I choose the foods I buy very carefully. When I buy beef, which I don't eat but my husband does, I try to find a grass-fed, organic variety. When I buy chicken -- again, something I don't eat -- I look for free-range birds raised without antibiotics in their diets. Yes, these choices are often a bit (or a lot) more expensive than the usual commercial varieties, but I feel they're worth it, considering they put me and my family a little further outside the industrial, chemical-laden food chain. Better for us and the environment.
Doctors and scientists have long known that eating a diet high in fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and low in fatty meats and meat or dairy products, is the healthiest way to go. Now that also seems true simply because meat is where most of the cases of food poisoning arise.
