E. coli absent in grass-fed beef
Betsy Levy (blevy@mail.utexas.edu)
Sat, 12 Sep 1998 15:27:04 -0500
Did anyone on this list happen to catch the NPR report about a study
showing E. coli in the organs of grain-fed beef, and virtually none in
grass-fed beef? I didn't catch the venue where the study was originally
published. Basically they were tracing the strain of E. coli most commonly
responsible for human food contamination. They commented that it's very
unusual for a fecal bacterium to be able to pass the human gut wall, so
this one has supposedly adapted to move from cattle to humans. Cattle
switched from grain to grass for as little as two months (I think) had
stomach E. coli counts plummet to nothing. Thought this sounded very
interesting for those of you farming range-fed beef. NPR transcripts can be
purchased over the phone (the piece aired sometime in the last three days,
I think on Morning Edition.)
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