Food Inc: How one fatal hamburger came to a child's plate
Food Inc, the upcoming documentary movie opening this Friday is already developing a pre-open buzz. It has disturbing information that can frighten you and revelations of sinister collusion that may outrage you but nothing in this film may move you as much as the story of Kevin Kowalcyk. In 2001, a healthy two-year old ate a hamburger and died twelve days later. Diagnosis: E. coli O157:H7, the pathogenic form of the normally benign E. coli bacteria found in the gut. Source: the tainted hamburger meat. Result: his mother, Barbara Kowalcyk, and grandmother, Pat Buck, have devoted their lives to advocate for safer food.
Foodborne illnesses such as E. coli 0157:H7 and salmonella sicken an estimated 76 million Americans each year; 325,000 get hospitalized; and 5000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many are children.
Food Inc. posits that factory farming, ever seeking cost-saving efficiency, is the major culprit. As recent headlines dramatically reveal, E coli 0157:H7 is often spread by fecal matter, both at slaughterhouses and from farm run-off into the water and onto nearby agricultural crops.
Foodborne illnesses such as E. coli 0157:H7 and salmonella sicken an estimated 76 million Americans each year; 325,000 get hospitalized; and 5000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many are children.
Food Inc. posits that factory farming, ever seeking cost-saving efficiency, is the major culprit. As recent headlines dramatically reveal, E coli 0157:H7 is often spread by fecal matter, both at slaughterhouses and from farm run-off into the water and onto nearby agricultural crops.
The Kowalcyk family, via the Center for Foodborne Illness Research and
Prevention, is demanding stronger FDA and USDA supervision. In 1972,
the FDA conducted 50,000 food safety inspections. In 2006, only 9,164
took place. Barbara laments, "We put faith in our government to
protect us, and we're not being protected at the most basic level."
Although in 1998 the USDA could shut down a meat plant for the repeated
presence of salmonella and E. coli 0157:H7 microbes, the federal agency
has lost that power due to lawsuits from the meat and poultry
industries.
Solutions? More protection from the federal government, surely. But we should support local farmers who let their cows graze on grass. Food author Michael Pollan explains that herbivore cows are fed corn because it's cheaper for the large farms. This forced change in diet produces E. coli in their digestive tracts. But, Pollan explains, "If you take feedlot cattle off their corn diet, give them grass for five days, they will shed eighty percent of the E. Coli in their gut." -- Richard Kaplan
Listen to an interview with Food Inc director Robert Kenner and author Michael Pollan on public radio.
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Solutions? More protection from the federal government, surely. But we should support local farmers who let their cows graze on grass. Food author Michael Pollan explains that herbivore cows are fed corn because it's cheaper for the large farms. This forced change in diet produces E. coli in their digestive tracts. But, Pollan explains, "If you take feedlot cattle off their corn diet, give them grass for five days, they will shed eighty percent of the E. Coli in their gut." -- Richard Kaplan
Listen to an interview with Food Inc director Robert Kenner and author Michael Pollan on public radio.
Bookmark Health Beat and follow us on Twitter
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