It’s the factory farm shit, stupid! Check out this NY Times op-ed piece entitled Leafy Green Sewage. Author Nina Planck takes a whole different view of the current problems with e-coli contaminated spinach.
The e-coli strain that causes sickness, disease and death is most prevalent in the manure produced by grain-fed cattle, those crammed into factory farm conditions. This e-coli strain is not found in cattle fed their natural diets: grass, hay etc.
We’d wipe out dangerous and life-threatening e-coli infections overnight if cattle were just fed correctly. What are the chances that the princes of cattle capitalism will agree to this?
September 24, 2006 at 6:48 am
Greed will surely be the death of us…
To answer your rhetorical question: what are the chances that the princes of cattle capitalism will agree to this?… A snowball’s chance in an artificially microwave heated simulator of Hell…
Our focus is hardly ever prevention…just look at healthcare…There’s a greater chance that we’ll continue to raise unhealthy cattle to fertilize our greens…but create another source of capitalistic gain through some sort of irradiation post harvest…Imagine the cost of that…cha-ching*
September 26, 2006 at 3:30 am
On a related note … if you thought that “Green” necessarily means “opposition to factory farms” … well, guess again.
The only elected Green on the County Commission of Winona, Minnesota has been supporting large-scale livestock confinement operations — even casting the deciding vote on two permits less than a year apart.
The party that endorsed Dwayne Voegeli for office has said nothing about his votes, but the President of the local Chamber of Commerce applauded him in the newspaper: “Good call Commissioner!”
Background and details: Gang Green
On Blogger: Green Party Gone Bad
Voegeli is up for reelection in six weeks.