Industrial food supply massively contaminated with 'superbugs.'
Consumer Reports tested a ground turkey from a wide range of retail stores and found that 90% is contaminated with "superbugs" -- antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
In addition to that highly dangerous bacteria, 90 percent of turkey tested "contained at least one of five strains of bacteria, including fecal bacteria and types that cause food poisoning, such as salmonella and staphylococcus aureus."
Turkey labeled with "no antibiotics," "organic," or "raised without antibiotics" also contained bacteria, but those were less likely to be antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
Earlier this month, the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System released a report that found more than half of samples of ground turkey, pork chops and ground beef bought in US supermarkets contained antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
The National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System is a group jointly formed by the Food and Drug Administration and the Agriculture Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The study percentage of contaminated samples is alarming in part because it's a huge increase over the past -- the problem is growing fast.
The contamination of the food supply with disease-causing bacteria that can't be treated with our strongest antibiotics is caused by the widespread use of antibiotics in livestock to make them bigger and also to enable them to survive in cramped, unhealthy conditions without dying of the diseases that spread in such an environment. (Almost 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in the United States are used in animal agriculture.)
The bottom line is that consumers buy meat based on price, and antibiotics makes it cheaper.
The take-away: Overwhelming marketing, packaging and propaganda has convinced everyone that highly industrialized food is clean and safe and that it's been tested and approved.
The truth is the opposite: Industrialized food is generally filthy, dangerous and, by the way, environmentally damaging and there is no big government agency testing or inspecting your food before you get it.
Also: Cheap food isn't cheap. Consumers pay far more in other ways than they save at the checkout counter.
Both the safety and cheapness of industrial foods are delusions.
The Spartan Diet rejects all industrialized food, opting instead for post-industrially produced food and wild fish, game and fowl.
