After reading the Oct. 11 article, "E. coli spurs calls for legislation; 3 students ill," I had to ask myself: Is it really such a shock that we have these outbreaks?
When I read about the three students who became ill after eating hamburgers, I was not the least bit surprised. In a culture where the quality of our food is sacrificed for the sake of the food industry money-making corporations (e.g. Cargill), it comes as no surprise that E. coli ends up on our plates.
Now, I'm not sure that many students here even realize where E. coli comes from. E. coli is a bacteria that is present in the digestive track of all mammals. It aids with digestion.
It is present in all mammal feces. OK. Here's one for all you biology and anatomy students: Why do cows have four stomachs? Well, crazy though it may be, cows are designed to eat grass!
Many people don't realize that in the U.S., a majority of our livestock (including cows) are actually fed corn, which they have a much more limited ability to break down.
What a great idea. Let's feed an animal something that its body isn't designed to digest!
In the process of digesting corn, the acidity of a cow's intestines increases. The strains of E. coli that have made humans really sick thrive in these acidic conditions.
There are two unfortunate consequences here. Well, three, if you count the fact that cows have to eat something they don't enjoy.
The first is that we end up with the really bad E. coli in the cow feces.
Unfortunately, one of our food industry's main fertilizers is cow manure. This fertilizer leaks into the groundwater and sewage and is eventually given back to those same cows.
Finally, the fact that these E. coli thrive in acidic conditions makes it impossible for our stomach acids to destroy them; thus, we get sick.
Still shocked about those delicious E. coli burgers? One definition of madness is continuing to do the same thing while expecting a different result.
We've been feeding cows corn and getting sick for far too long. How about if we start feeding animals what they are made to eat, instead of funneling millions of dollars into corn subsidies so that the food industry money-making corporations can get even richer?
Maybe then we could eat food at women's soccer games without fearing for our lives (or the lives of our toilet bowls).