Was anyone watching MSNBC this morning? They were talking about the disease and I could swear they said that fast food restaurants were allowed to use table scraps if they were cooked! I can't believe it!

Please tell me this is wrong!

Catty (goodbye, Burger King, McDonald's, etc.)

What exactly do you mean by table scraps? Do you mean literally scraps leftover from other people's meals that are left on tables? If so, no, they are definitely not allowed to do that. If not, what do you mean?

That is what I meant, methos. I admit, I did not catch all of it, and it occurred to me as I was reading your response that they were at the time talking about some country (Canada>) banning the use of cattle parts to feed cattle. They think this is how MCD is being spread. What a GOOD idea! It may have been table scraps fed to cattle, for all I know.

Thanks for responding.

Catty

Catty...

That would be appalling...

I seriously doubt that they meant human food...

Perhaps they meant using food from one animal to another..

left-over manger food.. that would be a high risk for cross-cantamination!

I was thinking that might be what they were actually talking about. That practice has actually been banned in Canada for a while now, but there was recently a cow diagnosed with mad cow disease in Canada. This cow was old enough (8 years)that it was around before that particular law was put in place.

Well, they are allowed to use a certain amount of rat droppings and worms in McDonald's food, right? Grade D, is it? And the meat that my university used was of an even lower quality! Yipe!

Restaurants are allowed so many parts per million of insect parts, rat hairs and other debris in the food. It's kept low, but apparently it's impossible to avoid all contamination.

Do you think anyone's counting?

Catty (no McDonalds for me, thanks. Ditto Crap-in-the-Box - I can just tolerate Burger King)

this whole mad cow disease media blow up is ticking me off.
it was one cow!! one!!
there has been over 600 cattle slaughtered and wasted, and not one has been found to have the disease since then.
yes, it is something that could be dangerous, but the media is blowing it out of proportion, making it seem like every cow in canada has it.

Don't worry mattlynda, we'uns down here south of the border are smart enough to know that one cow does not an entire Canadian yearly output of beef make - whatever the media say. We are used to our media here, they always blow everything out of proportion, it's to sell papers which is their business and no Canadian should ever take it personal.

Catty

dont worry catty, i dont take it personally, i know the media will blow anything out of proportion just to sell papers or get viewers.
it just irks me.
thats one of the main reasons i got rid of my cable.

I heard that a bunch of Mad Cows got sent to Montana and were put into the food chain. We're all gonna die!!!!

ahem. that was me being an irrational fatalist. i'm done now.

Alberta is the beef capital of Canada
and it's horrible to think of losing
so many cows!

Fear not, lynda, I have my usual bbq-ed
YUMMY steak every Sunday!

well elexina, see, thats our governments step 1 in taking over the united states.
o wait, ive said too much.



well, im off to go buy a fat juicy steak and enjoy it.

Shhhhhh! The FBI reads this board and if they know that you know, they'll... you know.

I personally think any possible to do to avoid Mad Cow disease should be done. As far as I know there is no way to cure it once the person as it. Now some poeple may disagree, but what is more important, cows or humans. Tree, yea I know alberta is "beef capital of Canada", but what if there was a strong possiblity that there was mad cow disease among those cattle. I definitly would not want farmers saying, I don't want to loose the economy, so we'll just slaughter the cows anyways so that the economy will remain strong. In my opinion, that is only a temporary way of thinking. So maybe the economy in alberta will remian strong because those cows weren't used. But won't it be worse on the economy in the long run if tons of people start getting mad cow disease. I think that until a cure is found for a disease, do what ever possible to prevent it. (my great uncle, they think he died from mad cow disease. I don't want the same to happen to anyone here.)

yafa, while you do bring up some good points, avoiding eating beef or slaughtering all cows that cold maybe have the possibility of having come close to another cow who might have had the disease is a bit like avoiding all of ontario because toronto had a sars outbreak.

all that officials could find was one case in one cow.

update on the whole cow thing.

almost ALL of alberta got free beef supper last night in support of the beef farmers.
they cannot sell their cows, and cant afford to feed them, so are losing almost $11 mil. per day (province wide), so, being the good citizens we are are, loving our beef, agreed to eat their cows for them so they wont go to waste.

guess what! it was yummy!! mmmm roast beef on a bun.
and i dont have mad cow disease, so there.

Gee, I wish I'd known about that! It's not all that far a drive from where I live to Alberta!!

The media is very good about blowing things out of proportion. They get their pet news items they want to make sure get into and stay into the news, and keep running with them. Like SARS, and like West Nile virus.....and of course they don't report the large number of people who die each day with influenza or something common like that.

I think the media ought to pay back the Alberta beef farmers for the problems they've caused them!!!!!