What we are really eating…

In the last chunk of Fast Food Nation, Schlosser brings attention to what could actually be in the meet we eat at fast food restaurants. He first starts off with an anecdote about a young man of the age of twenty who had gotten sick from eating beef he had at a barbeque. When the beef was tested it was found to have the lethal food borne pathogen, E. coli O157:H7. Then as further investigation shows the same beef company who sold this beef also supplied Burger King with that same beef. The result of this was a beef recall by the company who had created the beef. Schlosser then goes on to say that about 200,000 people are contracted with a food borne disease everyday resulting in about 900 hospitalized and 1 fourteen deaths. He then goes on discussing the symptoms of this lethal pathogen and others that have arose. He list one symptom of E. coli which occurs in children and has been none to have a 1 in 5 or 5% kill rate. What was most irksome was his description of how the workers who pack the meat and or slaughter the meat defecate and urinate on the floor where the meat could have contact with. They even upon finding a rat or any sort of outside substance in the beef merely pull it out and continuing packing. What’s more is Schlosser also stated that the meat packing industry even attempted to stop a sort of “science-based investigation” that would have perhaps looked into the problem and found solutions for the occurring food borne pathogens. Schlosser here is trying to elucidate the dangers of eating fast food problems specifically the beef because of what could be inside of the meat; so that consumers will become aware of what they are really consuming.

Does Schlosser’s description on the worker’s sanitary habits in the Meatpacking Industry give you second thoughts about eating beef?

Why is it, that, E. coli O157:H7 is able to live in salt water?

If the most common cause of a food borne outbreak is consuming undercooked meat, would that mean that if it’s cooked fully the pathogen would be killed and the meat would become completely harmless