>When animals are raised on grains, they become host to the deadliest strain
>of E. coli bacteria; the National Academy of Sciences estimates that one of
>every three grain fed cattle is infected with this strain. Grain fed
>animals have bacterial counts over 300 times that of animals that are fed
>pasture and hay and little or no grain. In contrast, pasture fed animals
>have practically no detectable levels of the most dangerous, acid resistant
>strains of E. coli. Grain carbohydrates feed the growth of acid resistant
>E. coli; grass and other pasture foods do not. Consequently, grass fed
>animals do not need to have antibiotics as a supplement to their diets.
Can you provide references for this?
I was only able to find the following article, which suggests only
a 10 times increase, and which can be treated by a "brief period of
hay feeding."
Grain feeding and the dissemination of acid-resistant Escherichia
coli
from cattle.
Diez-Gonzalez F; Callaway TR; Kizoulis MG; Russell JB
Division of Biological Sciences, Section of Microbiology, Cornell
University and Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department
of Agriculture, Ithaca, NY 14853-8101, USA.
Science 1998 Sep 11;281(5383):1666-8
PMID: 9733511 UI: 98404270
The gastric stomach of humans is a barrier to food-borne
pathogens,
but Escherichia coli can survive at pH 2.0 if it is grown under
mildly
acidic conditions. Cattle are a natural reservoir for pathogenic
E.
coli, and cattle fed mostly grain had lower colonic pH and more
acid-resistant E. coli than cattle fed only hay. On the basis of
numbers and survival after acid shock, cattle that were fed grain
had 10(6)-fold more acid-resistant E. coli than cattle fed hay,
but a brief period of hay feeding decreased the acid-resistant
count substantially.
And also this contradictory article:
Effect of cattle diet on Escherichia coli O157:H7 acid resistance.
Hovde CJ; Austin PR; Cloud KA; Williams CJ; Hunt CW
Department of Microbiology, Molecular Biology, and Biochemistry,
University of Idaho, Moscow,
Idaho 83844, USA.
Appl Environ Microbiol 1999 Jul;65(7):3233-5
PMID: 10388727 UI: 99318686
The duration of shedding of Escherichia coli O157 isolates by
hay-fed and grain-fed steers experimentally inoculated with
E. coli O157:H7 was compared, as well as the acid resistance of
the bacteria. The hay-fed animals shed E. coli O157 longer than
the grain-fed animals, and irrespective of diet, these bacteria
were equally acid resistant. Feeding cattle hay may increase human
infections with E. coli O157:H7.
>NOTE: There is a fantastic article in the July 2000 issue of Smithsonian,
>vol. 31, issue 4, p. 64. It's 12 pages long---fascinating, entertaining
A summary of this article is available on line:
http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues00/jul00/farm.html
But it's just fluff; there's no facts about the quality of Joel
Salitan's
products.
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