By David Blyweiss, M.D., Advanced Natural Wellness

August 1, 2018

• Today’s meat isn’t anything like the meat of our ancestors
• Is supermarket meat making you sick?
• 3 key phrases help you to always select the best meat, poultry and fish you can buy

Did you know that the average American will eat about 222 pounds of meat this year?

That’s a heck of a lot of meat!

At the same time, around 90% of people here in the U.S. can’t even manage to eat the recommended 1½ to 2 cups of fruit and 2 to 3 cups of vegetables each day.

This is absolutely tragic. Not only are most folks missing out on the enormous health benefits of eating their fruits and vegetables, they are poisoning their bodies with toxic commercial meat products.

You see, today’s retail meat products aren’t anything like the ones your ancestors ate. They’re laced with hormones, antibiotics and raised on GMO feed. And it’s truly damaging the health of Americans.

Is Supermarket Meat Making You Sick?

One of my biggest concerns is the over-use of antibiotics in food producing animals. And believe it or not, about 80% of all antibiotics here in the U.S. go for use on these farm animals.

This not only fuels antibiotic resistance. It also adds to the obesity epidemic. Plus, it taints the meat you buy at the grocery store. It could even make you extremely ill in a matter of minutes.

Let me explain…

Just recently, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) took a hard look at data provided by the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS). This data comes from certain arms of the government that test retail meats for the presence of bacteria.

The report was damning. As it turns out, nearly 80% of the bacteria found on grocery store meats are super bugs. They’re antibiotic resistant. And when the analysts at EWG crunched the numbers, the results were pretty startling. They found that:

• Eighty-four percent of the enterococcus faecalis found on pork by FDA scientists was resistant to tetracyclines, along with 71% of that found on chicken and 26% percent of that found on beef. (As the name implies, this type of bacteria is found in fecal matter… not exactly something you want as a condiment on your dinner plate.)

• Seventy-three percent of salmonella on ground turkey was antibiotic resistant and one in five strains of salmonella found on grocery store chicken was resistant to amoxicillin.

In other words, the majority of today’s commercial meat products are laden with antibiotic resistant bacteria. And you’re eating it!

3 Key Phrases to Keep in Mind: Grass-fed, Pasture-Raised and Wild-Caught

I always recommend making plant-based foods the center of your dinner plate. Then, round it out with a small portion of animal protein – say 85% whole plant foods, 15% meat of some sort.

But the meat you choose is extremely important. You really don’t want to eat meat that is full of antibiotics, hormones and DNA alterations that result when animals are fed genetically altered foods. So here’s what I suggest:

When it comes to red meat, always buy grass-fed. I personally prefer grass-fed meat from New Zealand. That’s because, unlike North American livestock, these creatures are able to roam freely, eat a healthy diet and are hormone and antibiotic free. If not lamb, then grass-fed buffalo or beef works.

If I’m going to enjoy poultry, I’ll always choose turkey over chicken. But in both cases you should always select your poultry from pasture-raised sources.

And when it comes to fish, you should be just as selective. Farm-raised fish isn’t much different than commercial meat. It takes liberal use of antibiotics, fungicides and pesticides to keep them healthy. So always choose fish that is wild-caught.

Larger fish and those at the top of the food chain like shark swordfish and albacore tuna are more likely to have higher accumulations of PCBs and mercury. Select smaller fish, like wild-caught Pacific halibut, mackerel, Alaskan salmon, sardines, herring, rainbow trout and flounder.

Additionally, any meat you purchase should be certified organic. The folks who produce these meats don’t rely on hefty doses of antibiotics to protect against poor living conditions. They practice preventive medicine, provide sanitary living conditions and naturally keep their animals in top-notch health.

SOURCES:

2015 NARMS Integrated Report. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Last updated Nov 2017.

Supermarket Meat Still Superbugged, Federal Data Show. Environmental Working Group. Jun 2018.