Chapter 5: Influence/speechlessness

When the swine flu epidemic was raging I was absolutely terrified. I stayed in a lot, over used antibacterial soaps, and overall acted like a germaphobe. Although this epidemic was dramatically over hyped it was still something to fear. When this was all going on my freshmen year I thought about the illness. I thought about being home sick, missing finals, getting others sick, and what the worst circumstance for me would be. I was not thinking about food. I associated contracting the illness from other people and animals (mainly pig), not from food. While reading Eating Animals I came across information that I never knew, and that makes me sick…literally. “The same conditions that lead 76million Americans to become ill from their food annually and that produce antimicrobial resistance also contribute to the risk of a pandemic.”(141) At first I did not understand this information, but it sounded bad. Then I thought about biology and what I knew. I remember learning that antibacterial soaps are not helpful but harmful to us. They do kill all of the bacteria on our hands, but that includes the good bacteria that we need. It makes us more susceptible to disease. Antibacterial soaps are human made witch chemicals. It freaked me out to think that the food I eat is making me more susceptible to dangerous diseases, and its natural. The example used in the book was H5N1, the bird flu, this disease is fatal in 60% of human cases. The food that I eat to stay healthy could contribute to my death?! Why isn’t this well known knowledge? I know plenty of people who would be terrified by this information and switch to vegetarianism or be more careful with the meats that they do choose to eat. While reading the book a common theme has been lack of public knowledge. There is so much that outrages me that would outrage many others. There is a mask on the face of the meat industry and below it lays a hideous face. If information about meat was regularly on the news I believe a huge movement would start to better the conditions of the meat industry and of vegetarianism. For anyone reading this….how do you feel about eating meat after hearing that it produces antimicrobial resistance?