Fast Food, Not Fast Antibiotics

[Guest guest]

I am not advocating that anyone eat at McDonalds. The food is bad for you for a

number of reasons.

 

I am posting this to show that mutinationals will respond when aware informed

consumers know what the multinationals are doing and turn away from their

products.

 

The consumer has the power to buy or not buy. To inform others. To be proactive

instead of complacent.

 

The multinationals would like to control your information, your choices, and

your thinking. Inform yourselves and demand better, more healthy, products.

 

Frank

 

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/22/opinion/22SUN3.html?th

 

June 22, 2003Fast Food, Not Fast Antibiotics

Most people who eat regularly at McDonald's don't think of themselves as having

much impact on the shape of global agriculture. The appeal of McDonald's has

always been immediate gratification, and its basic offerings — including

hamburgers, Chicken McNuggets and French fries — are usually the despair of

nutritionists. Yet behind the scenes, McDonald's, which buys some 2.5 billion

pounds of meat a year, has made remarkable strides, influencing the practices of

suppliers that provide it with beef, chicken and pork. Last year, for instance,

it conducted 500 audits of meat processing facilities globally, checking

everything from cleanliness to the treatment of animals.

 

Now, McDonald's has taken an even more important step. By the end of 2004, it

will require its direct suppliers, mostly of chicken, to stop giving antibiotics

in low doses to speed animal growth. And McDonald's will choose indirect

suppliers that limit antibiotics over those that do not. This is the company's

response to growing alarm over the routine use of antibiotics in animal

production, a practice that is diminishing the effectiveness of antibiotics in

humans.

 

The effort to reduce the amount of agricultural antibiotics — which came to some

22 million pounds in 2001 — has been blocked by a number of disputes about how

much they are used as growth supplements and how harmful they are to humans. But

the science strongly suggests that there are better ways to raise animals, as

the Europeans, who have sharply reduced agricultural antibiotic use, have

realized.

 

The real importance of this policy will be its ripple effect. The best way to

cut back on antibiotic use on farms is to raise animals in healthier ways that

do not require the use of antibiotics. And as McDonald's changes the standards

of meat production, other corporations will follow suit. McDonald's may have an

unfortunate effect on international eating habits, but at least it is using its

market power where it can to change farming practices for the better.

 

 

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

 

 

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