Meat Eating- Thoughts on Toxicity (Dioxins)

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Meat Eating- Thoughts on Toxicity and the Power Steer JoAnn Guest Mar 08,

2005 12:42 PST

 

Paul Goettlich 14apr02

Power Steer

MICHAEL POLLAN

 

NY Times 31mar02

http://www.mindfully.org/Food/Meat-Eating-PWG14apr02.htm

 

Michael Pollan's NY Times article " The Power Steer " is about raising

steer. It's main theme is the over-use of antibiotics. (follow link in

box) It does indeed make eating beef seem quite nasty. The use of

antibiotics for nonmedical uses in the USA is the status quo. But that's

not the only toxic threat from eating beef or drinking cow's milk.

 

Organic beef is an alternative, and I know a farmer in MI that has an

organic beef farm. I have been on his farm many times and used to buy

from him when I lived in the Midwest. After learning more about how they

raise the animals on inhumane mega-farms and feedlots, my taste for it

has tapered off. The only time I eat it now is that rare occasion when I

am faced with travel food . . . aka road-kill, as I call it.

 

According to Dr. Arnold Schecter at the University of Texas School of

Public Health at Houston, Americans are getting 22 times the maximum

dioxin exposure suggested by the U.S. EPA. And nursing infants are

getting 35 to 65 times the recommended dosage, as if any dioxin at all

can be recommended. The main causes are meat and dairy products. Beef is

a major source of dioxin in the diets of humans. (see table 2 below)

 

Because steer and cows live a relatively long life, in comparison to,

say, chickens, they accumulate a substantial amount of dioxin in their

fat. Dioxin is lipophilic, meaning it seeks fat. It accumulates faster

than it is ridded from the animal's body. The same is true for humans.

Because humans are at the top of the food chain, we get the full

benefit, if one can use that term, of dioxin through bioaccumulation.

The embryo and suckling infant receive an even larger dose because of

the accumulation of a lifetime of dioxin by the mother and father.

 

Dioxin gets into the beef by way of grass and/or livestock feeds.

Looking at feeds, a lot of contamination occurs through a variety of

sources, both intentional and accidental. It falls on the grass from the

sky after chlorine-containing products are burned in incinerators,

back-yard ash burning in barrels, accidental fires, and chemical

processes such as the production of PVC plastic. Dioxin is the

by-product of burning chlorine in the presence of oxygen with a

catalyst. The process is known as oxychlorination.

 

A chief source of dioxin in the air and water is the production and

disposal of PVC (polyvinyl chloride) plastic. Note the chloride in PVC.

Other chloride-containing products include the typical paper used by

most people--paper used for writing, copying, wiping your bum, bleaching

clothes, swimming pools. The list is quite large. It could also be

created when bleached clothes are dried using heat, as is typically done

in the US because energy is still extremely cheap.

 

Dr. Hillary Carpenter, a toxicologist with the Minnesota Department of

Health is studying recently discovered dioxin in livestock feed

ingredients from Quali Tech, a Minnesota company. When I spoke to him in

March, he told me that the source was kelp. We already know that dioxin

exists in low levels in the ocean, and that it accumulates on various

surfaces. Dr. Carpenter has only begun to study the problem. In an AP

interview , Carpenter incorrectly stated that " [t]he dioxin levels found

in the feed supplements made at Chaska-based were so low, especially

after they were diluted in feed, that they wouldn't pose a health hazard

to people. Comments such as his are a good reason why the public is

clueless with regards to dioxin. But this is a typical comment by a

toxicologist. I once had lunch with a group of prominent toxicologists

in Chicago at an EPA workshop on dioxin (2,3,7,8-TCDD). I was appalled

at the datedness of their knowledge.

 

As a side note, if clothes are dried naturally on a wooden rack, the use

of dryer softener sheets is also avoided. The chemicals that impart the

anti-static quality in the dryer sheets is highly toxic. The scents used

in them are also toxic. When combined with the scents of the typical

detergent, the effect for some can be the cause of severe physical

reactions. I am one of those people who reacts strongly to scents. Any

and almost all scents cause an allergic reaction that can last a day. My

breathing becomes heavy because my larynx becomes constricted.

 

Back to chlorine for a moment. Chlorine production in the US is also

quite large, and it requires a substantial amount of energy. It is made

by send an electrical charge through brine, aka salt water, sodium

chloride plus H2O. Take a look at the 1953 Life magazine article " The

Reign of Chemistry " in Life 5jan53. In it there is a photo of chlorine

production by Monsanto, noted as the WORLD'S LARGEST single chlorine

plant is operated by Monsanto for US at Muscle Shoals, AL. Electrodes

extract chlorine from brine. It is a highly toxic and energy intensive

industry.

 

Most of the chlorine goes into making PVC. In 1998, the world production

capacity of PVC equaled 27,000,000 tons. It is impossible to make PVC

without creating dioxin. The industry has known this for decades, as

well as the fact that it is a potent carcinogen and endocrine disruptor,

meaning it mimics the hormones of our bodies. In fact, it mimics ever

hormone in the human body, and it is active in the single-digit

parts/per/trillion range. One ppt can be represented by one drop of

water in 660 rail tank cars, or a train six miles long! I know one

researcher, mentioned in Our Stolen Future, that has told me that it is

active down to 1/10 ppt. The 6-mile train just grew to 60 miles with one

drop in it. He has not published this yet, but the interesting thing

about his study is that this level of 1/10 ppt is not the threshold (the

lowest level at which it is hormonally active).

 

Think of all the PVC in our lives. The 27 million tons of it produced

each year makes lots of stuff. Building materials such as roofing,

flooring, windows, piping, wall coverings, electrical wiring, swimming

pool liners, and lots of the furniture that goes inside those buildings

as well; Children's toys and clothing; Hospitals use a significant

amount of PVC as IV bags, tubing, sheeting, kidney dialysis machine

parts and tubing, disposable eating utensils, plates, cups, and on and

on, ad infinitum.

 

PVC is NOT recycled. Less than .002% is recycled. The industry

definition of recycling includes incineration, so this figure is next to

meaningless. Waste PVC products are incinerated, landfilled, and/or

shipped off to less developed nations such as India. This exporting of

our toxic waste is called environmental discrimination, and it is an

exceedingly common practice.

 

But how are we to know about this when the media white-washes and

censors the news, and our children's classrooms receive materials fro

such industries claiming the miracles of plastic? While in a dentist's

waiting room, I read an advertisement in a popular magazine claiming

that plastic is " The Sixth Basic Food Group, " and " Plastics. One part of

your diet you may never break. " I wrote a page in honour of that

advertisement.

 

Most of what we learned in school was either mis- or disinformation. The

misinformation comes from teachers who, through no fault of their own,

are either ill informed or disinformed. Then there are the teachers " on

a mission. " It may be for the Messiah or it may be for Monsanto. But all

of this adds up to an ignorant public. When I write, many times I get to

the end of an article on a new subject and I am floored by what has

appeared in words. It goes against most of what I learned and assumed

until about eleven years ago, when I began questioning.

 

Search mindfully.org for dioxin

 

Question everything at every opportunity,

no matter who or where the audience is.

 

 

--

 

 

Table 1 - Inventory of Sources of Dioxin in the United States

 

Reference Year 1995 Central estimate

(gm TEQ/year)

 

Air:

Municipal waste incineration 1,100

Secondary copper smelting 541

Medical waste incineration 477

Forest 208

brush and straw fires

Cement kilns 153

hazardous waste burning

Coal combustion 72.8

Wood combustion 62.8

residential

Wood combustion 29.1

industrial

Vehicle fuel combustion 33.5

diesel

Cement kilns 17.8

non-hazardous waste burning

Secondary aluminum smelting 17

Oil combustion 9.3

industrial/utility

Sewage sludge incineration 6

Hazardous waste incineration 5.7

Vehicle fuel combustion - 6.3

unleaded

Kraft recovery boilers 2.3

Secondary lead smelters 1.63

Cigarette combustion 0.81

Boilers/industrial furnaces 0.38

Crematoria 0.24

Total 2,745

 

Products:

Pentachlorophenol 25,000

treated wood

Bleached chemical wood pulp 24.1

and paper mills

Dioxazine dyes and pigments 0.36

2,4-Dichlorophenoxy acetic acid 18.4

Non-incinerated municipal sludge 7

Total 25,050

 

Land:

Non-incinerated municipal sludge 207

Bleached chemical wood pulp 1.4

and paper mills

Total 208

 

Water:

Bleached chemical wood pulp 19.5

and paper mills

 

Source: USEPA (1998) The Inventory off Sources of Dioxin in the United

States, USEPA,

Office of Research and Development, EPA/600/P-98/002Aa, External Review

Draft, April.

Table 2 - Dioxin Levels in U.S. Foods

 

Total

TEQ(pg/gram food)

Food Type (ppt)

Ground beef 1.5

Soft blue cheese 0.7

Beef rib steak 0.65

Lamb sirloin 0.4

Heavy cream 0.4

Soft cream cheese 0.3

American cheese sticks 0.3

Pork chops 0.3

Bologna 0.12

Cottage cheese 0.04

Beef rib/sirloin tip 0.04

Chicken drumstick 0.03

Haddock 0.03

Cooked ham 0.03

Perch 0.023

Cod 0.023

 

Source: Schecter, A., et al. (1994) " Congener-specific levels of dioxins

and dibenzofurans in

U.S. food and estimated daily dioxin toxic equivalent intake. "

Environmental Health Perspectives 102: 962-966.

_________________

 

JoAnn Guest

mrsjo-

DietaryTi-

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Genes

 

 

 

 

AIM Barleygreen

" Wisdom of the Past, Food of the Future "

 

http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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