When An Unlucky Hamburger Changes Everything

On the front of today's New York Times is an article about a woman who was paralyzed from the waist down in 2007 after eating a hamburger tainted with E. coli. I'm not going to go on an anti-beef rant here, but it is worth taking into consideration that ground beef alone has been responsible for a reported 16 outbreaks in the past three years. And this past summer, according to this article, ground beef had to be recalled from over 3,000 grocery stores in 41 states. Un-f-ing-acceptable.

While vegetables are not immune to contamination (remember the E. coli in spinach incident or the Salmonella outbreak in peanut butter last winter?), stories like this one really do make a good case for limiting the amount of meat you consume. True, a consumer can take steps to prepare food in a safe manner, but if the store is selling you a tainted product, there's really nothing you can do. And yes, if your number is up, your number is up. However, you can potentially turn the odds in your favor by not playing the game as often.

And try to educate yourself because, clearly, the food companies really aren't looking out for you. They just want to sell their product, and sometimes maintaining clean and sanitary facilities is not a priority. Stories like this make me so mad because this young woman should not be in this position.

Ugh, sorry, that is a total rant. I just find this stuff so sad. I can only imagine how this girl's mother feels—she's the one who cooked the aforementioned unlucky hamburger. She was just trying to feed her family, and look what happened. Not fair.

Here's a little more info included with the article about how various companies handle their beef to help prevent outbreak.