How times have changed
(at least in North America)!
When I was a kid and well into adulthood, pork was the demon food, requiring thorough cooking to ward off the possibility of trichinosis. Even in my veterinary training with respect to regulatory issues involving "packing houses" (ie, abattoirs or slaughter houses), we were expected to be able to find and identify
Trichinella spiralis. Now pork is ultra clean and can be safely served far less than well-done (as anyone who watches MasterChef can attest).
By comparison and to my amazement at the time, while living in Germany in the early '60s, uncooked bacon (Speck) was on many menus, usually as a thick (ca 5-10 mm) slice, with the dining protocol of small morsels thoroughly chewed. Proper (at least worm-free) pork production in Europe was decades ahead of that in North America.On the other hand, chicken and other poultry, improperly handled, have engendered huge increases in salmonellosis, given current husbandry practices (which are too disgusting to mention at the moment but which can be viewed in any number of "undercover" videos online). And no more great deals on "crax" (cracked eggs).
Worst of all is beef: The advent of high-stress husbandry involving feedlots which accelerate weight gain by feeding abnormally large amounts of grain, which in turn increase the acidity (lower the normal pH of the rumen, compared to pastoral grass feeding), which in turn has generated acid-resistant
E. coli (especially
E. coli O157:H7). Prior to this type of husbandry any
E. coli of bovine source which might have cruised through the packing house process and into your gut would have been easily exterminated by your stomach acid. Not anymore! Get infected and wait for the norovirus-type repercussions, maybe even watch your kidneys and other organs pack it in at your next country fair. Try to get a rare hamburger at McDonald's or steak tartare at your favorite bistro these days.
And even vegetarians have to despair:
E. coli O157:H7 contaminates veggies (such as spinach, bean sprouts) by having crops sprayed with contaminated cow manure or by their being hand-harvested by infected workers.
Are we having fun yet? And maybe you thought Ebola virus might be a bigger concern?
Perhaps the best solution is to become a breatharian.
