Invasion of the "Superbug"

Our family is members of Lifetime Fitness - have been for many years.  Every month we receive their Experience Life Magazine.  One of the articles in this last month's magazine really got my attention - well actually it made me really sick to my stomach.  It made me think twice about what I'm eating.  Foods I eat that I thought were safe for me.  Turns out, not much out there is safe for me to eat.  Things that are being allowed into our foods and those foods that we are consuming every day are slowly hurting each and every one of us.  How can this be?  Why isn't the FDA doing something about this?  Why aren't they protecting us?  Isn't that what the FDA is supposed to be doing?  It turns out NO!

If you haven't taken the time or you don't know anything about it, I encourage to read-up on the subject of "Superbugs".  It will blow your mind.  As I read the article in my Experience Life Magazine, I became more and more shocked with each line I read.  The antibiotics & hormones that are pumped into the food that we consume every day is off the chart.  Antibiotics are in so many foods that we eat, that our bodies are becoming immune to them (they become less potent).  "Bacteria are smart, and over the years, thanks to constant exposure to certain drugs, a handful of the strongest bugs have figured out how to outmaneuver standard antibiotics", say Drlica, coauthor of  Antibiotic Resistance: Understanding and Responding to an Emerging Crisis (FT Press, 2011).

In 2010 the FDA began to publish details about the amount of antibiotics sold for humans vs. animals.  Can you believe that 80% of all antibiotics sold went to animals and 20% were for humans.  Farmers have been using low-doses of antibiotics and adding it to the animal feed since the 50's.  It was initially supposed to be administered to just the sick animals, but Farmers soon discovered that if they have low-doses on a daily basis, they would have less sick animals and the conditions in which they kept the animals didn't have to be as properly maintained as before.

It's not only about the meat that you eat.  Runoff and groundwater carry superbugs from manure-filled farms into fruit orchards and vegetable fields. So the threat is in everything we eat.

I'm not trying to scare people, although I am a little scared myself and angry to be honest.  I want everyone to be aware of this.  I myself can't afford to buy everything hormone & antibiotic free.  Grass fed meats, hormone free & antibiotic free products are unbelievably expensive.  I guess my question is why we, the Consumers, have to go through such greats lengths & expense to make sure we aren't eating things that are harmful to our bodies and our families, when the FDA is supposed to be doing that for us?  What are they here for?  We have been trusting them for years to regulate & maintain the health & safety of anyone that buys a product off the store shelf.  They are hurting us instead of protecting us.  Why isn't something being done about this?

Again, I really encourage people to educate themselves on this subject and spread the awareness.  That's what I'm doing.....