Cattle to human health lesson

Posted Fri, 01/22/2010 - 13:32 by Melissa

Cattle to human health logic:

What's also true is that E. coli only showed up so prolifically in the guts of cows since they've been fed corn in the last 50 years or so. A starchy food the grass-eaters didn't evolve to consume, corn produces an acidic mess in their stomachs that E. coli bacteria apparently loves.

I just realized today that you could totally rewrite that sentence and it would still be true.

What's also true is that E. coli only showed up so prolifically in the guts of human since they've been fed so much corn in the last 50 years or so. A starchy food the meat and vegetable eaters didn't evolve to consume, corn produces an acidicmess in their stomachs that E. coli bacteria apparently loves.

It's not just acidic stomachs of cattle that E. Coli love, it's acidic stomachs of humans too. The amount of food poisoning cases attributed to pathogens that aren't big fans of acid, like salmonella, has dropped. Well, except for in the other extreme end up acidity, which is the growing population treated with drugs like Proton Pump Inhibitors that reduce acid too much, thus leaving them susceptible to other nasty types of food poisoning.

All that is clear is that in the US our stomachs are a mess. We should make an effort to get them back to normal by elimating both grains and acid-reducing drugs.