Antibiotics given to Animals Ends Up in Fresh and Canned Vegitables

Bummer! There's just no getting away from facts that industrialized animal farming has bad effects on people, and the planet. When there were thousands of small farmers, instead of hundreds of mega-industrialized farms animals did not get so stressed and disease prone. Forget if you are a vegan, it still gets to you. Let's hear it for going back to small farms!

clipped from www.environmentalhealthnews.org

For half a century, meat producers have fed antibiotics to farm animals to increase their growth and stave off infections. Now scientists have discovered that those drugs are sprouting up in unexpected places. Vegetables such as corn, potatoes and lettuce absorb antibiotics when grown in soil fertilized with livestock manure, according to tests conducted at the University of Minnesota. Today, close to 70 percent of the total antibiotics and related drugs produced in the United States are fed to cattle, pigs and poultry, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Although this practice sustains a growing demand for meat, it also generates public health fears associated with the expanding presence of antibiotics in the food chain.