Entry #10. Mad Cow Disease

Mad Cow Disease

    What is mad cow disease? You might ask. The film Fresh let me know there is a disease name mad cow disease also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), this disease exists in a cow's brain affects their nervous system that would make the cow act different than other cows. The cow that has BSE might act nervous or wild. Mad cows jump out of control or cannot walk level on the ground. 

    Mad cow disease doesn't only affect cows, it can also transfer to other cattle and people. People get BSE to have symptoms like loss of memory, unusual behavior, mobility issue, depression, and so on. The first outbreak in The United States was in December 2003, with people's panic and worry, the beef market dropped big. 

    Even though it happens rarely, but how do we prevent getting BSE? Before telling you how to avoid the disease, we should know about the cause of the disease. The reason that mad cow disease develops in cows was found by scientist Leech Claire in Mad cows shake up British agriculture: disaster for industrial farming gives a boost to greener pastures “Initially the disease was transmitted to cattle by feed containing protein supplements made from the brains of other cattle and sheep. Recent laboratory experiments indicate BSE can also be passed to sheep and other cud-chewing animals” Farmers feed their cows with other cattle’s waist parts like their brains and livers mix with silages, that way farmers can make more profits by cutting the costs of silages. However, cows shouldn’t eat meat, cows are herbivores, giving them meat is against nature that could cause a lot of problems such as mad cow disease, same with other cattle in animal husbandry.

    To prevent this disease, we can cook our meat thoroughly, so the heat can kill those diseases, promoting feeding cows with only grass or silage, or buy organic meat from grocery stores. We don't need to overly panic about the meat we eat because farmers are doing their best to make sure our meat safe for people's health and for their own profits. There are animals on the farm that get sick a lot of times, but the farmer makes sure all of them are healthy and safe for people. Only when consumers feel safe to buy meat products, farmers can make sure their products have a guaranteed profit. 

    Only a few unlucky people catch the disease from the foods they ate, foods aren't all 100% safe, but for most of us, the foods we can find in the grocery store are no problem. As consumers, we need to pay attention to the quality of our food, if it's moldy or expired, we must not eat them.