Diet & Health
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:
Thirty of 90 beef slaughterhouses inspected by
the USDA during last winter’s outbreak of E. coli bacterial
poisoning of hamburger were temporarily closed for clean-
up, Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy announced May 27.
Twelve plants were put in a special enforcement program,
with which they must comply or lose USDA certification.
The last of 143 people who were hospitalized during the E.
coli outbreak, 10-year-old Brianne Kiner, was released as
an outpatient from Children’s Hospital in Seattle on June 29.
Stricken after eating a Jack-in-the-Box hamburger on
January 13, Kiner spent 41 days in a coma and lost her
large intestine. Four children died––three in the Seattle area
and one in San Diego.
Refraining from mentioning the politically
charged word “meat,” the National Cholesterol Education
Program on June 15 announced that due to changes in eating
habits, the cholesterol level in the blood of the average
American is down 4% since 1990, but is still too high––and
recommended an even more diligent effort to avoid choles-
terol, which occurs only in animal products.
The Food and Drug Administration is moving to
require restaurants to provide supporting evidence for pro-
motional claims relating to health and nutrition, including
the use of terms such as “low in fat” on menus.
A Gallup poll taken in England earlier this year
found that 2,000 Britons a week have become vegetarians
since 1990. Eleven percent of the British population has
given up red meat; 4.3% has given up meat entirely.
Women are more likely to become vegetarians; 12.8% have
already, including 13.3% of women aged 16-24. But 6.8%
of men aged 25-34 are also vegetarians, a jump of 48%
since 1990. Vegetarianism is up 59% among men aged 35-
44––and up in staunchly conservative Scotland by 164%,
ten times the national rate of increase. Overall, four Britons
in 10 eat less meat than they did three years ago. The poll
results appeared in the June issue of Vegetarian Living.
Paul McCartney reportedly failed to promote
vegetarianism successfully among his fans and crew during
a recent tour of the midwest––but the fault may have been
with the concessionaires, who only grudgingly stocked veg-
etarian hot dogs at performances in St. Louis and
Milwaukee and apparently didn’t do much of a job of hawk-
ing them. Fewer than 100 were sold in St. Louis to a crowd
of 42,000. The San Francisco Giants, leading the National
League western division by five games at the halfway mark
of the baseball season, may have a greater impact. None of
the players are vegetarians, but veggie hot dogs have been
popular at the Giants’ concession stands for years.
