With news like this, I'm proud I've not eaten beef in 18 yrs

America's largest beef recall in history.

NYT:
"A California meat company on Sunday issued the largest beef recall in history, 143 million pounds, some of which was used in school lunch programs, Department of Agriculture officials announced."

Reasons not to eat beef:

1. Beef products, which are loaded with artery-clogging cholesterol and saturated fat. Some fats are good, but NOT beef fat. Fat from any land animal is the wrong kind of fat. By contrast, fat from fish is high in Omega-3 fatty acids, recognized as good for vascular health and is recommended by the American Heart Assoc.
   
2. Virtually all commercial beef has bovine growth hormone in it. Reports have found extremely high levels of estradiol, “a potent cancer-causing and gene-damaging estrogen,” in US meat products (i.e. milk, burgers). For this reason, American milk and beef are banned in Europe.
3. Genetically engineered meat will become more prevalent now that the FDA has lifted the ban on cloned meat. Long term consequences of consuming genetically engineered meat is uncertain and may pose health risks.
4. Factory farms are huge polluters. They produce a staggering amount of feces that pollutes both the water and the air. Numerous studies and governmental reports have shown higher rates of health problems among people who live near factory farms. Farmed animals produce about 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population of the United States.
   
5. Mad cow disease is already in the United States, and the U.S. government is not following World Health Organization recommendations for ensuring that it doesn’t spread. Because it takes 10 years for the disease to show up in humans, there’s no way of knowing how many Americans have already been infected.
   
6. Beef production is inefficient. It takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of edible animal flesh. Growing all the crops to feed farmed animals requires massive amounts of water and land—in fact, nearly half of the water and 80 percent of the agricultural land in the United States are used to raise animals for food.
   
7. The environmental impacts include: rainforest destruction in Central and South America caused by the felling of forests in order to rear cattle for the hamburger trade or to grow soya for animal feed, and desertification from overgrazing in parts of Africa. Also, 10% of greenhouse gases come from livestock.

Personally, I don't drink cow's milk or eat cheese, but on the rare occasion I use butter, it's organic and hormone free. That's the way to go. I'm sure eating yogurt or ice cream once a month isn't going to kill me, but there are excellent substitutes. Organic soy milk, ice cream and yogurt are awesome!