This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

Re: Contaminated bone meal

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

<<But these diseases are not infectious in the same sense that a cold or flu
is.  Cow B doesn't get BSE by brushing up against or sick Cow A or being
sneezed on by A.  Cow B gets BSE by eating protein-enhanced food made from
the remains of animals that themselves had BSE.>>

     What a great explanation of BSE :).
     The above is the same for people. The "infectious" agent (actually a 
prion, which is a piece of protein which has not been decided if it meets the 
crtiteria of being alive or not) isn't exactly "infectious." It's caused by 
eating meat from an animal which has eaten what is described above. The prion 
which causes BSE cannot reproduce, so the effects are cumulative. IOW, you 
may ingest, say, 100 BSE prions in your burger tomorrow (if that cow had also 
ingested the BSE prions). It may not cause any problems. If you ate that same 
number every day, eventually you'd have enough of the prions to literally 
bounce around in your brain making a significant number of holes (hence, the 
"spongiform" part.....the brains of infected animals and people have holes in 
them like are in a sponge). And Janet, correct me please if I'm wrong in my 
understanding of BSE.

<snip>
Several of the early victims of new-variant CJD in the U.K. were vegetarians
who used bonemeal in their gardens. 
--Janet>>

     Lovely, something else to worry about! As far as deciding whether or not 
to use bonemeal in the US, I think the fact the FDA has quietly taken gelatin 
(made from bones and connective tissue leftovers) off their "Generally 
Regarded as Safe" list, says quite a bit.
     I wish I was as eloquent as Janet! But, I won't be using bone or blood 
meal in my garden.

Lisa Viger


______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, write to sqft-unsubscribe@listbot.com
Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index