“Veggie” diet blamed for poor performance of China’s women volleyball team

Afraid of eating tainted meat, the Chinese women's volleyball team has been on this strict vegetarian diet for the last three weeks, which the team's coach is now blaming for his athletes' terrible performance.

 

The Chinese team lost four of five matches at a world tournament in Ningbo, China, falling to the United States, Brazil, Turkey and Thailand.

“They have showed significant decline in their strength and fitness” coach Yu Juemin said of his squad after the defeat to the US. “We are wary of meat tainted by lean-meat powder, and we didn't eat any during the game period."

All Chinese athletes have been warned by the country's Sports Ministry to avoid meat contaminated with the powder, also known as clenbuterol, because it's banned by the International Olympic Committee as a performance-enhancing substance.

China bans the use of clenbuterol in livestock because of the chemical's noxious long-term effects on human health, (China? Seriously?) but many pork farmers still use it it because it produces leaner meat. (so much for the ban)

 The World Anti-Doping Agency issued a warning last year about clenbuterol-tainted meat in China as well as Mexico, where it is also widespread.

As a result, the Chinese volleyball team only eats meat at its training camp, where the food can be tested for contamination. When players go elsewhere in the country, they don't eat pork, beef and lamb — and that's what happened leading up to the volleyball World Grand Prix finals tournament.

Some other Chinese athletes are compensating by eating more fish and chicken and supplementing their diets with protein powder. 

Clenbuterol is an asthma drug in some countries because it helps dilate the bronchial tubes.

It is also the substance that cyclist and two-time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador tested positive for in 2010, and that lead to his being stripped of his victory in that year's race and banned from competition.

Germ resistant to antibiotics in meat sold in U.S.

Here's some news that will have vegetarians and vegans rejoicing evereywhere.

There is a type of germ that is resistant to antibiotics and is very common in meat sold in U.S. grocery stores.

Almost half of 136 samples of beef, chicken, pork and turkey collected from 26 grocery stores across five U.S. cities tested positive for antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, according to a study published  in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Some of antibiotic-resistant staph germs found included forms of the superbug resistant to methicillin known as MRSA, and about half of those bacteria were resistant to multiple forms of antibiotics.

"When the average consumer purchases fresh meat or poultry, they have a 1 in 4 chance of bringing multidrug-resistant staph aureus into the kitchen," said Lance Price, senior author of the study and the director of Center for Food Microbiology and Environmental Health at the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Flagstaff, Ariz.

No one really knows the health risks Dr. Price said. "The main issue isn't ingesting the germs—staph can be killed by cooking meat thoroughly—but rather becoming infected during the handling of food. Staph can cause wound and skin infections through contact and can also be transferred to kitchen surfaces from meat during food preparation. How many people get infected by drug-resistant staph through contact or ingestion with meat isn't known."

Bacterial resistance to drugs is a major concern because it limits the medications that could be used to kill the bugs. Staph can cause skin infection as well as more serious conditions such as pneumonia or sepsis, which is blood poisoning.

Some other types of antibiotic-resistant bacteria are not new and have been commonly detected in meat and poultry, but the presence of staph is something new and hasn't been previously measured.

Researchers found that the bacteria contaminated the meat because it was present on the skin and in the guts of the animal, not through human contact during processing of the animal. That suggests that the common use of steady doses of antibiotics in healthy animals is to blame, according to Dr. Price.

Using antibiotics in healthy animals "is so counterlogical," Dr. Price said. "We should be doing all that we can to protect the antibiotics," by saving them for cases of illness and even then using them sparingly.

Eating less meat will not help the climate

We know that PETA and Paul McCartney may not agree, but eating less meat will not reduce global warming.
You remember Paul McCartney, the well known vegetarian, and his "Less Meat, Less Heat" campaign?
For a refresher, see video below:

The report by Frank Mitloehner, (an air quality expert at the University of California-Davis) says such claims about meat and climate change are distracting society from finding real ways to beat climate change. 

"McCartney and others seem to be well-intentioned but not well-schooled in the complex relationships among human activities, animal digestion, food production and atmospheric chemistry," said Mitloehner.

"We certainly can reduce our greenhouse gas production, but not by consuming less meat and milk," Frank Mitloehner said on Monday as he presented a report on meat-eating and climate change at a conference of the American Chemical Society in California.

Mitloehner, not an entertainer but an air quality expert at the University of California-Davis, said blaming cows and pigs for climate change was scientifically inaccurate.

He also dismissed a 2006 report by the United Nations, which he said overstate the role that livestock play in global warming.

The UN report - Livestock's Long Shadow - which said livestock cause more anthropogenic greenhouse gases than all global transportation combined, merely distract from the real issues involved in climate change and was a distraction in the quest for true solutions to global warming, said Mitloehner.

The notion that eating less meat will help to combat climate change has spawned campaigns for "meatless Mondays" and a European campaign launched late last year, called "Less Meat, Less Heat".

"Smarter animal farming, not less farming, will equal less heat...

"Producing less meat and milk will only mean more hunger in poor countries."

Developing countries "should adopt more efficient, Western-style farming practices, to make more food with less greenhouse gas production," added Mitloehner.

Rather than focusing on producing and eating less meat, Mitloehner said developed countries "should focus on cutting our use of oil and coal for electricity, heating and vehicle fuels."

In the United States, transportation creates an estimated 26 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions, whereas raising cattle and pigs for food accounts for about three per cent, he said.

The UN report, issued in 2006, said global livestock rearing was responsible for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in carbon dioxide equivalents.

The UN report said that was more than the greenhouse gases produced by transport.

Meat Eating May Protect Later Abilities

This comes to us from New York: Meat eaters might be happy to learn of new findings from a study out of Japan suggesting that eating meat at least every two days during middle age may help maintain independent daily activities when older.

In the study researchers evaluated meat, fish, and egg intake, in 1,042 men and 1,274 women. At the start of the study participants were 47 to 59 years old and independently mobile.

Nineteen years later researchers took a look at activities of daily living, such as independent feeding, dressing, bathing, and mobility, in the study group. During this period, 427 of the participants died and another 75 became dependent due to their inability to care for themselves.

Among the remaining participants, Nakamura and colleagues found eating meat at least twice weekly, compared with less meat consumption, during middle age significantly lessened the risk for impaired physical function.

The researchers did not find the same from eating fish or eggs at least once daily, and noted no impact on mortality from any of the three foods.

The bottom line is that eating meat at the level reported in this study may help elderly better preserve muscle mass due to increased protein intake which, in turn, may play a role in elders' ability to continue to perform daily activities.