Bird flu and "barfers"

[_Ju_]

Cooked bird meat poses no problem to anyones health ( the virus is very sensitive to heating and any properly cooked bird meat is absolutely sterilized). But many people here feed their dogs barf diets (I will not give my opinion on them again).

It is VERY difficult for a person to catch bird flu.Cats and dogs can catch bird flu, but it is JUST as difficult to do as it is for humans. BUT:


It is now thought that the turkey's were not infected by wild birds, but by contaminated meat originating in Hungary (offcourse, we still insist in feeding factory animals protein of their own species..... BSE dinna teach us anything!).

The bird carcases used in barf diets can come from anywhere. IF they have a UK health mark, that still does not mean the birds were produced here (ie: carcases that went through a cutting room in the uk will have a uk healthmark for that cutting room). Any health marked animal products would likely have a very low infectivity (the health mark is indicative of ante- post mortem inspections a following of hygienic production process).

If the dogs were mine, I wouldn't feed them a barf diet, especially if it included raw bird products.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4811284.stm

Summary: It is difficult for any mamal to catch bird flu. It is thought that it is exceptionaly difficult for house pets as it is for ourselves. But there might be infected meat/carcases out in the market. That meat is safe when properly cooked. The math is simple.

[gary.b]

A quote from yesterdays papers: "If you sprinkle powdered infected turkey poo on your cornflakes every morning for a week you still only have a minimal chance of catching it."
I won't be worrying about it, I know exactly where my meat comes from, you wouldn't eat mirco meals everyday, so why feed your dogs complete diet?
Check your complete foods ingredients and see the percentage of poultry derivatives. Which by the way include feather, feet and beaks etc.
Theres a risk in everything we do, its a matter of assessing the risk, for me the benefits outweigh the risks, I'll continue to feed raw thanks.

[danc1ngwitch]

if i have to be honest, i fed my dog wea the packets of wafer thin turkey i had in fridge... I just didna want my children eating it...
I am being a little over protective but well you just never know.

[j4bberw0ck]

if i have to be honest, i fed my dog wea the packets of wafer thin turkey i had in fridge... I just didna want my children eating it...
I am being a little over protective but well you just never know.

The irony is that your kids are almost infinitely more likely to pick up roundworms from your dogs than almost anything else - and especially bird flu from turkey. Wafer thin turkey is usually "mechanically recovered meat" (i.e. when they've got everything else that's edible off a carcass they stick it in water and use ultrasound to cause all the remaining fibres, fat and gristle to drop off the skeleton).

That creates a thick sludge and includes all the bits which no one would eat if they knew what it was..... a waffeur-thin slice of sphincter for m'sieu?

Then they pressure cook it (which kills all bugs anyway) and compress it, adding fat to bind it together a bit. Then they slice it into wafer thin slices. And then people feed it to their kids.......... but worry about bird flu. And then there's "turkey ham" - repeat as above but with added pig. Ooooooh - juicy :lol: .

[Oddquine]

The irony is that your kids are almost infinitely more likely to pick up roundworms from your dogs than almost anything else - and especially bird flu from turkey. Wafer thin turkey is usually "mechanically recovered meat" (i.e. when they've got everything else that's edible off a carcass they stick it in water and use ultrasound to cause all the remaining fibres, fat and gristle to drop off the skeleton).

That creates a thick sludge and includes all the bits which no one would eat if they knew what it was..... a waffeur-thin slice of sphincter for m'sieu?

Then they pressure cook it (which kills all bugs anyway) and compress it, adding fat to bind it together a bit. Then they slice it into wafer thin slices. And then people feed it to their kids.......... but worry about bird flu. And then there's "turkey ham" - repeat as above but with added pig. Ooooooh - juicy :lol: .

Gee, thanks................that's me off sammidges forever! :(

[_Ju_]

And canned sausages, and chiken nuggets, and polony...the list goes on and on.

Has anyone ever seen mechanically recovered meat (mrm) as it comes out of the machine? (I've never touched a canned sausage since! ;) ).

Funnily (?) enough the baby food that comes in little glass bottles often contains mrm. It is not harmful in a bacterial sense, since it's treated with ultra high temperatures that kill everything in it (including vitamins), but it confuses me that when babies are doing some of their most important growth ( brain growth), we feed them the dregs of protein.

[peedie wifie]

Wafer thin turkey is usually "mechanically recovered meat" (i.e. when they've got everything else that's edible off a carcass they stick it in water and use ultrasound to cause all the remaining fibres, fat and gristle to drop off the skeleton).

That creates a thick sludge and includes all the bits which no one would eat if they knew what it was..... a waffeur-thin slice of sphincter for m'sieu?

Then they pressure cook it (which kills all bugs anyway) and compress it, adding fat to bind it together a bit. Then they slice it into wafer thin slices. And then people feed it to their kids.......... but worry about bird flu. And then there's "turkey ham" - repeat as above but with added pig. Ooooooh - juicy :lol: .

Ooh is that really what we're eating? :~( My kids love "wafer thin anything" Think I'll be buying a lump of meat ( from my local butcher - know where its coming from) and cooking and slicing it myself from now on. Wonder if I can buy a meat slicer on e-bay??

[_Ju_]

Peedie, you can still have ham. Just look for structure in the meat. If you can see the muscle fibre, it isn't mrm. Also I believe that foods containing MRM have it on their label (I have to go see if I can find this out for sure, but I believe it to be so). By the way, on ham (and similairs) you will read about injection percentages. This is the ammount of water/saline injected into meat to make it bigger and heavier, and not anything to do with MRM (we are all suckers who buy very expensive salty water in the form of lovely gammon steaks, ham or chicken roasts;) ).

[j4bberw0ck]

I hang my head in shame if I've put anyone off their sliced meats.... or turkey drummers, chicken nuggets and all the other things that _Ju_ pointed out. But as peedie wifie says, best bet is the local butcher if you eat meat - the one I use here is just fantastic and his processed meat products (sausages and pies) use real meat. And the joy of it is that they're not really that much more expensive than the more mysterious stuff at the supermarket. To even out the price difference completely we just have a sausage less each and more veggies, so it's arguably much more healthy in several ways.

Sorry, peeps. :(

[ywindythesecond]

I hang my head in shame if I've put anyone off their sliced meats.... or turkey drummers, chicken nuggets and all the other things that _Ju_ pointed out. But as peedie wifie says, best bet is the local butcher if you eat meat - the one I use here is just fantastic and his processed meat products (sausages and pies) use real meat. And the joy of it is that they're not really that much more expensive than the more mysterious stuff at the supermarket. To even out the price difference completely we just have a sausage less each and more veggies, so it's arguably much more healthy in several ways.

Sorry, peeps. :(

Don't apologise Jabberwock, you really concentrated the minds!
(Butcher in Castletown is really good.)