You can’t have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat! Irish mammies know the value of eating well during pregnancy. News just in reveals a worrying new risk of meat for mums and their babies. Let me backtrack to the basics and step you through. Meat comes from animals who grass in green fields.
How does the grass grow so lushly green? Rain! Yes, well done – and what else? Fertiliser! What kind of fertiliser? Bags of 10-10-20 nitrogen and phosphates! And what else? I’ll give you a hint. Imagine Herbal Essence natural country smells in summertime. Now delete it. The reality is eye-watering stenchful human sewage slopping through leafy lanes in muck spreaders which always look older than their years. We country dwellers know to maintain a healthy distance behind agricultural vehicles or risk a fine brown malodourous mist.
Many country dwellers aren’t ‘on the mains.’ Loosely translated this means the toilet flushes into a septic tank, artistically concealed some distance from the dwelling. Cottage or 7-bedroom mansion, it’s all the same. Only it needs emptying out betimes. A man visits to pump the contents into said vehicle, money changes hands and out comes the Febreze. The man, Paddy or Mick, travels very slowly (this is important), trailing a fine and pungent mist on those who follow. I’ve been in a 20-car cortège of irate people, trying to make it to Dublin before nightfall. Suddenly as the road widens and the white line cracks under the strain, he plunges sharply, sans indication, into a field. Cars which may have missed the mist are now accessible via the hedge! Obviously, this must be the origin of the phrase ‘hedge fund,’ and ‘hedge your bets.’
The research
In a £2.9 million study, funded by the European Commission, Scottish English and French scientists teamed up to check the effects of all of human sludge fertiliser on animal health. Presumably they laid aside any lingering Rugby hostilities for the duration. Result? Their research reveals alarming effects in sheep, from chemical contaminants found in grazing fields fertilised with human sewage-sludge-derived fertiliser.
And the risk of meat to mums?
It sure does have a risk compared to that in grandma’s day. Eating meat from animals grazed in these fields looks like having serious implications for pregnant women – and the reproductive health of their babies. According to lead researcher, Dr. Richard Lea at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science at the University of Nottingham,’ Consumption of products from animals grazing such pastures may be of considerable environmental concern.’ I take the word of a vet very seriously. The risks are associated with disrupted ovary development causing fewer eggs to develop. Girls complement of eggs is decided while they are still in the womb.
Prof. Paul Fowler, study co-ordinator from the University of Aberdeen, understated warning adds, ‘steps to reduce contamination are welcome.’
So is this just another scare for mums-to-be? I don’t believe so. We can take it seriously and eat fully organic meat. Caveat emptor and let’s be careful so we eat safely and well.
