Page 142 - How to Be a Conscious Eater - Making Food Choices That Are Good for You

bacteria in the mix that are already resistant to the drug can
now spring forth and multiply. You feel sick again, but when
you go to take that antibiotic again, it doesn’t work. At the same
time, a lot of your good bacteria, responsible for providing your
body with immunity to illness, can get killed in the process.
Remember the importance of maintaining a healthy mix of
beneficial microbes in your gut? All the hard work you put into
eating lots of fiber and keeping those little guys fed vanishes
when a round of antibiotics comes surging through your intes-
tines. (I picture little kids bobbing innocently on floaties in the
calm part of a pool when the operator suddenly turns on the
waterslide and some aggro teenager comes barreling down the
chute. Total wipeout!) The same thing happens when animals
are given antibiotics. Like all bacteria, once the resistant ones
are in the gut of an animal or a human, they can spread, either
animal-to-people, such as by eating meat that’s not thoroughly
cooked, or people-to-people, through poor hygiene. They can
also spread through the environment (such as when manure
runoff from feedlots contaminates water sources that are then
used to irrigate crops, which we end up eating).
It’s not as if these bacteria stop at the border, so we’re at risk
when we import meat from other countries whose regulations
about antibiotic use may be even more lax than ours. China,
for instance, is far and away the heaviest user of antibiotics in
food animal production—with a total tally that’s forty times
that of Norway. (Overall, European countries use less than half
the global average per kilogram of meat produced.)
The scariest of all is what’s called a superbug. Because it
has developed resistance after repeated exposure to drugs
that didn’t manage to kill it, a superbug can deflect the powers
of numerous different antibiotics, thereby wreaking havoc in
your body.

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