'Health crisis' linked to animal antibiotics

ShopRite's brand of antibiotic-free chicken.

Consumer Reports has issued its strongest statement to date on the use of antibiotics to raise animals for human consumption.

The popular consumer magazine, which accepts no advertising, is calling on all grocers "to require their meat suppliers to reduce antibiotics in livestock production [on factory farms], and we urge shoppers to support those efforts by buying meat labeled 'no antibiotics' when they can."

On Page 6 of the August 2012 issue, Consumers Union -- the magazine's policy and action arm -- said it "believes that sharply limiting antibiotic use in animals is necessary to preserve the effectiveness of drugs for treating diseases in people."

"The declining effectiveness of antibiotics is becoming a national health crisis.

"A whopping 80 percent of the antibiotics in the U.S. are used not for human health but by the meat and poultry industry to make animals grow faster and to prevent sickness in crowded and unsanitary conditions."

For more information, go to a Consumers Union  Web site: Meat Without Drugs

You can usually find low-quality Perdue chicken --which is raised on plenty of harmful antibiotics -- at 40% off in ShopRite supermarkets.

Can Can sale

ShopRite supermarkets offer antibiotic-free Readington Farms poultry, as well as products from Coleman Organic, but it still runs fire sales on Perdue and other low-quality chicken raised on antibiotics, as it is doing now during the Summer Can Can Sale.

I prefer to buy seltzer and pasta sauce at Can Can prices.

I've now amassed 144 cans of Adirondack Lemon-Lime Seltzer, enough to last until the next Can Can Sale.

Packs of 12 12-ounce cans are $1.99 during the 10th anniversary sale, a discount of $1.80.

I also picked up six 24-ounce jars of Classico pasta sauce at two for $4: Tomato and Basil, Spicy Tomato and Basil, and Cabernet Marinara With Herbs.

Bottled pasta sauce is just a base, because we add a can of anchovies and oil, red-pepper flakes and dried Italian herbs.

Last night, we also added capers to the sauce from one and a half Classico bottles, and used it with 1 pound of Trader Joe's Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti. 

 

H Mart

Baby mustard greens were only 68 cents a pound on Sunday at the Little Ferry H Mart.

Wash greens and blanch them in boiling water. Drain the pot, and add salt and other seasonings, and olive oil. For an Asian  flavor, try a little soy sauce and sesame oil.

For breakfast on Monday, leftover mustard greens went well with an open-face egg-white omelet of smoked wild Alaskan sockeye salmon and capers.

Mung-bean pancakes are among the many free weekend samples at H Mart stores.