Antimicrobial Resistance. We Need A Massive Rethink.

One of my biggest fears is the fact that we are entering a post-antibiotic world. The brevity of this situation means that routine human infections will become untreatable and have the power to kill us. In the days before antibiotics the world was a much more hazardous place, people routinely died of common illnesses such as urinary tract infections, whooping cough, pneumonia and even paper cuts.

Unfortunately, even if (like me) you only take antibiotics as a last resort, unless you are eating higher-welfare meat, eggs and dairy products, you are already half way there to being antimicrobial resistant.

Over 70 billion animals are farmed for food worldwide and 70% of those animals are kept in intensive systems. Due to the emphasis on high productivity, animals are kept in cramped, filthy bacteria ridden conditions. Disease is so rife that factory farmers are mass medicating the animals, they are continuously dosed up with drugs via their feed and water, and then they go into the food chain.

Instead of looking at improving the horrific conditions these animals are living in and returning them to their natural environment, factory farmers are increasingly over-using drugs to prevent disease thus bringing us to the brink of a human health crisis.

By the age of twenty five most of us will have contracted some sort of infection that needed treating with antibiotics. Pre antibiotics, common infections had an extremely high likelihood of fatality or amputation and infant mortality was severe, yet we are buying and eating mass medicated animals and dairy products with impunity?

For generations, people survived eating much less meat than we do now, rather than eating vast amounts of intensely farmed, drugged animals, we should be thinking about higher welfare, organic and free-range. Yes they may cost more, yes you may have to eat less, but that has to be preferable to the formidable rise of antimicrobial resistance and a return to young children dying from an infected scrape on their knee!

Chicken is supposed to be a 'healthy' source of high-quality nutrition, however, it is impossible to mass produce them in a clean or safe environment at rock bottom prices. As a result of its cheapness our consumption has doubled since 1970 and many of us rarely give a thought for these diseased, drugged birds and the health implications, not only for the birds but for us. We shudder at the thought of eating something that is a couple of days past its expiry date for fear of bacteria, yet the animals we eat have been kept in squalid conditions where bacterial resistance is a devastating problem, kept at bay only by pumping the animals full of drugs........sounds yummy doesn't it!

                                              Battery hens living in cramped conditions.

Although I was a vegetarian for many years, I now eat meat, poultry and fish, however, I'm mindful of the terrible, distressing conditions animals are kept in and will only buy higher welfare. Many supermarkets now stock higher welfare and free-range goods that are only fractionally dearer and let's face it, it doesn't hurt to have a couple of meat-free meals a week.

In this next recipe I used free-range chicken thighs which I bought from my butcher, people tend to stick to chicken breasts as they require little imagination when cooking but thighs are economical and tasty and there is no excuse not to buy free-range.

Baked orange chicken

Recipe
Serves 4
8 skin on free-range chicken thighs
4 tablespoons orange marmalade
Juice of half an orange
1 teaspoon of English mustard
1 orange sliced
Salt and pepper

Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper
Preheat oven 160c/gas mark 3
Mix the chicken with the marmalade, orange juice and mustard, season with salt and pepper

Scatter orange slices over chicken

Bake for 40 minutes

Set aside and cover loosely with foil
In a small pan add the marmalade juices to a tablespoon of plain flour and some boiled water stirring continuously until you have a thick glossy gravy

Serve with mashed potatoes and peas

'Some experts say we are moving back to a pre-antibiotic era. No. This will be a post-antibiotic era. In terms of a new replacement antibiotic, the pipeline is virtually dry. A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it. Things as common as strep throat or a child's scratched knee could once again kill.'
- Margaret Chan.

Love Donna xxxxxxxx