04/24/07 Beef to S. Korea & Beef Recall

Beef ships to S. Korea and Beef gets recalled at home plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. From the category of "here we go again"&a shipment of beef was scheduled to arrive in South Korea yesterday. It is the first shipment since they rejected three shipments containing bone chips. According to Ag officials, if bone chips are found in the shipment, only the packages containing chips will be rejected. And speaking of beef, a voluntary recall of potentially contaminated frozen ground beef was instigated late last week. The beef was possibly contaminated with a strain of E. Coli bacterium which is known to be particularly dangerous for the very young, the elderly and people with weak immune systems. Nearly 110-thousand pounds of beef was shipped to food services, food distributors, Richwood Meat Co. Inc. of Merced, Calif. in Arizona, California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Health Department officials recommend cooking to eliminate the threat of contamination. Jean Ross with the Benton County Health Department explains. ROSS: As far as ground beef, if someone cooks it to at least 155 there will be no illness resulting from that because the heat kills it. Take the temperature. You can't rely on color anymore. They used to say if you cooked it until there was no pink in the middle that you'd be safe and that's not true. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Susan Allen. Given the grocery shelf space devoted to organics, heath food and bottled water, add the current emphasis on exercise and well being and it would be natural to conclude that we are some of the healthiest generations to walk the planet. Think again & A study ripe from the University of Texas at Austin is suggesting that Baby Boomers actually have more chronic health problems then their parents or grandparents ever did. A whopping two thirds of Americans are overweight and researchers discovered that obesity is causing boomers to be a less active generation then those preceding them. Depressing news for overweight boomers yet a study in the April 9 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine offers hope that doesn't involve more physical exercise or diets. The results of their survey revealed that majority of US physicians believe religion and spirituality have positive health consequences, and that that God intervenes medically. The most important muscle to exercise could very well be our heart. Thanks Susan. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.