Consumer Reports Finds Fecal Matter in Beef

Here’s some crappy news: There’s poop in your beef.

All 458 pounds of store-bought beef that Consumer Reports tested had some level of fecal contamination, the watchdog group announced last week.

Twenty percent tested positive for C. perfringens, a bacteria that sickens 1 million people each year, and 10% contained a strain of S. aureus that produces sickening toxins and doesn't go away when cooked.

One percent of beef tested positive for salmonella, which may not seem like a lot, but is considering that Americans bought 4.6 billion pounds of beef last year.

Cows that were not treated with antibiotics or those raised on organic farms had beef with less bacteria than conventionally raised cattle, the group found. Eighteen percent of conventional beef had antibiotic-resistant bacteria in it, as opposed to 9% from the so-called sustainably raised cattle.

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