Q: Is red meat in Australia safe?
In Australia, beef and sheepmeat are produced by one of the most stringently controlled meat industries in the world. These controls are designed to guarantee that you receive safe, reliable and high quality beef and sheepmeat products.
Australia has an internationally acknowledged status of being free of all major epidemic diseases of cattle and sheep, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, also known as ‘Mad Cow’ Disease) in cattle and foot and mouth disease.
The majority of beef consumed in Australia is Australian product and countries wishing to export their beef to Australia must meet strict protocols to ensure that any beef products entering Australia are BSE free.
Find out more about these requirements
Q: What is the process to ensure beef in Australia is safe?
Australian Government regulations require that all companies that deal with beef have a food safety system to ensure the hygiene and safety of the product is upheld.
Governments licence businesses and audit compliance with the food safety regulations.
Meat processors employ meat safety inspectors to ensure the meat is produced in a safe and hygienic manner.
Good temperature control ensures that bacteria like E. coli are unable to grow in meat. E. coli can grow between 7-45 degrees celcius, so it’s important to keep meat in the fridge until ready to cook or serve.
Click here for meat handling tips
Q: What is E. coli?
Escherichia coli (E. coli) is a bacterium that is normally found in many animals, including humans. E. coli O157 (H7 or H-) is a particular pathogenic type of E. coli that can cause gastroenteritis.
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Q: Has Australian meat caused illness in the past?
An outbreak of E.coli occurred in uncooked salami in South Australia in the 1990’s.
Over the past decade, no outbreak of illness has been found by health authorities to be due to E. coli in Australian beef or lamb.
There was a recent allegation that Australian beef was linked to an incidence of E. coli O157 in Japan, however Japanese health authorities have confirmed they found no E. coli contamination in Australian beef.
This incidence has nothing to do with the recent E. coli outbreak in Europe which relates to an unrelated strain of E. coli. This outbreak has been blamed on raw bean sprouts.
Q: What processes are in place to ensure beef is produced ethically and humanely?
Cattle in Australia are processed in an ethical and humane manner. The Australian beef industry is recognised around the world for its strict quality assurance systems, and highly automated, low stress procedures. Australian abattoirs are licensed by state governments, and must abide by strict animal welfare and hygiene regulations
Q: Do Australian farmers use hormones on their cattle?
While most producers do not use them, it is estimated that around 40 per cent of Australia's beef comes from cattle treated with hormone growth promotants (HGP's).
Hormone growth promotants (HGP's) are legal and safe supplements of naturally occurring hormones used by some cattle producers to assist in growth and increase feed efficiency in cattle.
Naturally occurring hormone levels in Australian beef from cattle treated with hormone growth promotants (HGP's) are much lower than those found in other commonly consumed foods such as soybean oil, cabbage and eggs. In fact, you would have to eat more than 77kg of beef from cattle treated with hormone growth promotants (HGP's) in one sitting to get the same oestrogen as you do from eating one egg.*
Many scientific studies (including studies evaluated by the World Health Organisation) have shown beef from cattle treated with hormone growth promotants (HGP's) to be completely safe for human consumption.^ The use of hormone growth promotants (HGP's) is approved and regulated by the Australian Government under the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority.
Find out more about hormone growth promotants
Q: What’s the connection between livestock and methane?
Cattle, sheep and goats are among the group of animals known as ‘ruminants’ (see below). When they chew their cud they burp out methane (CH4) releasing carbon into the air.
Q: What is a ruminant?
A ruminant is an animal that digests its food in two steps, first by eating the raw material and regurgitating it as a semi-digested form known as cud, then eating (chewing) the cud, a process called ruminating. Ruminants include:
- cattle
- sheep
- goats
- camels
- alpacas
- llamas
- giraffes
- bison
- buffalo
- European bison
- yaks
- water buffalo
- deer
- wildebeests
- antelopes
Q: How are these emissions measured?
Under international greenhouse accounting rules, only emissions are measured for the agriculture sector. Accordingly, the figures quoted don’t account for the full carbon exchange in landscapes.
Generally, livestock graze on the foliage of pasture plants leaving these perennial plants to develop root systems deep into the ground. Carbon is absorbed from the atmosphere by the plants as they grow.
Some of this carbon is stored in the leaves, stems and roots of the plants and some is stored in the soil, improving the soil’s health. (The process of absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in plants and soil is called ‘sequestration’.)
Q: What happens to methane in the atmosphere?
Most carbon released into the atmosphere is in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2). Ruminants release carbon in the form of methane (CH4). Methane is more potent than carbon dioxide but it is faster to oxidize in the atmosphere, producing carbon dioxide and water (H2O). It is still carbon and it’s all part of the natural carbon cycle.
Q: What’s the environmental impact of replacing red meat in our diet?
If we were to replace red meat protein with grains we would have to farm additional land mass equivalent to the size of Victoria and Tasmania combined. Land currently used for livestock production isn’t necessarily suitable for cropping or other agricultural activity.
Also, grain crops are annuals, not perennial plants. There is, therefore, very limited opportunity for crops to develop root systems that will sequester carbon into the soil.
Replacing beef with kangaroo meat has been suggested, however it’s not that simple. A cow produces ten times more meat than one kangaroo. Each year we process eight million cattle, to get the equivalent amount of edible kangaroo meat 80 million kangaroos would need to be killed every year. That’s 20 million more than the total Australian kangaroo population.
Q: What’s the health impact of replacing red meat in our diet?
Red meat delivers nutrients essential for health and wellbeing including: protein, iron, zinc, B vitamins, selenium, vitamin D, and long chain omega-3s. Independent research shows that red meat plays an important role in our diet.
Q: What is the red meat industry doing to make sure livestock production remains environmentally sustainable?
Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) has invested $6.1 million in research and development projects to address a range of issues relating to environmental sustainability.
Learn more about what the industry is doing to meet the challenges of climate change.
Q: Is MLA the only organisation doing work on this?
There are a number of research organisations that are investigating ways to continue delivering environmental solutions. These include CSIRO, the University of Sydney, the University of NSW, the Australian Greenhouse Office, and many more.
Q: Has there been much success to date?
According to the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory 2006, emissions from sheep and cattle have reduced by 7% since 1990, the Kyoto benchmark year and represent 9.9% of our total emissions.
Q: What’s being done to build the environmental gains made so far?
The issue of environmental sustainability is being addressed on a number of fronts. Currently, MLA is working on:
- increasing productivity – more yield per head
- a continuing program of tree planting (according to the National Farmers Federation, Australian farmers have planted in excess of 20 million trees)
- identifying a breeding trait to achieve feed conversion efficiencies (so the animals process their feed more efficiently)
- more precise management of the feed/demand ratio (so animals receive the optimal amount of feed)
- on-farm best practice natural resource management – particularly in the area of biodiversity, natural pastures and healthy ecosystems
Q: Is it possible to reduce methane emissions from cattle?
This is complex science because it will involve adjusting the way animals digest and process their food. MLA is conducting research into ways of reducing the methane emissions in livestock, particularly cattle.
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* Source: FEDESA - European Federation of Animal Health
^ Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives, the Veterinary Products Committee of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (UK), the Committee for Veterinary Medicinal Products for the European Medicines Agency and the Chemical Review and International Harmonisation Section, Office of Chemical Safety, Therapeutic Goods Administration of the Australian Department of Health and Ageing.