DanMargarita.com

I was never a fan of beef. Perhaps it's a result of the tough steaks that my mother served me as a child, or just because I simply wasn't crazy about the taste. So, whenever I saw people drool over the prospect of having steak for dinner, I never got what all the fuss was about. I was strictly a pizza man (and boy).

That's not to say that I'm a vegetarian. What would Thanksgiving be without stuffing yourself with turkey and watching football? I've had my share of ballpark franks---until I found out what was in them. Trust me, you don't want to know.

Sometime in the early '90's I visited some friends in the U.K. when we decided to eat at an "American" style restaurant. It wasn't exactly American style because it never occurred to the waitress to ask me how I wanted my food cooked and I wasn't expected to leave a tip, but that's beside the point. Though never much of a meat-eater, I ordered a cheeseburger with instructions to cook it "medium-well," although it later dawned on me that if they're not used to cooking food to order, they probably had no idea what "medium-well" meant.

A short time after arriving home, news reports began circulating about a condition in the U.K. known as "mad cow disease," a disorder that eats away cows brains leaving them dizzy and stumbling before dying. Video footage of staggering, stumbling cows might be funny on "America's Funniest Home Videos" but as news footage of a dying cow, it was horrifying. It seems that several humans consuming beef of infected cows had contracted the disease and had died. The British government announced that anyone who had spent six months in the U.K. was at risk. I couldn't have gone to Hawaii instead?

While only having one cheeseburger in my one week vacation didn't likely pose any great threat, it did make me a little nervous. As the years went by new concerns about beef sprung up, in particular, a bacteria known as "E. coli" was causing people to get sick and in some cases die. Unlike mad cow, E. coli, though not strictly limited to beef, could be killed if the meat was cooked well enough. Then I heard that cattle were being given steroids to increase their size. The last thing we need are cows with a mustache. Do you still wonder why I gave up eating beef?

Here's how mad cow seems to have come about. In the 1980's farmers began changing the feed that they gave cattle. Cattle, which are herbivores, began getting feed that had ground up sheep and (infected) cattle parts. Yes, these cows began eating other cows, so in essence, not only have we turned them into carnivores, we've also turned them into cannibals. Remember, we locked up Jeffrey Dahmer for doing the same thing.

It seems unnatural and as is often the case with unnatural things, there's an unhealthy consequence. For instance, there's a reason that siblings aren't allowed to marry.

Of course these cattle aren't aware that they're eating their own kind, which was the plot of the 1973 sci-fi film "Soylent Green." Set in a future where overpopulation is causing widespread hunger, the government gives people these Soylent Green cookies which turn out to be made of humans.

How would you feel if you found out that when you went out to eat Chinese you were actually eating Chinese?

"Pass the waiter, please."

Recently I joined some friends for lunch at a certain steak house best known for its plastic cows stationed on the front lawn. All of the cows seem to be standing upright, so I don't think that they were infected. I stunned my friends when I ordered a cheeseburger, since nothing else on the menu there has ever tasted that great to me.

Sure enough, about a week later on December 23, it was announced that a cow had been discovered in Washington State that was diagnosed with mad cow disease. Merry Christmas! Unfortunately, the disease can lay dormant for 10-15 years before showing symptoms.

So, if in five years you see me banging my head against a wall for no apparent (Red Sox related) reason, you'll know why.