The coronavirus, a case for plant-based diets

As of February 27, 2020, there are over 82,000 cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and over 2,800 resulting deaths (World Health Organization 2020). Given the virus was first transmitted via animal-to-human contact, I feel this is a good time to talk about eating animals as a pervasive risk to public health. The link is clear-a virus jumped from animal to human in a large seafood and live animal market and then spread between humans. This little bug, if you will, caused the world to be on the verge of a pandemic.

In my opinion, the story of the COVID-19 outbreak is lacking the food safety perspective-specifically, how the general public is underinformed about a lot of food safety issues. Our priority right now is containing the outbreak and providing care for those who are affected, and rightly so. It’s disheartening to see the numbers increase every day, showing us that this is a time for human compassion and intense epidemiological work. Nevertheless, I can’t help but think this is a good time to talk about food safety issues as public health issues, too.

Animals are an easy target when talking about food safety. There are regulations to reduce the risk of animal products being contaminated as they make their way from farm to fork. But these regulations aren’t tight enough to guarantee a seal against pathogens. Some are bound to seep…