# Ground Beef



## rannmiller (Jun 27, 2008)

My friend's dad cooks for his GSD, I guess he just mostly gives the dog cooked ground beef, rice, and maybe some veggies (not a very well balanced diet if you ask me). I told my friend his dad should save his money and time and switch to raw instead (I may have said, "skip the cooking and just hand the dog the beef raw"). My friend told me you can't do that because ground beef has worms in it. Worms? Really? I figured he was probably referring to e. coli, but he insisted he means worms. Pretty friggin gross to me if he's feeding this to his dog, even if it is cooked, and then making a hamburger for himself with it too. 

I believe I told him to feed chicken leg quarters instead. 

Anyway, any thoughts on worms in ground beef?


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

rannmiller said:


> Anyway, any thoughts on worms in ground beef?


I doubt there are worms in beef but even if there are, it won't cause worms in dogs or humans.


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## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

He probably has heard of Trichinosis which is a worm gotten from eating undercooked or raw pork but that is in humans. There is tapeworm that you can get from eating raw beef called " Taenia saginata: This parasite is also known as the beef tapeworm. It forms cysts in beef and infects humans through the ingestion of undercooked or raw beef." I'm not sure if dogs can get it or trichinosis and I have never seen a case in dogs when I was working at the vets but that doesn't mean they can't. You'd have to research it. I would have to think they would have some type of immunity to a lot of those things if they are on a healthy diet of raw food all the time. Plus, a lot of the worms are species specific. Maybe someone else on the board knows more about the exact parisitology then I do!


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## LoveNewfies (Jun 18, 2008)

Trichnosis in pork has nearly been done away with in the US. Worms in beef? News to me. Bacteria, particularly in ground, OK, I can see having concern for that just as we do for ourselves but we've never had a problem. I've even caught my daughter eating raw hamburg. Guess what? She's still alive and never go sick from it. I eat my beef bloody - just seer it on the outside and I'm good to go - never been sick from it. Maybe, just like a raw fed dog, my system is acclimated to it. 

FYI, raw, ground beef was the first thing ever fed to my Newf that didn't make her sick. Ironically, she can no longer have beef, but, from the first time my FIL fed it to her, she never go sick from food again, and so began our raw feeding adventures.


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## 312InchMagnum (Jan 5, 2009)

wouldnt freezing all your raw meat before giving it to your dog take care of worms if there were any in there anyhow


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

312InchMagnum said:


> wouldnt freezing all your raw meat before giving it to your dog take care of worms if there were any in there anyhow


Yes it would. :smile:


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## rannmiller (Jun 27, 2008)

Good thing all my meat gets frozen before fed I suppose, not that I ever really worried about it before anyway.


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## muttlover87 (Jan 13, 2009)

No worms are in human grade ground beef.....myths like this get passed around so easy. It's like back when they thought if you poured coke over pork worms would come out. Of course that has been proven wrong. Though they may have been thinking of Thrichinosis which can be in pork, but it's not in beef. The only reason ground beef might be bad is because ground meat can carry more bacteria than whole meats but no not worms. I would say their could be worms but freezing kills worms and most meat is frozen before getting to the grocery store, and even if not you can freeze it and kill anything yourself.


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