Is meat ever safe?

I live in a place known for it's ranches and its meat, where being a vegetarian is a sometimes bizarre and incomprehensible lifestyle choice. I'm not a vegetarian but I'm not much of a meat eater either. Basically, if it's served to me, I'll eat meat but I don't keep much of it in my house and I rarely cook it for myself. It's not that I don't like the taste of meat--I do--but I do lots of research about food and nutrition, and hearing about all the hormones that go into meat frankly grosses me out. Plus, I read Fast Food Nation and let's just say it does not paint a pretty picture of how meat is produced.

The Daily Apple has a great post on the safety of meat. Whether it's beef, pork, poultry or even fish, all meats have gone through questionable practices to get on your plate, including being exposed to toxins and injected with hormones. And chances are the hamburger is made from stripped spinal meat. Ewwwww.

But although I don't eat much meat, I would have trouble cutting it out of my life altogether. The key is buying free-range and organic meats that aren't exposed to the same conditions as regular meat. It's expensive, yes, but you have to be careful about what you're putting in your body, don't you think?