Cows

Ian wanted to know why I don't like red meat anymore, but will eat the hell out of pigs, fish, and chicken. Here is a quick rundown. I don't want to change anyone's eating habits. I grew up eating it til now, and I am in arguably good health, so I'm not calling the CDC, or painting protest signs.

Cattle used to be driven across the plains, eating native grasses, and then depositing fertilizer along the way to grow more grasses. Think City Slickers. After years of doing this (about 3) the steer was then slaughtered and sold to market.

The author of this book bought an 8 month old steer and followed its life from youngster to dinner. He bought him for $598.

We have all heard of 'corn fed' steer, sounds good, huh? One catch, cows don't naturally eat corn, they don't like corn, they have a specially designed stomach to digest grasses super efficiently. Corn is the cheapest god damn thing on the planet to grow, and consuming it is the most inexpensive calories on the planet. To make the steer eat the corn, they add beef tallow (they don't naturally eat each other either, but without that we wouldn't get cool things like mad cow disease) and they add a shitload of antibiotics and chemicals, because, well, corn makes cows sick. Today, a steer goes from birth to slaughterhouse in about 14 months, instead of a few years. It's a good thing too, because on their diet, they wouldn't live past 18 months naturally. Autopsies after the steer is slaughtered show organs with holes in them. The mixture given to the cows fattens them up much quicker and gives us that fatty marbling of the meat we all enjoy. On a side note, both times we went to Costa Rica, all we heard about was the famous Guanacaste Beef, and how amazing it was. Everywhere we looked we saw super skinny, scrawny steer, and laughed. In retrospect, it was because they were treated to eating nothing but grass, and were free to graze. I guess that's what steer are supposed to look like.

Anyway, the author went to visit his steer at the feedlot, and saw they had a huge lake at the lot. He asked what it was for and was told it was a manure lake, they put the steer crap there. He then asked why don't you sell the manure to the surrounding farmers to use on their crops for fertilizer. The feedlot owner chuckled and said these cows manure would kill every crop it was used on, it is that toxic.

Chickens and pigs naturally eat corn, well, pigs eat just about anything, so there is much less of a problem there. Its funny though, eating fast food burgers is probably healthier for you than eating a steak. Fast food hamburgers are made from old dairy cows that have gotten too old to produce milk. These dairy cows are raised on nothing buy hay and natural grasses.

That is a small synopsis, there is a lot more to it, but even now you probably have fallen asleep. The book is pretty amazing. This is only one small part of it. He traces all kinds of food. He makes a point to repeatedly say you won't necessarily get sick or die eating the foods he researches, but just lays out what he has discovered. Probably doesn't want to get sued like Oprah for dissing the Cattle industry.

I would have no problem eating a steak from Harris Ranch. From what I understand, it's not a feed lot. Probably why it is so expensive. Maybe as it should be. It wasn't too long ago, people didn't have meat at every meal, now it seems most of us do.

Thanks class, and tomorrow, I'll scare the shit out of you discussing High Fructose Corn Syrup. Seriously though, for fun, read the labels in your kitchen, that shit is in EVERYTHING!