Outraged on behalf of cows

After eating a large piece of beef tenderloin Sunday night, I sat down to read the next section of The Ominvore's Dilemma. Big mistake. The section was all about feedlots and their effect on cows, and I immediately began to rue eating the meat.

It's interesting to think about, but humans used to only eat meat on the most special of occasions. The Easter ham or occasional steak really was something special; now, most Americans eat some sort of meat with every meal. To keep up with that level of consumption, this huge industrial complex has grown up to get the cow from the ranch to your plate.

I was surprised to learn that baby cows are actually kept with their mothers and grass-fed until they're weaned, usually before they're a year old. I had pictured tiny babies ripped from their mothers and put on lots very young, but that's thankfully not the case. They do get one blissful time on the ranch.

Once they're weaned, however, the story changes. They're trucked to a massive feedlot where they are fed roughly 32 pounds of corn every day until they reach their slaughter weight. Rough life, right?

Actually, it is, for a couple of reasons. First, as I've mentioned before, cows are not designed to eat corn. They have highly-specialized stomachs that allow them to eat grass; they're ruminants. Corn is much, much cheaper, though (Thanks, government subsidies), so down the hatch it goes. Feeding cows corn can cause them a multitude of health problems in their digestive tract and related organs. Officially, 15-30% of cows have an abscessed liver at slaughter, though the number is probably closer to 70%. Now, I've never had an abscessed liver, thankfully, but it can't be comfortable. Poor cows.

Their diet also includes certain binding elements and fats to get them to the weight and slaughter-ability that's so desired. What's really gross is that companies are allowed to feed cows fats of other animals, including cows. The practice was largely restricted due to mad cow disease, but it still does happen. We've turned the poor babies into cannibals!

The other reason it's a poor life for cows is the conditions of the pens. They live on a river of manure, which causes all sorts of infections, for which they're fed all sorts of antibiotics. (Which leads to antibiotic-resistance in humans.) The river of manure dries and raises a nasty dust that can harm their eyes. Terrible living conditions for any creature; it's ironic that we then turn around and eat them. You'd think we'd want better for ourselves and, consequently, for them.

Then there are a whole host of other issues that arise, whether it's the runoff from these plants that's poisoning local water resources and crops or it's that feeding cows corn makes them more susceptible to E. coli. And let's not even talk about the conditions in the slaughterhouses and the laxness of the USDA inspections and regulations. It's a wonder that people don't get sick more often!

It's important to point out that you don't have to become a vegetarian to do something about this. Choosing beef that is grass-fed is a huge step in the right direction. Many markets are beginning to carry grass-fed beef in their cases and you can find it in certain butcher shops. You can search using the Eat Well Guide to find local resources.

As for me, I'm continuing to work our way through the freezer full of cow we got from Idaho. It is all grass-fed, so I feel better about that. I'm not sure what I'll do when we've gone through it all; I'm just not convinced we need to eat meat. Stay tuned, I guess.