Feedlots

            What people imagine a cow’s life to be like may be very different than what it actually is nowadays. Michael Pollan writes about this in his fourth chapter of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The old fashion image that pops up in peoples’ mind of a cow grazing on a farm is no longer true. Now it is more like the picture below, with cows lined up front to back, standing in their own feces, and eating corn all day.

            What happened to the old fashion cows grazing on grasslands? It all relates back to corn. Sixty percent of corn produced in America goes to feeding cows. But cow’s stomachs are not meant to digest corn. They have an organ called the Rumen, which transforms grass into protein. They have evolved into a species that feeds on grass. Making their diet consist of only corn is very disruptive to cows. Corn contains a lot of carbohydrates. By feeding the cows a diet rich in carbohydrates, they get very large very quickly. They develop diseases such as E-coli and have to be treated by many antibiotics in order to live up to the optimal date for slaughtering.

            What aggravates me the most about this whole system is the fact that I myself am stuck between two decisions. On one hand I strongly believe in sustainability. Cows should be allowed to graze, their feces should fertilize the grass, and the environment should sustain for years to come. But our population is growing. We need food to feed the people of our world. Cows don’t grow fast enough on a grass fed diet to fulfill our demands for meat. So what do we do? Do we help the environment and produce better quality meat? Or do we sacrifice quality and the health of our environment in order to satisfy the demands of the people? How about that dilemma, Pollan?

1)   What’s your answer to my question posed in my last paragraph?

2)   Do you think we should be worried about the long-term effects the antibiotics cows eat will have on us?