Let’s get this straight. The cows
aren’t mad. But you should be. “Mad cow disease” (BSE)
develops in animals — or humans — when they eat parts
of infected animals. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy can occur
when cattle are forced to become cannibals.
Cows in their
natural habitat may butt heads, but they don’t eat each
other. Their bodies and behavior evolved in cooperation with
nature’s grasslands — before humans. Cattle grazing on
native vegetation don’t get BSE.
Grass-eating
animals evolved in conjunction with natural systems. “Industrial
agriculture” — an oxymoron! — replaced an order only
the critters and the grass understood. The resulting “advance in
food technology” is our loss.
Cattle are a sophisticated
product of natural selection in our ancient grassland habitat. By
preference, they are as wild as elk, and smart enough to eat
vegetation precisely suited to conditions and their needs. Cattle
raised in accordance with their natural heritage turn grass into
vitamin-rich flesh and milk that have less fat and less cholesterol
than chicken.
Grassfed beef contains more Vitamin E (an
antioxidant that boosts immunity, and may lower risk of coronary
heart disease) and more beta-carotene (good for eyes) than grainfed
beef. Grassfed meat is rich in the “good fats” shown to stave off
cancer, depression, obesity, diabetes, arthritis, allergies,
asthma, dementia, and high blood pressure. Recent studies show
grassfed meat also has more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which
may help prevent breast cancer.
Most of the beneficial
effects of grassfed meat disappear when animals are fattened with
grain. Why? Because cows — and bison, pigs, sheep, and chickens
— didn’t evolve in cornfields. Even milk, butter and
cheese from grassfed cows are more nutritious, and better for you.
Yet most people eat grainfed meat from feedlots where
efficient production has resulted in unnatural practices. Cattle
imprisoned in corporate feedlots, hock-deep in their own wastes,
are no better adapted to those conditions than humans. Overcrowded,
they’re treated with antibiotics to stave off disease, kept
high on hormones that make them binge so they gain weight quickly.
Hungry and bored, they eat what’s put in front of
them. Locked in pens, deer, elk and other “wild” animals do the
same. Do you overeat at an “all you can eat” buffet?
Our
demand for fast, cheap food has supported multinational
corporations that own cattle, farms to grow grain, feedlots,
packing plants and super-sized grocery stores. Our need for milk,
eggs and poultry brought about “factory farms.” We, the consumers,
inspired confinement facilities for dairy cows, poultry and pigs,
and the invention of machinery to butcher the animals we eat. A
machine may not remove every bit of spinal cord, and BSE may lurk
in that waste.
Recycled cows are not the only unpleasant
items served to your future steak in corporate feedlots. Other
trash nourishment includes stale bubblegum in aluminum foil
wrappers, leftover pizza, hamburger buns and potato chips.
Newsprint and cardboard. “Sanitized” municipal garbage. Chicken
feathers and manure. No self-respecting free cow would choose to
eat such junk, and a cow’s grass-based metabolism does not
use it efficiently.
Sure, a ban on feeding chicken litter
to cows is in the works, but government regulation can take awhile.
Meanwhile, ranchers aren’t an industry: Monopolistic
practices force many of us to sell healthy cattle to big companies
to be sickened and sold as “grainfed.” So it’s no use just
cussing corporations or ranchers while having another bubblegum
burger.
If we want change, we have to alter our eating
habits. How do you avoid eating a Chicken Manure Burger?
Inform yourself; none of this information is new. You might start
with Jo Robinson’s web site,
www.eatwild.com,(www.eatwild.com) which lists suppliers of
pasture-based food. Her book, Pasture Perfect, provides information
about other grass-raised food.
Take a country drive.
Wherever you live, somebody is trying to make a living raising
livestock naturally. Look locally for cooperatives, health food
stores, farmers’ markets and pasture-based businesses. Check
into small feedlots, often family-owned, where cattle eat local
corn, soybeans and alfalfa — a community-building enterprise.
These folks eat their own meat, and it ain’t municipal waste.
Visit ranchers and farmers; stop at local feeding
operations. Smile and say you want to eat healthy local food and
you’d like to buy it from folks who saw it born. Ask
questions. Instead of getting mad, let’s quit dining at the
corporate trough. If we eat intelligently, we challenge
monopolistic control of our food supply and we support local people
who keep local economies alive.
Linda
Hasselstrom is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of
High Country News (hcn.org). She ranches in Hermosa, South Dakota,
and writes in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
