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NYT - problems with American beef
This New York Times article perfectly describes why I don't eat beef:
[Since] the stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain, cattle raised industrially thrive only in the sense that they gain weight quickly. This diet made it possible to remove cattle from their natural environment and encourage the efficiency of mass confinement and slaughter. But it causes enough health problems that administration of antibiotics is routine, so much so that it can result in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten the usefulness of medicines that treat people.
...If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.
Antibiotics are so routinely administered to factory-farmed animals not because they have "health problems", but because low doses of antibiotics cause most animals to gain weight faster.
Nobody seems to be exactly sure why this is, and it certainly does look like a recipe for the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of various diseases. But it is misleading to suggest that all of those cows and chickens are on antibiotics because factory farms are a festering sea of disease.
(If this were actually the case, the "sub-therapeutic" weight-gain antibiotic doses would not actually be of very much use.)
Daniel, the cows have health problems because they are being fed corn which their stomachs can't naturally digest (unlike grass). Even if a farm that doesn't use antibiotics isn't quite a "festering sea of disease", it's sure full of suffering cows.
Need to go back to feeding cows eco green products, organic grown foods.
Reading the Times article brought back echoes of early influences for me:
Sue Coe's book "Dead Meat" and Frederick Wiseman's documentary film "Meat."
Although these works are 10 and 20 years old respectively, the artists' visions have been validated.
Read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" for a good overview of what's wrong with the meat industry and industrialized food in general.
Why will Americans regularly pay $100+/month to talk on their cell phones, but think nothing of putting a $1 hamburger in their bodies? Why do so many people complain about paying a dollar or two extra for organic food, when the real costs of industrialized foods are so high (obesity, diabetes, cancer, pollution, oil consumption, etc.)?
I'm vegan and there are 3 very compelling reasons to do so: health, environment, and humanity. For more info, check out my post on the subject:
http://www.kpao.org/2007/12/why-im-vegan.html
As an enthusiastic meat eater, who agrees that the industrial farming process is broken, here are a few suggestions. Niman Ranch takes uses a natural and grass-fed approach, and you can order online, if you're okay with having your meat flown to you. http://www.nimanranch.com/control/view/ourbeef
Also an article on newenglandgrown about some of the nutritional benefits of grass-fed beef and other game. http://www.newenglandgrown.com/pages/gamegrassnutrition.html
For those who enjoy beef, there are reasonable, non-commercial alternatives available.