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Food for Thought (courtesy of The Omnivore’s Dilemma)

What cows are meant to eat:

•  Grass, more or less exclusively.  While humans and other single-stomached animals can’t digest grass, cows have evolved to be able to do so, courtesy of an organ called the rumen.  The rumen serves as a “twenty-gallon fermentation tank,” in which bacteria help digest the grass, turning it into protein for the cow.  There are good ecological reasons to allow cows to graze.  The cow maintains the grasses’ habitat by spreading its seed and fertilizing the seed with its manure.  Rangelands are also probably healthier with cows on them, as overgrazing can easily be avoided by rotating the lands on which the cattle graze.  The grass provides a sustainable, low-energy food source that transforms naturally growing, solar-powered grass into protein. (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, pp. 70-71)

What American beef cattle are fed:

• Corn, in huge quantities.  Most cattle in this country are now sent to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, where they are fed the massive surplus of corn caused by farm subsidies.  Because it is subsidized, corn is cheap, and cows are fed nearly 25 pounds of it each day.  While cows can, if forced, use corn as a source of protein, the calories take much more energy to deliver.  After the industrial farms plant, fertilize, grow, and harvest the corn, it is transported large distances, eventually delivered to the CAFOs, and sent through giant steel rollers that crush the corn into a more easily digestible corn flake.  The change in diet has more than just an incidental impact on humans: corn-fed meat is far less healthy for humans, as it has more saturated fat and less omega-3 fatty acids than does grass-fed beef.  Nor is the corn good for the cows.  Force-feeding corn to cows can cause bloat (an expansion of the rumen that presses on the lungs, possibly causing the cow to suffocate), acidosis (a major case of heartburn that in some cases kills the cow), and other diseases.  In fact, the cows can’t tolerate a corn diet for more than 150 days, as the acid created by digesting corn would eventually eat through the rumen and enter the bloodstream, causing the liver to fail. (pp. 74-75, 77-78)
• A protein supplement, possibly consisting of molasses and urea (a synthetic nitrogen product not unlike crop fertilizer), and possibly consisting of something far less palatable (in case you were intrigued by the idea of eating synthetic nitrogen).  Industrial “ranchers” need their cattle to get big, fast.  In the past two human generations, the age of cows at slaughter has decreased from four or five years to 14 or 16 months.  Therefore, they introduce protein supplements into the cows’ diets to speed the process.  In the past, the CAFOs fed rendered cow parts to the cows, a sort of forced cannibalism that contributed to the spread of bovine spongiform encepthalopathy (BSE, or mad cow disease).  Bovine meat and bonemeal was cheap, but also dangerous - the practice was banned in 1997.  The ban does not, however, ban feeding the byproducts of  other animals to cows, despite the fact that they are natural omnivores.  The rules allow feeding chicken, fish, and pig meal to cows, along with feather meal and chicken litter (um, yes, this includes feces).  Replacing rendered cow parts with rendered chicken parts is not the panacea you were imagining, however (what, you don’t find this industrial feeding notion romantic?), as the rules also allow the feeding of cow byproducts, including bonemeal, to poultry, fish, and pigs.  It is possible that this circular feeding scheme will lead to the same mad cow risks caused by feeding cattle bovine bonemeal directly. (pp. 74-76)
• Liquified fat.  If you were concerned about the prospect of allowing any cow byproduct to go to waste, you’ll be happy to hear that the FDA rules have an exception allowing the CAFOs to feed cow blood products and fat to their beef cattle.  It is not uncommon for the cows to be fed beef tallow “recycled” from the slaughterhouse. (p. 76)
• Antibiotics.  As mentioned above, corn causes health problems in cows, and so they are fed antibiotics to relieve problems caused by the acidity and to prevent some liver infection.  If you think that Americans are overmedicated, note that most of the antibiotics sold in the US are fed to animals, not humans.  The same problems exist under this structure as if we were to eat the antibiotics directly: antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” are evolving all the time. (p. 78)

 Should we be concerned?

•  At the moment, absolutely.  In general, still yes.  After 21 recalls of beef last year (more than double the number in 2006 and more than quadruple the number in 2005), a California company just issued the largest beef recall in history.  The recall was made after videos surfaced showing workers forcing sick cows to walk by pushing them with forklifts.  Not only is the the animal abuse aspect of this abhorrent; the sick cows are called “downer” cows, and are removed from the food chain because of the increased risk of spreading mad cow disease.  (NYT)