Sunday Soapbox: Unhealthy Livestock Practices...

Things like the factory farming of animals upset me and it should upset you, too.

With 70 percent of of antibiotics sales used in agricultural (massive livestock agribusiness that creates such unnatural and crowded environments in meat producing operations) and major medical associations became concerned enough that the FDA banned them only to have the FDA quietly revoke the ban to "more fully consider the many substantive comments it received" ... well, go read the story that flew under the radar and I quote from it: "The American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, Infectious Disease Society of America, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Pew Commission have all indicted livestock antibiotics for creeping human antibiotic resistance -- including last-chance antibiotics."

Toxic Beef
I think of Damien Hirst's art work, a cow suspended in a large case of formaldehyde -- dead food which is what we are exposed to now. When the Turner Prize winning artist's cow work encountered all sorts of toxic problems (not only do countries ban British beef, but the problem with the formaldehyde used to pickle the cow made it all surreal).  When I thought his works were irrelevant and signs of the height of the irrational times we live in, where spending and attention is focused on things that I deem unimportant.

Nostalgic About our Pastoral Cows
In Santa Fe (known for it's art environment), paintings of cows are selling like hotcakes.  Cows in fields, cows in groups, cows solo.  Big cow paintings.  They seem to be everywhere I look.  I think this is our way of communicating our concern that cows grazing lazily in pastures of fresh green grass are no longer things we see everyday when animal farming is no longer the business of small and mid-size farms. 

We are in a big unhealthy pickle with the way we raise our livestock.
This isn't right. .. The human health impact is huge. Until the 1950s cows were kept in pastures until slaughter.  Now, 80% or so of the 35 million cows are processed for slaughter in feedlots and this unnatural process of factory beef is harming our health.

Comments

[Kathy H]

The "Happy Cows Come from California" commercials were the first step in breeding cynicism in my kids, since none of the feedlot cows we'd pass on the freeway ever looked happy.

[allison]

I'm going to locate someone in my area that sells grass fed beef from the list on eatwild.com. Thanks for the information and links.

[Sarah]

Yeah, it's scary what has happened to our food. I wish we could go back in time, or correct all these wrongs. Even my local health food store sells beef that has been sent to Iowa to be fattened up before slaughter, I was disappointed to find out. And finding unadulterated milk is near impossible, you have to pretend it's for your cat.

[carron e.]

Yes, our meat is compromised by hormones and antibiotics and even steroids! Our milk and cheese comes from cows also. Eggs from hens that are fed chemicals. Fish that swim in our polluted oceans. And my grandmother used to say, "eat something out of the ground...it is healthier"...then we can talk about fertilizers and pesticides on the crops and chemicals from the rain that hits the ground that it has picked up along the way in the contaminated air we breathe. Then the water is contaminated with chemicals. Given all of that...why are we fatter than ever? We shouldn't be eating anything! Also, if you saw the way pigs and cows were slaughtered,you'd never eat meat again. Of course, I HAVE seen this and still do eat some meat; even if less than I used to.I do draw the line and boycot veal...inhumane. But, I carry a leather purse. So, what is the answer? Eat what you want and take lots of anti-oxidants by mouth? Who knows? This is why we have so much cancer, no doubt.

[Janet]

Being married to a vegetarian I eat very little meat as it is, but I may have to give it up altogether unless things change. I don't know what to do about the milk though. Organic milk is double the price of the regular stuff.