grain market increasingly merged and gained stronger lobbying powers, the government began to encourage corn feeding of cattle. When the US department of Agriculture first made its meat grading system it designated “choice” meat as that which was marbled, meaning it had more intramuscular fat, which corn fed beef had much higher levels of than grass fed beef. This marbling creates the taste that consumers are used to in “high quality” meat today, however as Winson mentions “such “taste” was conditioned by the economic interests of corn-producers and persistent pressures to dispose of grain surpluses” (Winson, pg 140). Corn and other grain fed cattle are able to reach slaughter weight in just sixteen months, whereas grass fed cattle can take
...in the market. Diversified mid-sized family farms used to produce most of our meat, but now, only a few companies control the livestock industry. This has resulted in driving family farmers out of the market and replacing them with massive confined feeding operations that subject the animals to terrible living conditions that subject our food to contamination. Major food corporations are only concerned with minimizing overhead in order to deliver the consumer cheap food, regardless of the health implications.
In today's society, organic food is a giant new thing in which food is produced without any chemicals. In other words, the product must be 100 percent natural. A major food source of the American people is meat, and the way that it is produced today is a major issue. In feedlots, where cattle are fed grain to grow before being slaughtered, the conditions are terrible and horrifying. Cattle are confined to a limited amount of space and not allowed to roam freely. Also in these cattle growing yards, the risk of disease is much higher in these animals than out on the open range grazing on the grass. Beef critics say that there are no cattle breeds that posses the amounts of marbling present to make a good steak. It is a true statement to say that these critics are very indeed wrong. Also, Many people also do not know that that the meat from cattle that are fed grain, is high in fat content and has too much marbling. Grass-fed beef is much leaner than grain-fed beef, has less fats, and is produced all naturally. Therefore, grass-fed beef is much healthier and safer to eat than grain-fed beef.
The need for affordable, efficiently produced meat became apparent in the 1920’s. Foer provides background information on how Arthur Perdue and John Tyson helped to build the original factory farm by combining cheap feeds, mechanical debeaking, and automated living environ...
...nergy from an acre of Iowa farmland. Unfortunately, for more than fifty years, farm policies is designed to encourage the overproduction of this crop and hardly any other. It simply because the government subsidize high-fructose corn syrup in this country. While the surgeon general is warning the epidemic of obesity, our government is still signing bills encouraging the river of cheap corn flowing. It is clearly shown that food production in America is partly a mixture of politic, economic and morality.
Currently, the United States is the largest producer of corn in the world. In 2010, it produced 32% of the world’s corn crop. Corn is grown on approximately 400,000 U.S. farms, showing the importance of corn in the United States’ diets. Twenty percent of the corn produced is exported and corn grown for grain accounts for almost one quarter of the harvested crop acres in this country (National Corn Grower's Associatio...
The. The "Meat Industry" Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online, n.d. -. Web.
Kellems, Richard O., and D. C. Church. Livestock Feeds and Feeding. 6th ed. Boston: Prentice Hall, 2010. Print.
Whether you consider yourself a ‘foodie’ or not, the story of those standards is an interesting one. It so happened that in 1970, a group of farmers got together and set the benchmarks for beef production in the US. And, as they say, the
Speed, in a word, or, in the industry’s preferred term, “efficiency.” Cows raised on grass simply take longer to reach slaughter weight than cows raised on a richer diet, and for a half a century now the industry has devoted itself to shortening a beef animal’s allotted span on earth… what gets a steer from 80 to 1,100 pounds in fourteen months is tremendous quantities of corn, protein and fat supplements, and an arsenal of new drugs. (71)
Fast food consumption is taking America by a storm and it is for the sake of our lives. Fast food relies heavily on industrialized corn because of how cheap and easy to grow it is. With that being said, animals are being fed with corn rather than being fed with grass. In the Omnivore’s Dilemma, Rich Blair who runs a “cow-calf” operation s...
Corn is a high commodity in the U.S; our ham, eggs and pancakes for breakfast, California BLT at lunch, or double cheese hamburger for dinner were all produced with U.S. Cor...
The Use of Antibiotics and Hormones in Animal Feed Antibiotics are chemicals produced by living organisms that are used to kill or inhibit the growth of other infectious micro-organisms. Most antibiotics prevent the growth of microorganisms, which they act on instead of completely killing them. Antibiotics are extra cellular products meaning that they can be extracted for use; Penicillin is an example of this as it comes from the fungus Penicillium notatum1. Hormones are chemicals that transfer information and instructions between cells in animals and plants. They regulate growth and development, controlling the function of various tissues.
Increasing consumer sentiment towards the negative health effects of red meat, timed with increasing inventories of product supplied from Canada and Mexico as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), has caused prices in the consumer market to plummet. (Mohr, 1999) As a result, ranchers were seeing that their finished product was commanding lesser dollar values while their inputs of feed and medication was remaining the same or rising. Another factor contributing to the shrinking profit margins of beef producers was the overall consistency and quality of the meat.
Healthier being a meat-eater or a vegetarian. There are many eating habits all around the world. Most people don’t decide what they want for their eating choices until they are the age where they can decide what they want, without causing any health problems. Children are deciding at a younger age that they don’t want to eat meat. Why is this a problem?
An abundance of Americans have no idea that most of the food that they consume are either processed or altered in one way or another. “Almost all beef cattle entering feedlots in the United States are given hormone implants to promote faster growth. The first product used for this purpose is DES (diethylstilbestrol) it was approved for use in beef cattle in 1954. An estimated two-thirds of the nation's beef cattle were treated with DES in 1956. (Swan, Liu, Overstreet, Brazil, and Skakkebaek)” Many people enjoy the various meats that comes from a cow, but that would probably change if the consumers knew that cattle is one of the most processed meat source in the market today because of the synthetic hormones that the cows are given. “ The three synthetic hormones are the estrogen compound zeranol, the androgen trenbolone acetate, and progestin melengestrol acetate. (Swan, Liu, Overstreet, B...