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 …show more content…
This is not the case. Beef cattle today are so much different than they were twenty-five years ago. They are even different than ten years ago. Modern Black Angus genetics today are outstanding. They are very easy keeping cattle, meaning that they require less food and nutrients to put on weight(Hasheider 34). Simmental cattle are the same way, they offer everything that Black Angus do, but in a more extreme muscled, more moderate package. Way back when, Angus and Simmental cattle were bred to be very long and elegant and extremely tall at the shoulder. Today, these cattle are very moderate in size. Over the years, ranchers have culled out cattle that are tall and long, and have been focusing on getting the angus cattle to be fairly short in height, but maintain that long skeleton to producing huge quantities of meat. These Angus genetics are so popular, that fifteen years ago, they began massive embryo transfer programs and cloning operations to keep these amazing genetics going. What embryo transfer allows ranchers to do is simply ground-breaking. It allows ranchers to flush their best cow, or a cow of their liking, with exceptional EPD's( expected progeny differences), and flush eggs out of the uterus of this great cow. The eggs are then fertilized to the bull of the ranchers choice. Once these eggs are fertilized, they are called embryos. The embryos are then implanted into recipient cows, and the cows carry the tiny embryo for nine months, until the baby is born. These recipient mother cows have absolutely no genetic tie to the young calf. They are only surrogate mothers, and they raise the calf until weaning time. Embryo transfer allows ranchers to produce multiple outstanding calves, out of a single outstanding cow, in a single year(Hasheider
... flesh are then ground into a paste-like matter, which is cleansed with the previously mentioned ammonia to rid it of E. coli. The meat filler product is purchased by many fast food restaurants, such as McDonald’s. The Beef Products executive predicts that his product will be in 100% of hamburgers within the next five years.
From my introduction we can see that Brazil is the world’s main beef producer. The beef produced in Brazil is mostly from their own breed of Nellore cattle. The production system is mainly grass based which can lead to low efficiency. In recent years feedlots have become more common for finishing off animals to meet external demand. Animals usually spend about 70 days in the feedlots to achieve the minimum of 4 millimetres fat cover needed before slaughtering cattle are fed in feedlots mostly during the dry season, when pasture availability is decreased. This strategy is used to maintain a constant beef supply to the external markets nonetheless the beef cattle industry in Brazil is still based on grass feeding. At some point this constitutes an important advantage for Brazilian beef exportations because some countries look for “natural beef.” Animals are usually slaughtered at around 36 months old this late age is due to the tropical grass that they have been eating. For the domestic consumer in Brazil flavour is more important than tenderness so this late slaugh...
For some consumers of meat products, however, marbling is a must, because of the flavor and moisture that fat gives to the meat. This is not to say that venison is not flavorful or tender, but just a little less than that of beef. Beef has more than three times the amount of cholesterol than venison does, which gives those with heart disease a chance to eat a meat that is low in cholesterol (Rail). Even bet...
Within the United State there is only one set of standards to grade beef and beef products being distributed interstate. The USDA put these standards in place after the Wholesome Meat Act of 1967 which states that, “USDA has authority to control movement of unfit meat and meat products and to require poultry products in interstate and foreign commerce to meet Federal inspection standards.” There are seven standards in place for commercial beef sale in the United States; they are on a sliding scale. Excellent quality beef is labeled as prime, which has a high degree of marbling or fat throughout the back, loin, ribs, and rump. Prime beef is going to be mainly used in steakhouses and restaurants throughout the nation. The quality of this particular type of beef is superior to the next standard of beef, choice...
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)
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Smith, David, Mark Blackford, Spring Younts, Rodney Moxley, and Jeff Gray. "Ecological Relationships between the Prevalence of Cattle Shedding Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Characteristics of the Cattle or Conditions of the Feedlot Pen." Journal of Food Protection 12 (2001): 1881-2110. Ingentaconnect. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.
Lower Fat: Grass-fed beef is much lower in total fat than its grain-fed counterpart, helping you to lower your LDL cholesterol level and manage your weight. If the beef is lean, grass-fed beef has about one-third of the
Consumer Reports information and data from the experiment show that conventional beef is more prone to containing bacteria and superbugs due to inhumane rapid processing during slaughter. Thus, allowing Consumer Reports to declare that grass-fed beef is a better option than conventional beef.
... C. T. Lawrence., and Keith McHenry. Food Not Bombs. Tucson, AZ: See Sharp, 2000. Print.
Wein, Harrison, Ph.D. "Risk in Red Meat? - National Institutes of Health" U.S National Library
As technology progresses, many issues arise about ethics, between progress and the repercussions society faces from that progress. In 1989, a trade conflict arose, that not only affected the economies of the world, but also arose health issues, that were neglected by the law as well as the World Trade Organization. The trade conflict that I am referring to is Europe’s ban of hormone-treated beef and the World Trade Organization ruling of this being in violation of its international obligations (Earth Justice 1997).
There have been studies that showcase people picking up illnesses from their local water line, in which is related to the feces of chickens who had already been carrying some form of disease and/or infection, some of which has irony due to the fact that the chicken have picked up on “ammonia burn”, along with other illnesses, developed from the high exposure of the ammonia, linked to the accumulation of feces within these factories. Heart failure has showed to effect the chickens at a rate of at least 4.7% and is also linked to the manipulated genetic practices that they take on chickens either before birth or after, which is referred into simpler words as “baby hearts with adult-sized bodies”. Additionally, the factories “catcher” grab chickens in the middle of the night, when they least expect it, and harshly stuff the chicken into crates in which they are later loaded into trucks to be taken to slaughterhouses, although, many of the chickens die before even arriving to the slaughterhouses because of the rough impact; they suffer from lacerations, hemorrhages, and a very common one, heart failure. Along with other infections that the chickens develop such as salmonella and campylobacter, of which is known to make people sick with foodborne poisons. A chicken’s short life span within a factory farm, consists of abuse, infections, diseases, manipulation, torture, and death, sometimes even before they were sentenced to be