“Bye, Bye Mommy”

Aside from solely tracking corn through the entire food chain, in Chapter 4 of “The Omnivores Dilemma” Pollan decides to track the industrial food chain further dealing with cattle from the very beginning till it ends up on our dinner plates.  Therefore Pollan buys steer, 534, in order to trace it through its entire life span.  The first stage in the production of meet is called the “cow-calf” operation where beef cattle are born ranches not owned by a major corporation.  The cattle have no idea what they are in for as they spend the first six months of their lives next to their mother, until the six-month comes and they are weaned from their mother.  Calves are weaned so that their mothers can have more calves as well as the need for a change in their diet, but it is a shocking time for the calves.  The calves are then shoved together in a feedlot and put on a strict diet of solely feed made of corn and high in protein and fat to significantly increase the size of the calves.

Starting this new diet negatively affects the calves because they are not used to eating corn or any type of feed of that kind.  Health problems are ubiquitous among calves when they first change their diets.  Corn is used because it is cheap.  By no means is it used because it is better for the calves.  Because this system focusing on benefiting the producers, the health of the cows is overlooked, and cows tend to develop diseases such as mad cow disease.  This then affects the health of the consumers because they are being served unhealthy and unsanitary meat. 

The process of production involving the cattle is inhumane in my opinion.  I cannot believe the process that the beef cattle endure without a choice.  They are born with their mothers, but before than can even truly adapt to their settings they are weaned away from their mothers.  They are forced to eat food that is terrible for their own health, but rather solely benefits the producers.  The feed made of corn is cheap calories, and all producers are looking for is the cheapest way to produce the most amount of food.  Today so many of the meats in our supermarkets are so much cheaper than they used to be.  This is not because it has become easier to produce beef cattle, but rather they have improved the speed of the production of cattle.  Beef cattle are becoming bigger and stronger in less time, yet they are contracting diseases, and passing them on to the other cattle.  I think that producers should take a step back, and reevaluate this process.  Although I understand cheapest is generally the way to go, in this sense the health of the cattle and the consumers should be taken more into consideration. 

WHY?

What else could be substituted into the feed, that is still cheap, but healthier for the cattle?

What percentage of the meat we eat has been produced by infected cattle?

Is the meat on our supermarket shelves safe to eat?  Is this meat just as bad as the meat in McDonalds?