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Ridgerunner
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When it comes to grass-eating meat animals, it does indeed. Tons and tons of grass that would be there anyway and that’s healthier and less of a fire hazard if it’s grazed. Grass is a renewable resource.
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estesbob
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In worked my way thorugh college working at a meat market/slaughter house so i know how the food gets to my plate and how sausage is made. Both eating meating and being a vegetarian are morally neutral
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estesbob
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It wouldnt so i wont.
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Ridgerunner
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Meat production is not subsidized. Some of the grain products the animals eat is subsidized; specifically poultry and hogs. Poultry are almost entirely raised on factory farms. A lot of hogs aren’t. The biggest pork producer in the U.S. has no factory farms at all, and buys from individual farmers. I have never seen a beef or mutton “factory farm”, and I live in ranch country. Those animals are almost exclusively raised in privately-owned fields.
I will absolutely agree that hog farms are unpleasant. The smell would bring tears to the eyes of a stone statue. Poultry, not so much. I have been in poultry “factory farms” and they’re a lot better than people think they are. Most of the animal waste is composted. With poultry, all of it is. I have seen the composting piles myself. Ultimately, most of it goes into lawn and garden fertilizer nowadays. Look at the contents of the bag you buy at Walmart. You’ll see.
I have also been in meat processing plants and they’re more careful about contamination than most farmers are with their “range chickens” or the hogs they butcher themselves. There are USDA inspectors all over the place, and every last animal is inspected by them, several times. Hygiene is astonishingly good. It’s so good in most big processing plants that they even put a monitor outside the bathrooms to make sure the workers wash their hands with antiseptic soap before returning to the line. The worker can “do his business” in private, but he has to wash his hands in front of the monitor. And then he has to put on rubber gloves that have been sterilized.
So why, one might ask, do we hear of contamination here or there? Well, it’s usually some minor producer, and even then I have to wonder about whether it was done deliberately or not. I have known of people attempting to contaminate in processing plants, which is why security is so tight in most of them now. The last plant I was in wouldn’t let you in at all unless approved in advance by a high supervisory-level person, for a specific purpose, and even then your photo ID is run through a “facial recognition” scan to see if you are a known “bad guy” giving a phony name or with a bogus ID.
I’m not trying to be a smart aleck here, but it’s not the best to talk about food production if you have never actually witnessed it yourself. There is a LOT of totally phony propaganda out there about it, including faked films.
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Michaeljc4
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Factory farmed meat is shot full of hormones, antibiotics, and steroids which affect the quality when it is consumed. The animals are fed at CAFOS (centralized animal feeding operations) where they are often standing belly deep in their own waste. The waste produced by these animals is stored in massive lagoons that leak into ground water, escape into streams, or is used as fertilizer for vegetables and fruits (where ecoli is a danger). Those are the health costs.
Many meat production plants keep costs low by hiring illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants cost the towns and cities where they live enormous amounts of money visa vi schools, hospitals, jails, and social services. Not to mention that many factory workers are treated very poorly. Those are the human costs.
Finally, factory farmed meat depends on corn. Corn requires enormous amounts of nitrogen based fertilizer to grown. Nitrogen based fertilizer requires heat, and heat produces carbon (and cows produce methane!) There are some environmental costs.
As for the Native Americans, the animals they hunted were free-range, not penned up in horrible ,illness producing conditions that would make the average person vomit were they to see (and smell) them.
Again: I am not advocating that vegetarianism is more moral than ominvorism. I am not a vegetarian. I am, however, aware that how much of our food is made is not in line with my values as a disciple of Jesus. I am not condemning or judging anyone in this conversation. I am merely suggesting that you look into it and judge for yourself. As the Pope said, food is a moral issue. I couldn’t agree more.
(And, as the last poster said, there is a lot of hyperbole and misinformation out there. People lie about things to make them seem more dramatic. We have fed more people in this country than any other nation on earth, which is a record I am proud of.)
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Ridgerunner
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Hard to know where to begin. I don’t doubt that there are CAFOs that are at least in ways similar to what you are describing. But I have been in poultry and hog CAFOs, and they are not like what you describe. I have never seen an animal standing belly deep in its own waste. Poultry are raised on beds of wood shavings or rice hulls and the liquid waste is instantly absorbed. They clean the whole thing out after every flock and replace it.
The hog CAFOs I have seen are all on concrete, slanted so the waste will run off when sprayed down, which happens often. Hog waste is, indeed, collected into lagoons. Poultry waste is not. It’s composted and (usually) pelletized. That pelletized fertilizer is largely bacteria free due to the heat of the composting.
There are, indeed, illegals working in a lot of meat processing plants. That’s because the plants are not allowed by law to look behind “facially valid” ID, which they pretty much all have. The government, not the processors, is the cause of that. I am not sure how people are treated in all food processing plants, but in the ones I have been in, they are not mistreated. I know a lot of people who work in them and their complaints are the same kinds of complaints you’ll hear in any factory.
I will agree that poultry factory farms are, indeed, corn-dependent. There really isn’t a full substitute. With hogs, I’m less sure because I have not been in one of them since corn prices climbed so high. But with hogs, I suspect one can make substitutes, but I don’t know that.
Production of grass-eaters like cattle, sheep and goats, is totally different. Very low energy use. Driving a pickup around to tend to them is about it, and you don’t do a whole lot of that unless you just want to. Hormones and steroids are not widely used on beef cattle because hormones will ruin them for breeding. Veterinary care pretty much consists in vaccination against diseases. If you vaccinate, you don’t need antibiotics except for an occasional (rare) infection. Very little environmental threat. In fact, most ranches I have been on are very, very attractive from an environmental standpoint. Most cattle are “free range”, at least within the confines of a particular ranch. It varies from place to place, but around here it takes from two to four acres per cow/calf unit, year round, and you rotate from one pasture to another, to another, and so on. Sheep and goats are pretty much the same, but they are usually penned closer because they’re so vulnerable to predators. Cattle can protect themselves.
Farther west, the acreage increases. In some places, it’s 40 or 80 acres or even more per cow/calf unit. That’s pretty “free range” in my book.
Most cattle do not end up in feed lots. Only the “highest quality” animals do…beef breed steers and surplus heifers, and then its for 80 to 120 days. Nowadays, it’s more often the shorter period than the longer. Because of grain costs, feed lot operators “upstream” most of the weight building onto the rancher who, again, relies on grass.
If it was up to me, we wouldn’t feed grain to beef cattle at all. It isn’t necessary, and the only purpose it serves is to induce that lacing of fat into the meat that we refer to as “marbling”. As I mentioned before, Aussies prefer all grass fed. So do I.
Milk production comes closer to what you describe as CAFO conditions.
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Mudgely
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You miss the entire point… . Oh well.
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Michaeljc4
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Ridgerunner, I will defer to your experiences, which sound very interesting and different than much of what I’ve learned. With that said, having investigated this topic in some detail, and having gleaned information from a variety of sources that I am confident are credible, I believe that the picture is not so rosy as you present it (with that said, it may not be as grim as I see it!)
I have not been on a large farm, ever. I’ve been on plenty of small ones. I have seen footage from factory-farms (and not just from animal rights activists). It is repulsive. You’ve certainly followed the issues of contamination in our food supply, which seem to become more and more frequent each year (the cantaloupes in the West were the most recent one). Something is not right. Americans are increasingly fat and sick. Our food has something to do with it.
Peace, friend. I had a lovely vegetable pollenta casserole for dinner this evening. Not as good as steak tips…but I can live with it.
I have not been on a large farm, ever. I’ve been on plenty of small ones. I have seen footage from factory-farms (and not just from animal rights activists). It is repulsive. You’ve certainly followed the issues of contamination in our food supply, which seem to become more and more frequent each year (the cantaloupes in the West were the most recent one). Something is not right. Americans are increasingly fat and sick. Our food has something to do with it.
Peace, friend. I had a lovely vegetable pollenta casserole for dinner this evening. Not as good as steak tips…but I can live with it.
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Ridgerunner
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Oops! Missed something. Need to disclose. Hay production does take quite a bit of energy. Gas for the tractor and then for the truck to haul it. In some parts of the U.S. (but it’s a narrow band) you can feed grass year-round, but it has to be in that area where you’re both in the “green fescue belt” (where fescue grass stays green year-round) and the “bermuda belt” (where warm-season grasses will grow successfully when it’s hot). Not very much of the country fits that. Even then, you have to feed hay if there is ice on the ground or snow more than a foot deep. Both are rare, but they happen.
Anywhere else, you have to feed hay for most of the winter, however long that is in particular locales.
But still, about 1/3 of the country isn’t useable for any other kind of food production.
I do have some concern about the current government promotion of a gigantic grass called Miscanthus Giganteus which the government claims will produce more ethanol than corn will. M.G. will grow places where corn won’t. (like here, or instance) If it becomes successful, I am afraid a lot of land that is presently range land will be converted to that.
Right now, it’s a pilot project, but they are subsidizing local ranchers to grow it. Personally, I would rather see the government allow drilling for oil and let places like this produce food, which it does well because it’s in those grass belts I mentioned above.
Anywhere else, you have to feed hay for most of the winter, however long that is in particular locales.
But still, about 1/3 of the country isn’t useable for any other kind of food production.
I do have some concern about the current government promotion of a gigantic grass called Miscanthus Giganteus which the government claims will produce more ethanol than corn will. M.G. will grow places where corn won’t. (like here, or instance) If it becomes successful, I am afraid a lot of land that is presently range land will be converted to that.
Right now, it’s a pilot project, but they are subsidizing local ranchers to grow it. Personally, I would rather see the government allow drilling for oil and let places like this produce food, which it does well because it’s in those grass belts I mentioned above.
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estesbob
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I am having the rest of the Chicken I smoked Sunday along with chicken noodle soup made out of the carcass and rosated jalepenos and rice!Ridgerunner, I will defer to your experiences, which sound very interesting and different than much of what I’ve learned. With that said, having investigated this topic in some detail, and having gleaned information from a variety of sources that I am confident are credible, I believe that the picture is not so rosy as you present it (with that said, it may not be as grim as I see it!)
I have not been on a large farm, ever. I’ve been on plenty of small ones. I have seen footage from factory-farms (and not just from animal rights activists). It is repulsive. You’ve certainly followed the issues of contamination in our food supply, which seem to become more and more frequent each year (the cantaloupes in the West were the most recent one). Something is not right. Americans are increasingly fat and sick. Our food has something to do with it.
Peace, friend. I had a lovely vegetable pollenta casserole for dinner this evening. Not as good as steak tips…but I can live with it.
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Michaeljc4
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Sounds good to me!
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Ridgerunner
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You really just have to go into a poultry house to know what they’re like. By the way, virtually all of them are owned by small farmers, not big corporations. At least that’s the case around here, and there are a LOT of them around here. They are contracted to big companies, but individual farmers own and operate them.Ridgerunner, I will defer to your experiences, which sound very interesting and different than much of what I’ve learned. With that said, having investigated this topic in some detail, and having gleaned information from a variety of sources that I am confident are credible, I believe that the picture is not so rosy as you present it (with that said, it may not be as grim as I see it!)
I have not been on a large farm, ever. I’ve been on plenty of small ones. I have seen footage from factory-farms (and not just from animal rights activists). It is repulsive. You’ve certainly followed the issues of contamination in our food supply, which seem to become more and more frequent each year (the cantaloupes in the West were the most recent one). Something is not right. Americans are increasingly fat and sick. Our food has something to do with it.
Peace, friend. I had a lovely vegetable pollenta casserole for dinner this evening. Not as good as steak tips…but I can live with it.
Hog farms are nasty, no matter what. But they’re nasty on Old MacDonald farms too. Worse than in big company hog farms, just on a smaller scale. Hogs are just nasty, and no escape from it, no matter what you do.
Maybe somewhere they raise beef cattle in CAFOs, but I have never seen or credibly even heard tell of one. Maybe in California or someplace. Well, in Japan I think they do, which is why beef in Japan is breathtakingly expensive. You can drive from here (Mo) through Oklahoma and Texas all the way to Mexico, and free range cattle are all you see, other than some grain and cotton lands. Incidentally, Tx, Ok and Mo are the greatest producers of cattle in the U.S. Maybe somewhere, somehow it pays to raise them in CAFOs, but around here you would lose your socks trying to do that. Grass is just much cheaper than grain and, in season, has about the same, or higher, nutrient content. No way around that. It’s just that people can’t digest it to get the nutrients, but cattle can.
There are huge feed lots in Kansas, but that’s for “finishing” the “prime animals” for marbling, as I mentioned before. And they are malodorous, for sure. That’s because of the grain, which stinks horribly when it ferments. A lot of it gets spilled from the bunkers, and that’s why they smell so bad. And too, cattle manure, which is pretty inoffensive to the smell when the cattle are grass-eaters, also smells horrible when they eat grain because it ferments in their alimentary tracts.
I really will quit after this. There was a study in Germany some years back demonstrating that people who were raised on cattle farms were relatively immune to e coli bacterial infections in later life. The reason is that they were exposed when they were little, maybe got a brief “childhood flu”-like illness, but acquired immunity. Therefore, I always let my children (now my grandchildren) play in the corrals. In fact, I take them there just for that purpose. But they also play in the fields where, of course, the cattle also drop manure.
Urban-raised people really need to be careful about eating “organic” vegetables and fruits, because the growers all use manure of some kind to get the crop. And if I hadn’t been raised on a ranch myself, I wouldn’t touch “range chickens” sold off the farm for all the tea in China. And most definitely not “organic” non-pasteurized milk. I don’t personally fear them, but I would certainly caution urban dwellers about them.
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Julia_Mae
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Ahimsa, great topic. I wonder if I could ask, as I know how well-versed you are in so many other belief systems, if you would mind very much referring to the Pope as Pope Benedict XVI. It’s not our cultural norm to refer to a Pope by his given last name like we do other ranks of clergy.
As for feeding people: some of the very best charities according to Charity Navigator are Christian Foundation for Children and the Aged (pretty Catholic), the Mercy Corps, Heifer International, Save the Children.
For anyone who thinks it’s someone else’s fault and we don’t have to do anything because corrupt governments are to blame:
Starvation is a horrendously painful way to die and no one dying that way cares who’s “fault” it is. These charities and more that can be found, are highly rated because they are in place and circumvent any interference and the majority of our dollars actually turns into food, medicine and other care.
YOU can feed someone. You can, for about half what you pay to opine on the Internet, can actually save a whole family.
What if for Christmas this year, you could actually give someone their life?
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Ahimsa
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Hi Julia,
The “Pope Ratzinger” phrase is not mine, but from The Vatican Insider website:
Vatican Insider is a project run by the daily newspaper La Stampa, designed to provide a complete information service on the Vatican, the activities of the Pope and the Holy See, the Catholic Church’s presence on the international scene and on religious issues. It is an independent multimedia tool, produced in three languages: Italian, English and Spanish.
It is distributed through the website www.VaticanInsider.com, as well as other digital platforms and the main social networks on the Internet. It boasts a staff of qualified vaticanologists, flanked by some of the most prestigious international names in the field of religious and Vatican-based information.
Since La Stampa is originally in Italian, I suspect that the original phrase is “Papa Ratzinger”, which was then translated as “Pope Ratzinger”.
“Papa Ratzinger” seems to be a much more acceptable phrase than “Pope Ratzinger”, since Catholic scholar George Weigel (author of The Courage To Be Catholic: Crisis, Reform, and the Future of the Church, among others) wrote a birthday tribute to “Papa Ratzinger”.
On the other hand, in English, “Pope Ratzinger” seems to be mostly used by (self-confessed) militant atheists, like Richard Dawkins.
I suspect that the staff writer (or the English translator) with The Vatican Insider is not aware of the subtle differences, in English, between “Pope Ratzinger” and “Papa Ratzinger”.
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John21652
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The Natural Law dictum of right to life requires that each human being has a right to freedom and to the freedom to live their life as they see fit. In other words, others are not to transgress an individuals right to live free of the threat of death, slavery, or unnecessary discimination. However, I dispute that there is a “right to be free of hunger” in the sense that individuals have a right that others will automatically gaurantee them a food supply. Everyone has the right to self sustenance and everyone has the right to have access to food, or the right to grow food. However, where the opportunity to buy food, or grow food, is squandered, then I think the right does not exist. Thus, if certain societies cannot organise themselves to grow and supply food sufficient for their citizens, then it is not the duty of other societies to gaurantee them a food supply. If a society is rift by war, it is not an obligation on other societies to provide food for them. If a society ruins their food supply chain, it is not a duty that other societies should alleviate the hunger of those who ruined their food production.
Of course, if other societies wish to step in to alleviate the problem, then it is a charitable act. However, it it is not to be coerced because the hungry think they have an automatic gaurantee of food as a ‘right’, thereby placing an obligation on other societies for the provision of food.
As someone else mentioned, the world today produces more food and fibre than ever before. The problem is one of distribution. Often, the distribution of food is compromised because certain societies do not have the purchasing power to bear the expense of produced foodstuffs. This does not create a right that those poorer societies should have access to the available food. If there is such a ‘right’, then the producers of food are obligated to supply it at a loss, thus compromising the supply of that food. If the societies wherein the more expensive food is produced wish to subsidise the supply of food to the poorer states, then that is a moral choice the richer society can make. However, it is not an obligation springing from a right.
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Michaeljc4
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I agree with you 100%, John. There is no ‘right’ to be fed. With that said, what is your duty, your obligation, as a Christian, toward those who are hungry? Jesus told us how will be judged: by how we treat the least of these, and whether or not we feed the hungry. I concur with your economic analysis. Now, what do we as Catholics do to provide food?
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Nate13
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I believe we all have different problems which God puts closer to our hearts as opposed to others. While someone may feel called to devote their life to ending abortion another may chose to devote their life to ending world hunger. We have to have priorities in our lives, and considering the huge impact that abortion and the contraceptive mentality have in the world it should not be surprising that more people are called to fight these problems as opposed to world hunger. We are all on the same team, we are just fighting the good fight in different ways
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Michaeljc4
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Let’s do both!
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tomarin
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(post shortened by Tomarin)
It seems like you’re laying a lot of myths to rest, Ridgerunner. Good for you.
Why do you prefer the all-grass-fed beef by the way? Does it taste different?
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Ridgerunner
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To my taste, it’s more flavorful than grain-marbled beef, but in a different way. More meat taste, less fat taste. There is some marbling in grass fed (depends on the grass) but not very much.(post shortened by Tomarin)
It seems like you’re laying a lot of myths to rest, Ridgerunner. Good for you.
Why do you prefer the all-grass-fed beef by the way? Does it taste different?
The downsides to fully grass fed (and, again, there are differences in grass) versus grain fed are that it’s not as “juicy”. But if you look at the plate that “juicy” marbled steak was on an hour after your meal, you see that the “juice” has congealed into the fat that it really is. The other downside is that a steak, for example, is not as “soft” as grain-fed. You can’t cut your steak with your fork. It’s all meat, and you have to cut it with a knife. A good grass-fed steak is tender enough, but it’s not “mushy” like the absolute top-of-the-line grain fed are.
A small example of the “downside”. If you fry most grass fed hamburger, you have to put a little bit of some kind of oil in the pan or it will stick, there’s so little fat in it. Same with steaks if you fry them. You have to be careful grilling as well. I wrap a piece of bacon around the fork and wipe the grille surface with it before putting the steak or hamburger down or turning it over, so it won’t stick.
But when it comes to roasts or stew meat, there are no downsides. In addition, you don’t get that layer of congealed fat at the top of the stew or soup or the roast juices. The flavors of the meat and whatever vegetables you put with it are sharper and less “vague”.
I probably shouldn’t admit this, but to me, the most flavorful beef of all is that of a grass-fed yearling bull (not a steer or a heifer). Very strong beef flavor, but not “rank” or tough. But it’s leaner still, virtually nothing at all but meat, and very red. …similar to the buffalo meat you can buy in connoisseur shops at breathtaking prices. Easier to digest too, in my opinion. Fat isn’t as easily digested as meat. Hard to come by, though, unless you are a rancher or know one.
Not to be uncharitable toward the sellers of hamburger, but much, if not most hamburger actually comes from older animals and less desirable steers like holsteins or cull non-beef breed heifers. The processors add fat to it when grinding it so it will be “juicy”, which it otherwise wouldn’t be, and adds that “fat flavor”.
Let’s face it, fat tastes good in most of its forms. But it’s an acquired taste, I believe, at least when it comes to excess. I can enjoy a well-marbled steak, though I don’t prefer it, but when I was growing up I couldn’t stand even the slightest amount of fat on or in meat, and I would remove every bit of it no matter how long the surgery took. Same with a lot of forms of fat. I didn’t like butter especially and despised cream and nearly every form of cheese. I liked pork but didn’t like sausage. Lots of kids don’t like fat. I think we acquire that taste for added fat, some at younger ages than others. I’m not condemning fat totally. We need it to metabolize a lot of things, and women in particular need it for fertility. I eat fat, and I’ll admit it. Put homemade ice cream (with real cream) in front of me with fresh fruit in it and I’ll eat it down and ask for more. But there are limits, even to my jaded palate. I just plain don’t prefer it in meat, and particularly not in beef.
I probably should add that my adult children grew up preferring grass-fed, and when I have a beef butchered, that is their preference too. But we’re fortunate in having our own. It’s expensive otherwise because the industry is geared to grain finishing of the prime stuff, and fully grass fed is “specialty shop” stuff. But an urban person could probably go make a deal with a rancher and a rural family-operated slaughterhouse (of which there are a goodly number) and get it done. Of that I have little doubt.
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