Sweet Times For Cows As Gummy Worms Replace Corn Feed

PolygamousRanchKid writes "As the worst drought in half a century has ravaged this year's U.S. corn crop and driven corn prices sky high, the market for alternative feed rations for beef and dairy cows has also skyrocketed. Brokers are gathering up discarded food products and putting them out for the highest bid to feed lot operators and dairy producers, who are scrambling to keep their animals fed. In the mix are cookies, gummy worms, marshmallows, fruit loops, orange peels, even dried cranberries. Cattlemen are feeding virtually anything they can get their hands on that will replace the starchy sugar content traditionally delivered to the animals through corn. Operators must be careful to follow detailed nutritional analyses for their animals to make sure they are getting a healthy mix of nutrients, animal nutritionists caution. But ruminant animals such as cattle can safely ingest a wide variety of feedstuffs that chickens and hogs can't. The candy and cookies are only a small part of a broad mix of alternative feed offerings for cattle. Many operators use distillers grains, a byproduct that comes from the manufacture of ethanol."

Comments

Cows eat Grass

[TechyImmigrant]

Cows evolved to eat grass.

No good came from feeding them corn. I can't see how feeding them gummy worms will turn out well.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Hatta]

Cheap beef came from feeding cows corn. A median income family in the US could eat beef for dinner every day because of corn fed cows. These days it's getting out of reach.

Although, I am a bit worried about what this will do to gummy worm prices.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[cod3r_]

agreed. This sounds silly. Most farmers search high and low for hay if they have a sizeable cow herd. Otherwise they just unload it or knock it down so the hay they do find will work. I've got friends in Texas that will truck hay in from any part of America where they can find it. Hay prices have sky rocketed as a result, but maybe these are not free range cows they are talking about.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello colon cancer! Eating beef every day is not a good idea.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Sarten-X]

No, cows evolved to eat a wide variety of things and extract nutrients from them. Grass happens to be one of the better (by human standards for the cows' products) choices for their food, but it's certainly not perfect.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[ackthpt]

Probably time for people to start moving away from meat, anyway. The amount of water and acreage of agricultural production, including various uses of petroleum (gas, diesel) required to raise one pound of beef, it's a luxury we can ill afford much more than once a week.

There's also the extreme damage to lands by cattle grazing, which leads to erosion, including landslides. Time to move on from meat.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither is "living life" in general, as it has a 100% mortality rate.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Cows evolved to eat grass.

No good came from feeding them corn. I can't see how feeding them gummy worms will turn out well.

Oh, evolution is for radical liberal atheists.

Cows do just fine eating corn or sugar-rich foods. Makes them nice and fat real young, so you get that delicious marbled tissue. Just keep them pumped full of antibiotics to prevent that stuff from going bad in their ruminant stomachs, and they'll be great.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Hatta]

If I eat beef every two days will I live twice as long? If not, I think you're practicing false economy. Beef is delicious. If you're trying to extend your life by avoiding pleasurable things, you're missing the point of life.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[avandesande]

The prime food for dairy cows in the east is 'silage' which are the entire corn plant chopped up and fermented in the silo. You could pick kernels of corn out of the silage and if you chewed it a little alcohol would come out.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Nemyst]

What are you doing!? Get away from the monitor! All those nasty radiations might give you skin cancer!

Re:Cows eat Grass

[ackthpt]

No good came from feeding them corn

Lol, wut?

I.e. fattening them up. Changed the entire industry of cattle from range fed (grasses) to loading them up with Corn, which is a water-hungry crop. With the mentality of Wall Street, the cattle industry has gone after maximizing profits - steroids to fatten them up even more, antibiotics (which remain in the meat, even after cooking, so you end up with antibiotic resistant strains developing, not to overlook constant exposure to antibiotics hammers your own immune system) and a dependency upon water and petroleum, it's becoming less suitable to areas of land as the damage to land can be considerable, plus it has brought us the wonders of invasive plant species, thanks to feed coming from where-ever is cheap and available.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

By grazing or overgrazing?

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

So the GREED of the cattlemen takes advantage of the GLUTTONY ans SLOTH of the american, corn fed cows raise healthcare costs and preponderance of deadly sins in america

Corn fed = going to hell

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Byrel]

Alcohol? Is that what vomit is made of? 'Cause that's what would come out of me if I chewed on silage...

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

I already have hair cancer.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe we could just try not doubling human population in 40 years. A planet with nothing but people and farmland sounds so far from a place I'd want to be.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[ackthpt]

If I eat beef every two days will I live twice as long? If not, I think you're practicing false economy. Beef is delicious. If you're trying to extend your life by avoiding pleasurable things, you're missing the point of life.

The amount of beef you need to eat on a daily basis for your protein needs would be a cube (raw) is about 1.5 inches on a side, anything after that is just clogging up your colon and your arteries. It's shocking, at least to me, to see people ordering huge steaks, which do more harm to their health than they are aware of. If you like to eat it, add it to things, like stir-fry or stew, and by all means go for organic or free range meat, not that stuff loaded with steroids and antibiotics (gotta keep that fat bull alive long enough to get to the slaughterhouse.)

Re:Cows eat Grass

[fm6]

Corn-fed beef is cheaper, so if you eat a burger every day, you can't complain about it.

Then again, all this meat consumption (over a pound per U.S. resident per day; about 25% of it beef) is really a bad thing. Screws up your health, screws up the environment, depletes a non-renewable resource (oil) in the form of fertilizers and diesel fuel needed to grow all that corn.

The oil issue was pumping up corn prices even before the drought. Oil prices can only go up, so we're going to have to get used to eating less meat, no matter how "anti-agriculture" it might seem.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

The land doesn't suffer if it is managed properly. Research holistic land management. The Savory Institute is a good place to start. Here in Colorado, a few ranchers are making their cattle graze in patterns that the bison do naturally: grouped tighter together, never staying in the same area for very long. In any given area, the cattle don't eat too much or poop too much. They trample the ground just enough, pushing seeds just below the surface. The grass has evolved to grow optimally under these conditions. Animals and land have a symbiotic relationship; both benefit from each other. If we use animals as a tool to make a healthier earth, we all win.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[h4rr4r]

That will happen the instant a suitable replacement is found and not a moment sooner. I have high hopes for the beyondmeat folks, but we shall see.

Now get on the replacement tuna.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[avandesande]

We were kids. It beats eating dirt or dog biscuits!

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Byrel]

I.e. fattening them up. Changed the entire industry of cattle from range fed (grasses) to loading them up with Corn, which is a water-hungry crop.

Bah. Corn's photosynthesis cycle is more than 10 times as efficient as grass's. Sure it's a water hungry crop; it's just a much less land hungry crop for the same production, which means less land area under cultivation per cow. Less land per food is a Good Thing when people are starving in some parts of the world. Less land per food means lower food prices and higher availability (given a reasonably free market.) It also means less erosion, less pollution, less CO2 release, and higher population average leisure time.

All the things you mentioned do, indeed, increase profits. But they also lower costs, both to produce and to consume food. You can claim we should eat less meat, as it has relatively high impact on the environment per pound; you're right. But it would have even more impact if we switched to 'organic' or 'grass-fed' meat. There may be good reasons to buy organic; it may be healthier, lower risk of E. coli, more humane treatment of animals, and it just plain tastes good! But recognize, that whenever you indulge these scruples, you do it at the cost of the environment.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you eat too many hot dogs, that rate goes up by 2X!

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

It also meant that steak went from being an upper-class luxury item to being attainable by normal people.

But, yeah, no good ever came of it. Gotta get the good food out of the economic reach of the plebs, right? Let them eat brown bread; only "high net worth individuals" should have steak.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that is just a piece of gum. You might want to consider a new haircut.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[OhSoLaMeow]

Obligatory George Carlin quote:

"Saliva causes stomach cancer, but only when swallowed in small amounts over a long period of time."

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Byrel]

I suppose... I just couldn't get past the smell! But then, I grew up on a farm with chickens, and didn't get why everyone else thought they stank...

Re:Cows eat Grass

[drinkypoo]

cows evolved to eat a wide variety of things and extract nutrients from them. Grass happens to be one of the better (by human standards for the cows' products) choices for their food, but it's certainly not perfect

Cows were bred to eat a wide variety of things by humans from their historical predecessors. We don't particularly care what the best food for cattle to eat is from their perspective, because we are not raising them to live long and prosper. We are raising them to get big and become food, or for that matter, to get big and make food (e.g. milk.)

Re:Cows eat Grass

[samazon]

Cows eat grass huh? You realize that corn is of the genus Zea which makes it... a type.. of grass.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[tomhath]

Corn is a species of grass. It produces more calories per acre than most other grasses, which is why it's used for feed (and why it takes more water per acre than other grasses, more output requires more input).

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Unfortunately, in a world, where 99% of the people eat dangerously non-species-appropriate,and most haven't eaten a healthy diet in their whole lives, let alone knowing what that means, nobody will get it.

Hell, nobody at all gets the concept of a balanced, finely tuned ecosystem, that can handle some short-term imbalances, but once toppled, results in a catastrophic chain reaction.
And in that aspect, our bodies are exactly like nature as a whole.

Let alone the long-term things, like eating loads of short carbohydrates for decades, and then being surprised one gets the so-called "age-related diseases", which mostly have nothing to do with being old, but simply with taking that long to surface. It only gets dismissed with stupid bullshit excuses like "science has found no links hurr durr", assuming it means "there are no links" and intentionally leaving out the crucial key word "yet!". Well-knowing such long periods means studies take forever, and that the observed evidence until now is blatantly obvious.

Such people can just suffer in their shitty ignorance and die the veeery slow and painful death they chose for themselves with that ignorance. They *want* that, so who am I to tell them what to do, right. ^^ Fuck them!

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how fast the population would drop if everyone had at most 2 kids linked to them genetically.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Put a ten pound sack of lime in a 55 gal drum, and top it off with chicken droppings. Stir well and feed to cattle. They thrive on it so I'm told.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, it's just like the time Kramer got ahold of a horse and carriage - Beef-a-Roni was cheap, so he fed it that.

What could go wrong?

Re:Cows eat Grass

[h4rr4r]

I don't eat nearly that much beef but I could do it and still just stick to grass fed. The local grocery store has it for about $5/lb which seems pretty affordable for many if not most folks. Assuming you don't eat nothing but beef for dinner.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Although, I am a bit worried about what this will do to gummy worm prices.

Time to consider switching to Swedish Fish.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

White bread isn't worth the effort to chew a mouthfull. And since you were comparing bread and steak: the nauseating congealed protein paste you call steak isn't better in any way. You Americans are nice people, but what you eat is the stuff of nightmares.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[h4rr4r]

This beef is not going to people who are starving. Here in the USA the opposite is our problem, people are eating too much.

How is eating less meat and having what little you do eat be grassfed/organic hurting the environment?

How is eating local grassfed beef hurting the environment?

Re:Cows eat Grass

[LordLimecat]

I was wondering if anyone was going to bring that minor point up.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[englishknnigits]

By "land area under cultivation" you mean open pastures where cows walk around and eat things? I find it hard to believe that would result in more erosion, more C02 release, and more pollution that tilling a plot of land, spreading it with fertilizers and chemicals, seeding it, spraying it with more chemicals, using tractors and other machines to harvest it, processing the corn, shipping it to the cows, and giving antibiotics to the cows so they don't die before slaughter. It is a matter of tallying it all up so I suppose you could be right but using corn seems incredibly unlikely to have lower impact to pollution, erosion, and C02 release.

People starving around the world is a distribution problem and a local food growing problem, not a food production problem in the US. We could produce 10x more food than we do now and it wouldn't really help to keep people from starving.

You are pretty much spot on about everything else.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[paiute]

antibiotics (which remain in the meat, even after cooking

Citation needed.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf00047a035

http://mbioblog.asm.org/mbiosphere/2012/08/antibiotic-residues-in-fermented-sausage-meat-target-beneficial-bacteria-leave-pathogens-alone.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2134130/

Re:Cows eat Grass

[jellomizer]

Well for every farm that goes out of business or reduces its size. Chances are the Land will not be growing fallow, but sold and made into a housing Complex, A factory, a strip mall... In essence it will be replaced with something that is more harmful overall. And if farming comes back the farmers will buy wooded land and plow that over to make crops.

Right now we are too partisan for a law that allows the government to buy for sale farm land, Just hold on to it let it grow fallow, Then sell it back at market rate back to the farmers 10 20 100 years in the future.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[trum4n]

The real issue isn't that we are feeding cows corn. Cows seem to like corn. The problem, is they are putting corn in our gas tanks, ruining our cars (ethanol ruins rubber gaskets, among other small, but useful parts.), causing shortages of food and increasing oil company profits.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Or don't have a couple of kids to feed....

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

eating meat isn't causing people to get fat. it's the Big Gulp's with 364 grams of refined sugar that does it.

And the woeful amount of exercise the average american gets.

Yeah, it's just meat that does it. Eating less meat and making sure what you do eat is grassfed/organic isn't going to make up for the high amount of empty calories and lack of exercise.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Hatta]

The amount of beef you need to eat on a daily basis for your protein needs would be a cube (raw) is about 1.5 inches on a side, anything after that is just clogging up your colon and your arteries.

You're neglecting what it does to my taste buds and the pleasure center of my brain. Again, false economy.

If you like to eat it, add it to things, like stir-fry or stew,

I like stirfry and stew, but they are no substitute for a medium rare New York strip stake grilled over hot coals.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[TheLink]

Beef is not good for health. So don't eat it often, but if you're going to eat beef, pick the most enjoyable form for you. Otherwise you're just wasting your life and the beef.

If you don't like it, don't eat it. But if you really like steaks, unless you're really unlucky or unhealthy or stupid[1], a steak dinner every month or three isn't going to kill you that fast. Every week would probably be pushing it but some research would need to be done ;).

[1] stupid = eating way too much, like a kilo.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[jd2112]

I for one am looking forward to picking up a gummi-fed steak at the supermarket soon...

Re:Cows eat Grass

[jellomizer]

The issue with a proper diet isn't as much on how long you will live on the average but the quality of life while you are living.

A heavy meet eater lives to be 75, someone with a well balanced diet will live to be 85.

10 years difference overall, while important may or may not be worth it for the quality of life.
However if you are heavy meat ether and the last 25 of your life is in pain and general being sick. vs. the last 1 years of a balanced diet. Was your decision to not live healthy effected your living standards well.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[h4rr4r]

No one is building stripmalls in Iowa or apartment complex in East Bumblefuck Texas.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[h4rr4r]

I never suggested such a thing. Nice strawman to setup and knock down.

People eat too much of everything. Too much sugar, too much meat, too much grain, too much everything.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[h4rr4r]

How fat are these kids?
1lb of meat is enough for burgers for 4 people. Add in buns, the typical veggie toppings and a nice side salad and you have a fairly healthy and filling dinner.

Are you really telling me the extra $2 on the price of dinner is not affordable by most folks?

Re:Cows eat Grass

[serialband]

You've forgotten that subsidies are what makes corn cheap in the USA.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[TheLink]

I'd rather eat dog biscuits than silage.

Then again, I've only noticed the silage that stunk... e.g. the crappy ones. I suppose you probably had access to the better stuff.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Hatta]

So I'm missing the point of life because I'm not draining my bank account down at the whorehouse with the periodic stop by my local crack dealer?

You can't take it with you. If you actually find those things pleasurable, and wouldn't have the pleasure offset by regret afterwards, then I would encourage you to do so. The tricky part with hedonism isn't whether maximizing pleasure is good(duh), it's whether short term or long term pleasure should be a higher priority.

You're trying to project your values on everyone else and act smug thinking that we're suffering for not following your way of life.

Not at all, if you don't find something pleasurable don't do it.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Khyber]

Corn *IS* a grass.

Cows weren't meant to eat the FRUIT of that grass.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[interval1066]

Just another reason to avoid red meat, which I've been doing for the last 10 years anyway.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like somebody needs a burger to relax.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Guiness17]

Sounds like you likely read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omnivore's_Dilemma as well. I did, and it, as well as a little more research changed my supermarket buying habits.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Sarten-X]

The structures that allow cows to eat a wide diet predate their domestication (by about 20 million years), so the breeding (which is really just human-guided evolution) is irrelevant.

Cows (and other ruminants) are effectively omnivores whose meat has been replaced by eating their own gut bacteria. Grasses are a good food because they feed the gut bacteria while providing an entirely different set of nutrients directly to the cows. When the cows then digest the bacteria, they get the high-protein supplement they need. Any other feed that provides roughly the same nutrition to the cow is suitable, because a different species of bacteria will thrive on it, and the symbiosis remains.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

I know anecdote evidence, but I've been vegetarian for 30+ years and still got colon cancer.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Aranykai]

If you ever drive through East Bumblefuck Texas, you would be shocked just how much building there is going on. /Texan who lives just outside East Bumblefuck Texas.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

I commonly see people make that exact argument. Yet, somehow, they always fail to see the emptiness of their debate. With so much variety and multitude of food and pleasure available, if you are so determined and fixated on beef to be that pleasure, it is you are are missing the point of life. Your comment also smacks of detachment from reality based on a fallacy. Its perfectly possible to obtain a sense of pleasure in moderation. And if you disagree, you are in fact reaffirming my first rebuke above.

If it was really about the pleasures of life, you would see the fallacy of your position. I would argue your position is one of gluttony in its own right, not life's pleasures.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[englishknnigits]

I'm not sure about your colon but it won't clog up your arteries. Vegetarian and other high carb diets actual result in higher levels of LDL cholesterol, particularly small dense (aka very bad) LDL cholesterol, and VLDL cholesterol. Look up Stanford's "A TO Z: A Comparative Weight Loss Study." All of the biomarkers for health and longevity were the same or better for people on the Atkins diet than all the other diets. That being said, throwing in lots of leafy greens and other vegetables would make it even better. So, you actually aren't far off except you can/should eat more meat than 1.5 cubic inches of the stuff a day. Fish would be better but beef isn't bad, especially if it's grass fed.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[jfengel]

Although, I am a bit worried about what this will do to gummy worm prices.

I assume they're getting gummy worms cheap from some other process that would be disposing of them, perhaps surplus or stale. Competing with retail would, I imagine, be ruinously expensive.

The gummy worms themselves start as corn, via corn syrup. If corn is going up, eventually the gummy worms are going to be more expensive as well. There may just be some lag time as the price increases work their way through the system. (Gummy worms, being shelf stable, are probably more resistant to price shocks than cows are.)

Re:Cows eat Grass

[fm6]

I pretty much agree with you, though you better look for that grass-fed beef price to go up as there's more demand for it.

And you better get ready for non-red meat to become more expensive too. Poultry can't go out and graze the way cattle can, so you have to feed them grains that are seeing the same cost issues as corn.

Like I said, not a bad thing. We'd be better off eating less of all kinds of meat. But don't expect people to quietly accept that.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Lemmy Caution]

The pleasure center of the brain is a notoriously unreliable guide to decision making. Look at compulsive gamblers, crack addicts, and people with massive consumer debt - not to mention those who are obese for dietary reasons - as an indication. You may want to try to get some executive function over that shit.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[WGFCrafty]

I.e. fattening them up. Changed the entire industry of cattle from range fed (grasses) to loading them up with Corn, which is a water-hungry crop.

Bah. Corn's photosynthesis cycle is more than 10 times as efficient as grass's. Sure it's a water hungry crop; it's just a much less land hungry crop for the same production, which means less land area under cultivation per cow.

I stopped reading after the first sentence.

Corn IS a grass. It is a monocot and it is in the family poaceae.

Traits like it's kernal size were developed through selective breeding over a few thousand years. It used to look more like the long stalks of other grass. Botany 101

Re:Cows eat Grass

[cayenne8]

I largely agree with you, but in recent months...am altering my life a bit, especially with regards to eating.

I've done a coupe of 30 day juice fasts this year (inspired by Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead documentary)....and I must say, what it did for me...was it got me to enjoying vegetables and fruits more...the basic flavors.

I'm now exploring ways (I love to cook) to make my diet more plant based, but satisfying and fun to cook and eat. So far, it is working out.

I'd not be able to stay on a strict diet, if I didn't enjoy it...the 'pleasure' as you mentioned. While it is hard to beat a good chunk of med-rare, prime grade NY Strip....I'm reserving it more and more, as a 'treat' type dish. I'm going more quality over quantity as I get a bit older.

I'm finding good prime grade steaks...and those go for about $23/lb easily...so, I'm not chowing on those daily...but every couple weeks as a fun weekend treat? Sure!!

I mean, I just bought a brand new 'bandera' style offset smoker....I recently bought a pro-level Hobart meat slicer, I'm not going vegetarian.

But I am looking at moving more towards that way if I can be successful in making the food fun to eat. I'm getting to the age in my life where I need to find balance...because in the next year or two, I'll be setting the course for the quantity and quality of the 2nd half of my life...I want it to be as long as possible, and I want to be in condition to enjoy every day of it I can, as much as I do now.

And, I think that means looking at nutritional habits. So, figuring to start now to explore ways to make healthy eating something I WANT to do.

Don't get me wrong, I like to eat a 16" pizza in one sitting, and then go knock out half a bottle of good single malt scotch...and you know, on occasion, I still may do that from time to time.

But it has to be the outlier and not the general rule for long, healthy life.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[h4rr4r]

I am in the Middle of East Bumblefuck Texas about once a year. My family has a lease in that part of the world. /Western New Yorker AKA Bumblefuck NY. //Not the City you hick :)

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Sebastopol]

"How is eating less meat and having what little you do eat be grassfed/organic hurting the environment?"

"How is eating local grassfed beef hurting the environment?"

You are right in spirit, the downside is determining what constitutes "less". If everyone switched to local organic grassfed beef, we'd run out of beef in a day. Industrial farming was invented because we eat a lot of meat as a nation, too much than can be grown on an organic scale (IMHO). Even with the best practices for sustainable cattle, American's eat a colossal amount of beef. So the question is: how much is "less?" I don't have an answer, but if I had a gun to my head I would guess 1oz per year would be the limit to feed everyone beef sustainable, based on: the avereage american diet of 62lbs [1], 63,280 organic cows in 2008 [2], and 96m head of beef cattle in the USA in 2008 [3]. That's .07% of beef cattle in the US as organic, so 62lbs*16oz/lb *0.07%=992oz *.07% = .7oz round to 1oz.

Huh, my math seems wrong, but assuming we could sustainable multiply local organic by 10x, that's still 7oz of beef per year.

Yeah, we eat a lot of effing beef.

[1] http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_pound_of_beef_does_the_average_American_consume_each_year
[2] http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/livestock/beef/organic-beef/
[3] http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/cattle-beef/statistics-information.aspx

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Gordonjcp]

I know anecdotal evidence, but I've been an omnivore for 30+ years, and I didn't get colon cancer, or as much as a case of the trots.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[ElmoGonzo]

Cows did not evolve to eat grass. Cows are adapted to eating a variety of feedstuffs -- the rumen bacteria can break down many things and convert them into rumen bugs which slide out of the rumen and down the line where they are digested. Cows in a state of nature run away from humans. Modern domesticated cows rely on humans to provide them with food. Cows in a state of nature produce a calf a year and are subject to predation and disease which help to keep the population from exploding. Modern livestock agriculture ensures that more calves will survive and that the cows will survive longer. Some are retained in the herd while others -- especially the males -- aren't needed so they are sold as veal calves (from dairy cows mostly) or as feeder calves (from beef breeds) and those calves are fed with an eye toward making money. The only farm I ever saw which varied from this one was the ISKON farm run by the Hare Krishna organization which raised cows for milk and cheese and would not allow any calves to be slaughtered for any purpose. A few of the males were neutered and the oxen used as draft animals. Most of the other males were also neutered -- to make them more docile -- and kept in a separate area where they were feed corn silage and otherwise ignored until they died. At one time they sold the carcases to be processed into meat meal which is used in the manufacture of dog food. Also fed to cows -- until BSE was discovered to be transmissible that way. As for bakery by products including broken cookies with and without chocolate chips, gummy bits, etc. -- they've been fed to cattle for years as have corn distillers grains (high protein, low energy because the starches were turned into alcohol), brewer's grains (similar) and other alternatives. Any feedlot operator (or dairy farm manager) knows about the need to adjust feedstuffs based on what's available -- the computerized ration balancing programs have been around since there were no PC's. The only thing new is that the market for these items is also rising because the demand is up and more farmers have access to ration balancing software.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[ackthpt]

Although, I am a bit worried about what this will do to gummy worm prices.

Time to consider switching to Swedish Fish.

Shhhh! You'll spike the market for Swedish Fish.

Don't eat them, they taste like cod liver oil!

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Hatta]

Executive function is a great means to increase total pleasure, but pleasure is still the ultimate goal.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck, that sounds like a tiny amount to me. If you actually want to build muscle you need to intake at least 1.5 g of protein for every kg of body weight. For an average sized individual that equates to roughly 4 or 5 times what you just said, otherwise the hours in the gym are wasted effort.

Obviously this ignores any other protein intake throughout the day.

So basically, a 1.5 inch cube of beef is probably enough protein to survive on if you don't mind being skinny nerd, the rest of us who actually want to get laid (and stay healthy while feeling great) need much more. But oh wait, I forgot this is /.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[X0563511]

This beef is not going to people who are starving. Here in the USA the opposite is our problem, people are eating too much.

... and yet we have kids who don't get enough to eat.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[X0563511]

364 grams of refined sugar

I think you meant HFCs. Even worse.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[dietdew7]

Cows evolved to eat grass.

No good came from feeding them corn. I can't see how feeding them gummy worms will turn out well.

Note to parent, corn is a grass.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[ackthpt]

The land doesn't suffer if it is managed properly. Research holistic land management. The Savory Institute is a good place to start. Here in Colorado, a few ranchers are making their cattle graze in patterns that the bison do naturally: grouped tighter together, never staying in the same area for very long. In any given area, the cattle don't eat too much or poop too much. They trample the ground just enough, pushing seeds just below the surface. The grass has evolved to grow optimally under these conditions. Animals and land have a symbiotic relationship; both benefit from each other. If we use animals as a tool to make a healthier earth, we all win.

Plant life is only one aspect of the affect on land of grazing. On hilly terrain you'll notice it becomes terraced, cattle traverse hillsides. Many areas I've visited the hills look somewhat like the old Towers of Hanoi pieces. Terracing weakens the topsoil and often has resulted in massive landslides. Grazing land would need to be left alone for about 10 years to begin recovery, but seldom gets the chance. There's also the matter of all that cattle poo changing what happily grows on the land, as grass tends to dominate poorly fertile land, whereas the cattle dung fertilizes it and entire other species begin to take over (which over time could eventually starve out the cattle as the new dominant plants aren't to their tastes.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

False, subsidized corn made it posible. Is not sensible, sustainable (ecologically or economically) or healty eat beef AT ALL.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[mcgrew]

I can't see how feeding them gummy worms will turn out well.

I can. I had a freined who raised a few hogs several years ago. He had a friend who worked in an ice cream plant, and would bring a pickup truck full of outdated ice cream mix every coupld of weeks. Mike would feed his hogs a mixture of 50% commercial hog feed and 50% ice cream mix.

That was the best tasting pork I ever ate. Maybe gummy bears will do the same for cows? The only reason I think it might not is that cows are herbivores and pigs are omnivores, but at least the gummy bears aren't made of meat. It should be interesting to see how it turns out.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[h4rr4r]

If demand warranted I think we could safely say the increase head would be more than 10x, more like 1000x.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[avandesande]

My uncle was a pro- he took pride in the fact that the alcohol content was high enough to have a noticeable calming effect on the herd. It always had a pleasant smell- I am sure some silage is nastier than others.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[h4rr4r]

You think these kids are getting that beef?

No, the fat kids that steal their lunches are getting it.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Medievalist]

Oh, and now you're going to bring reality into the argument.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[ackthpt]

antibiotics (which remain in the meat, even after cooking

Citation needed.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf00047a035

http://mbioblog.asm.org/mbiosphere/2012/08/antibiotic-residues-in-fermented-sausage-meat-target-beneficial-bacteria-leave-pathogens-alone.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2134130/

These and other references were brought to my attention at a time I had recently recovered from, yet another Streptococcus throat infection, where I could scarcely swallow for three days. I decided to give up beef, chicken, pork and rely only on fish caught in the lakes or ocean. Over a period of two years I did notice the severity of respiratory infections decline and when I did take antibiotics they actually worked. Though anecdotal, I did recall antibiotics had little to no effect before I changed my diet. Eventually a dairy allergy would remove all cheese, yoghurt, milk from my diet and I find the period from initial detection of a respiratory infection to recovery to be down to less than a week, where I once would suffer these occurances for up to two weeks. I believe there is merit to these studies, particularly regarding the constant presence of low levels of antibiotics in the body creating a breeding ground for resistant strains (which are on the rise) and leaving my immune system impared to some degree, as all antibiotics are toxins which target certain organisms, but also have a degree of collateral damage (killing non-bacterial cells.)

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Byrel]

Eating less meat is good for the environment! Eating organic, grassfed is bad for it. Eating local is generally, though not always, also bad for it, but more subtly. Grass-fed and organic are really two separate, correlated issues. Grass-fed beef requires more energy, water, and labor input than corn-fed beef. Each of those has an environmental cost associated with it. If you can do 'it' more efficiently, in general you reduce the environmental impact of 'it'.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[ackthpt]

I've become nearly vegetarian, myself. It was quite a challenge while living in the midwest, but in California there are a great many more food options which are less animal dependent, particularly southern Indian cuisine.

There are a great many things I eat now, such as vegetarian quesadillas (using soy cheese, as I'm allergic to dairy), pasta with marinara (with lotsa garlic bread :), curries, stir fries and even vegetable pizzas heaped with all sorts of stuff, including fresh chopped garlic, (and again soy cheese, which is far better than it was 10 years ago) and so on. I swear I eat better than I ever have, just have to curb my appetite to keep from putting on weight. Also found, to a large degree, it's all the stuff you add to meat which makes it taste so good, so skip the meat and enjoy the other stuff even more. Bon apetit!

Re:Cows eat Grass

[ackthpt]

Beef is not good for health. So don't eat it often, but if you're going to eat beef, pick the most enjoyable form for you. Otherwise you're just wasting your life and the beef.

If you don't like it, don't eat it. But if you really like steaks, unless you're really unlucky or unhealthy or stupid[1], a steak dinner every month or three isn't going to kill you that fast. Every week would probably be pushing it but some research would need to be done ;).

[1] stupid = eating way too much, like a kilo.

Careful, there are lobbyists and associations who don't like to hear you talk like that. :D

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Byrel]

Sure! They're also what makes it expensive. Look at Ethanol subsides. Farmers are paid to keep land barren, to keep the price up. This isn't one-sided...

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Bob the Super Hamste]

There is better silage than ones made from corn stalks. The better ones are made from alfalfa, or hays instead of corn stalks which actually have some nutritional value.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

otherwise the hours in the gym are wasted effort.

Most people don't go to the gym moron.

The discussion was for people on average. Obviously people who burn more calories and have much higher muscle mass to maintain have different dietary requirements. The simple fact is, the average person dramatically over eats.

Just the other day I had five Americans tell me with a straight face there was nothing wrong with a completely decked out 48 once milkshake. THAT is what's wrong with Americans and why we are so fat. To not even be able to acknowledge the absurdity of such intake screams of some type of learning disability or complete lack of critical thinking. Honestly its screams they are stupid.

It used to be something like a 6.5 ounce coke was considered a treat. Certainly not something to have at every meal. Now a multitude of 8 ounce drinks per day are considered reasonable. I've met many Americans who proudly drink a liter or more per day. Most Americans most definitely are extremely delusional about food and dietary requirements.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[ackthpt]

Well for every farm that goes out of business or reduces its size. Chances are the Land will not be growing fallow, but sold and made into a housing Complex, A factory, a strip mall... In essence it will be replaced with something that is more harmful overall. And if farming comes back the farmers will buy wooded land and plow that over to make crops.

Right now we are too partisan for a law that allows the government to buy for sale farm land, Just hold on to it let it grow fallow, Then sell it back at market rate back to the farmers 10 20 100 years in the future.

Most farms I see hit the auction block are bought up by people (or agribusinesses) and keep right on growing things. Just because one person failed, for whatever reason it was, should not be taken as evidence you can't make money in farming. Even after the Carter era, with all the farmers losing their land because they took out Adjustable Rate loans and were broken by skyrocketing interest rates, many farmers kept right on going. The parents of one girl I knew in college were doing quite well with a couple thousand acres, diversified with a small dairy operation, summed it up thus "farmers who lost their farms were bad at running their own business."

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Myopic]

"anything after that is just clogging up your colon and your arteries"

No, it's not "just" clogging up your colon and your arteries. Even if it is doing those things, which I doubt, the overwhelming variable is that it is also enjoyable. Enjoyment is the dominant variable, so you're going to have to convince me that I don't enjoy eating steak.

(That actually won't be very hard with me because beef steak isn't one of my favorite foods. But the general point is valid: if you try to take away something I enjoy daily based on a possible marginal increase in disease risk decades from now, you're never going to convince me. It goes to the meaning of life.)

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Oversimplifications are generaly false

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

eating the plant, is different in a nutritional sense than eating the seed.

Cows evolved to eat the actual plant, not the seed... There was a study that showed if you feed a cow corn it will develop various bacterial issues, involving e-coli. The solution was to give them grass for 10% of their feeding cycle... so you would feed them corn to fatten them up and then feed them grasses for the last 10% before they go to the slaughter house.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Bob the Super Hamste]

For me that is expensive, of course I buy my beef by the fraction of the animal and get if from a farmer who is a family friend and it is butchered by a small processor. The nice thing is I know what I am getting, what the critter was fed (primarily alfalfa that was grown on his property with some grain to fatten it up before slaughter but no corn), how it was raised (my oldest son loves to go see and pet the dozen or so cattle that wander around his 40 acres), and what they were given (no hormones and antibiotics only if it gets sick). I have also been through the processors facilities as I bring the deer my family (extended) shoots there as well and can see how the operate and the procedures they use. I probably eat more red meat than I should but then it is either the beef I get from my dad's friend, the deer I shot, or the organic bison from my step mom's friend. We go through 1/8 of a cow, 1/8 of a bison, 1 deer for my family of 4 in a year. They only meat we buy at the store is some pork or chicken and depending on the number of pheasants and grouse I shoot the chicken amount varies. I hoping to get in on some of the pork my neighbor gets from his brother as then I could mostly eliminate buying meat at the grocery store.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Competing with retail would, I imagine, be ruinously expensive.

Ahhhhhhhh!

Marketing to the rescue!

Have you heard of Kobe Beef? This is beef fed only on a diet of warm Gummi Bears (tm). The resultant beef is succulent with hints of sweet flavor. Only $24.95 per burger available only at select restaurants.

Seriously. I've seen people pay over $20 for a burger, I've no doubt they are stupid enough to get hooked by advertisement like that.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[grumpyman]

You can claim we should eat less meat, as it has relatively high impact on the environment per pound; you're right.

Compulsory super size on fries when ordering a burger meal.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Cows are only fed the kernels of corn seeds. Grass or not, eating grass seeds is not eating grass.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[rycamor]

Eating less meat is good for the environment! Eating organic, grassfed is bad for it. Eating local is generally, though not always, also bad for it, but more subtly.

I would challenge you to read up on Joel Salatin's methods (http://www.polyfacefarms.com/). He has run a successful farm with pastured cows, pigs, and chicken for generations. They bring no feed, seeds or fertilizer onto their land. Just using the natural intertwined capabilities of the various animals with rotational grazing, they have actually made their land much more fertile than any surrounding monoculture farms. Tell me exactly how this taxes the ecology. The fact is, local and grass-fed can be done. It just requires a longer view toward farming, and of course a willingness to fight the bureaucratic morass that is our current food system.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[curiousJan]

Although, I am a bit worried about what this will do to gummy worm prices.

I assume they're getting gummy worms cheap from some other process that would be disposing of them, perhaps surplus or stale. Competing with retail would, I imagine, be ruinously expensive.

The gummy worms themselves start as corn, via corn syrup. If corn is going up, eventually the gummy worms are going to be more expensive as well. There may just be some lag time as the price increases work their way through the system. (Gummy worms, being shelf stable, are probably more resistant to price shocks than cows are.)

When I was young, we raised day-old calves to approximately a year-old before selling them at auction. Part of their feed mix was stale/malformed gummy candies from the local candy factory. Dad doesn't that any more (most likely from risk of CJD), but during that time period CJD wasn't a concern here in the US. And yes, he did it was because it was more cost effective. You've nailed it on the head ... they would be discarded otherwise, and they're made from the same corn sugars that the cows would get from corn.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[MiniMike]

This could be really bad for dairy cows- if they consume too much sugar, they won't be able to process all of it and the excess will end up in their milk. This will also cause an increase in the viscosity of the milk. The end result- High Fructose Cow Syrup!

Re:Cows eat Grass

[NatasRevol]

1lb of meat is enough for burgers for 4 people.

Please stop, it's obvious you don't actually have kids, you know, who are growing and need a higher caloric intake. Or have to pay for everything they do, forcing decisions to be made.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

If your big regret in life is not eating a more steak, you didn't have a life worth living by any measure.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm. Have you ever been on a farm/ranch? Corn for feed goes through a chopper. The entire plant is chopped up -- seeds and all. I have never seen cattle feed pure corn kernels on my cousin's farm. In fact, they bought special machines to carefully mix the feed. Too much of one type of feed can cause bloating. I seems to me that most people actually believe that when they hear that cattle is fed corn, they immediately picture a corn cob in their heads. What a waste of the plant! Cattle can digest the whole plant, why would a farmer waste it? Based on the comments here, I think most people just read stuff on the 'Net and believe it. They have never been anywhere near a farm or anywhere near a farmer. They haven't actually asked anyone directly how much antibiotics they use.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[PRMan]

I dropped 70 pounds in 9 months (and I wasn't that fat 6'1"/235lbs) just by limiting my carbs to 120g / day. So, no, it really is all carbs that people eat too much of. Sugar, HFCS, grains, etc., etc., etc.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Sentrion]

Grass-fed beef requires more energy, water, and labor input than corn-fed beef. Each of those has an environmental cost associated with it. If you can do 'it' more efficiently, in general you reduce the environmental impact of 'it'.

Citation needed.

Many grasslands, when not in drought, get enough water from natural rainfall.
Cattle provide much of their own energy rather than expending energy to produce and transport grain feed.
Labor input is only bad when you see it on the "cost" column. Many people I know are raising their own beef and even selling it. When unemployment is 10%, wages are stagnant, and Americans keep getting fatter, maybe a little manual labor after work and on weekends would be a good way to round out a week strapped to a cubicle.

From what I have read over the decades, environmental damage tends to be more associated with "efficient" profit-maximizing operations. There are many environmental advantages to smaller-scale locally raised grass-feed beef. When cattle are rotated from pasture to pasture they eat a portion of the grass, spurring new growth which results in more net biomass. Cows then fertilize the land by trampling manure and decaying organic materials into the soil. The healthier plant roots retain more water and microbes, keeping carbon dioxide underground which, in turn, helps foster new plant growth. According to a twelve year USDA study of ways to improve soil quality, published in the Soil Science Society of America Journal (2010), moderately grazed areas actually have more stored carbon in the soil, both increasing fertility and slowing global warming.

Growing grass instead of grains also increases biodiversity because it offers habitats for the literally hundreds of animals that would otherwise not thrive in grain fields. The disappearance of grasslands, and consequently the biodiversity supported by those grasslands, is an environmental problem that can be mitigated by sustainable farming and pasturing methods.

If Americans switched en masse to pasture rotated, grass-fed beef, not only would it put the environmentally toxic factory farms out of business, but the naturally restored topsoil created by adding carbon and natural fertilizers to the land would increase the nutritive value of crops, resulting in better health for everyone. Today most crop farming is heavily dependent on industrial fertilizers, fertilizers that are often applied excessively to increase yields. Fertilizer runoff is a major threat to the environment, particularly waterways and wetlands. And a lot of energy goes into the production of these fertilizers. Natural gas is used to derive much of the Nitrogen, and lots of fuel and heavy equipment goes into the mining and transport of minerals such as potash. Consider for a moment how many greenhouse gases are emitted, how many fossil fuels are consumed, and how many pollutants and toxins escape into the air and water just to manufacture one front-loader or one dump truck. Now consider the total supply-chain effect on the environment caused by industrial agricultural practices, especially when most of the grain grown is used for livestock feed and ethanol.

In case you didn't know, the feed lots concentrate bovine waste in a small area where it cannot be sustainably returned to the soil. For this reason the feedlots are actually closely monitored by the EPA as runoff of bovine manure into nearby streams and rivers can have detrimental effects.

And as for efficiency, the number of pounds of grain required to produce a pound of beef range from 10 to 16 pounds. The corn-based feed lot is not so much about efficiency as it is about increasing the amount of fat that is marbled into the meat, which does add flavor that the market seems to prefer (regardless of the health consequences). Personally, I have sampled grass-fed, and I prefer the taste and texture.

Locally raised beef means that the animals and meat don't have to be shipped across the globe or trucked across the country, so there is some potential to reduce dependence on heavy industrial infrastructure and fossil fuels.

Of course, just because I think grass-fed is better for people and the environment, that doesn't mean that beef should be 70% of our diet.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Bob the Super Hamste]

ruining our cars

If you have a vehicle that can't handle ethanol you can buy non oxygenated fuel but this does cost more and you probably only think you vehicle has a problem with it. If you have a vehicle made in the last 20+ years (holy crap I feel old now) it will handle it just fine as manufactures have been designing vehicles to handle it for that long. I have a vehicle that is 16 years old and has 372,XXX miles on it that has been owned by someone in Minnesota the whole time. My daily driver has 245,XXX miles on it and has also been owned by someone in Minnesota its entire life (15 years) and hasn't had a problem with the ethanol blended fuels. So probably every gallon of gas put into either of them has had 10% ethanol, but they seems to run just fine. It even will sit for 1-2 months typically as for me it is a limited use vehicle. Then again I think that the people who think the ethanol blends ruins their vehicles are just looking to blame someone else for their poor care. The people also claim that 10% ethanol causes their mileage to drop 10%-15% when one would expect a 3%-4% drop if their stuff was running correctly.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

> 1lb of meat is enough for burgers for 4 people

Sounds like you don't have kids. My skinny six year-old daughter is going through a growth spurt now, and she'd laugh at your suggestion to only eat a tiny 0.25# burger. That sliver of meat only contains 250,000 calories(assuming 85/15 hamburger). She's eating 2.5 Mcalories most days so that sliver of meat is only 10% of her daily intake. She's already underweight for her height. I'd hate to think what she'd look like given your suggestion to starve children.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[MightyYar]

I ain't no sciamatist, but these studies seem... unrealistic:

From the first:

For the present study, ground meat was used from lambs dosed intravenously with oxytetracyclene 4 h prior to slaughter.

The second did not even study antibiotics present in animals, and instead injected fermenting sausages directly with antibiotics.

The third:

Each animal was injected intramuscularly in the neck area and within two hours after the third injection, was slaughtered.

I don't think this is the citation that was hoped for, unless you are asserting that calves and lambs are regularly treated for a disease within hours of slaughter.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[MightyYar]

Local grassfed? That works great if your "local" includes grassland. My "local" is mostly corn farms.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[h4rr4r]

Please stop feeding your kids garbage if you think 1 4oz burger is not enough. If you can't afford to feed them, you probably should not have them.

The burger is not the only calories there, the bun adds at least 100 more likely 2 plus toppings and the salad I suggested.

According to the USDA 3oz is a normal serving. You might want to talk to them instead of me.

The caloric needs of a child very active 6 year old are only 1800kcal per day.

Far more kids are overweight than underweight in the USA, and I can guess which your children are.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Corn is not a species of grass. It is the *seed* of a species of grass.

Big difference.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[mcgrew]

The amount of beef you need to eat on a daily basis for your protein needs would be a cube (raw) is about 1.5 inches on a side, anything after that is just clogging up your colon and your arteries.

Odd, I've been eating beef (and pork and chicken and rabbit and venison and fish) for six decades and neither my colon nor arteries are clogged.

Do you know what you get with a lifelong diet like you prescribe? Very short people. When I was in Thailand in 1974 the average there was about five feet tall, and that was the kind of diet they had. Now that they're eating a lot more meat? They're as tall as us.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Byrel]

Errr... Does that mean when people are talking about grass-fed beef, they really could mean corn-fed? Grass has more than one meaning, depending on scope. OBVIOUSLY I was not speaking of all plants which could be called grasses biologically, but was instead using it in the colloquial sense. In which corn is not grass at all.

All semantic nitpicking aside, corn is a C4 plant, grass is a C3. Major difference in efficiency. Of course, sugarcane is even more efficient, but it's a bit hard to grow around here.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[eugene6]

The sample size of your study is impressive. Were your conclusions peer-reviewed?

Re:Cows eat Grass

[dutchwhizzman]

No they don't. If all you feed them is grass, they get the runs, which is what most diary cows have. They actually evolved to eat a rather diverse mixture of a lot of plants, including grass. Wild cows tend to eat some grass and a lot of other herbs and plants and produce more horse-like manure. Feeding cows something else might not even be worse for them than feeding them grass, or corn for that matter.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Feed for beef cattle affects the flavor of the meat. I can't stand the taste of cattle fed alfalfa.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Darinbob]

Quite a lot of cattle are still grass or hay fed most of their lives, and only get the corn and fatteners near the end in a feed lot.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Sebastopol]

ah, and there is the "sustainability" question. i do not believe [no citiation] that we can ramp organic beef to conventional beef levels, given that organic requires things that don't scale: grazing pastures, smaller herds to limit disease, individual attention.

so yes, it can scale, but not sustainably, so it defeats the purpose. just look at organic mexican tomatoes: 5x the resources to grow organic in terms of land [again, no citation, pulling from memory] so massive deforestation to meet market demand.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

This just reminds me of the story of the man telling how he never drank, ate red meat or had sex. He said that because of all this he had managed to live to be 103. To which the listener replied with, "Yeah, but why?"

The pleasure sensors might not be good at telling you what you should do to improve your health, but if you don't get any pleasure, why live?

Re:Cows eat Grass

[trum4n]

I take a measured hit on MPG in my honda fit. 45 highway on non-eth (maryland gas) and 38 on PA's eth 10%. My 1974 dodge charger developed a head gasket leak, a damaged fuel pump, and half the carb gaskets melted, all in a 3 month period, that started the month the eth10 was introduced in my town. There is still no valid reason for it to be in our fuel. Corn is food. People are starving world wide. Stop wasting.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[NatasRevol]

My 11 yr old is playing elite hockey. He easily burned 5000 calories yesterday playing two hockey games and football game yesterday, then had to mow the lawn when he got home. He runs a 7 minute mile while barely breaking a sweat.

My younger kid is similarly active for his age - soccer & hockey right now.

My wife is a registered dietitian who makes sure they eat well above the average amount of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, with a well balanced diet.

So don't tell me about my kids, and assume that they're overweight. They're probably unhealthily lean.

Because you come off as an ignorant, pompous ass. And given your first sentences and your last sentence, you definitely are.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[mcgrew]

A heavy meet eater lives to be 75, someone with a well balanced diet will live to be 85.

Time shrinks when you age. Christmas takes forever to get there for a five year old, he has to wait 1/5th of a lifetime. I'm 60, a year lasts as long for a six year old as a decade does for me. When I was in the Air Force it seemed like that four years would never be up, now four years is a piece of cake.

So when you're talking about octogenarians and septigenarians, ten years is nothing.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

So stick an electrical probe into your brain and live the next four to five days in more pleasure than you can possibly imagine or receive in the rest of a normal life. If pleasure is the ultimate goal, that's the one winning strategy.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[h4rr4r]

I was not concerning myself with that. I think you could get pretty close though, assuming large grazing lands could be recreated. Think of the bison herds that existed 200 years ago.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Cows eat grass leafs, the starchy cob is a carefully selected feature during milennia thay is very different in nutritional content from the grass cows should eat.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[camperdave]

Well, my colon has a hole at the nether end, so what doesn't get digested, gets expelled from my body. Also, my colon doesn't connect to my arteries, so there's no way beef can wind up clogging those.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

antibiotics (which remain in the meat, even after cooking

Citation needed.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf00047a035

http://mbioblog.asm.org/mbiosphere/2012/08/antibiotic-residues-in-fermented-sausage-meat-target-beneficial-bacteria-leave-pathogens-alone.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2134130/

These and other references were brought to my attention at a time I had recently recovered from, yet another Streptococcus throat infection, where I could scarcely swallow for three days. I decided to give up beef, chicken, pork and rely only on fish caught in the lakes or ocean. Over a period of two years I did notice the severity of respiratory infections decline and when I did take antibiotics they actually worked. Though anecdotal, I did recall antibiotics had little to no effect before I changed my diet. Eventually a dairy allergy would remove all cheese, yoghurt, milk from my diet and I find the period from initial detection of a respiratory infection to recovery to be down to less than a week, where I once would suffer these occurances for up to two weeks. I believe there is merit to these studies, particularly regarding the constant presence of low levels of antibiotics in the body creating a breeding ground for resistant strains (which are on the rise) and leaving my immune system impared to some degree, as all antibiotics are toxins which target certain organisms, but also have a degree of collateral damage (killing non-bacterial cells.)

I'm a PhD student in biochemistry and microbiology and would like to point out that nothing in the parent post makes sense. Consuming low levels of antibiotics would not have an effect on the incidence and severity of respiratory infections. Also antibiotics are not generally toxic to humans at prescribed doses, particularly those fed to livestock, and especially not at the very low levels that could be encountered from food. Some antibiotics can cause organ damage with chronic exposure but would not have an effect on respiratory infections.

In summary, the issue of chronic low level exposure to antibiotics is a concern at the population level and their effects can not be teased out at the individual level from an anecdotal point of view.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Hatta]

I'm not sure that's the case. Neurons adapt, and after prolonged stimulation it's likely that the pleasure center is so disfunctional that it doesn't work anymore. Rats with electrodes in their pleasure centers will self stimulate until they die, but that doesn't mean they're actually experiencing pleasure. They're probably just "chasing the dragon" to use a drug metaphor.

Using restraint to avoid tolerance is a good example of executive function being used to maximize pleasure.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[h4rr4r]

The amount of calories burned in a single 20 minute period for a 170 lb. athlete is 206 calories. Your child will not burn that many as he probably does not weigh 170lbs.

Sorry, there is no way the kid burned 5000 calories. That would take 10 hockey periods(assuming they play 20 minute periods), 5 hours of football and 2.5 hours of mowing the lawn with a pushmower. That would mean he is exercising for at least 10.5 hours. I think you are making shit up.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[h4rr4r]

Sorry I ignored the calories burned just by being alive, claiming that this is 2500 still only removes one of those insane amounts of sports playing or cuts both in half.

Even 5 periods and 2.5 hours of football are more than professionals do.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Lemmy Caution]

Yep, you can train your pleasure center, which is what a lot of people who cut down on red meat consumption have done.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[cayenne8]

(using soy cheese, as I'm allergic to dairy)

While not putting you down for this....I understand the lactose problem thing....but it did make me think of something the other day, what was bothering me as I study vegeterianism, and especially when looking into vegan-ism....how they are starting to almost come back around the 'curve' so to speak, and eating heavily processed foods?!?! I've seen them eating meat substitute things, that looked like they'd been in the lab and processed as much as HFCS imbibed Twinkies, or some other artifical foodstuff.

One thing I was looking to do, in addition to eating more of my normal meals as plant based, was to get myself even further from highly processed foods, than I already was.....

That being said, I can see soy products (milk, tofu and cheese) as not being too highly refined as products go....I'm not giving up cheeses, I just want to cut out crap daily ones, and reserve my cheese times to special ones...good cheese like you find at the Whole Foods cheese mart...or even a local place like The St. James Cheese Co......

Like all good things...quality over quantity, eh?

Re:Cows eat Grass

[NatasRevol]

Still doesn't mean you know what the fuck you're talking about.

Yay, you can quote livestrong.com

Too bad you don't know that hockey, or sports in general, don't use run time. ie. 1 game is ~1.5 hours long. Plus 1.5 hours of kids playing pickup football without stopping.

But hey, it's ok. You're probably too much of an asshole to ever have the chance to have kids. So, I'm sure you're more of an expert.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[paiute]

These are not the only citations in the literature, just the first three that came up. The issue of antibiotic fate and persistence in the animal is pretty well known, so I am guessing that they dosed the animals in amounts which would reflect some steady state expected from normal feeding.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[h4rr4r]

Hockey is a timed game, played in periods of 20 minutes. It also has lots of stopping, for icing, for illegal hits, when the goalie grabs the puck, etc. Football has a lot of stopping and not all players on on the field at once. A game might be 1.5 hours, but odds are you are not on the field that whole time. I did play both of these games in highschool.

I am no expert, but you are simply pulling numbers out of your ass.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[idji]

And the corn was cheap because it was subsidized because the USA did not want to import cheap sugar from Fidel's Cuba and other Carribean islands. Maybe a real free market economy would have meant your cows ate grass, and your population wasn't so fat and diabetic from their fructose dependency.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[MightyYar]

My understanding of antibiotics is that you need to dose at least daily to keep serum levels up. I suspect they used this dose to see worst-case. I don't doubt that trace antibiotics exist, but I'm very skeptical that we regularly see level such as the ones in this study in our food supply. I'm sure they do slaughter sick animals - I'm just not sure that they dose them as they are on their way to the slaughterhouse! Why waste the antibiotic?

Re:Cows eat Grass

[kaatochacha]

Stop having fun you damn kids! Don't you now you're supposed to be serious? Now get off my damn lawn!

Re:Cows eat Grass

[tragedy]

Although, I am a bit worried about what this will do to gummy worm prices.

Well, since the primary ingredient in gummy worms is gelatin and one of the main sources of that gelatin is cows, there might be an interesting pricing dynamic there. On the one hand, you have increased gummy worm demand which could drive up prices, on the other hand, if you don't feed it to the cows, you have reduced cow supply, which could also drive up gummy worm prices.

Also, I should note that this means we're feeding cows to cows. That's nothing new, of course.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Your incidence of cold and flu infections steadily diminishes with age. Viral respiratory infections like a cold or flu are the leading causes of bacterial infections. That's why a doctor will often prescribe antibiotics for a common cold or flu. It's maybe not the best idea but it's not illogical as many people think it is.

Obviously we can't know your individual circumstances for certain, but changes in health is perfectly consonant with growing up.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you stopped eating meat in the early or mid 20s.

Correlation is not causation.

Also, regarding your milk allergy--is it a real allergy (i.e. histamine reaction) or just intolerance? Only a minority of people on planet earth are genetically lactose tolerant after adolescence. But even if those people stop drinking milk regularly, the enzyme lactase will stop being produced and lactose will 'cause discomfort until they regularize their consumption, again.

A similar phenomenon can occurs with wheat. Many people with so-called wheat allergies stopped consuming wheat for a period of time--perhaps because it was a fad, e.g. Atkins or the anti-Wheat craze. When they began consumption again, their digestive system wasn't producing the requite enzymes in sufficient quantities to process it again. Now they have a "wheat allergy", and stop eating it, even though if they consumed it regularly their system would adapt and they'd be just fine.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

You live in Orange, don't you

Re:Cows eat Grass

[paiute]

Interesting summary from SciAm: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=our-big-pig-problem

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

cheap beef is cheap not just in cost but also in nutritive value. Grass fed beef outclasses factory beef on every level. It is unhealthy to eat too much factory beef because it is an unhealthy product.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Zalbik]

Posting to undo moderation.....

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

moron, the plant is different than the seed. Is the corn lobby now able to buy mod points as well?

Re:Cows eat Grass

[DigiShaman]

With all the construction and building going on in Houston, you would think it could be the next "New York" of America. I've lived in Texas for over 30 years. Most of it in Houston. Just in the last five years alone traffic has sky rocketed along with rent and in some cases, housing too. People are flocking all over the US just to come live in Houston. It's not the wealthiest of cities, but it does provide solid employment with a low cost of living. At this rate, that won't last long at all.

Dense population or low cost of living. Pick two. You can't have both.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Adriax]

Uhm, I don't know where you got your information, but we don't consider mcdonalds burgers to be steak. Nor is the "steak" in a tv dinner considered real steak.

I can right now drive down to a local butcher and get stuff that was mooing the day before, grass or corn fed. Buffalo is also possible, and if the season is right so is antelope, deer, elk, and moose. The grocery stores carry beef sourced within 300-400 miles, tending to stay local if possible.
Even the cheapy stuff I got when I lived in LA was still pretty decent and nowhere near a "congealed protein paste".

Re:Cows eat Grass

[gmhowell]

Misery loves company. That's why people who are vegetarian, forgo red meat, don't smoke, don't drink, etc. are always trying to convert you.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

And since you were comparing bread and steak: the nauseating congealed protein paste you call steak isn't better in any way.

Ah, another foreigner who fell for the old "Would you like to try some tube steak?" routine.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowledge is knowing the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in your fruit salad.

Seriously, do people think they're racking up points by bringing up irrelevant technicalities? You and I both know that "grass" in this case does not mean "Zea species", and that maize has a substantially different nutrient profile than the grasses that cows usually eat.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[MightyYar]

Don't get me wrong, I'm on board with all the points they raise in that article. I even refuse to buy antibiotic soap. I'm just pointing out that nothing really supports the claim that our meat has a bunch of antibiotic residue in it. I'm certain there are trace amounts - just like there are just about everywhere these days. But I have to agree with the anonymous coward that a "citation is needed" :)

Re:Cows eat Grass

[OneAhead]

Bah. Corn's photosynthesis cycle is more than 10 times as efficient as grass's.

Hell no it isn't. Where do you people get these ideas?

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Disappointed he got a hotdog, was hoping for one up the butt.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! - Live longer so you can enjoy life less lol

Re:Cows eat Grass

[HornWumpus]

Are you sure you know the definition of 'silage'? Alfalfa makes hay.

A little time reading wikipedia will help you avoid looking like an idiot.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[TapeCutter]

IANA PhD student in biochemistry and microbiology and would also like to point out that nothing in the GP makes sense. Germs can mutate and become resistant to antibiotics. Yes that's a serious problem, but it's the germs that mutate not the human, the germs are not going to suddenlty reverse the mutation simply because you changed your diet.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[TapeCutter]

Bah. Corn's photosynthesis cycle is more than 10 times as efficient as grass's.

Bah, corn is grass, it is a member of the family Poaceae. ;)

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

The amount of beef you need to eat on a daily basis for your protein needs would be a cube (raw) is about 1.5 inches on a side, anything after that is just clogging up your colon and your arteries.

I can't make the math work out. That's what, 3 oz of beef? That's only like 20 or so grams of protein. You need 50g/day, and you may want much more than that if you do intense physical activity (weightlifters might want 200g/day).

Re:Cows eat Grass

[cheesybagel]

Remember when they used to joke that the Soviet central planned economy was so bad they were giving bread instead of feed to the cows because it was more available? Now in the US they feed cows with sugar snacks which are probably HFCS made from corn.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[couchslug]

Their future is a pneumatic bolt through the gourd on their way to becoming my next Big Mac.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[FishTankX]

I think that while carbs may contribute to obeisity in the american diet, they are not the root cause of it.

Otherwise you would see tons of fat chinese, japanese and korean people running around, but I live in Japan and I can count the number of obese people I see in a day on two hands. When I went back to America, I lost count in about 2 minutes.

High carb diets are not inherently fatening unless you are sedentary and/or are eating inappropriate portions. The same could be said of ANY food.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[infinitelink]

Speak for yourself, or for normals: when I go on an exercise binge I eat huge amounts of carbs and beef; I also do some things those two "bad" food words would lead you not to expect: I will wake up and eat ordinary oatmeal, maybe a hard-boiled egg, and a bowl of...mixed veggies, for instance. But if you are running for hours per day, lifting tons of weights, running some more, swimming, running some more, not only do you want a lot of that "unnecessary" and "harmful" beef and similar foods, but you want it in even larger volumes than the average fatso American eats. If the average American did approximately what is necessary to maintain good heart health, about 45 minutes of strenuous aerobic exercise a day, another 40 or so of running (which after a point isn't aerobic anymore), perhaps the quantities of flesh stuffed in their pie holes wouldn't be of concern: that steak might be about right for their healing requirements. Of course, you are right about people doing better by adding to foods: I have a Chinese roommate who stir fries a lot, and you can eat that stuff every meal. She'll make about five or six different stir fries at a time, and even with all that oil, eaten with the running/exercise regime and with plenty of veggies included, it would likely be far better than the average diet, AND you can cut-up that nightly steak and distribute it throughout the day. (Note "stir fry" here is used for more than a few tiny carrots, some broccoli, onions, peppers, mushrooms, + rice, as you would buy in a Chinese restaurant.) In fact, thanks for the great idea: now switching from excessively meaty stews to excessively meaty stir-fries. ;D

p.s. if you are beyond a certain point in development, in decent health, exercise plenty, etc., then I don't know if you should worry TOO much about non-organic meat: perhaps the antibiotics are no good: my background is bio so I would prefer they use less antibiotis on cows (even none, actually) and such too, but the various non-organic methods used in farming and ranching today were all developed not just to keep crops and animals alive, but also prevent problems and contaminations that harm PEOPLE when they eat those products: so they introduce evils for those who consume them, but lesser evils than what came before.

Over time I would expect, so long as there are diligent, careful, pride-of-work types innovating, more holistic, intelligent, surgical implementors of these techniques mixed and substituted by/for other methods found to be as effective, better, or more suitable depending on conditions and need. And when they show it to be economically worthwhile and profitable as those alterations are developed, others will adopt them...unless you keep permitting the politicians and their buyers to permit and uphold idea and method patents.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Linsaran]

Only $20 burger I ever bought was in an all American food challenge and included 3 half pound patties with cheese, bacon, onion rings in between each layer, and a 3 layer bun. It came with a side platter of cheese fries, and if you could eat the whole thing in 30 minutes you got half off, a tee-shirt for the place, and your ignoble picture hung on the wall under the challenges. But that's about the only time I can see myself paying $20 for a burger (and technically I only paid $10 for it so, even then).

Course, I'm probably (definitely?) contributing to the accurate stereotype that Americans are overweight fat-asses in doing so. Still I digress, $20 for a plain old burger is nuts.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[infinitelink]

I just want to point-out that cows evolved to eat pretty much anything that exists on what we refer to as "grassland", which includes more than what we call "grass", and that corn is, essentially, just a super-growing form of grass: the stalk may or may not be edible to cows anymore, but the kernels are just something like wheat-on-steroids (very imperfect analogy, I know). Why in the world are you worried about cows' sakes eating corn when they are being fed sweets like this?

Besides, your thinking is silly: they are bred and raised so that people can consume them: I can't see how that will turn out well for them...The part you and I have to be concerned with is the physiological (i.e. chemical) effects on the meat, and that means many more factors than merely their diets. The diet is just something easy to observe and handle, but I could eat donuts and coffee, and just a little else for protein and nutrients, and be more than fine as long as I moved enough to force the body to use it all well.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

If I eat beef every two days will I live twice as long? If not, I think you're practicing false economy. Beef is delicious. If you're trying to extend your life by avoiding pleasurable things, you're missing the point of life.

The amount of beef you need to eat on a daily basis for your protein needs would be a cube (raw) is about 1.5 inches on a side, anything after that is just clogging up your colon and your arteries. It's shocking, at least to me, to see people ordering huge steaks, which do more harm to their health than they are aware of. If you like to eat it, add it to things, like stir-fry or stew, and by all means go for organic or free range meat, not that stuff loaded with steroids and antibiotics (gotta keep that fat bull alive long enough to get to the slaughterhouse.)

Do you even lift?

Re:Cows eat Grass

[fearofcarpet]

While not putting you down for this....I understand the lactose problem thing....but it did make me think of something the other day, what was bothering me as I study vegeterianism, and especially when looking into vegan-ism....how they are starting to almost come back around the 'curve' so to speak, and eating heavily processed foods?!?! I've seen them eating meat substitute things, that looked like they'd been in the lab and processed as much as HFCS imbibed Twinkies, or some other artifical foodstuff.

Idiots can be vegans too, you know. Not all vegans and vegetarians are condescending, self-satisfied, zealots that think they're better than you because they read the Omnivore's Dilemma. People that stuff their faces with over-processed "meat substitute" or can't give up cream cheese so settle for some sort of white vegetable paste that purports to be a "vegan substitute" are no better off than diabetes-waiting-to-happen people that stuff their faces full of Krusty Brand meat-flavored sandwiches and wash them down with 6,000 calories of high-fructose corn syrup.

I am mostly vegan (I wear leather and eat honey and a bit of hard cheese), but not so much by choice as by genetics. Lacking the temptation to eat meat and dairy (both of which make me very ill) and being generally wary of processed foods, the most highly processed food that enters my house is dried polenta. And I'm not a sickly-skinny dirty hippie (on the outside, anyway); I locked out a set of 170 kg raw dead-lifts just yesterday. I'm not trying to lecture or anything--just pointing out that there is a way to avoid animal products that isn't lazy or unhealthy.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on which part of "East Bumblefuck Texas" you're talking about. Stuff around Bonham just isn't growing all that fast. Now, Paris, Tyler, maybe Greenville...differing story as best as I can tell. (Another ./ Texan with a Horse Farm out in "East Bumblefuck Texas"...)

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

And we won't get into the reality that humans aren't vegetarians and the suggestion of those sorts of diets are problematic for Humans and especially so for those humans who've had parts of their systems break down because of all the insane levels of Fructose in the diet that turn them into Diabetics.

You're not eating healthier by eating mostly veggies. Seriously.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[TheLink]

They should take it up with Harvard: http://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/whats-the-beef-with-red-meat

That said the Japanese study is interesting, perhaps:
a) the beef they eat is different
b) the way they cook it is different
c) what they eat with it is different
d) 3 oz (85g) of beef per day doesn't kill you significantly faster.

So maybe beef is not actually bad for you and it's something else, however if you're going to eat US beef, US style in US quantities, then the Harvard study is more likely to apply than the Japanese study ;).

I may be wrong but I get the impression the Japanese generally prefer quality over quantity when it comes to food.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[bogjobber]

It's not necessarily that simple, though. Corn is a hardy crop, but it requires rich soil with good drainage. You can graze cattle on marginal land that would be unsuitable for farming. And land that for whatever reason makes it difficult to farm (rocky, steep, marshy, etc.). The biggest cattle-producing regions historically are places that are ill-suited for intensive agriculture.

The high reliance on corn as a finishing feed for cattle has more to do with the fact that agricultural subsidies have made it incredibly cheap and abundant than it does with sensible land use policy. Raising cattle on marginal rangeland and occasionally feeding them fodder makes a whole lot more sense than shipping them off to Colorado or Western Kansas to be fed grain that was shipped in from Iowa and Indiana once you account for all the agriculture subsidies and transportation costs associated with corn production (not to mention externalities like CO2 pollution and fertilizer runoff!). Corn is more efficient in calorie-per-acre, but acreage is not the limiting resource in the US. Water and fossil fuels are.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[zblack_eagle]

...the germs are not going to suddenlty reverse the mutation simply because you changed your diet.

However it is possible that the mutation that allows resistance to antibiotics is disadvantageous in the absence of antibiotics when competing with non-resistant strains, and so non-resistant strains would become dominant again.

Just an idea. Not agreeing with the anecdote above

Re:Cows eat Grass

[bogjobber]

Anonymous coward is wrong. You can eat beef every day, but try and limit it to 4 oz. or less and keep a close watch on the saturated fat in your diet. Beef is actually extremely nutritious. It's only unhealthy if you eat large servings on a regular basis, which is pretty typical in the US.

You're practicing a false dichotomy. Eating healthy can still be enjoyable, and heart disease and colon cancer certainly aren't very pleasurable.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[ryzvonusef]

But doesn't fish carry it's own headaches? I am referring not only to mercury related problems that eating fish might cause, but also the other pollutants that we dump and get in to the fish's diet.

Frankly, to take a cynical view, nothing in is unaffected. I believe even those organic/farm-range/fishries stuff is also, possibly unintentionally, polluted.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[hoboroadie]

Citation needed.

Do you live under a rock?

Re:Cows eat Grass

[hoboroadie]

Wrong-o
If you check the CornCorp websites, you will clearly see that "sugar is sugar", &c.
Rather than debate the science with a cut-priced brain, why not just point out the fact that HFCS tastes fucking awful and ruins everything that it taints.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

is the pleasure you derive from food so important that you would essentially kill yourself eating it? This is a question I've asked myself, actually. The answer was: enjoy food. However it needn't be central to your enjoyment of life. Read a book, listen to music, get outside -- yeah, very exciting stuff. The point is, there are other things to do than eat that are enjoyable.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Bob the Super Hamste]

The 74 charger I understand the issues there (it was never designed to run on ethanol) and you really should be going to a boutique fuel like the mid 90s octane non-oxy fuel. One you will avoid putting the ethanol in a system not designed for it and 2 it is a vehicle without a sealed fuel system and given the type of vehicle I would assume it is limited use so it just sits for long spans and the ethanol will absorb water from the atmosphere. Also since it is limited use I would suggest completely filling the tank when done as that gives less volume for air to hold water in. If you didn't want to worry go and get an alcohol safe fuel pump some stainless steel fuel line, an alcohol safe fuel tank (or line the one you have), hardened valve seats (you should already have these since that vehicle was designed for leaded fuel), and an alcohol safe carb and gaskets. All of these should be easily available for the charger as they are a popular race vehicle and drag racers run alcohol in them all the time.

It sounds like there is something strange going on with you honda fit as it was designed with the 10% ethanol fuel in mind. If you ran on a 10% mix of water you would expect to see a 10% drop in mpg but since you are seeing closer to a 15% drop something is very wrong with that vehicle as there is energy to be extracted by burning ethanol (it has roughly 2/3 the energy by volume as non oxygenated fuel) so a correctly running vehicle should see a 3-4% drop. The other thing that may affect the fit would be if you are driving mostly short trips in it. As ethanol contains less energy per unit volume and has a higher latent heat vehicles running it will take longer to warm up fully and thus runs rich for a longer span of time that it would otherwise. This will cause a substantial drop in mileage. I see a noticeable drop in mileage in the winters here in Minnesota as my vehicle spends a very long time in the warm up cycle. If this is the case the cheapest solution I can think of would be to get a block heater installed (inline with a hose, the frost plug ones, or one of the magnetic ones) as that would give you a warmer engine to start off with so it will spend less time in the warm up cycle. I installed one inline with a radiator hose this summer on my daily drive when my radiator decided it wanted to crack.

I do agree that ethanol as a general purpose motor fuel is a waste and we should really get rid of that albatross. The biggest problem with getting rid of ethanol as fuel is the oxygenated fuel mandate because it is is less toxic than what it replaced. We could use methanol or MBTE but if those leak out it is a bigger problem than if ethanol leaks out. As a boutique fuel it has some interesting useful properties but then other alcohol and nitro fuels do as well but those aren't used in any substantial quantities. If you don't care about fuel mileage you can produce some serious power by running an alcohol fuel as you can burn a bunch more per unit of air than you can gasoline and thus release more energy per power stroke. Also they have a much higher octane rating so you can run at higher compression ratios allowing higher efficiencies. Finally they have a very high latent heat so with a suck through setup with a supercharger it will cool the fuel air charge down substantially allowing you to pack even more into each cylinder. These properties are great for making power but really destroy any thing that resembles good fuel economy.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[trum4n]

It is required by law to run 10% in PA. There may be some crazy shops that break this law, but none near me, and none id pay extra for. I rather use it as a reason to assault a government official than pay even more for gas. Shit costs too much as is, and if my electric were allowed on the roads (fail emissions....think about it) then i wouldn't be using gas at all. Also: Read the manual for your car. I've never seen one that doesn't specifically forbid Methanol. I rather the research went to batteries than gas. Full torque at zero rpm is so much fun.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[taiwanjohn]

Now you're just being obtuse. The point here is grass vs. grain. Cows are not evolved to eat grain, whether it's corn seeds or wheat seeds or whatever sort of "grass" seeds you choose. Cows are essentially mobile fermenting vats with legs; their purpose in life is to eat lots of cellulose (not grain) and convert it into meat, methane, and poop. Feeding them grain not only fattens them faster, it also screws up their digestion and nutrition.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

People casually drinking "MegaGulp" high fructose corn syrup is a lot more innocous and dangerous than a large steak is, trust me. At least a large steak will fill you up.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[N0Man74]

I've never tried juicing (because I hated to throw away all the fiber), but I've made a lot of fruit and vegetable smoothies, but changes in my eating habits over the last year have changed my tastes as well.

I stopped adding sugar to things, and began avoiding(or at least greatly limiting) foods with added sugar. I was surprised at just how much more I began to enjoy fruits and vegetables. It has ruined my taste for a lot of junk food. Now, sodas are way too sweet and I notice unpleasant (artificial or chemical like) tastes mixed in that I never really noticed before. I also notice unpleasant tastes in many junk snack foods.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Anecdotal evidence:
My 2006 Nissan get roughly 6-7% better fuel mileage on the pure dino stuff. In my neck of the woods the prices are about 3.40 for 10% ethanol. and 3.50 for pure dino.

It is more cost effective for me to run regular gas.
The amount of fuel it takes to turn corn into ethanol ends up creating a net loss of energy. It is also a waste of water and good crop land. We should grow stuff for food instead.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're in San Diego, eat at the Burger Lounge. They only cook and serve grass-fed beef.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[YaddaMinski]

Look up the research yourself. Grain-fed animals that naturally do not eat grain produce less nutrients in meat and fat. So human nutrition worsens for those that eat meats.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

The page 12 of http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2134130/?page=12 appears to state there really isn't much concern over the antibiotic issue.

"The induction of antibiotic resistance in the microflora of the gut or the establishment of resistant organisms in consumers from contaminated meat are also very unlikely." But does say that if you have an allergy that may be a concern.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

The pleasure center of the brain is a notoriously unreliable guide to decision making.

How does this get rated Insightful? It is a completely and utterly false statement. The pleasure center is a much better decision maker than any other part of the brain. It doesn't involve the ratio, which means it is entirely independent of schooling, and not influenced by preconceptions and misconceptions. The notion that it is 'unreliable' is entirely political and subjective. It made us the dominant life form on the planet, which is the only objective measure.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

I eat grass-fed beef nearly every day (on the days I don't eat Wild Salmon) and I definitely make below a median income. In the right locations, grass fed is the same price or cheaper than corn-fed nowadays.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[thomasw_lrd]

You can buy grass-fed beef online for the same price as you would get it from the grocery store. Grass fed beef is better for you, and better for the environment in the long run. Especially with the US mandate on ethanol gas.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[John Hasler]

> Cows evolved to eat grass.

Wrong. Their wild ancestors evolved to browse. Domestic cattle have been bred to eat what farmers feed them.

> No good came from feeding them corn.

Inexpensive, high-quality milk and beef came from feeding them corn and alfalfa.

> I can't see how feeding them gummy worms will turn out
> well.

Food processing waste (broken cheerios, old bread, damaged candy...) has been used as supplemental feed for centuries. Farmers know how to balance rations.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[lightbounce]

Don't worry. The price of gummy worms in the store is far above what cattle producers can afford to pay. Any gummy worms that wind up at cattle feedlots will be out-of-date or otherwise defective.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[John Hasler]

> Are you sure you know the definition of 'silage'?

Yes, he does. Farmers here in the upper Midwest refer to it as silage regardless of the starting material. It's the fermentation that makes it silage.

> Alfalfa makes hay.

Alfalfa chopped up green and put in a silo to ferment makes alfalfa silage, sometimes referred to as "haylage'.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[John Hasler]

Has it occurred to you that people whose livelihood centers around feeding and caring for dairy cows might just know a little bit about how to feed them? Calculating rations is one of the things farmers use their computers for. Balancing a ration for minimum cost within the constraints of correct quantities and ratios of dozens of nutrients is a well-studied operations research problem.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Winkkin]

Or fattened on genetically modified corn.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG, next time you're this funny, please do NOT be anon? Seriously, Spaghetti out the nose funny....

Re:Cows eat Grass

[WGFCrafty]

Errr... Does that mean when people are talking about grass-fed beef, they really could mean corn-fed? Grass has more than one meaning, depending on scope.

I suppose so but this may be a regulated term.

OBVIOUSLY I was not speaking of all plants which could be called grasses biologically, but was instead using it in the colloquial sense. In which corn is not grass at all.

If it was obvious I apologize for being dense but I didn't mean to seem like a condescending asshole

All semantic nitpicking aside, corn is a C4 plant, grass is a C3. Major difference in efficiency. Of course, sugarcane is even more efficient, but it's a bit hard to grow around here.

Uhhhh... what? Maize is a C4 plant, grass is not a C3 plant; the majority are, but near half are C4 plants. I'm guessing your trying to use grass in a similar colloquial sense, as you mention sugar cane and maize as c4 (and know they are grasses), but I dont understand how??

I mean heres from: http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/field/pastures-and-rangelands/native-pastures/what-are-c3-and-c4-native-grass

The presence of both C3 and C4 species can be desirable in a pasture as they can occupy different niches (e.g. C3 species are often more abundant in the shade of trees and on southerly aspects, while C4 species often dominate full-sun conditions and northerly aspects) and thereby provide greater groundcover across a range of conditions. It is not uncommon to find both C3 and C4 species in one paddock. This has advantages in providing a broader spread of production throughout the year for both grazing enterprises and native animals.



sorry if I seem to be obtuse or making this harder than it is but I'm just a bit confused .

Re:Cows eat Grass

[WGFCrafty]

Now you're just being obtuse.

sorry if it seemed that way

Feeding them grain not only fattens them faster, it also screws up their digestion and nutrition.

To most farms it would seem since A is the point B doesn't matter.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

And what do bulls eat?

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Byrel]

Yeah, I was talking about grass colloquially. But you are right that even that includes loads of species, some of which are, indeed, C4. I clearly didn't put much time into my previous reply...

In this thread though, what I meant when I said grass was ordinary, pasture grasses that cows might graze on, and might be harvested for hay. Now, my knowledge of biology is fairly limited. I would be interested to learn more about common C3 and C4 grasses, but that link is dead. Do you have another handy?

sorry if I seem to be obtuse or making this harder than it is but I'm just a bit confused .

Well, I overreacted a bit too, and perhaps it's only obvious inside my particular dialect. I came from farming country in the midwest, and it's quite possible I absorbed some jargon terms... All in all, it's a rather complicated issue, and this isn't the easiest forum for the in-depth discussion this topic deserves.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Byrel]

Err. Midwest of the US that is. Not of Australia. :)

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Byrel]

:D Sounds good to me!

Although, it might not be so good for my waistline...

Re:Cows eat Grass

[dywolf]

Ya...that statistic is about as realistic as Romney's face tan last week.

One pound, per person, per day...so 4 pounds in an average family a day, 28 in a week, and 120 in a month.
at a cost of at least 2$ a pound, more for the beef, so roughly 300$ a month, just on meat?!
My families entire grocery bill for the month isnt that high.

Dude you are so full of crap its not even funny. Your statistic is bullspit. If you got it from someone else, you need to engage the grey matter and evaluate it before repeating it.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[dywolf]

Let's go further. A pound per resident, per day, you say?

300 million residents. 365 days a year.
109,500,000,000 pounds of beef consumed every year by the people of this country.
That's 109.5 BILLION pounds. But you said 25%...so 27,375,000,000....27.4B pounds.

The average cow is 1000 to 1600 pounds, depending on breed and purpose. Let's go with 1200 lbs on the hoof for the average beef cow raised for slaughter (that 1600 is for a large bull stud, they make up little of the meat market).
But wait! You don't eat the whole thing. You lose about 450-550 lbs to bones. Call it 500. That leaves 700 lbs of meat per cow.

We're won't even going to get into the different grades of beef here (some fit only for dog food, etc) or different cuts and peices of beef.

So...27.4 Billion divided by 700 gives us 39,107,142.9 cows required, per year. Just to feed one country with only 300M people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle#Population

Almost 100M cows in the US. So talking about just us, and slaughtering a third of our cows every year.
Problems with that number: Of those 100M, only about 14M are destined for slaughter, a third of the required number.

Of those 14M destined for slaughter, not all of them will be. Why? Cause it takes longer than a year to get a cow to size; the average for steers raised to slaughter is 3 yrs. So now you're down to about 4.7M cows slaughtered for consumption in any one year.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! Of those 4.7M, a large portion will not be marked "fit for human consumption" and go to making dog food, etc.

And that's just the beef. There's even less meat on the other critters, requiring even bigger populations to meet the statistic you pulled out of your ass.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[omnichad]

Why are you calling LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol dense? It's because it's NOT dense that it has such a bad effect.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[omnichad]

It's that short term memory loss. It affects the perception of time.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[omnichad]

Where can I find grass-fed ground beef online for $2.39/lb. with free shipping? I'll admit I live in the midwest where prices are lower in general, and we're in the middle of a beef glut as cows are being dumped on the market in anticipation of an extended corn shortage.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[thomasw_lrd]

Of course it depends on what you're paying per lb. Last time I looked at the price per pound I was over $4/lb. For you, it makes no sense.

Here is where I found it for $5/lb

http://www.perryfarmsgrassfedbeef.com/order.php

Also here it is a little less than $5/lb.

http://www.mcallenranchbeef.com/shop/

Re:Cows eat Grass

[englishknnigits]

Understandable confusion, here is an explanation from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-density_lipoprotein

"LDL particles vary in size and density, and studies have shown that a pattern that has more small dense LDL particles, called Pattern B, equates to a higher risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD) than does a pattern with more of the larger and less dense LDL particles (Pattern A)."

Re:Cows eat Grass

[fm6]

What, you don't believe in Mitt's tan? Next you'll be telling me that airplane windows don't roll down!

Forgot where I got the 1 pound figure, but here's a pretty authoritative source:

http://www.dailylivestockreport.com/documents/dlr%2012-20-2011.pdf

That one says about 3.5 pounds a week. Which is a lot less than what I said, but still a lot. A healthy diet is slightly less than 2 pounds a week.

And it use to be a lot higher. Perhaps I was looking at some old stats. I think we can agree that cost is driving down consumption

And a $150 a month just on meat? Sounds about right, if you remember that it's an average. Some folks eat no meat at all. Some eat more.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[Reziac]

You're forgetting that before there were cattle, there were bison, filling exactly the same evolutionary niche and doing the same things, in similar numbers. Grasslands evolved to be grazed, and it doesn't matter whether that's done by cattle or bison.

Re:Cows eat Grass

[mcgrew]

No, one can see it as young as thirty. If you have memory loss at 30 you're smoking too much weed.

Buy grass fed only...

[Kenja]

Not only does it taste better, but corn and "alternative" feed is directly linked to the evolution of resistant ecoli strains. Only reason to feed cows corn, or corn sysup in the form of gummy worms, is due to farm subsides making corn literally cheaper then weeds.

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[Microlith]

corn and "alternative" feed is directly linked to the evolution of resistant ecoli strains

It is? I would have had the overuse and abuse of antibiotics in factory farms pegged as the cause to antibiotic resistance in E. Coli.

Only reason to feed cows corn, or corn sysup in the form of gummy worms, is due to farm subsides making corn literally cheaper then weeds.

Basically. Leveraging a subsidy in one industry for yourself. I say fuck Iowa and end the corn subsidies.

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[GodfatherofSoul]

I've read that our Iowa-first Presidential campaigns are a reason for the entrenched corn subsidies.

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[Kenja]

corn and "alternative" feed is directly linked to the evolution of resistant ecoli strains

It is? I would have had the overuse and abuse of antibiotics in factory farms pegged as the cause to antibiotic resistance in E. Coli.

Strage as it sounds, yes it is. There have been a great many scientific studies and articles published on the subject since the mid 80s. Basically it comes down to how the cows dont have the digestive system to handle the grains which results in PH changes in their stomaches allowing e.coli to thrive and survive being "passed" by the cows. The resulting e.coli laden excrement gets stuck to the cows and does not properly get washed off during processing into meat. The solution the beef industry came up with was to wash the meat in ammonia rather then switch to grass feed even for a couple weeks towards the end of the cows life.

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[Byrel]

This doesn't help develop resistant E. coli; it helps E. coli get into our food. Antibiotic-resistant E. Coli develops the same way any resistance does in a population: strong selective pressure. In this case, the only significant source of selective pressure is antibiotics. Now, I don't know if factory farms abuse antibiotics or not. But heavy use of antibiotics is the only thing known to develop significant populations of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically, grains are good for nothing. No one should eat them.

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[tomhath]

Drug resistant E. coli evolved in response to drugs given to patients with E. coli infections. The association to livestock is tenuous at best, but the association to antibiotic usage in healthcare is very well documented.

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, he left out that part: the rich diet which causes this e. coli bloom in the cow's stomach can make them sick, so the agribusinesses will often add in a steady schedule of antibiotics to keep the cow "healthy" despite the bad diet. This leads to the development of resistant strains.

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[MarkRose]

The majority of cattle are fed grass for most of their lives because it's cheaper. Sometimes grains are used through winter when there isn't hay available, and grains are also used on a supplemental basis for more rapid growth. It's usually when they have about six weeks left that they're shipped off to CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) where they are fed grains to fatten them up. Many (most?) people prefer the fattened meat as it's sweeter and more tender, and the price paid for the animal is by the pound. Grain fed cattle are usually raised through one winter. Grass-fed only cattle usually need two winters to reach the more profitable sizes.

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[h4rr4r]

False, they are good for cheap calories. Like everything else moderation is the key. For some humans these cheap calories are all they can afford.

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[jburroug]

You're both right.

E. Coli naturally lives in the bovine digestive track and older strains of it had no tolerance to a highly acidic environments - a grass fed ruminate's stomachs have a fairly neutral pH - and so weren't a threat to humans if we consumed any. Feeding cattle a lot of corn lowers the pH in their stomachs enough that E. Coli strains have now evolved enough of an acid tolerance to survive in our guts and do bad things to us.

Cattle get sick a lot easier with the more acidic stomachs, since they never evolved a digestive track capable of handling strong acids, which is only exacerbated by the conditions they live in at the feedlot so they have to fed antibiotics by the shovel full every day just to survive long enough to be slaughtered. Thus the now acid tolerant E. Coli also gets a chance to evolve tolerance to a wide array of antibiotics.

Finally modern slaughter houses run so fast, mostly with untrained immigrant labor, that they can't even be bothered to butcher the animals carefully enough to avoid getting shit all over the meat. The shit contains E. Coli and when you eat this meat (especially meat ground at the factory) you end up eating some of this infected shit.

Cheers,

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[saveferrousoxide]

yea capitalism!
<rant>of course that's a grossly simplistic generalization of an economic system which seems to have the fewest downsides and the most built in personal freedom of any of the large-scale economic systems in the world today and the real problem with capitalism is that there is no mechanism to keep the greedy fucks from rising to the top and driving industry standards because it's the only way the non-greedy fucks can stay viably competitive other than artificial/external factors like government regulation and playing the "nice-guy" card.</rant>
still.
yea capitalism.

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[Hatta]

Basically it comes down to how the cows dont have the digestive system to handle the grains which results in PH changes in their stomaches allowing e.coli to thrive and survive being "passed" by the cows.

Sounds like the solution isn't antibiotics, but antacids.

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch the documentary Food Inc. It is decent and explains what the food industry has become. The corn subsidies really need to go. They make no sense. Soybean is probably better crop anyways. Plus, the US is hurting their trade agreements with the corn subsidy since no one wants them to corner the corn market.

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[Bob the Super Hamste]

And this is why I buy my meat from a farmer I know and get it butchered at a quality processor. No feed lot, not pumped full of hormones, proper sanitation, good butchering, very limited antibiotics (there is a good chance that the animal I eat didn't get any in its entire life). Granted the farmer has lost 2 cattle in 28 years but the first one was in the winter of 96 when it got down to below -40 and the other was a calf 2 years to wolves. He maintains a small herd of 10 to 12 cattle on his 40 acres where they just wander about eating mostly alfalfa leading happy cow lives. The meat looks, smells, and tastes better than the stuff at the store and at most restaurants.

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[tompaulco]

So, don't swat the flies, because then the ones that don't get swatted will reproduce flies more capable of avoiding swatting?

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[Byrel]

I didn't mean to imply that getting E. Coli into our food was a good thing...

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[jwhitener]

I second the taste argument. Not only for grass fed beef but also for grass fed milk. It has more flavor.

Plus, since it usually costs more, it tends to limit how much beef I eat, which is a good thing for a variety of reasons.

Re:Buy grass fed only...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up. He is the only poster so far that actually knows something about raising cattle.

Why not bugs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Grubs, ants, and crickets can be pretty nutritious and it's hard to sell them to people.

Organic insulin.

[AuralityKev]

I insist we only use organic insulin for all of the newly diabetic cows! It's sustainable... or something.

Re:Organic insulin.

[fakeid]

I insist we only use organic insulin for all of the newly diabetic cows! It's sustainable... or something.

I'm sure Wilford Brimley will be along at any minute to help out our diabeetus-stricken cows.

You're eating your own feet and bones.

[Anne_Nonymous]

Sounds like a great CJD transmission vector.

Re:You're eating your own feet and bones.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever modded this as 'troll' is a moron who doesn't know what gelatin is, where it comes from, and what it is put into.

Re:You're eating your own feet and bones.

[Penurious Penguin]

Yes, a vector indeed. Gummy worms comprising of gelatin, and gelatin comprising of bone and bone -- other than brain -- being the most common vector for rogue prions, you may have a point. What's undeniable, however, is that feeding gummy-worms to cows is cannibalism -- a diet that has been largely discouraged since it was discovered as a possible connection with BSE. Gelatin manufacturers claim to treat the gelatin in a manner which "minimizes" the risk of transmission, but I have always had serious doubts. I think Japan and Korea have doubts too, which is probably why they've banned US beef in the past, or still do.

Re:You're eating your own feet and bones.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, you can't sell the beef or diary products to EU. EU has a ban on human foodstuff from cows that have been fed feed with animal content.

Granted, Europeans don't consume much US meat and diary products, and most kinds of US made foodstuff is usually stopped at border controls from being imported into EU because of the relatively poor hygienic and safety standards in USA (EU have yet not a generic ban on, the usually, bad US foodstuff like poultry, pork, eggs or beef, but with all the extra costs and health hazards with importers trying to sneak in substandard US-made foodstuff, it is probably just a question of time; several countries outside EU (e.g. Russia, Japan) have generic bans on importing some kinds of foodstuff manufactured in the US). But Europeans eat sa lot of US-manufactured candy with gelatine and sugar as the main ingredients, as well as drinking US made orange juice (gelatine is used in the manufacturing process to clear the juice form residues, although most manufacturers outside US use different processes, like semipermeable membranes).

Buy local

[GodfatherofSoul]

Look for local farmers; produce and meat if you can find it. Do a side-by-side taste test and you'll see what I mean. The differences between "natural" farm products and industrial farm products are tangible. My boss has a small farm and the eggs are like night-and-day between the regular supermarket fair.

Re:Buy local

[Hatta]

My boss has a small farm and the eggs are like night-and-day between the regular supermarket fair.

Have you tried this double blind?

Re:Buy local

[Fished]

I have. Bought some hamburger from the supermarket, and had some hamburger given to me by one of my parishioners (at the time I was a pastor.) Served them at a party, without telling anyone, and several people commented on how good the "plain" burgers were. Most said something like, "oh, this tastes like the beef I had as a child!"

Re:Buy local

[boristdog]

Many have studied this:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/eggs.aspx

Re:Buy local

[Anonymous Coward]

That's single blind, not double blind, since you knew which burgers were which when you served them and collected results.

Re:Buy local

[h4rr4r]

That might be hard to do, would have to blind fold the taster. The small farm eggs I have seen had bright orange yolks and being so fresh the yolk stood up and the white stayed very close to it when the egg was fried.

Re:Buy local

[Anonymous Coward]

This can depend a lot on where you live and what products you buy though. I've lived places where the local farm meat tasted horrible or really bland, in addition to being more expensive. While at the same place local farm veggies were good, as opposed to other places where I lived that had horrible veggies and great meat. In some cases, I'm not sure how much benefit there is to driving around to a dozen places trying to find some produce better than the supermarket can find.

Re:Buy local

[Anonymous Coward]

You're exactly the doofus that Penn and Teller catch when they challenge the whole "organic food tastes better bullshit". I'd bet your soul that "natural" farm products (what in the hell does that even mean?) are the same.

They asked people to try two different bananas, one grown by factory methods, and one grown "organically". People overwhelmingly picked the so-called organic banana.

Then they show them that they tasted pieces from two halves of the SAME BANANA!

Doofus!

Re:Buy local

[Githaron]

I haven't done a comparison with meat but eggs are fairly obvious. We used to have chickens and we would give away eggs to friends sometimes. We have had people afraid to eat them because the egg yokes were "too yellow". They also taste a lot better. Of course, I am sure freshness also affects the eggs. Home raised eggs are usually consumed closer to creation than commercial eggs.

Re:Buy local

[Hatta]

Increased nutrients are good, but the parent post was talking about taste.

Re:Buy local

[Hatta]

I raised chickens in high school, free range in my back yard, and there was nothing obvious about the difference between them and store bought eggs. If it is that obvious, it should be easy enough to conduct a double blind study. As you note, you would have to control for freshness.

Re:Buy local

[h4rr4r]

Which only proves that people are susceptible to suggestion, we already knew that.

People would have also picked that banana had they told them it was some special variety. What you believe about something can actually influence how you experience it.

You are a Doofus, if you think the goal of organic farming is better tasting food. The goal is the use of these methods themselves. I am not suggesting they are good only that you are being conned and did not even notice.

Re:Buy local

[Githaron]

Did you let them roam or did you keep them in the coup? Except during the winter, ours spent most of their day outside the coup. They probably ate a lot of bugs and grass seed.

Re:Buy local

[Githaron]

Never mind. My eyes skipped over "free range" the first time I read it.

Re:Buy local

[wierd_w]

Were your chickens free ranged?

Freeranged chickens that eat large quantities of insects (like grasshoppers and crickets) as well as weedy greens (like henbit) are what produce the neon-orange eggs.

(Personal experience. Anecdote != data, et al.)

Re:Buy local

[Hatta]

Yes, to our neighbor's dismay we let them roam free. It was a rural environment, but more than a couple times they wandered a quarter mile or so through the woods to our neighbor's garden. He also kept chickens, so the last time it happened we let him keep them.

I've also bought free range eggs at the farmers market here a few times. They do have a firmer yolk before cooking, because they're fresher. But I can't detect any difference in flavor, so I don't do that anymore.

Re:Buy local

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you are doofus if you believe a TV program.

Try this:

Get a pound of regular ground beef from the super market and a pound of grass-fed ground beef from your local farm market.

Then just SMELL them. Uncooked.

In my region anyway, the grass-fed beef smells okay, slightly sweet while the other smells noticeably disgusting, a bit like fried liver.

Then you have the issue of various chemical additives and things like Mad Cow disease. Am I a doofus for wanting to reduce the risks of poisoning myself by taking the time to know my food producers and learn about their production methods?

I'd say that people who DON'T take the time to inform themselves directly are the ones being foolish.

If you don't run your own tests, then you are quoting from ignorance. TV isn't your friend, and Penn & Teller aren't as smart as they think they are.

And by the way, Bananas aren't beef. The reason you get organic bananas is not for taste; (I can't tell the difference, and yes, I've tried both), it's because one is sprayed with fungicide and the other isn't. And no, it's not just for my sake that I want to encourage the use of non-sprayed bananas, it's because I don't want to support an industry which exposes their workers to poisons.

Re:Buy local

[h4rr4r]

Your comments would be better direct at the GP than me.

I mentioned the real advantage not being taste but health.

Re:Buy local

[CannonballHead]

I would add my anecdotal evidence to the "yolks are much more yellow" camp. Our chickens' eggs are much yellower.

Re:Buy local

[Guiness17]

Close, somewhat unwittingly. I buy fresh eggs locally. I was visiting a friend and was in charge of breakfast the Saturday. Bacon and eggs, and he said 'wow, these eggs are good. Fresh?' I laughed and said yes, told him where they are from. Two weeks later, he's at my place. I again serve bacon and eggs...he has his and said "these aren't the fresh ones, are they? He was right, my supplier was out. I always knew the difference was there, but him being able to pick it out just like that cemented the difference for me. Sure, I knew which were which, but they all got fried!

Let Them Eat Cake

[lobiusmoop]

How come when something like 25,000 people die of malnutrition every day, food likely fit for human consumption is going to cattle? I bet it's all just a few days out of date too.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[LMariachi]

Gummi worms are fit for human consumption?

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Baloroth]

I know, it's a shame. Of course, we just need the millions of dollars to ship the food half-way around the world to the people who need it, and the refrigeration to keep it so it doesn't spoil in the process, all of which costs more than the damned food in the first place (not to mention using a vast amount of fossil fuels which will probably just make the problem worse in the long run). See, thats the problem: starvation doesn't happen because there isn't enough food in the world, it happens because there isn't enough food where people need the food the most. The problem isn't human-consumable food in the US being fed to cows: it was never viable to feed that to starving people in Africa in the first place. It's just not logistically viable. The problem is Africa (et alia) isn't producing enough of it's own food to feed its people (which is the result of a combination of problems).

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[ddd0004]

It's by far easier to get the food to the cows. Feeding most of those who die of malnutrition involves the following:

1. Get together enough food.
2. Send an armed force to overthrow the government or local warlord who is ruling the area where people are dying of malnutrition. If not, the ruling party will simply claim the food or stop the aid.
3. Deliver the food
4. Remain in the region indefinitely to keep the peace all the while the local region becomes more and more dissatisfied with the outside invaders and the casualties continue to mount.
5. Eventually leave the region and watch the warlords / corrupt governments return or civil war breaks out.

So in this case, feeding the cows gummy worms doesn't sound like that bad of a deal.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Anonymous Coward]

The real issue you've missed is the farmers will PAY for this random "food"

Poor people are starving all around you, it's not because they don't want to eat or food isn't available.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Anonymous Coward]

How come when something like 25,000 people die of malnutrition every day, food likely fit for human consumption is going to cattle?

The reason they are starving is because of their government and/or regional fighting factions prevent the food from reaching them.

Feeding everyone on earth, in todays numbers, is not an agricultural problem, it's a political and/or military one. Bottom line, you're going to have to kill a lot of people to get food to the starving ones. Which headline do you want and/or can you ignore?

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Chemisor]

Cows pay for the food they eat by giving us meat and hides in exchange. How will those 25,000 people who die of malnutrition pay?

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Anonymous Coward]

Because that's what the owners decided to do with it. When will you commies get it through your thick skulls that there's this stuff called private property?

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[h4rr4r]

Because there is no practical way to get this food to those people.

If you could get it there without it rotting or being stolen by warlords and governments maybe it would help.

You would also have to buy it at the same or higher prices than the ranchers pay.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Guru80]

The vast majority of discarded foodstuffs being proportioned to cattle feed would not help in the malnutrition department what-so-ever by giving it to humans. Drastically reducing one food source (cattle and all the products that are produced from them) also will not help those suffering from malnutrition, in fact you can make a case that it would only lead to more overall.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[LordLimecat]

Because the problem of starvation isnt one that can be solved by just dumping food near to those who need it?

Im pretty sure we've tried that and continue to try it (north korea, anyone?) and it just doesnt work.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[wisnoskij]

We already make many times over enough food to feed all hungry people in the entire world. World production of food is about enough to feed 11 billion people well, almost twice the number of people on the planet.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if they cows didn't eat that food, it would surely go for the people in need, things just work out that way.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should any grains stuff/other foods be going to cattle?
 
As has well been pointed out, the reason for starvation has nothing to do with food production.
 
But consider the amount of land that we cultivate to feed cattle and other meat producing livestock and how this land could be used for human food that would be more abundant and healthier and you start to wonder where the real problem in human society is.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Anonymous Coward]

Eating gummiworms is not going to help people dying of malnutrition

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[wonkey_monkey]

Because almost all of us are, to a greater or lesser extent, selfish.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno. When you fast for 24 hours, the things you get cravings for are anything sweet, fatty, stodgy, because carbohydrates are the first things that run short when you're not eating. Try it sometime.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is Africa (et alia) isn't producing enough of it's own food to feed its people (which is the result of a combination of problems).

Well, yes and no. Many of the famines that occur in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere are deliberately engineered by their own governments. Colonial divisions of the continent into post-colonial states left many "countries" a mix of some very mutually hostile religious/ethnic groups. The Ethiopian famines back in the 1980s, for instance, had far less to do with drought and far more to do with ethnic cleansing. Ethiopia was *exporting* grain during the periods of peak international food aid.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Anonymous Coward]

But you're fine with food fit for human consumption being turned into ethanol to power our vehicles?

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Anubis IV]

You're acting as if they're just burning the gummy worms when they could be used to save lives, but you'd be wrong both about them being wasted, as well as them being useful for the fight against starvation.

For one, gummy worms will not prevent malnutrition since they are lacking of basically any nutritional value whatsoever. They do have empty calories, but those won't stave off malnutrition by themselves. People still need to have sources for vitamins and minerals in order to survive.

Second, it's not like they're disappearing from the food chain. They're going into feed for livestock that will later be entering the food chain themselves as food that offers a significantly higher nutritional value. It's not a waste. If anything, I'd suggest that it's a better use for gummy worms than how they're being used now (and yet they're so good sometimes...).

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Myopic]

Because the problem of starvation is not a problem of production but one of distribution.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Anonymous Coward]

Look into it, they very well COULD be producing enough to feed its own people, but it's the absolutely rampant corruption at the top of the ladder that's keeping food from being produced to feed the locals, instead of ship away as tobacco or coffee or whatever product can feasibly be sold for more someone else in the world than given to the locals.

Honestly, I think cows should just be eliminated entirely. Don't get me wrong, a good steak is awesome, but for the absolutely crazy amount of waste that comes from the cattle industry, I'd be willing to give up the steak that I rarely eat anyway.

I mean hell, there's tons of alternatives! Bison is quite good, Emu has been shown to be viable, deer, elk, whatever. But nope, people are too hooked on beef, so it'll never go away.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Anonymous Coward]

When will you narcissistic a-holes get it through your thick skulls that there's something called common decency?

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a scientist researching human nutrition (in the footsteps of Dr. M. O. Bruker), and:

Absolutely definitely not!

Short-term... with appropriate vital substances (includes fiber and the like)... yes.
Long term: Only if you think suffering horrible diseases in all of your grandpa times, starting at 40, is acceptable.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Raenex]

Hello Somalia.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't been modded down yet? This post must not have been seen that much.

But you sound like a true businessman. "I could either get $5 from this cow and watch a thousand people die, or not. Well shit man, that new backscratcher isn't going to buy itself! Fuck the people, shove some more food into that cow."

I'd put money on you being the type of person that would eat half a sandwich, then throw the other half in the sewer directly in front of a starving child, just to see the look on their face.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[tompaulco]

How come when something like 25,000 people die of malnutrition every day [poverty.com], food likely fit for human consumption is going to cattle?
Corn is not terribly nutritious for humans. We don't process it well. However, run it through a cow first, and it can provide more nutrition PLUS it tastes better.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[kaatochacha]

Yes, but what you're not realizing is, your goodwill and happy thoughts do absolutely NOTHING for helping those people halfway around the world, other than make you feel a bit smug.

You decrying greedy capitalist= dead starving people
greedy capitalist running around with a pitchfork charging for things= dead starving people.

They don't care that you care. They care that they're starving.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[jd]

More so than anything produced by the fast food industry.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Byrel]

IIRC, Somalia was one of the few countries in Africa never colonized...

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Raenex]

No excuse for not looking things up these days. From Wikipedia:

"In the late nineteenth century, the British and Italians gained control of parts of the coast, and established British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland.[17] In the interior, Muhammad Abdullah Hassan's Dervish State successfully repulsed the British Empire four times and forced it to retreat to the coastal region,[18] but the Dervishes were finally defeated in 1920 by British airpower.[19] Italy acquired full control of their parts of the region in 1927. This occupation lasted until 1941, when it was replaced by a British military administration."

Or just do a search if you're still in doubt.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Byrel]

Err.. I did look it up. I was just being diffident to avoid direct contradiction. See: Other Wikipedia

My recollection of the history also concurred with that article. However, I do agree that the Somalia article seems to support your position.

I'm at a loss to understand how to reconcile the two articles. Perhaps there's some technical distinction...

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Raenex]

I'm at a loss to understand how to reconcile the two articles.

The article you link to has very few commits and looks like a junky, incomplete article.

Re:Let Them Eat Cake

[Byrel]

True. And I just realized in further reading, that the history I was thinking about was Ethiopian, not Somalian. My mistake.

This is what happens when Gov. picks "winners"

[shellster_dude]

Corn prices go up because of ethanol subsidies which drive an otherwise failed alternative energy source. Ethanol makes no economic sense, unless you happen to be a corn farmer and in bed with big government.

Oh the irony...

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it funny that the number one ingredient in most gummy bears is high fructose CORN syrup.

Re:Oh the irony...

[tompaulco]

I find it funny that the number one ingredient in most gummy bears is high fructose CORN syrup.
Yes, and my pastor was speaking on nutrition this Sunday and pointed out that most lemonade does not contain any real lemon, but furniture polish does.

Not quite sky-high

[Anonymous Coward]

Just approaching a level close to the natural price of corn, if our government wasn't subsidizing the corn industry by the bushel.
 
The same people who rail against getting rid of medicare and medicaid, and instead providing healthcare for all, crying out against "socialism"... These people seem to be fine that our tax dollars go to farmers to grow To Much Corn, so that they can be sold below actual cost and keep the price of feed down for our industrial livestock production.Keeping our price of meat unnaturally low, as well as a production scale that is downright unhealthy
 
  Not to mention the fact that out artificially cheap, government subsidized corn is then sold to other nations, and the main effect of this is it makes local farming for grain impossible to compete. Many of those Mexican illegal immigrants picking foodstuffs? Many of them were corn farmers in Mexico, but with cheap American corn flooding the market they lost their own market. Which in turn provides cheap, replicable, labor for America.
 
You want to really help the world? Can you live without $1 quarter pounders with cheese? Write to your Senators. Your Representatives. Your Governor. Demand from all to stop having your tax dollars artificially drive the price of corn down.
 
Side effects would be: Sugar in beverages. The farming industrial complex falling back to 1970's levels. More grass fed beef. And a fall in the obesity epidemic.

Re:Not quite sky-high

[tompaulco]

These people seem to be fine that our tax dollars go to farmers to grow To Much Corn, so that they can be sold below actual cost and keep the price of feed down for our industrial livestock production.
Well, that is to make up for the government putting corn oil in gasoline, which pushes the price up.

Re:Not quite sky-high

[omnichad]

Ethanol is made from cellulose, not corn oil.

Corn production goes towards ethanol fuel

[zfalcon]

We would probably have enough field corn for cows if a large portion of field corn didn't go towards the misguided mandated production of ethanol for fuel.

Re:Corn production goes towards ethanol fuel

[Anonymous Coward]

Bingo.... the percentage of crops that is going towards ethonal production remains unchanged since the drought began. That is why food producers are scrambling.

Corn Farmers are holding us hostage!

Chickens can so hav cookie!

[Byrel]

I grew up on a small farm with free-range chickens. Chickens are omnivores. They aren't quite as good at digesting weird things as ruminants, but they come pretty close. Consider that both are quite well adapted for eating grass. It's tough to get much in the way of nutrition out of grass, but they both manage it. In fact, their digestive systems bear some similarities. While a ruminant will puke up there food to reprocess it in their mouth, the chickens have a gizzard for a pre-stomach. The gizzard is full of rocks, and has a strong band of muscles around it which grinds the food apart before it ever gets to their stomach.

Furthermore, we fed our chickens scraps. You have to, as the summary points out, be careful with nutrition. Chickens will gorge themselves on moldy bread, cookies, etc. instead of proper food if you give them a chance. But if you're careful to not feed them too much junk at a time it can be quite economical, and the chickens love it. We used to get rejected hamburger buns and feed it to them. There's nothing quite so amusing as tossing a single bun into the air, and watching all the chickens scattered across a couple acres come barreling up to you, flapping and squawking.

This isn't new, and it isn't really news. I'm sure it happens more now, as the designed food gets more expensive, but it's an old practice.

Re:Chickens can so hav cookie!

[jd]

Shhhh! Now everyone knows how to make self-breading chickens!

Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[eldavojohn]

Cows evolved to eat grass.

Humans evolved eyes to forage and see danger. We should stop looking at back lit squares since that's not what our eyes were evolved to do. No good came from looking at back lit squares.

No good came from feeding them corn.

No good at all. Unless, of course, you mean we preserved top soil by stopping massive herds from turning the entire nation into a dust bowl. Or perhaps the good that comes from us being able to furnish an ever growing population with food? There are some valid complaints about feed cattle feed corn. Saying there is nothing good doing it is a bit of a hyperbole.

I can't see how feeding them gummy worms will turn out well.

It'll turn out just fine. As someone who grew up on a farm, there is a certain ratio of what you feed your cattle. You give them a safe percentage of raffage mixed with ground feed mixed with whatever you want. You know they're not giving them straight up gummy bears but rather cutting the already diverse mixture of what makes for a healthy cow. Yes, some farmers mix in antibiotics into cattle feed, yes some farmers engineer their feeds to make cattle produce more milk or become more bulky for a higher profit. And those can have consequences -- probably worse consequences than gummy bears! I do not understand, however, why we get to be engineers with computers yet when a farmer does their own experiments with altering a diet or using a pesticide that the FDA says is safe, we can sit here in our armchairs and condemn them for that sort of innovation. Do you think farmers sit at home and demand you stop using any computers because the lead that foreign manufacturing plants releases will someday affect their farmland?

Re:Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[Anonymous Coward]

New research shows that humans developed the ability to eat vegetables only 100,000 years after we became fully "human"... it was this move that allowed us to move away from watery climes as we needed fish to provide the fatty acids our brains require. We were originally completely carnivores.

Re:Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that for most /. users, and most tech-savvy individuals, they are middle- to upper-income, and have no real grip on how tough life can be.

It's easy to spout about the EVILS of chemicals and GMO products (which at this point, pretty much every animal we have tamed is a GMO). It's easy, because they have access to fresh, locally grown, and probably organic items that low-income and flat-out fucking poor people wouldn't be able to afford.

It's called a first-world problem.

Re:Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[h4rr4r]

The problem is they want to do an experiment and sell the result. Normally animals used for experiments would be destroyed not sold as food.

Re:Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[drinkypoo]

New research shows that humans developed the ability to eat vegetables only 100,000 years after we became fully "human"...

[citation needed] ... no, really, I need this citation. I could use this all day.

Re:Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[0xdeadbeef]

you mean we preserved top soil by stopping massive herds from turning the entire nation into a dust bowl... Saying there is nothing good doing it is a bit of a hyperbole.

Hypocrite much?

And besides, the actual Dust Bowl was caused by the replacement of prairie grasses (which cattle could eat) with intensive farming that stripped the topsoil.

Re:Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, if somebody wants to sell an experiment result, and somebody wants to buy it, why stop them? Let the mighty free market sort it out.

If people end up ill or dead, subsequent people will build on this knowledge (the discovery and building of knowledge - SCIENCE, don't you nerds love that?) and stop buying that beef, and those businesses will go out of business. Free market works.

The needs of the many (the market, the rest of us society) outweigh the needs of the few (the few who might die from eating that beef)

Re:Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[mhsobhani]

New research shows that humans developed the ability to eat vegetables only 100,000 years after we became fully "human"...

[citation needed] ... no, really, I need this citation. I could use this all day.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2206544/Humans-began-eating-plants-180-000-years-ago-aid-brain-development---affecting-diet-today.html and have a nice day.

Re:Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[Anonymous Coward]

You misread this. Early humans needed to eat things like fish in order to acquire the fatty acids needed for our large brains, yes. But this does not mean that early humans ate nothing but meat. The teeth of early humans show that they were definitely omnivores, just like modern humans. The research you're referring to showed that 100,000 years ago humans gained the ability to use/produce the needed fatty acids from a vegetable diet. This meant that eating meat was no longer absolutely necessary to support brain development.

Re:Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[h4rr4r]

If proper labeling existed I would agree.

The issue is these animals will be sold as normal meat. No mention will be made to the consumer of the extra antibiotics that had to be used to deal with this diet, if that was the case. The ranchers will not be held responsible if this leads to more antibiotic resistant strains.

Once again a big problem with supposed Free Markets is exposed, the lowest information actor is often taken advantage of.

Re:Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumbest. Most ignorant. Argument. Ever.

You top even the global warming deniers. Your mindsets certainly are the same.

Re:Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[Anonymous Coward]

Citing the Daily Mail is about on a level with citing the graffiti inside a toilet cubicle, only the cubicle's content is likely better composed and less malodorous.

Re:Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[Anonymous Coward]

If proper labeling existed I would agree.

Proper labeling arises from free market capitalism

Companies who don't label or lie about their label will eventually be found out (hard to not notice all those people getting sick/dead). People will stop buying from them and they'll be replaced by companies who do sell good beef with proper labels.

The ranchers will not be held responsible

The ranchers will go out of business when people find out about them.. That's how free market holds them responsible.

Once again a big problem with supposed Free Markets is exposed, the lowest information actor is often taken advantage of.

That's where "needs of the many" come in. Those lowest information actors are "the few" that are sacrificed in order to discover or disclose the information for the rest of society.

Libertarians may tell you "needs of the many" is socialist bullshit, but they'd be wrong. "Needs of the many" is one of the principles which makes free market capitalism work. A few people are sacrificed, and in return the market as a whole ("the many") is better off.

Re:Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[h4rr4r]

So far the free market has not done that. I doubt it ever will, the free market tends to prefer cheap and fast over good. When we had a free market in medicine we had snake oil being sold.

The lowest information actors will be sacrificed over and over, and not for the gain of the rest of society, but for the gain of the wealthiest few.

Re:Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[NatasRevol]

Proper labeling arises from free market capitalism

What utter and complete bullshit.

Re:Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[mcgrew]

Almost. What they needed in their diet that we no longer need was fish. The mutation allowed us to move away from the ocean.

Re:Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[Anonymous Coward]

So far the free market has not done that.
I doubt it ever will, the free market tends to prefer cheap and fast over good. When we had a free market in medicine we had snake oil being sold.

Haven't you heard all the libertarians on slashdot? We don't have a free market. Whatever time period you think was "free market" was not free market. Not even 19th century US (here's where I differ from typical slashdot libertarians) was a free market.

The lowest information actors will be sacrificed over and over, and not for the gain of the rest of society, but for the gain of the wealthiest few.

No, the rest of society will gain. Information cannot be contained, and will reach society sooner or later.

Even if only the wealthiest few gain, that scenario is still better than the alternative, where EVERYBODY but the rich are sacrificed.

The rich always wants to sacrifice somebody to make themselves richer. You can't force them to stop, doing so just makes you a tyrant, and you set yourself up to become the next evil rich guy.

Free market capitalism limits the sacrifice to only those at the bottom.

Would it be nice if nobody gets sacrificed? Of course, and I'd also like a unicorn and some sexy robot maids (you know what, the unicorn's optional). Those things may eventually come with advancements in technology, but we won't get there if we're all sacrificed by the rich.

Re:Computers Weren't Meant to Exist Either

[John Hasler]

> The problem is they want to do an experiment and sell the
> result.

Farmers have been feeding byproducts such as old bread, stale candy, broken cheerios, etc to livestock for centuries. They know how to balance rations. There is no "experiment" going on here.

some irony

[Sebastopol]

I like how some comments in the article follow this logic : eew! a cow turns gummy worms into beef and we eat the beef! but -I- am ok eating gummy worms that my body turns into me...

/scratches head/

Obligatory Charlton Heston

[jspoon]

Just don't tell them where the gelatin came from.

Gummi Cows?

[stoofa]

Muddy and fresian
they don't commit treason
along with the secret of always saying 'moo.'
Horned animals, bovine
they live in the sunshine
standing around on the grass that they chew

Gummi Cows!
grazing in the fields, but not the house
greater milk production than a mouse
they are the Gummi Cows.

Ethanol

[ax_42]

Fantastic -- distort the corn price through ethanol subsidies (so that a large chunk of corn which could be feed is used for ethanol production) and then give the ethanol producers a new market to sell their waste in. Your tax dollars at work, keeping the corn lobby happy, all day, every day.

Re:Ethanol

[__aaeihw9960]

You do realize there was a drought this year, right? Fields that usually yield 150-250 bu/acre are producing 2-30 bu/acre this year. Yes. Two. Subsidized, unsubsidized, it doesn't matter. That is going to make for high prices and alternate sources of feed.

Re:Ethanol

[fermion]

The simple solution is to feed the corn to humans instead of cows. In the US we produce more corn that we can use. While exports are less, they are still robust. The problem we see in grain prices in general do not effect the US, but where grains and the like form the basis of their diet.

The problem is that we are in a drought and we are using many gallons of water, hundreds?, to make a pound of beef when we could just use lamb, which requires perhaps a third less. Or we could just eat less meat.

Ultimate the free market will determine where the resources go. If one can afford to eat meat, go for it. But don't whine about prices being high. That is like whining about gas being high. Use less of it and it will go down. Look at the farm bill and ask about wasted tax dollars. Right now tax payers are paying money for useless beef. In ethanol at least the taxpayer gets value. Without it we would be paying to give corn away, which would serve an ethical purpose.Want farm subsidies to go away? Pay a good price for vegetables from local growers.

Re:Ethanol

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent comment! You hit it spot on!

Let's not think about removing subsidies (ever), because we want to take a bad situation and make it as FUCKING bad as it will go.

Re:Ethanol

[Anonymous Coward]

1. ethanol subsidies are over for a long while now
2. cows and hogs are fed "waste" from ethanol plants
3. there was this thing called a drought this summer - have you missed that completely???
4. cows don't eat corn - they are fed corn. Cows were even fed other cows in Britain - nothing bad happened there! Cows eat grass, clover, alfalfa, etc.

And corn fed cows develop high levels of the strain of ecoli in their stomachs that is deadly to humans, something that grass fed cows don't have. Poetic justice?

Re:Ethanol

[curiousJan]

Don't forget the drought's effect on the availability of hay for cattle feed as well. My father told me that prices have tripled and he's having to go farther and farther away to get what he needs to feed his livestock (which are given neither antibiotics nor hormones and are _darn_ tasty ... I usually don't buy meat from the store; it comes from a farm I know and love.)

Re:Ethanol

[__aaeihw9960]

That's a true statement - the hay one. I live in a northern(ish) midwestern state that usually only sells hay for 60-70 dollars a bale, and usually only locally. This year? 100-120 a bale, and I've sold to as far away as Texas this year. It's crazy.

I keep telling people in my day job that they need to prepare for ridiculously high food prices, but they don't believe me. Yet.

Re:Ethanol

[__aaeihw9960]

That wasn't my point, jackass. What you did is called hyperbole. It is rarely an effective argument.

What I was saying is that THIS year there was this thing called a drought. Now, if you're not sure, a drought is when it doesn't rain for a really long time. Like more than days, totally more.

Think desert, only shorter-term, and with less brown-people.

What I was saying is that it turns out that fucking subsidies aren't the main cause of higher corn prices right now. RIGHT NOW, the main cause of high prices is the fact that no one's corn did well.

Do you know any farmers? I would suggest you drive to the country, find a farmer, and ask him/her to tell you how his corn did this year.

Brawndo!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's got what cows need!

on this path lies enlightenment

[Thud457]

Come on Sebastopol, follow that line a reasoning all the way and close the loop.

Re:on this path lies enlightenment

[Sebastopol]

mind = blown

remind me never to play "Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon" with you!

Imagine Cannibals

[PmanAce]

Let us imagine for a moment we are all cannibals where half the population eats properly and the other half eats what is proposed here. We are going to have two distinct population samples, one of lean, fit and healthy individuals and one of fat, potentially sickly and unhealthy individuals. Now whom would you rather eat to stay healthy and generally live better and longer? Food for thought... This food proposal can't be good in the long run.

Re:Imagine Cannibals

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, put down the bong.

Nothing new here

[Fished]

I used to keep pigs, and supplemented their feed with week-old-bread from the food bank. My brother used to feed his cattle chicken litter (after composting it) during drought years. Farmers have been doing this sort of thing since there have been farmers.

Re:Nothing new here

[jd]

My great uncle certainly didn't, back in the 80s. Each cow had the predecessor to an RFID tag around its neck. When it entered the feeding station, food specifically mixed for that cow was delivered. (Dairy cows had a diet that maximized both health and the value of the milk. Beef cattle were optimized for health and meat value. But every cow was treated as a unique entity, using parental data, size and weight as primary inputs, with tweaks manually coded in.) He would probably have fed someone to one of the bulls if they'd suggested just throwing any old junk at the animals.

Ok, eccentric wetware hackers aren't exactly two a penny in the farming industry. But, then, that's part of what created the mess. Those growing corn sell it to ethanol producers, not other farmers or the food industry. The health consequences for farm animals in using the new alternatives to grass are a product of an abuse of the old alternatives to grass plus an abuse of antibiotics and other bulking-up agents ("angel dust" - PCP - is one farmers use, even where it's not legal, Clenbuterol is another).

If, instead of using illegal drugs, nonsensical feeds, steroids and antibiotics, they'd simply opted for a more sensible diet for each cow, they'd have had the same profits with none of the scandals. Higher initial costs (so it takes longer for the net profits to be the same), sure, plus having to think (always a problem for conservative, rural districts), but that's it.

Idocracy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this idocracy all over again? bob STL

Vatgrown!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just more reasons why we should advocate for vat grown meat.

Healthier, higher and more consistent quality, just as tasty and dense, and (once the tech is mature enough) cheaper than gutgrown.

Re:Vatgrown!

[slew]

Just more reasons why we should advocate for vat grown meat.

Healthier, higher and more consistent quality, just as tasty and dense, and (once the tech is mature enough) cheaper than gutgrown.

It's easy to speculate that technology that doesn't exist yet will be motherhood and apple pie, but in the 60's the futuristic tech fad was better living through chemistry and that somehow we could avoid the coming Malthusian Catastrophe by developing complete artificial food. Of course looking back, it probably seemed foolish that we had the tech to make cost-effective food substitutes out of vitamin formula, but fortunatly, agri-technology allowed us to increase food production to avoid the predicted Catastrophe and we didn't just toss in the towel on food and put our fate in with the vitamin gurus...

To assume that sometime in the near future we can just grow meat and it will somehow be "better" is the same '60's utopia thinking. We don't know how to do this and it's the height of hubris to think that even when we *think* we have it figured out it that sometime in the future, people will look back (just like the vitamin thing) and realize, we really didn't have everything figured out and for now it's still net-better to eat actual food, rather than the synthetic stuff.

Vatgrown meat might be viable from a technical perspective someday, but I'm guessing most folks would initially react to it the same way they did with "pink-slime". Of course the perceived problem probably won't be the same as with "pink-slime", but I'm assuming that we will have to feed the cells in this vat grown meat somehow and I'm guessing for economic viablity reasons, that it won't be grade A materials, or grade A sourced and even if people are screaming at the top of their lungs how much healthier and higher and more consistent quality, just as tasty and dense, and cheaper the stuff might be, there will be tremendous hurdles to overcome.

For example, look at the furor over carmine (red) dye in "strawberry" frappachinos. Of course the historical alternatives to red carmine dyes is Allura Red (aka Red #40) made from petroleum, or the original Amaranth dye (which was used to make stuff like candied cherries and which was linked to cancer). This overlooks the fact that carmine dyes were infact the historical choice (pre-dating the other industrial red collorants).

As you might suspect the company in question immediatly switched to a new Lycopene (tomato) based red collorant (untested, but generally regarded as safe) to appease the masses, but I'm sure there will be many such hurdles to overcome before Vatgrown even makes it out of the test-market phase... People get bent our of shape right now, when stores douse their meat with carbon monoxide to give it that extra-red color. No telling how are they gonna react to vatgrown meat that came from a soup of chemicals...

The CDC Reports...

[Anonymous Coward]

Trichinosis anyone?

Why don't we all just have an epic feast?

Shopping at Whole Foods doesn't make you an expert

[Anonymous Coward]

My in-laws own a ranch they raise beef cattle on. They grass feed them, not because it's healthier for cow/human or because they sell the beef to Whole Foods, but because corn feeding is too expensive. It has been too expensive for years, even before the recent drought caused corn prices to skyrocket. It simply costs too much money for the number of cattle they have (approx 100) to justify building the necessary feeding infrastructure, for lack of a better word. What they do is they take the cattle to a feed lot before they are sold for slaughter, where the cattle are fed corn to fatten them up. This adds to the overall cost to produce the animal, but the extra money they get for the larger animal makes up for it.

The comments about grass feeding being terrible for the land, etc are nonsense as well since anyone who knows what they're doing will rotate the cattle to different pastures. My in-laws let certain pastures become overgrown during bird hunting season (this time of year) and sell hunting leases to hunters. After the season, the cows come in and mow the fields. Farmers do similar things with cash crops, growing grasses for hay in between seasons where they have grown corn or other things.

It's easy to think of all farmers or cattlemen under this hat of big agribusiness fueled by farm subsidies and Monsanto, but the reality is often hard working people trying to make a living with their small business.

if we have another mild winter..

[wierd_w]

They should raise buckwheat on some of their pasturage, and encourage the corn growers to do so too.

Buckwheat has a bulk starch content of approximately 70%, bulk protein (including lysine, making it more complete than corn) of about 18%, and a fair amount of vegetable fats.

Its real claim to fame is that it goes from germination to harvest in a little over 2 months, and thrives on poorer soils. It prefers cool weather, and usualy produces about 30bu/acre.

It also improves soil nutrient availability to other crops planted later.

If it doesn't freeze in the corn belt again this year, like it didn't last year, it would be a good crop to attempt, as it could easily offset feed costs, and avoid "graining" their cattle on refuse gummybears.

On a side note... remember that post from last month about the complex system theorist predicting food riots?

Re:if we have another mild winter..

[denis-The-menace]

Please stop with these great ideas.

Wall Street needs chaos and using Buckwheat as a winter crop to feed cows will not provide the chaos.

And a hungry workforce is a cheap workforce.

Re:if we have another mild winter..

[wierd_w]

Great, that's all we need... corn and gummybear market bubbles.

Re:if we have another mild winter..

[Anonymous Coward]

Same goes for sorghum (milo): http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/sorghum.html

My Grandfather had a sandy approximately 5 acre plot on his dry-land cotton farm in west Texas that was poor soil for growing cotton, or much of anything else. He planted milo on the plot and every year, even in very dry years, harvested enough grain from it to feed 300 egg-laying hens, and supplement the feed of a core herd of 6 cows and a bull, 4 hogs and 2 horses (the bovines and horses also grazed on about 50 acres that were too rocky and steep to plant).

Re:if we have another mild winter..

[WillAdams]

Since the restrictions from non-participants investing in commodities markets went away, that's what one will get.

Until such restrictions are restored, Goldman-Sachs will continue to make money on the poor's daily bread.

http://www.economywatch.com/economy-business-and-finance-news/your-daily-bread-is-goldman-sachs-hottest-commodity.05-05.html

William

Re:if we have another mild winter..

[Rogue Haggis Landing]

If it doesn't freeze in the corn belt again this year, like it didn't last year, it would be a good crop to attempt, as it could easily offset feed costs, and avoid "graining" their cattle on refuse gummybears.

Just for the record, last winter was among the warmest ever, but it definitely did freeze here in the corn belt. Davenport, Iowa (for example) had subfreezing temperatures 4 times in October 2011, its first low in the teens on November 17th, and its first day with a subfreezing high on December 5. Buckwheat is a good cool-weather crop, but it isn't very frost-tolerant. It's too in the year late for it.

This is just a mild corrective to the parent. Buckwheat is an excellent alternative to corn, but for earlier in the season.

Re:if we have another mild winter..

[wierd_w]

Here in wheat country it didn't really freeze last winter.

I agree that if the buckwheat alternative was to be planted, it should have been at the beginning of september. It *IS* too late in the season.

However, due to the short season involved, it would make a good spring crop.

Further south, in OK, ad TX, (where the majority of cattle end up) the chances of freezing are pushed back more, so it might not be too late to plant there.

Additionally, the buckwheat plants themselves make good pasturage, so even if you couldn't collect a seed crop, harvesting early for silage (while in full flower, about 1.5 months in field) is also a potentially lucrative venture, given the scarcity of silage at market.

Corn is grass

[Anonymous Coward]

> Cows evolved to eat grass.

Corn is grass, from the Wikipedia article for Poaceae (also called Gramineae or true grasses):

"Agricultural grasses grown for their edible seeds are called cereals or grains. Three cereals – rice, wheat, and maize (corn)"

Distillers grains are not a byproduct of ethanol

[Anonymous Coward]

Distillers grains are not a byproduct of ethanol. Ethanol is a byproduct of grains that are mashed to extract the sugars, fermented, then distilled. It is common for local breweries/distilleries to give their spent grain to farmers for their cattle.

Your an idiot

[SmallFurryCreature]

Water is the constraint, not land. There is plenty of land available but no water to make it grow anything. What is needed to feed the world is agriculture that uses as little water as possible so arid conditions can be used for sustainable farming.

Farming corn only makes sense if fresh water was available in infinite supply and land was in short supply. Sadly the reverse is true.

Look up "dessert". Or do you think the dust bowl was an issue because the seasonal land didn't appear? No, it is the lack of water that causes problems. Not the lack of land.

Next time you watch starvation in Africa, take a hard look. What is missing? Water or land?

No doubt you vote for Romney, you sound like that type.

Re:Your an idiot

[Fwipp]

You mean desert?

Re:Your an idiot

[fruitbane]

Actually, while grass is water-hungry, cows can graze on a variety of plants, many of which are not water-hungry, and they can graze in areas which are unfit for crop production. Many of Africa's desertified and arid areas could be made green again by integrating native plants with smaller crop plots. This experiment has already been done in a couple areas and confirmed to work.

So yes, if you drag cows out onto a manicured lawn with modern, water-hungry grasses, it will prove to be less efficient than feeding them corn, but allowing them to graze plots of land sown with native plants which grow naturally in harmony with the local water table behavior you can feed cows more efficiently AND end up with healthier, if not more profitable, beef. Besides, I have yet to hear anyone griping about the effect free-range animals have on local water use compared to growing crops like corn which are known to be hard on the soil and water supply.

Re:Your an idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

It's you're not your.... An idiot

Re:Your an idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

These cows need Brawndo! It has electrolytes...

Re:Your an idiot

[kaatochacha]

You were going along so nicely, and then you switched into partisan land.
BTW, you smell.

Re:Your an idiot

[OneAhead]

Look up "dessert".

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dessert
a usually sweet course or dish (as of pastry or ice cream) usually served at the end of a meal
Interesting... tell me more. Is a "dust bowl" a seasonal type of dessert you humans enjoy at parties in some regions in the US?

Re:Your an idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

Desert is a type of biome
Dessert is an after-meal treat, like a piece of apple pie or chocolate cake or candy.

Here's a mnemonic for you:
Dessert as a second S as you want more of it...

My god - now even cows are eating junk food

[Anonymous Coward]

Now even our food eats junk food... Somehow I don't see that as an encouraging development.

Buffalo/Bison are the long term answer

[El Fantasmo]

Buffalo/bison are the long term answer. They are the natural grazers of the US and Canadian plains. They don't stay in one place to eat all the food and starve since they can't survive in the snow well and they're massive. It's estimated that the pre-columbian bison population was between 30 and 60 million head, while the current us cattle population is just under 100 million. Historic bison ranges don't mesh well with current agribusiness. But, corporate animal farms and McDonald's can't make DESIRED profits being environmentally responsibly. We shouldn't have Asian and European cow breeds/hybrids as significant meat sources in the US. If only we weren't interested in starving the remaining Native Americans and making buffalo rugs and coats in the 1800s, this may be less of a problem.

Re:Buffalo/Bison are the long term answer

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see a whole industry of kneecapping or blindfolding buffalos so Dick Cheney & friends can safely hunt them... that is if they don't shoot each other.

Re:Buffalo/Bison are the long term answer

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the Native Americans were part of the problem with the dwindling Buffalo herds, once we gave them horses that is.

They evolved to eat cookies?

[SmallFurryCreature]

I thought that was just women.

mad cow

[Anonymous Coward]

isn't this how mad cow disease started? feeding cows gummy worms which are made from gelatin which is rendered from cows doesn't sound like a great idea.

Good news is coming

[WindBourne]

Down the road, Joules Unlimited will produce most, if not all of our ethanol. And all without a subsidy. Why? Because they use our SEWAGE to create ethanol AND diesel at a cheaper cost. In fact, they claim to produce ethanol at less than $1.28/gal and diesel at less than $50 BBLE.

And to make matters interesting, they are scaling up. They have multiple foreign investors who want to spread this around the world.

Re:Good news is coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Shell here just bought and buried the technology. Were not done selling oil at 10 time what it is worth, with the only purpose to make rich people richer.
So if you think that is going to be given up any time before ww3 is over.
I wish I were young and naive again, when you still think there is hope and don't understand everything is fake,it is a wonderful time of life.

approximately 70% of earth's land has water

[Anonymous Coward]

Approximately 70% of earth's surface is, literally, covered with water. And over 65% of the earth's surface has water but is not being used to grow crops http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_of_earths_surface_is_covered_by_salt_water_only.

The problem isn't the lack of surface with water, it's that we are choosing to grow the wrong crops. Some people are starting to grow the right crops http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9606/18/t_t/saltwater.farms/index.html for the 65% of earth's surface that is still open for growing.

Quit boxing your thinking into the narrow bounds of believing that "land" has to have air on top of it.

As for what's missing in Africa ... that would be "stable government".

Re:approximately 70% of earth's land has water

[fruitbane]

It is the fresh water issue that is the problem. Most of the earth's water is salt water, which isn't much good for growing crops, though I do largely agree with some of your other points.

Re:approximately 70% of earth's land has water

[Anonymous Coward]

So you suggest a niche high tech solution for large scale agriculture?

Re:approximately 70% of earth's land has water

[spongman]

the amount of salt water is irrelevant. it could be a bucket, it could be a parsec^3.

the only thing that's important is the rate of precipitation.

Re:approximately 70% of earth's land has water

[tragedy]

Most of the earth's water is salt water, which isn't much good for growing crops

Depends on the crops.

Re:Distillers grains are not a byproduct of ethano

[WindBourne]

Actually, multiple ways to get ethanol. One way is simple fermentation via yeast. Another is using Algae. And the newest and most promising is using cyano bacteria and other prokaryotes.

What about humans

[Anonymous Coward]

Cows evolved to eat grass.

And humans evolved to scavenge rotting carcases. Thankfully we've all moved on.

Re:NOOOOOO!

[circletimessquare]

Why are Europeans so hung up on food?

The world would be better off without cows!

[na1led]

Considering how much feed they consume, methane they produce, and land they require. Why do we still keep them around? Is it purely for taste?

Re:The world would be better off without cows!

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it purely for taste?

DUH!

I see a market opportunity!

[sethmeisterg]

Bovine Dentistry! Yes, you heard it her, folks. I just have to go down to Sand Hill Road and shake a few palm trees and I'm be a meeeeeeeeeelionnaire before you can say Willy Wonka!

Re:I see a market opportunity!

[sethmeisterg]

Heard it *HERE*. Damn I wish there was a way to edit posts.

Old news

[Anonymous Coward]

This is nothing new for some of the larger farmers - if they can get something cheaper than corn, they've always been doing this. I head of one farmer in the area a few years ago who bought a truckload of expired Snickers bars. Apparently they just ground them up, wrappers and all, and fed them to the cattle.

As far as distillers grains, my brother was working for a farmer who fed his cattle truckloads of that. They fed him steak one night, and my brother said he could taste the gluten in the steak and was less than impressed. My dad is a small farmer who uses nothing exotic (practically organic but he's against all the paperwork for getting certified), and my brother said the meat quality difference was huge. Not sure if someone not so close to the operation would be able to tell the difference, though.

Re:NOOOOOO!

[ackthpt]

Why are Europeans so hung up on food?

And here I thought the Beef Council was only suckering Americans into eating more and more and MOAR.

Remember how James Garner did those "Beef, it's what's for dinner" commercials? Not so since he had that quad heart bypass.

After the first few mouthfuls pretty much any food begins to lose its appeal (unless you have that affliction where the blood sugars, etc, don't stop telling the brain you've been eating.) Small amounts now and then keep it special, after that it's just gluttony.

Et tu, furry one.

[Byrel]

I'm not sure you're in earnest, but I think it's worth answering, even at the risk of potentially feeding the troll...

Water is the constraint, not land. There is plenty of land available but no water to make it grow anything. What is needed to feed the world is agriculture that uses as little water as possible so arid conditions can be used for sustainable farming.

Farming corn only makes sense if fresh water was available in infinite supply and land was in short supply. Sadly the reverse is true.

Right. Very true. However, that being said, corn is more water-efficient than grass. I know that sounds like a contradiction of what I said previously, when I acknowledged it as "water-hungry", but it isn't. Corn takes more water per acre, yes. But it takes significantly less per calorie produced. Grass is a singularly inefficient crop. Corn is a highly efficient crop. Most of the water that goes into growing grass, is wasted on evaporation, rhizome growth, etc. By concentrating the area those calories are produced on, we can reduce evaporative waste. By growing plants specifically bred for useful calorie production we can concentrate the water necessary for plant growth into the useable parts of the plant.

There are many different measures of crop efficiency. It is very hard to find one that puts grass (of all things) ahead of corn. For crying out loud, if we insist on wasting good land, labor, water, and effort on pasture land, why not plant alfalfa? Much better nutrient density, quite capable of supporting itself with minimal effort, ... and still a lot worse than corn. But grass shouldn't be on the table.

Look up "dessert". Or do you think the dust bowl was an issue because the seasonal land didn't appear? No, it is the lack of water that causes problems. Not the lack of land.

Now why did you make me do that? My sweet tooth is acting up again now... I will freely acknowledge that corn is probably a bad choice for growing in the Sahara. That, or that the Sahara is a bad choice for a place to grow corn... Seriously, I'm using corn as an example. It isn't a crop that CAN be grown solo. Its yield is excellent, much better than, say, soybeans, but it depletes the nitrates in the soil, and, as you so cogently observed, requires a high density of water. You will have to alternate with soybeans (or some other legume), or alfalfa, or some nitrogen fixer. Or find a way to live under a permanent thunderstorm...

Next time you watch starvation in Africa, take a hard look. What is missing? Water or land?

What's missing is food. Not water. Not land. Most places in the world where malnutrition is an issue are not desert. Even the ones that are, are close enough to arable land that it shouldn't be a problem. The issue is really one of availability, transport and free markets. In the US, the one of those we can affect most is availability. The lower the price of corn domestically, the lower it will be in other countries.

On the other hand, I find preventing starvation halfway around the globe to be a fairly weak motivator for me. People die from lots of things, I can't worry about all of them, and I can't do anything effective about most of them. More important to me, and closer to home, is freeing more people from menial labor. High density farming helps. Limiting pollution and erosion. Increasing the standard of living of the poor locally. All of these is strongly aided by cheap food.

No doubt you vote for Romney, you sound like that type.

There are idiots on both sides of the aisle. I don't, as it happens, prefer Romney. I prefer Ron Paul. But seriously? If the sort of lame arguments you made were characteristic of an Obama supporter, I'd rather listen to Romney guys any day. At least they can think.

Dairy farms have been doing this for years.

[MooseDontBounce]

The dairy farm behind my house, it's about an 7 iron shot to one of the barns, has been doing this for years. When my children were young, they are 22 and 18 now, the would come back with bags of pez candy. They would tell me stories of the 'Pez Mountain' at the farm. I didn't really believe it until I saw it for myself. A 10 foot tall pile of Pez. They would mix it in with the feed. They would also purchase day old bread, doughnuts, etc. and also mix it with the fee.

Re:NOOOOOO!

[cayenne8]

Depends on where you buy your meat at over here in the US.

I have some good sources, and try to generally only buy Prime grade beef for my steaks, preferrably dry aged for awhile.

Sure, it costs about $23-$25/lb, but the flavor is worth it. I'll do this sometimes as often as once or twice a month.

But when I do that...why go only for small portion? If I'm gonna splurge on calories, and $$....well, I'd like something of a dry aged bone-in porterhouse, or bone in ribeye...or maybe a NY Strip, nearly 2-inches thick.

Each of those steaks is going to be over 16oz (I can't relate to things in kilos really...not sure what size meat portions ya'll eat over there)...

Do I do this all the time?

No.

But life is too short not to enjoy some of the finer things of life. I love good single malt scotch too...but I don't drink a 5th of it every Fri-Sat anymore......I savor it for a week or two once a month or so....

Not everyone over here only does fast food.....and has poor tastes. The lower classes and poor are all over it....and while we do have a problem, once you start getting out of the poor and lower middle class, you do see dining habits and tastes rise a bit more.

"If you EVERY see two people argue over which fastfood restaurant is the best, the Genevieve convention commands you to kill them both."

What the hell is the Genevieve convention??

You mean Geneva conventions? Have spelling skills gone down in EU...even for a European country?

You might want to spell check a bit better, before you start throwing stones at how awful other people are in the world, eh?

Yes, but...

[MiniMike]

Could be worse- they could be feeding the cows candy corn...

This is what is wrong with the world

[gtirloni]

FTFA: "Anything that keeps the feed costs down." Anything == no limits, no common sense. Last time I checked they were feeding dead cows' bones to cows and it brought us the mad cow disease.

Re:This is what is wrong with the world

[Anonymous Coward]

BUT BUT ...it kept the costs down!!!!

Re:NOOOOOO!

[fruitbane]

I'm an American and I love food. I eat a wide variety of plants and animals and, yes, I do often have a problem with eating too much of it. But I do have taste buds, I do appreciate quality food, and I'm capable of both eating and differentiating between food at the top AND the bottom of the food quality scale.

Generalizations like this, especially in such heated terms, really do nothing for meaningful discussion. Then again, it's pretty clear from the tone of your comment that you're not interested in discussion. You're interested in being superior to everyone else. Good job. Work on your grammar and sentence structure a bit and maybe someday you'll actually impress upon someone that you are superior.

Pocky fed cattle!

[Anonymous Coward]

What a wonderful idea for food to sell at an Anime convention, Pocky raised beef!

Snort! Giggle

Hmm I wonder if a revolution is on the way

[Anonymous Coward]

Bahhh no Corn for the cows, let them eat gummy bears!

Gummyworms = Gelatin = meat byproducts

[Lispy]

Just noting that gummy worms are made out of gelatin wich is according to wikipedia.org: "...a mixture of peptides and proteins produced by partial hydrolysis of collagen extracted from the skin, boiled crushed horn, hoof and bones, connective tissues, organs and some intestines of animals such as domesticated cattle, chicken, horses, and pigs." So basically we're feeding them cows/meat by products, and this was, iirc one of the reasons for mad cow disease back in the day....

Re:Gummyworms = Gelatin = meat byproducts

[jd]

The chances of prions surviving the process to make gummy worms seems low. Nonetheless, I can't see it being a good idea.

What?!?!

[freeze128]

Ruminant animals such as cattle can safely ingest a wide variety of feedstuffs that chickens and hogs can't.

Wait a minute.... HOGS eat GARBAGE. I remember seeing a documentary on our local "Mall of America" where all the waste food from the food courts and restaurants were fed to local pigs. It was ALL Kinds of leftover food: Meat, bread, veggies, even champagne! All the workers had to do was to pull out all the burger wrappers and plastic cups.

Re:NOOOOOO!

[judoguy]

>>After the first few mouthfuls pretty much any food begins to lose its appeal...

Jesus, what kind of crap do you usually eat??

Re:NOOOOOO!

[mcgrew]

Oh wait, your American.
find a fucking immigrant the first day then follow him to wear he eats
If you EVERY see two people argue

And here I thought it was OUR educational system that sucks... atleast we're semi-literate here. This diatribe against American food from a continent that has given us such delights as haggis, blood pudding, saurkraut...

Re:NOOOOOO!

[curiousJan]

I'm an American and I love food. I eat a wide variety of plants and animals and, yes, I do often have a problem with eating too much of it. But I do have taste buds, I do appreciate quality food, and I'm capable of both eating and differentiating between food at the top AND the bottom of the food quality scale.

Generalizations like this, especially in such heated terms, really do nothing for meaningful discussion. Then again, it's pretty clear from the tone of your comment that you're not interested in discussion. You're interested in being superior to everyone else. Good job. Work on your grammar and sentence structure a bit and maybe someday you'll actually impress upon someone that you are superior.

If only I had mod points ...

Try This

[Anonymous Coward]

As you read through the headlines of any given day, ask yourself how many of the World's problems wouldn't be problems if humans were intellectually mature enough to face the need to regulate their own population.

The typical diet..

[Anonymous Coward]

of alot of people on /. Just look at what people buy from the vending machines.

It's about the corn syrup

[sl4shd0rk]

Same stuff in your soda pop. The corn it's from is designed to put on weight. Same for people as it is for cows.

stale?

[mattack2]

Yeah, are the cookies and fruit loops stale?

I suspect both of those could easily be "un-staled" by the end user. (Little time in a fairly low oven, just like what works for chips or crackers.)

Send 'em to me, I'll appreciate them a lot more than the cows will.

Surprise! your brain now looks like cheese.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gummi bears are made from gelatin that mist likely comes from cows. Feeding cows with cow protein from a cow that was feed cow protein sounds like a sensible idea (no matter how wicked) until proteins in the cow began folding in the wrong way and then we got one of these newly discovered exiting pathogens named prions. Never been happier of being a vegan.

Gummy Worms --- Ethanol?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do we need to feed the gummy worms to cattle? Can't we turn gummy worms in Ethanol?

Re:NOOOOOO!

[Anonymous Coward]

If I eat something delicious, I usually finish it thinking to myself I wish there was one more bite.

Now if you eat Brit food, I could see how after the first two bites you might quit eating because you are no longer at danger of starving.

And prices are throught the roof for beef

[kilodelta]

For example - I noted ribeye steak - it's a little of $7 per pound now. So I've started sticking with more fish and vegetables.

Re:And prices are throught the roof for beef

[omnichad]

Where I'm at, prices are falling for the moment. Lots of extra beef being dumped on the market right now because it's too expensive to keep those cows alive another year. I don't like to freeze steak, but I've been stocking up on 80% lean ground beef for as little as $2.39/lb. where I'm at, and I've seen fattier ground beef under $2. It had been over $3 even for sale prices.

Re:NOOOOOO!

[kaatochacha]

OK, you confuse me. Your earlier post was knocking Romney, and now you're saying you DON'T live in the US?
So you're taking part in our election from the sidelines and rooting for one of the teams? wow. just wow.

Re:NOOOOOO!

[ElKry]

What the hell is the Genevieve convention??

You mean Geneva conventions? Have spelling skills gone down in EU...even for a European country?

In all fairness, Geneva is not a European country.

Re:NOOOOOO!

[Dogtanian]

"If you EVERY see two people argue over which fastfood restaurant is the best, the Genevieve convention commands you to kill them both.

What the hell is the Genevieve convention??

It's where a bunch of people get together to watch an old British film about an even older French car.

This is harmless enough, but all that whimsy and old-worldiness tends to go to their heads, whereupon they take it upon themselves to behave like anti-fast-food fascists and try to kill the type of people who argue about the fine differences between Coke and Pepsi.

Er, actually, on second thoughts, I can't disagree with that ;-)

Bass Ackwards

[pubwvj]

"But ruminant animals such as cattle can safely ingest a wide variety of feedstuffs that chickens and hogs can't."

This statement is totally backwards and wrong. Where do writers get such miss-information. The fact is, pigs and chickens can eat grass, legumes, other forages and a wide variety of foods that ruminants can not efficiently or safely digest. Science please.

Re:NOOOOOO!

[HornWumpus]

Never cook with a wine you would not drink. You should know that food snob.

If you drink fine only fine wine you should cook with similar.

You don't know what you are talking about r.e beef. Just plain wrong. All beef is mostly grass/hay fed. American beef is fed a buttload of corn for the last 4-6 weeks of it's life (feedlot). This makes it much better. Less healthy granted, but much, much better tasting. Also 9-10 months is the right age to slaughter a steer.

Reading sib posts: Are you a fucking brit? If you are you have no right to comment on anybody else's food. English food is the _worst_ in the world. They don't even eat it. They all eat curry these days.

Cows eat Corn (Was Cows eat Grass)

[Anonymous Coward]

Cows evolved to eat grass.

No good came from feeding them corn. I can't see how feeding them gummy worms will turn out well.

Now now, corn is a grass (technically). So cows eating corn that is grass means cows eat grass.

Feed them...

[Jerry Rivers]

....Soylent green.

I need some surplus gummy worms and cookies

[Anonymous Coward]

To feed myself and family also what do I do?

way better solution

[slashmydots]

Perhaps they should have put half the cows in cow stasis until more food is available. I think that's what the aliens behind cattle mutilations have been working on.

Obesity and the USA: crux of the problem?

[fantomas]

>>The amount of beef you need to eat on a daily basis for your protein needs would be a cube (raw) is about 1.5 inches on a side, anything after that is just clogging up your colon and your arteries.

>You're neglecting what it does to my taste buds and the pleasure center of my brain. Again, false economy.

Is this one of the reasons why the USA has big problems with obesity? I am not suggesting you're overweight, but if the general philosophical position on "how much food is enough / too much" is driven by what people desire, what satisfies their 'pleasure center of their brain' , then perhaps this is where the problem lies. Does the USA (and many other places) need to better educate its citizens?

  I am not a biologist, so would love to hear from one, but I am guessing that our desire for delicious food is greater than our need - leading to obesity?

I'd beg to differ that you live longer by satisfying your pleasure centers as a primary determinant - health conditions related to obesity prove this to the contrary.

Re:NOOOOOO!

[Anonymous Coward]

He's Dutch.

The high price of feed

[Anonymous Coward]

This year the price of feed for livestock is high due to the drought across most of the midwest. The majority of crops that did survive through the summer heat did not produce grain. Much of the corn crop that did not produce ears was chopped for silage to be used as feed. This has resulted in a shortage of available corn.
For those that say that the cattle should be returned to the natural ways and graze on pasture land, you might want to read the news http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-nebraska-wildfires-20120902,0,2350133.story, and that is just one of the fires. In Nebraska for example much of the pasture land has been burned this summer due to wildfires that have been started due to extremely dry conditions and dry lightning. This further cuts the supply of feedstuffs for cattle.
Most farmers and ranchers, rather than just sending the animals to slaughter, have begun to search for alternative feeds. They are not necessarily going to continue this feeding practice indefinitely.

How about feeding them food

[ToddInSF]

As opposed to fantastic GM corn ?

How about not using corn to make fuel ?

How about not subsidizing unsustainable, petrochemical based and dependent monoculture ?

If you ever needed a reason not to eat beef, look at the shit they're feeding cows. There's a consequence to feeding animals things that they would never subsist upon in nature. Lower quality beef, unhealthy animals that need more and more antibiotics, and an unhealthy population that eats that shit.

Is there anything American industry and American ignorance, cowardice, and greed can't adulterate and destroy, and then pass it off as "the best in the world" ?

Re:NOOOOOO!

[shutdown -p now]

This diatribe against American food from a continent that has given us such delights as haggis, blood pudding, saurkraut

You forgot the all-time favorites, lutefisk and surstromming.

Humans evolved

[Anonymous Coward]

to be able to feed adequately without eating meat or fish... a very long time ago. Get on with the program already.