angelburst29
The Living Force
I have some understanding, growing up in a Dairy community, of the process to raise healthy cattle including Black Angus for breeding purposes to strengthen the stock of dairy cows and beef production. The cattle raised now for comsumer's has degraded to the point, through drugs and GMO corn and soy feed, where the cattle don't even have the strength to stand. The video in this article is sickening.
Not only is this practice of Factory Farming extremely harmful and degrading to the cattle, it directly affects us as consumers. Add to it, pigs, chickens, turkey's etc. and Race Horses on steroids.
This article discusses drugs given to cattle prior to slaughter and the effects. No where in the article does it even hint to GMO's in feed or chemicals used on corn crops contaminating the hay and alflafla fields.
Another point never mentioned, Factory Farming also affects the composition and natural "taste" of the meat.
Exclusive: Video of "lame" cattle stirs new concern over growth drugs
http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-video-lame-cattle-stirs-concern-over-growth-040511802.html
Highlights from the article:
(Reuters) - At a beef industry conference in Denver last week, the animal health auditor for meat producer JBS USA presented a video showing short clips of cows struggling to walk and displaying other signs of distress. The animals appeared to step gingerly, as if on hot metal, and showed signs of lameness, according to four people who saw the video.
The people in attendance said the video was presented by Dr Lily Edwards-Callaway, the head of animal welfare at JBS USA, as part of a panel discussion on the pros and cons of using a class of drugs known as beta-agonists - the additives fed to cattle in the weeks before slaughter to add up to 30 pounds to bodyweight and reduce fat content in the meat.
The video was shown on the same day the nation's largest meat producer, Tyson Foods Inc, declared it would no longer accept cattle that had been fed the most popular brand of the feed additive, called Zilmax, a powerful and fast-selling product from pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. Tyson, in a letter to its cattle suppliers, said the decision resulted not from food-safety questions but its concerns over the behavior of animals that animal health experts said could be connected to the use of Zilmax.
The JBS presentation and Tyson's decision to ban Zilmax-fed cattle underscores the increasingly complex tradeoffs facing the agricultural sector as it seeks to engineer greater volumes of food at low cost. Tensions have grown in the drive to meet that goal, including fears about animal welfare, mounting criticism by consumer advocates, and industry concern about the effect of biotechnology on product quality, such as whether beef still has the fatty marbling that some consumers like.
Temple Grandin, who has pioneered humane slaughterhouse practices as a consultant to several major beef processors, described the short video clips she saw during the presentation. One clip showed an animal that did not want to move, and hands pushing it. Others showed cattle that looked stiff and lethargic, Grandin said.
Grandin told Reuters the cattle should have been energetic and moving on their own. Instead, she said, the affected animals in the video "walk like they're 90-year-old grandmothers."
Originally developed as asthma drugs for humans, beta-agonists - in a decade of use - have helped bolster the ability to produce more beef with fewer cattle. Due to the introduction of Zilmax and other factors, including improved feed and animal genetics, the U.S. industry produced more than 26 billion pounds of beef from 91 million head of cattle last year. In 1952, it took 111 million head of cattle to produce 21 billion pounds of beef.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture allows beef produced with beta-agonists to be labeled hormone-free, antibiotic-free and "natural," as the drugs do not fall into the same class as either growth hormones or antibiotics
Not only is this practice of Factory Farming extremely harmful and degrading to the cattle, it directly affects us as consumers. Add to it, pigs, chickens, turkey's etc. and Race Horses on steroids.
This article discusses drugs given to cattle prior to slaughter and the effects. No where in the article does it even hint to GMO's in feed or chemicals used on corn crops contaminating the hay and alflafla fields.
Another point never mentioned, Factory Farming also affects the composition and natural "taste" of the meat.
Exclusive: Video of "lame" cattle stirs new concern over growth drugs
http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-video-lame-cattle-stirs-concern-over-growth-040511802.html
Highlights from the article:
(Reuters) - At a beef industry conference in Denver last week, the animal health auditor for meat producer JBS USA presented a video showing short clips of cows struggling to walk and displaying other signs of distress. The animals appeared to step gingerly, as if on hot metal, and showed signs of lameness, according to four people who saw the video.
The people in attendance said the video was presented by Dr Lily Edwards-Callaway, the head of animal welfare at JBS USA, as part of a panel discussion on the pros and cons of using a class of drugs known as beta-agonists - the additives fed to cattle in the weeks before slaughter to add up to 30 pounds to bodyweight and reduce fat content in the meat.
The video was shown on the same day the nation's largest meat producer, Tyson Foods Inc, declared it would no longer accept cattle that had been fed the most popular brand of the feed additive, called Zilmax, a powerful and fast-selling product from pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. Tyson, in a letter to its cattle suppliers, said the decision resulted not from food-safety questions but its concerns over the behavior of animals that animal health experts said could be connected to the use of Zilmax.
The JBS presentation and Tyson's decision to ban Zilmax-fed cattle underscores the increasingly complex tradeoffs facing the agricultural sector as it seeks to engineer greater volumes of food at low cost. Tensions have grown in the drive to meet that goal, including fears about animal welfare, mounting criticism by consumer advocates, and industry concern about the effect of biotechnology on product quality, such as whether beef still has the fatty marbling that some consumers like.
Temple Grandin, who has pioneered humane slaughterhouse practices as a consultant to several major beef processors, described the short video clips she saw during the presentation. One clip showed an animal that did not want to move, and hands pushing it. Others showed cattle that looked stiff and lethargic, Grandin said.
Grandin told Reuters the cattle should have been energetic and moving on their own. Instead, she said, the affected animals in the video "walk like they're 90-year-old grandmothers."
Originally developed as asthma drugs for humans, beta-agonists - in a decade of use - have helped bolster the ability to produce more beef with fewer cattle. Due to the introduction of Zilmax and other factors, including improved feed and animal genetics, the U.S. industry produced more than 26 billion pounds of beef from 91 million head of cattle last year. In 1952, it took 111 million head of cattle to produce 21 billion pounds of beef.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture allows beef produced with beta-agonists to be labeled hormone-free, antibiotic-free and "natural," as the drugs do not fall into the same class as either growth hormones or antibiotics
