AKA
The commodity we all love...
and probably eat everyday
...whether we like it or not.
The government has subsidized the production of corn, making it cheaper to make, more profitable to grow, and more available for items in your grocery store and for your food's food.
Lets go back to the MOOs,...cows. What's the main part of their diet?
You guess it! CORN.
These animals, through evolution, have been eating a diet of mostly grass. So what happens when you introduce corn into the mix?
Well, for an animal with 3 stomachs...it means a few things. It means that a high corn diet...might develop larger mutant strains of the bugs (e-coli) cow's stomach acids can usually fight off.
And then we get e-coli into the food system.
And people get sick.
And the government attempts to remedy the situation.
And the corporations which survive off of the use of corn fight back.
And the government loses and becomes powerless.
And we get e-coli in our mass produced meat and poultry products.
Yum.
Since the government began subsidizing corn it has become increasingly used to feed our own food supply (the MOO's). I agree that a more natural option (the grass) would probably keep away many of the issues that we now face. But, I bet corn was subsidized because cows can eat corn and we are currently demanding more cow-related products than before. Corn is something that is easy to grow and is now cheap. Grass, not so much. Humans, too, used to live off greens and grains but we have switched to a meat based diet in recent centuries.
ReplyDeleteI also wonder what will happen to the cost of corn now that we are investigating its use as an alternative fuel. Obviously with demand up the cost will increase, but how much? I found an article that states that currently we use more corn to produce ethanol than to feed livestock. http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/the-us-now-uses-more-corn-for-fuel-than-feed.html
Also, that says something in itself. We fuel our food source with the same thing we can fuel our vehicles with. Yuck.
My question with respect to cows (or any animals being fed in this manner) is if there are alternatives to consuming products that are poised to carry higher risks for diseases such as e-coli. I often hear the term "free-range" which gives the idea that perhaps free-range animals are not feeding off of mass produced products like corn and are perhaps consuming food that would be found in their natural environments. However, as I did a bit more research into the term, I found that the qualifiers for "free-range" are much like the qualifiers for "whole grains". They are very misleading. For example, in the United States, the USDA does not regulate the size of the range required for a free range animal, just that it is allowed to roam free within its given boundaries. The USDA also fails to regulate the amount of time that such an animal spend out on its own, which beg the question: "How much free-ranging does free-range livestock actually participate in?"
ReplyDeleteThe official definition from the USDA website on "free-range:"
"Producers must demonstrate to the Agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside."
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Factsheets/Meat_&_Poultry_Labeling_Terms/index.asp#4
WOW...
I think that it is crazy in how the United States has become the worlds largest corn supplier! Through some research I found some numbers regarding the cash receipts from sales were about $15.1 billion which totaled a harvested area of roughly 72.7 million acres. Further information is that about 12% of the corn crops ends up consumed directly such as tortilla chips or indirectly in the form of an additives as high fructose corn syrup. I personally think that we as a country are putting to much emphasis into the corn crop industry and we need to reassess the alternatives to corn. Corn might be cheaper then say grass, but it is well documented that grass is the better source of nutrition. And as mentioned above, it should be a concern to us if we can take the same corn crop and use it to feed livestock and ourselves, as well as double for alternative ethanol fuel source.
ReplyDeleteSource: http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/ag101/cropmajor.html