Beef costs consumers about 50% less than it did in the 1970s. While this sounds like good news for those of us that enjoy burgers, these savings come with serious costs to the environment and human health.
Today, four companies control more than 80 percent of the beef produced in the United States. Traditional cattle farmers are an endangered species and cattle spend most of their days in concentrated feedlots. These operations are best described as “cow factories” with numbers reaching in excess of 100,000 animals.
Antibiotics are essential to feedlot farming. Cattle are meant to eat grass. But grass is not efficient in feedlots. To fatten animals quickly, cattle are grain-fed. This diet packs on the pounds, but it compromises animal health, which is already weakened by overcrowding.
“As a consequence, they’re very, very sick,” says Gidon Eshel, a researcher at Bard College. “And in order to keep them alive, they need to administer routinely and preemptively something like 60% of all the antibiotics used in the country.”
Over-dependence on antibiotics has spawned ‘super bugs’ – antibiotic-resistant bacteria, such as e. coli and MRSA – that threaten human health.
And feedlots pose a serious threat to freshwater. Not only do the operations require a huge amount of water to operate, but they produce an abundance of sewage, much of which is eventually dumped into our nation’s waterways.
As a society already grappling with heart disease and diabetes – we need to decide if it is really in our best interest to keep the cost of beef so artificially low.
Eating fewer burgers produced the good old fashioned way would be better for everyone.
Photo, taken on April 18, 2009 using a Sony DSC-T70, courtesy of CameliaTWU via Flickr.
Web Extra
Does the beef industry put a strain on natural resources, such as water? Bard College Researcher Gidon Eshel has an answer…
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