Comments on: Why Not to Eat Grain Fed Meat

By: Julian Pk

Julian Pk — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 07:00:36 +0000

Constant use of antibiotics on cattle is the stupidiest thing I’ve ever heard, it devalues the quality of all the antiobiotics we use, thousands of bacteria are being vaccinated for every tool we have and creates perfect conditions for disease having billions of mammals worldwide constantly fighting infection.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10822859

“Drug resistance in food-borne pathogens is an unfortunate but almost inevitable consequence of the use of antimicrobials in food animals.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoonosis

“Of the 1415 pathogens known to affect humans, 61% are zoonotic.” That is they came from animals from prolonged exposure or while immune comprimised (meaning young and elderly as well)

Alot of the worst disease we have came from constant exposure to raw meat (so everyone getting involved is a terrible idea).

“Many modern diseases, even epidemic diseases, started out as zoonotic diseases. It is hard to be certain which diseases jumped from other animals to humans, but there is good evidence that measles, smallpox, influenza, HIV, and diphtheria came to us this way. The common cold, and tuberculosis may also have started in other species.”

By: Food – Is Any Food Good for Us Anymore? (or what’s the point in worrying?) « Mother Food Issues

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 07:17:01 +0000

[...] that soy is used in 60% of processed foods as fillers and corn is used as high-fructose corn syrup. Grain is fed to cattle instead of their natural diet of grass. Rainforest is cleared to grow the crops and then the soil [...]

By: Mel

Mel — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 03:49:38 +0000

I agree with samuel. Sure, some of its true, but a lot of it is just misleading.
For egample the point on cattle getting acidosis. Sure, its well known fact that changing animals from grass fed to grain fed can cause acidosis, but if the cattle get sick, they loose weight, and that is not the point of a feedlot. So obvioustly feedlot workers and managers try to stop the problem. This can be done by slowly changing the diet or i think there was an additive (im thinking it was either gypsum or lime but i forgive me, i cant remember. Our cattle are grassfed and we havent spoken about feedlotting rations properly at college yet).
Also, the point about the lung infections due to the dust, and them having to give stock a ‘constant dosage’ of antibiotics to prevent it. If they are preventing the problems, why does it matter? Its just like eating fatty foods then excersising to make sure you dont gain weight. You have prevented the problem and dont get sick, so it becomes redundant.
The point is, animals who are unhappy or sick loose weight, so its in our best intrests to make them happy. Contrary to popular belief, we do not torture animals to save money. The jobs that need to be done are done as quickly as possible (dehorning and castration, both to protect other members of the herd but yes, castration does help with quality) so as to reduce stress and get them back to where they can relax and grop…

By: Lucy-LU

Lucy-LU — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:09:37 +0000

Hi there,
That artical did have alot of facts….I think it is saying dont raise your stock on a small-bare area with no grass weeds ect. That is very true…..anyone not think so?

As for giving your stock a bit of a treat like Ruth……that is a great way to keep them friendly so they are easy to “harvest”.

We have had a fram butcher out many times and found it great, we dont grain feed much……how ever would like to give it a try. If you only ate apples….would you be sick? YES

So does that mean we should not eat apples….NO

As for the law, as far as I know in QLD the meat is to stay on the place were it was killed(FARM).
So that would been, no giving to friends ect.

It sounds sort of clear.

By: M Kelly

M Kelly — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 03:41:45 +0000

This article is based on US data and as Samuel Smith noted is misleading. The author should be ashamed of themselves for peddling sensationalist claptrap.

By: Fred Walis

Fred Walis — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:09:58 +0000

A very interesting topic which most of us ignore, unfortunately for our food providers ie animals etc, how many of us have ever killed a Chicken??, I have and am sure many others also. I have worked as a Manager on an Aboriginal Community and hunted Kangaroos for the Old People, most Kangaroos are wounded but tribal law forbids killing them by shooting as they believe their spirit passes into them when they die so they must be clubbed to death as this is the death of a warrior.

By: Samuel Smith

Samuel Smith — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 16:02:32 +0000

This article is terribly biased and misleading.

By: Ruth Stone

Ruth Stone — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:38:25 +0000

Wondering if feeding oats to cattle has the same effect on the meat as does feeding corn, barley, wheat, etc. I raise commercial cattle and Dexters and oats is the only grain our animals get any more in the winter. It is just too cold for them not to get some grain.

By: Jordan

Jordan — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:13:22 +0000

Thanks for the great post. I’m in America and it’s even worse here of course but most of the issues are the same. I am hopeful that slowly but surely people are realizing what they are really eating and that they do have alternatives.

By: Mary Phillips

Mary Phillips — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:40:56 +0000

We have had animals killed for slaughter on farm.
The animal is shot in the paddock by the butcher with a high powered rifle and drops straight away. They are not chased or harassed at all.
I cannot think of any way where animals can be slaughtered at the works without fear and abuse coming into the equation. Cattle are very sensitive beings and display an awareness of what is going on. Some other animals are even more aware or at least more vocal. There used to be a place near Cranbourne when I was a child that processed goats and horses, the goats would cry like babies and you could hear the horses screaming.
We owned an engineering business and one of our boilermakers (who was a real redneck) came back from doing a job at a pet food abattoir near Albury in tears at some of the things he saw happen to the horses which I will not go into here.
As to the honour given to an animal by the aboriginal hunters being the ultimate….have you seen this yourself? I have seen them hunt in the outback of Queensland and NT with no evidence of that - the animals were merely bludgeoned to death and some took too long IMHO to die. On the other hand, I have witnessed a Native American
(Navajo) hunter ritually prepare himself to get an elk for his family to eat and there was great reverence for the animal and gratitude for feeding his family over winter.
The facts are that abattoirs be it for poultry or animals are incapable of treating animals with kindness or compassion given the awareness of the animals and the type of person who could perform that job. I am sure that if most people could see what goes on they would become vegetarians.