photo credit: timbr00

I’ve started reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and if I didn’t already want to cut my meat intake down to zero I certainly would now. Pollan follows the commercially grown corn so common today, from it’s farm beginning to the dinner table. One stop along the way is being dumped by the barrel into the factory farms.

It’s a bit disturbing to read. I’ll admit, I was fooled by all the “corn-fed beef” signs and labels, thinking that meant it was better beef. Turns out “cord fed” actually means sicker cows, sicker people, and better bugs. Bugs that can kill us quicker than before. All because of corn being the staple of their diet.

Here’s how it works. Corn is cheap, so it’s pushed at the preferred feed for cattle. And because it’s cheap to buy, more cows can be raised. So instead of 50 cows stuffed into tiny pens, you can afford to shove in 100. Imagine eating a burger from an animal that only recently was standing knee deep in it’s own crap. There’s all kinds of bacteria floating around in there, and like crowded cities of years ago disease spreads quick and easy.

And then there’s the fact that cows are not designed to eat corn, it’s not what their bodies were made to eat. It would be like suddenly switching your diet to 100% Fruit Loops. Sure it’s edible, but how healthy are you really going to be? The corn also changes the ph in a cow’s stomach, which allows newer strains of E. coli to grow there. Strains that can kill us.

So to combat all of that, factory farmers have to pump the cattle full of antibiotics, antibiotics that gets passed on to us in the meat. What happens when you flood an area with antibiotics? It kills 99% of the bacteria, leaving the top 1% to flourish.

If the bacteria doesn’t kill us, the meat itself will. Slowly, but surely. Corn-fed beef is higher in the unhealthy fats, the kind that leads to heart disease among other things.

I would love to cut out the meat entirely from our diet, but I know I’d have a revolt on my hands if I did. I’m going to go slow, try to cut our meat down to only once a week. I want to make our diet more vegetarian, whole foods meals. Maybe even try a raw dish now and then. It may require dragging the other half kicking and screaming, but I’m going to move us into a healthier world of eating.