Quantity v.s Quality

Is our food being processed carefully enough to prevent diseases, infections, or other illness from affecting our bodies? It seems like if everything that has to do with food has to be fast which makes us think that they want to produce more (quantity) rather than having healthy food or healthy livings for these animals (quality). These animals are being born just to live in poor conditions and be killed. Baby cows are being pulled away
from their mother and cows are not being fed what they are created to eat. We can fix this problem by changing our ability from caring about our quantity to caring about our quality which includes the health production of our beef and the life of the cows.
Baby cows also known as cattle are being taken away from their mother when they are less then one day old these are called Veal Calves. The farmer’s goal is to extract the baby cow form the mother and use the mother’s milk for dairy products. They also make the production of cows faster by breeding the mother again. The cattle’s are put in dark crates which they stay in until they have to be transferred to the slaughter houses. They are being fed food products that make their meat stay white. These food products make most cattle anemic and suffer from other illness such as pneumonia or diarrhea (Gaunt). Cattle at feedlots also have an unnatural diet which makes the cattle gain weight faster. This diet causes chronic digestive pain and liver problems in most of the cattle that are being raised for our production of beef (Gaunt).
This shows how food industries only care about the quantity of our food. The living conditions of these animals can affect how healthy our food is but farmers have focus only on how much we are producing putting aside the quality of their products. As people shop in supermarkets they don’t realize where their food comes from or how. This gives farmers and an opportunity to keep things “behind the scenes” meaning creating food that is not being processed correctly but the consumer will never find out unless it causes health issues. Farmers are also feeding their cows corn which is a food that they were not created to eat.
In his book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, Michael Pollan, maintains that “The co-evolutionary relationship between cows and grass is one of nature’s wonders; it also happens to be the key to understanding just about everything about modern meat”(pg70). Michael Pollans point is that Cows are designed to eat grass not corn. They have a ruminant stomach which is any animal that digests its food in steps such as grass (U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center). If they are designed to eat things such as grass why are we feeding them corn? Quantity is a main factor of why we seem to care more of the production than the actual well being of our livestock. We can change the living conditions of these animals by at least feeding them the appropriate food that they are suppose to be consuming even though it will affect the rapid production of our food.
Cows having a rumen stomach and feeding them grass can help our environment more than by feeding them corn. Michael Pollan agrees when he writes “Truly this is an excellent system for all concerned: for the grasses for the bacteria, for the animals, and for us, the animals’ eaters” (pg70). We should care more about the quality of our food and how it’s being produced.
A cow being raised in horrifying living conditions doesn’t guarantee our food to be as healthy as if they were being raced properly. In an article about farm animals The American Meat Institute (AMI) summed up its viewpoint by stating that “Healthy animals whose welfare is carefully respected result in safe, wholesome, high quality meat and poultry products” (Farm Animals). Common sense seems to indicate that raising our cows in healthy and careful ways and caring about our quality can be more rewarding than having them live in unhealthy livestock’s.
Cornelia Butler Flora apparently assumes that “Beef is raised in three phases before it is processed: calves are raised on pasture and range land, as feeder cattle they feed on pasture, crop residue, and range land, and finally they go to feedlots, where they are fattened for slaughter.” Many people would assume that this is true but feedlots are now skipping the first two phases and jumping to the last phase. The whole idea for this procedure is again the quantity of who can produce the most in a short amount of time. This makes me think that farmers just do their job not even caring for the animal or for our food but rather for the check that they receive for producing all this food.
As food industries such as Tyson, Stony Field Farm, Dreyers and many other food corporations increase their production of food they forget about the importance of quality. All these food corporations have overpowered most of the local farmers that exist today. They hired these farmers to work their own land but produce the product for the company. They trick farmers into wanting to produce more of the livestock than actually caring about the livestock.
Some solutions for these problems should be how we raise our beef products. Cows shouldn’t be living in their own maneuver or being fed food that they were not created to eat. Rather than caring about our quantity farmers and other agricultural corporations should be thinking about the quality. Although it will slow the production of food theirs a chance that there will be more consumers trying to buy good quality beef.
The government can also open up many local farm markets which can increase the farmer’s wages. Not only would it be beneficiary for the farmer but to the consumer as well. The main purpose is for these local farm markets to produce agricultural food that is good in quality and not having a mistreatment of their livestock. This would be a good solution so that farmers can care for the well-being of the animal without having food industries such as Tyson shut your farm down because you didn’t want to do as they said regarding the living of your livestock.
Rearranging the way we raise our livestock shouldn’t be a big problem. In my opinion expenses would be cheaper because now they will be eating grass from the ground rather than buying the corn we feed them. Getting rid of the cows maneuver and having them live in nice grass areas should decrease the toxic and diseases that keeps contaminating these animals. For the last part we should change the perspective of industries thinking about quantity and making them change their mind of focusing on the quality of their food production.

References

Flora, Cornelia Butler. “Cattle.” Encyclopedia of Food and Culture,001 (2003)
Gaunt N Stanley and Roger M. Harrington –Raising Veal Calves “Animal Rights Concers.” Facts on Animal Rights and veg*n issues:(2009).web. 17 February 2010
Goetzman, Keith. “Wild Greens”Cows Eat Grass’ and Other Inflammatory Statements,9 August 2010. 10 pars.web.19 February 2011
Pollan Michael. “The Feedlock Making Meat”. Omnivore’s Dilemma. New York:Penguin Books 2006. pgs 70-79. Print
U.S Dairy Forage Research Center—USDA Agricultural Research Service. “What Do Dairy Cows Eat? Foods That We Can’t” Wioming:Madison, 17 December 2010.Web. 20 February 2010.