Happy Earth Day... sort of!
I’ve wanted to write a blog like this for a while now, so it seems that Earth Day is the perfect catalyst. All things considered, I think the earth will be fine. It’s us that won’t be if we keep up this rate of blind consumption. If we don’t have access to healthcare we won’t be living long enough to take care of the other problems. We won’t even know what hit us if we’re uneducated. I daresay education should be at the top of the list. Since that’s probably a whole blog in and of itself, I think I’ll leave it for another day. Suffice to say that I read more than allows me to sit idly, and if I am ever really sick I’ll be on a plane to Europe for treatment in a heartbeat. But let’s move on to another topic and greener pastures. I think I only have it in me to write today about corn and beef, but it’s really enough.
In fact, it’s been on my mind so much lately, I think I have to go right to the heart of what’s bothering me these days and attack. What’s in your food? Did you ever wonder what all that junk is that you can’t pronounce? It’s a bunch of conspicuous crap that’s making the national average for obesity and diabetes (along with a whole host of other health problems) spiral out of control. Ok, we know that a hamburger from Mc Donald’s is bad for us because it’s fatty, because they’re corporate ass-wipes that rape us and don’t give a damn how early we die. We know that the slaughterhouses are something that we don’t even well, wait, no… we don’t really want to know the details. We’re aware that cows, pigs, chickens are being killed and sometimes not in ways that would be very appetizing. So we gloss over that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah… but they’re delicious! This, my friend, is a cop-out. You can do more for the environment by eating less meat (and being choosy about it) than you can by not driving.
Give a mere glance to the previously listed fraction of symptoms that corporate and industrial food is causing right now and one can easily recognize what nature is telling us: “dude, you’re doing it wrong”. We’ve got an overabundance of corn right now, forcing us to do something, anything with it. So we industrious humans come up with a panoply of “uses”, inventing such fanciful notions as “natural flavors” which is often enough just food scientists getting slap-happy with molecular rearranging creating “natural” say strawberry flavor… out of uh… corn components? Well, thanks for that. So it comes from a “natural” source and is considered “all-natural”? Here’s a novel idea: just eat a damned strawberry! Oh, corn. We make stabilizers and emulsifiers and other bizarre concoctions out of this one plant for the sake of texture, crunch-factor and other whimsical inessentials. Trans fats? Hey, there’s an idea! Let’s add a hydrogen molecule to plant fat so that it stays hard at room temperature. Take a look at the next packaged food you eat and see if it’s got anything partially hydrogenated anything in it; those are trans fats. This just in: it’s really really really bad for you! See if any of these ingredients are in your packaged food: xanthan gum, guar gum, lactic acid, citric acid, brominated (anything really). You’re eating chemicals. They’ve been produced in a lab. Some of them are even considered pretty toxic. I’d rather risk a high score nerd factor than slack on the pedantic study of this topic.
I don’t personally believe that there’s anything morally askew with humans eating other animals. Nature is telling me that because they are not as smart, taste really great, and provide protein and other nutrients that it’s probably ok to eat meat. But how we’re doing it and how much we’re eating seems dangerously wrong. Take a look at how much meat the average American eats. It astounded me when I started taking a harder look at it over a year ago. But what’s wrong with meat, I mean, really? E. Coli might be the most patently disturbing factor among beef-related human illnesses, but it’s certainly not the only one. Hey, that’s just the one that kills old people and children… and is caused by a direct contact with fecal matter in the meat. Yes. Remember that whole mad cow scare? It hasn’t gone away and I find it even more unsettling. Mad cow disease, manifested in humans as Creutzfeld-Jacob disease lies dormant for years, eventually waking and killing the host in a matter of days. What happens is this: cows eat cows, cows go mad, you eat those cows, later it kills you. Awesome.
If all of this isn’t enough to deter you, consider what goes into a cow’s feed, at the feedlot, that makes that cow’s poo-patties into toxic waste and its body give out within about 150 days. And just why are cows eating cows? Aren’t they ruminates, engineered by nature to digest grass and grass only? Cows are being fed corn and legions of other ingredients to fatten them up for slaughter. It’s cheap because we’ve got too much government subsidized corn on the market. A glut, if you will. And boy howdy are those cows tastier the fatter they are. (Seriously, I agree). Until a few years ago, protein was just considered protein, and a certain amount had to go into the feed along with the requisite fats, carbohydrates, etc. Never mind where it comes from… The practice was banned about ten years ago, but it used to be that euthanized cats and dogs from animal shelters were bought and used in feed for protein. I’m serious, look it up. Along with bovine bone marrow- uh oh… here comes the mad cow part- we’ve got a recipe here for gross. Ok, so the bone marrow has been banned now but the fat constituents of the feed still come from bovine beef tallow. It’s all recycled from the slaughterhouses. And what has become of the bone marrow? It goes into the feed of pigs and chickens, whose inedible parts are subsequently recycled into cow feed. Yes, the cows are still getting back into the cows in that form along with chicken excrement and bedding. They feed this to the cows. This is not ancient history, this is current events.
Oh but wait, there’s more! I mean, hey… the corn has to be fairly benign as vegetative matter going into the cows, and it’s the majority of the feed, so how bad can it be? Well, corn is meant for acidic stomachs like we have. If you put that in a belly that’s used to digesting grass and doesn’t have any stomach acid, it tears it up pretty good. In fact, all the normal bacteria in that ruminant’s belly get leaked into the whole body of the cow when the corn digestion (or lack thereof really) begins to wreak its havoc. This means that not only is the animal in a lot of pain, but unless that cow is receiving regular and high doses of pharmaceuticals (this is where the antibiotics we hear about come into play), then that cow is in imminent mortal danger. (Yes, I realize said cow is sitting in a feedlot but you know what I mean)! No cow on a feedlot is immune to this. No cow in a feedlot lounges in anything other than its own byproducts. No cow in a feedlot is healthy unless it just got there. As a side-note, I am always amused at how advertisements for antibiotic and hormone free chickens are used. Um, chickens never get that stuff. They have a whole different plight. So that advertising we see? Yeah, pretty much a crock. The feedlots themselves are a blight on the environment, and I don’t have to tell you how the transporting of all that meat contributes pollution-wise.
There’s a lot more to all this food mess we’re in, and honestly, barring having my own farm, there’s no guarantee I’ll ever really be able to eat as purely as I’d like. (I haven’t even touched the whole water topic; not to mention the ubiquitous plastic beast concerning food and water storage, packaging, etc). What I can say is this: try and think about what you’re putting in your body, where it comes from, and what that food has gone through to taste, look, and feel exactly the way it does all to the detriment of your health. You only have one earth, and one body. Just think about that. Maybe you don’t want to live to be 100, and you’d rather sacrifice a long life for the pleasure of eating the way you enjoy. Consider this: the quality won’t be good either, and other people will be forced to care for you. You can tell me I’m a hippy with all this rhetoric, but how anarchic is it to give a giant finger to corporate food? Yeah, seriously. The health crises we are collectively creating for ourselves will come back to haunt us.
Buying local, grass-fed beef is a lot more expensive, and consequently, I just don’t eat it or any other meat very often. I have to admit, it feels a lot better on my conscience. It’s just too hard for me to reconcile with all that I’ve researched. If you live in Austin, you can buy it from a number of suppliers around town such as Whole Foods, People’s Pharmacy, and www.greenling.com. Actually, Greenling has a whole lot of amazing products that are local and aren’t too overpriced. Check out the farmer’s markets around town; they too have a lot to offer. Boggy Creek Farm off of Springdale is another excellent source for local meats, dairy and vegetables. Here’s another reason to buy this stuff: it’s a message to retailers that they need to keep up with demand. The more of us that are out there buying these products, the more the distributors will step up to the plate and begin supplying this demand more affordably.
