Grass Fed Vs. Corn Fed Beef
77Risky Business or Good Business
Firstly, when you are thinking about the “risks” associated with cattle eating a food product they don’t get the opportunity to consume in the wild, I think you are thinking of horses. While horses are an herbivore, they are not a ruminant. They do not chew their cud and only have one stomach, and are thus poorer processors of food. Gasses build up in their bodies and cause what is called colic, so grains and corns unless very carefully formulated are bad for the horse’s gut. Cattle on the other hand have a massive four chambered system by which they ring every possible nutrient out of their food, and chew their cud. This is why the feces of the two animals are so different, most horses don’t stink terribly, and many cattle do.
As for why cattle are fed corn in the first place, grains and corn help them achieve terminal weight faster, providing higher quality meat and costing less for the owner to produce. The older the animal, the tougher the meat will be and the more it cost to get there. You will not get as much or as high a quality meat from cows fed only grass, they simply will not develop to terminal weight (the age at which they are slaughtered) as quickly and will be leaner animals. If you are looking to improve the quality of meat, make it more humane or natural, here are some things to consider:
Feed Considerations
1. Organic feed. That means no ground up pieces of other cows to start with. No chemicals on the feed, no antibiotics or vaccinations in the animals, no hormone injections. I am not big on “Organic”, as I believe the animals should receive medical care and vaccinations and as long as the time is long enough before slaughter it does go out of their systems.
2. Smaller, more personal farms. These places are not huge commercial facilities where all the animals receive for feed is feed corn. The farmers of these animals care about their individual well being, and while yes we are going to eat them, they are treated in most cases with respect and compassion while they live out their lives, and though the meat may be a little pricier by the pound, I think it really shows in the taste.
3. Slaughter time. Consider this, a kind brief compassionate end at your home surrounded by your caretakers, or a long, sometimes days long transport to a huge compound full of thousands of terrified animals, a cold end for our nation’s most renewable food resource. Personally, I like my food to suffer as little amount of stress as possible before I slaughter it, because prey animals can actually taint their own meat. Try it out and see if you can’t taste the difference.
PrintShare it! — Rate it: up down flag this hub
Comments
I agree with Maddie. A cows natural diet is grass, not grain. Stick a cow between a commercial monocrop corn field and a pasture and see where is goes. Yes the cow grows heavier with corn because the toxins that build up from that diet get stored as far away from the organs and nervous system of the animal(fat cells) where they do the least harm. Beef is sold by the pound so this makes a great profit for the farmer however it makes for a sick animal and low quality meat. Vaccinations are only needed on sick animals whose immune systems are suppressed by poor diet and living conditions. Buy grass fed. Unfortunately a lot of farmers are miseducated these days and think they are doing a good thing with feeding grain to the animals. "Organic grain" is still not the ideal choice. Even though it is better than commercial feed, it just doesn't work.
Maddie Ruud says:
4 months ago
But cows, being ruminants, are not designed to eat corn. Besides a number of negative health effects for the cows themselves, it makes the meat more dangerous to eat. It raises the pH of their stomachs, meaning that bacteria become acid-resistant within the cow, and thus are not killed off by our own stomach acid, making it more likely that we get sick (as with E. coli).