I thought that you might be interested in the following from the Virginia Farm Bureau News.

Where have we heard that before? If not a direct quote, Gary Taubes could have easily said it. Like wise Dr. Mike Eades, in his blogs.

So here is what the writer in the Virginia Farm Bureau News says.

There have been posts from time to time on these issues, mostly press releases from the PETA affiliated crowd. So I thought it might be good to see some counter claims. I have no way of validating them, darn! But I will let you make up your own minds as to the accuracy.

As I understand it, cattle are adapted to eat grasses, but not so much the grains. When they're fed the grains, they need a bunch of antibiotics/medications because they seem to get all kinds of gut problems from corn and grain by products. They're healthier and happier eating grass and hay.


mmmmm...beef.

There are vast stretches of land (especially here) that will only support cattle and never could be used for crops because there is just not enough rainfall. People who say crops should be planted in these places should travel to these unglamorous destinations and get real.

I have nothing to add but cheers and hooray! Thanks for posting this. I'm so bloody sick of this argument. Course you never hear veggies, or anyone, going on about how much methane gets released from rice paddies and deciding to stop eating rice for the good of the earth. Jeez.

I was hoping the article would compare the methane production of human vegetarians versus omnivores and report that the vegans are causing global warming - LOL!

Around here many of the crops must be irrigated, which, in addition to costing money and using energy, affects the water supply.

Thanks for the post Larry.

Deirdra, I like your idea as well. Maybe we could ask for a government study.

BTW: Being Low carb and eating whole foods = waaaaay less methane. Just leave the SF treats (with SA's) alone

There is an aspect of this problem that I’ve never heard anyone talk about which, if true, would have a large effect in this discussion: the concept of protein degradation. Vegetarian types often complain that it takes twenty pounds of plant protein to produce one pound of animal protein. They’re wrong because the amount of protein in a particular plant can very widely. Let me explain.

I once did a consulting project for a company that wanted to build a plant to make chicken feed from alfalfa. Since chickens can’t eat grasses, they had to process the alfalfa into a pellet. Alfalfa, it seems is high in xanthophyll, a yellowish pigment that shows up on the skins of chickens, giving them that yellowish tinge which people associate with high quality chicken. Naturally, they were more interested in how the chicken looked in the supermarket than with the health of chickens.

They needed to build this plant in the middle of an alfalfa field because the protein in the live alfalfa had a half-life of four hours after the alfalfa was cut. Processing would fix the protein residue in the chicken feed, but after four hours, the alfalfa would not have enough protein left to make it viable as chicken feed.

The idea of protein degradation has a large effect on the land use debate. Let’s say that it takes an acre of cut and dried alfalfa to feed a steer to the appropriate age for meat production. Cut and dried alfalfa would contain only a minute portion of the protein available in the live plant, let’s say, for the sake of argument, ten percent. That same acre of alfalfa, however, would contain enough protein to support ten animals grazing on it. So it is the practice of concentrating animals in feedlots and feeding them dried silage that causes the waste of land, not meat production itself. More humane cattle raising would actually increase the amount of meat available. Does this sound reasonable?

Yes, the methods used to reduce the cost of foods has warped the natural environment of both plants and animals. Nutrition has suffered to get the lowest cost per pound.

Totally reasonable. Which is why it'll never happen

Speaking of myths and misconceptions....

Nonjudicious antimicrobial use as a growth promoter? Yep. Antimicrobial use because of increased herd incidence of respiratory diseases and other infectious pathogens secondary to overcrowding? Absolutely.

Antimicrobial use for specific diseases of the gut caused by grain ingestion? I'm sitting here and can only think of two. First, as a component of treatment for perforating abomasal ulcers and secondary liver abscessation. Which may/may not be due to grain consumption to begin with; very multifactorial disease. Second, as an attempt to prevent Clostridium overgrowth secondary to carbohydrate overload. Nevermind there's a toxoid vaccine out there and should they still contract it, an antitoxin is needed versus an antimicrobial.

Other than that, I'm drawing a blank. Anyone care to list the rest?

Fetch, why even wonder about specific diseases in the gut caused by grain ingestion? Inflammation from an innappropriate diet is going to make livestock (not to mention humans) more susceptible to a host of diseases, both infectious and degenerative which may never be directly attributable to either grain consumption or overcrowding.

The point about far more marginal land being suitable for livestock applies particularly to goats. Seriously hardy animals. They seem to be able to produce prodigious quantities of both milk and meat from really inhospitable terrain. But I'd never made this (so obvious when you think about it) connection between the amount of land required to feed the world with crops or livestock.

Stuart

Because specific diseases in the gut caused by grain ingestion was brought up as a cause and effect argument regarding antimicrobial use in cattle - e.g., feeding grains causes the use of antimicrobials to treat the grain-related "gut diseases" resulting from the practice.

The statement was made there were "all kinds" of such diseases. Okay....then what are they?


If you can't attribute, then how do you know the inflammation is caused by the inappropriate diet and not the infectious or degenerative condition?

Diseases do exist where grain consumption either factors into or increases the risk for said disease. The pathogenesis is generally metabolic in nature, though, and antimicrobials are not indicated or used in their treatment.

The thread is about:

Just trying to help achieve that goal.

FWIW, I'm not a farmer or an expert on cattle. However, from my limited reading on the subject (which was the result of reading on some other topics), it appears that feeding cattle grain can cause grain sickness or acidosis, leading to ulcerations in their rumen wall; which causes them to need antibiotics.

From Science Daily (in 2001, mind)



I'd always thought the antibiotics were for conditions brought on by overcrowding, etc, but appears feed factors in as well.

That's interesting about the alfalfa losing protein. I've read about how vegetables and fruits, once harvested, essentially by the day or hour or even minute, lose a whole lot of their innate "quality" that we allegedly love them for. So when we have farmers growing things in useless soil, forced by chemicals, and then harvested slightly prior to ripe, and of a type that holds up best for longer shipping, by the time we get to it in the store, it may have little nutritional resemblance to what the USDA actually thinks our orange, bell pepper, etc. is composed of.