New View of The Meat
October 28, 2009 by tcholewik
Beef used to be my favorite type of meat, that’s because I love spaghetti Bolognese and many other dishes full of beef, but “King Corn” has radically changed my view of beef; I grew up in Europe where all of food is usually organic, and more importantly animals are usually treated in a more humane ways.
In Europe where we still have pastures (in which cows can feed on grass)on which cattle can graze, and from personal experience I can say that not only it tastes better, but thanks to “King Corn” I realize that it is healthier too. When I came to US I knew that food production in US involves a lot of unnatural practices that aren’t popular (or sometimes legal) in Europe, but not that cattle spends it life contained in extremely crowded areas (instead of more natural pastures) for more profit at the expense of animal’s suffering and nutrition thus our, and animal’s health. More over I cannot imagine how people decided that cattle should eat food that is unnatural to them which can’t be good for them for obvious reasons.
What shocked me the most was the lack of any sort of ethics in treatment of animals? “King Corn” showed how cows spend lifetime contained on a crowded strip of land so small that they can’t even more around, while they are feed food that is simply not made for their stomachs; moreover all of this causes diabetes and certainly other health problems too. I would be able to eat food with less nutrients but when I know buying beef supports cruel practices that we saw in “King Corn” or even worst practices from “Kosher Wars” specifically Agriprocessors ripping still alive animals alive, that appears a lot like Auschwitz.
Initially I thought that all(relatively speaking) people treat animals fairly, in production of food money is not the only factor especially when dealing with live animals that can sense what happening to them. Now I’m not comfortable with eating beef(as naive as it sounds, I still hope that it is only cattle industry that is so cruel) so instead of eating my favorite spaghetti Bolognese I rather to switch to something more austere like Fettuccine alfredo.
I completely agree with your post. The main shock factor of the class so far was watching king corn and finding out about the cattle. I grew up in guyana, in South America. My grandparents had cows in which they used to take care of on their land. I remember when i was little that i used to chase after the cows with my family. The cows always seemed to be happy there. However as i watched king corn i began to realize that the same feeling isnt mutual with every cow. I began to realize that the food system that we support everyday is unethical and not adhering to the standards that we want them to adhere to. THere needs to be some sort of change. Like the slogan says Happy Cows come From California. Lets hope we can keep our cows happy.
PS: Fettucine Alfredo is amazing.
I never knew that most food in Europe was organic but I completely agree with the fact that you look at beef differently. It is truly hard to eat something that you know was tortured basically its whole life. And when you think about it we don’t only do it to them, but we do it to them, their children, their children’s children, etc. If we were to go back to an all organic life like you mentioned you had in Europe, then we would probably all be better off.