Another post...not quite a year later

Yes it's almost been a year since my last post which was only the second post of this blog but who's counting? Again not sure why I'm posting but my dear friend Alli is making me do it. She literally said she'd stab me if I didn't. Ok so maybe she didn't say she would stab me but she has said that before so it is something she might say.

I watched Food Inc. last night. If you haven't seen it yet you must run to your computer and order it from Amazon or rent it from NetFlix. Wait, you're already at your computer if you're reading this. So as soon as you're done reading this post, click here and order the movie! Show it to all your friends and make your kids watch it. It is a must see!!! I'm a huge fan of one of the contributors to the movie, Michael Pollan. I first learned of his writings in an MBA class, Corporate and Social Responsibility. Hold on now, don't go to sleep, I'm not going to bore you with school talk. But seriously, if you read any of his writings it will make you think about what you are buying in the grocery store and feeding your family. I was in complete shock when I first read his PBS article on feed lot beef. Yikes! Scary stuff. Before reading the article, I didn't really think about where the meat we purchase originates. You go to the grocery store and buy it. That was the extent of it, other than what's on sale this week. The problem with this thinking is that it's widespread and because we don't think about where our meat comes from, we lose the control to have a voice in what we eat. If we decide that we aren't going to buy the feed lot beef and we want grass fed beef, the market will respond to our demands. That is after all the power of the consumer.

So what's wrong with feed lot beef? You have to read the articles listed above! But if you don't have time or just plain don't want to, here's my summarized version for you....I give this version to my friend Alli who doesn't like to read the articles, she'd rather I read them and then give her the abridged version. So here goes...Cows are designed to eat grass. They have multiple stomachs that digest the grass (or whatever other weeds are growing in the pastures). They can't eat and process corn like they can grass. So when we feed cows corn (this is what feed lot cows eat), they get sick. In order to combat the sickness, they are given antibiotics. I heard a statistic once that more than 70%, some sources say 80% but we'll be conservative here, of antibiotics produced are for agriculture. Who knew?? No wonder antibiotic resistance is on the rise! It's not even like they wait until the cows are sick to give them the antibiotics! It's mixed in with the food, the corn. This is common practice in the beef industry. So what do you think happens to all those antibiotics that the cows ingest with their corn? Yeap....it ends up with us when we buy the end product. Bon appetit!