I am what I eat

I am what I eat eats.

I've thought about the connection in vague terms - that what meat and poultry I eat was also fed a particular diet that might effect me. That's why I buy organic, right? To avoid all the antibiotics and hormones that potentially show up in the meat. What I hadn't done was think about a cow like I would a carrot growing in my garden. I make a point of creating a loamy soil rich in nutrients before I plant seeds because it certainly has a bearing on flavor. Try growing vegetables in bad soil. It isn't very satisfying. But back to the beef. I want to share some insights from Michael Pollen that I found fascinating:

"We've come to think of 'corn-fed' as some kind of old-fashioned virtue, which it may well be when you're referring to Midwestern children, but feeding large quantities of corn to cows for the greater part of their lives is a practice neither particularly old nor virtuous. Its chief advantage is that cows fed corn, a compact source of caloric energy, get fat quickly; their flesh also marbles well, giving it a taste and texture American consumers have come to like. Yet this corn-fed meat is demonstrably less healthy for us, since it contains more saturated fat and less omega-3 fatty acids than the meat of animals fed grass. A growing body of research suggests that many of the health problems associated with eating beef are really problems with corn-fed beef. In the same way cows are ill adapted to eating corn (the author shows how cows are actually made ill by eating corn - and backs this up with research), humans in turn my be poorly adapted to eating cows that eat corn."
"The health of these animals (feedlot cattle) is inextricably linked to our own by that web of relationships. The unnaturally rich diet of corn that undermines a steer's health fattens his flesh in a way that undermines the health of the humans who will eat it. The antibiotics these animals consume with their corn at this very moment are selecting, in their gut and wherever else in the environment they end up, for new strains of resistant bacteria that will someday infect us and withstand the drugs we depend on to treat that infection. We inhabit the same microbial ecosystem as the animals we eat, and whatever happens in it also happen in us."

-excepts taken from Michael Pollen's Omnivore's dilemma, Chapter 4

I'm not sharing this in an effort to stop anyone from eating beef. I have just found it fascinating to see what really goes into the industry of keeping my markets stocked with such lovely cuts of beef. It is an industry in the true sense of the word - industrial factory farming of a product that consumers want. It wasn't that long ago that a steer would not be slaughtered until he was around three years of age. Today that age has slipped down to fourteen months and much of this is due to the diet and genetic selection for cattle that fatten quicker. Pollen is quite matter of fact about the way in which disease and ill health is part of the feedlot process. Unlike chickens, cows are not meant to eat grain - their digestive system isn't geared to it and they get all sorts of problems because of it. Luckily, they can only subsist so long - about fourteen months.

Alright, so what's the point of making my stomach queasy? The main reason I shared those quotes was the way in which this author keeps coming back to our relationship with the food we eat. The food chain, the natural order that evolution and diversity has given us - a unique homeostatic state that recognizes how we truly are in relationship with the food that comes into our homes. It opens up a set of complex questions regarding some of the major illnesses affecting humanity - diabetes, obesity, cancer not to mention outbreaks of e. coli and resistant strains of staph. I wonder what happens to my immune system not only by what I purposefully ingest - but what about the environment? All those fertilizers and hormones that wash down stream into our water supply. What about the algae blooms in our lakes and in the Gulf of Mexico that they've traced back to the agricultural industry?

I'm a point of connection somewhere in this picture. If I truly believe that I have a relationship with the natural world - if I believe that I am a biological creature that needs to harness the natural world for my own subsistence - then these realities are rather horrifying to support. None of these practices are what I would label sustainable for the planet. The lack of balance is appalling to me and I wonder how choices can be made that so clearly will leave my children's world damaged.

I don't think I'll be ordering steak in a restaurant any time soon.