Beef = Cancer

[Louis N Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis:

"In order to obtain the optimum weight gain in the minimum time,
feedlot managers administer a panoply of pharmaceuticals to the
cattle, including growth-stimulating hormones and feed additives.
Anabolic steroids, in the form of small time-release pellets, are
implanted in the animals' ears. The hormones slowly seep into the
bloodstream, increasing hormone levels by two to five times. Cattle are
given estradiol, testosterone, and progesterone. The hormones
stimulate the cells to synthesize additional protein, adding muscle and
fat tissue more rapidly. Anabolic steroids improve weight gain by 5 to
20 percent, feed efficiency by 5 to 12 percent, and lean meat growth by
15 to 25 percent. Over 95 percent of all feedlot-raised cattle in the
United States are currently being administered growth-promoting
hormones.

In the past, managers used to add massive doses of antibiotics to the
cattle feed to promote growth and fight diseases that run rampant
through the animals' cramped, contaminated pens and feedlots. In
1988, over 15 million pounds of antibiotics were used as feed additives
for livestock in the United States. While the cattle industry claims that
it has discontinued the widespread use of antibiotics in cattle feed,
antibiotics are still being given to dairy cows, which make up nearly
15 percent of all beef consumed in the United States. Antibiotic
residues often show up in the meat people consume, making the
human population increasingly vulnerable to more virulent strains of
disease-carrying bacteria.

Castrated, drugged, and docile, cattle spend long hours at the feed
troughs consuming corn, sorghum, other grains, and an array of exotic
feeds. The feed is saturated with insecticides. Today 80 percent of all
the herbicides used in the United States are sprayed on corn and
soybeans, which are used primarily as feed for cattle and other
livestock. When consumed by the animals, the pesticides accumulate
in their bodies. The pesticides are then passed along to the consumer
in the finished cuts of beef. Beef ranks second only to tomatoes as the
food posing the greatest cancer risk due to pesticide contamination,
according to the National Research Council of the National Academy
of Sciences. Beef is the most dangerous food in herbicide
contamination and ranks third in insecticide contamination. The NRC
estimates that beef pesticide contamination represents about 11 percent
of the total cancer risk from pesticides of all foods on the market
today.

Some feedlots have begun research trials adding cardboard,
newspaper, and sawdust to the feeding programs to reduce costs. Other
factory farms scrape up the manure from chicken houses and pigpens,
adding it directly to cattle feed. Cement dust may become a
particularly attractive feed supplement in the future, according to the
United States Department of Agriculture, because it produces a 30
percent faster weight gain than cattle on only regular feed. Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) officials say that it's not uncommon for
some feedlot operators to mix industrial sewage and oils into the feed
to reduce costs and fatten animals more quickly.

At Kansas State University, scientists have experimented with plastic
feed, small pellets containing 80 to 90 percent ethylene and 10 to 20
percent propylene, as an artificial form of cheap roughage to feed
cattle. Researchers point to the extra savings of using the new plastic
feed at slaughter time when upward of '20 pounds of the stuff from
each cow's rumen can be recovered, melt[ed] down and recycle[d] into
new pellets.' The new pellets are much cheaper than hay and can
provide roughage requirements at a significant savings."

(From Jeremy Rifkin's "Beyond Beef")



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