I would never describe myself as an animal lover. I love some dogs. I love some cats. I pretty much hate every other kind of animal. Baby pigs are cute, I guess. And monkeys are okay if they don't bite and don't have that gigantic visible asshole. But if we are in the trust tree here, I am going to just come out and tell you that if I run over a squirrel I don't cry. Although I did cry when I ran over a turtle because it wasn't his fault he was born a slow mover (like Nick.) And I also cried that time a cat ran into my back wheel and catapulted into a bus stop full of people doing high speed cartwheels (the cat was doing the cartwheels, not the people.) Whatever. The point is, while you will never catch me working for the ASPCA, my new “thing” is to really care about where the cows I eat come from, what they are being fed, and how they are being treated. I love having new “things.” This one is almost as cool as when my “thing” was wearing Harley Davidson clothes in 11th grade. Except I don't think caring about cows will make nearly as many people think I am a douchebag. By the way I don't know if cartwheel cat lived or died.
Recently I have started eating a lot of grass fed beef that I purchase at a farmer's market in North Attleboro. The main reason I like this beef better is because not only is it hormone free, but it is also totally full of an acid called CLA that helps to reduce abdominal fat. HIGH FIVE! Admittedly, I notice very little, if any, difference in the taste between this beef and the beef I could buy at Stop and Shop, but it makes me feel a little better knowing that the meat I am eating is increasing my level of sexiness. I only have a few more good years before I have to get an old lady haircut, so I will take all the sexiness assistance I can get for the time being.
Another reason I like this beef is because it is not produced at a giant, disgusting slaughterhouse. If you have seen the movie Food Inc, you will know that the big slaughterhouses process thousands of cows an hour and employ tons of illegal immigrants who work in abysmal conditions. Think about it. Countless cow carcasses flying around on hooks being inspected by people who probably don't give a shit about their job because it SUCKS? Who the hell knows what is getting into that beef! Probably finger nails and cow balls and cow hair and AIDS. Gross. My cows go to a small slaughterhouse in Vermont and fly around dead in much smaller groups. Less flailing carcasses, less room for error, less AIDS.
Finally, I like to eat grass fed beef whenever I can because it is SAFE. A lot of people don't know this, but E-Coli does not exist in grass fed cows. I can eat this meat, cooked whatever way I want, knowing that I am not going to die painfully from E-Coli after several days of hallucinating and puking up blood clots. The United States government is at the point where it profits so much from corn production, that rather than just STOP feeding cows corn all together to prevent E-Coli, they are just pumped full of unnatural antibiotics to kill the bacteria. Feeding cows corn is cheap, so why stop just because its harmful to them? This would be like if you ate laundry detergent all the time because its cheap, but then took drugs so you wouldn't die. That's dumb, and everyone would hate you. Luckily, now you know this, and you can start to look into purchasing locally raised grassfed beef instead. Party!
To wrap this up, I just want to pull on your heart strings a little and tell you that the cows living in giant warehouses, being fed corn, and waiting to die are not happy cows. They never get to go outside, and they never get any love (sexually from other cows or platonic love from humans.) The cows I eat get to go out in the fields and eat and take huge craps and have tons of sex all day. I like to imagine that the farmer hugs them and kisses them and names them things like Cuddles, Sprinkles, and T-Pain. Keep in mind, the same rules apply for pigs and chickens, and it is always better to eat grassfed pork and pastured chickens whenever you can. This post is dedicated to the possibly dead, but also maybe still alive, Cartwheel Cat.
There is actually E-Coli in all cow stomaches. The e-coli in grass fed cows stomaches are used to break down the cellulose walls of the plant cells in their rumen, while in corn fed and antibiotic pumped cows are teeming with e-coli because they can not actually digest corn and it creates an excess of methane gases which is one of the leading causes of greenhouse gases (cow farts galore). Oh and the fact in factory farms cows and every other animal stands in feet of their own excrement and people eat them... yippee.
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