you can’t run away on harvest day 239friends. I was recently annoyed when somebody told me I should not eat
yogurt because “If I were a cow, how would I like to be milked?” At the
same time, we create our personal and moral standards based on the infor-
mation we have, and most of us (beyond grade seven) want to make in-
formed choices.
Egg and meat industries in the United States take some care not to
publicize specifics about how they raise animals. Phrases like “all natural”
on packaged meat in supermarkets don’t necessarily mean the cow or
chicken agrees. Animals in CAFOs live under enormous physiological
stress. Cows that are fed grain diets in confinement are universally plagued
with gastric ailments, most commonly subacute acidosis, which leads to
ulceration of the stomach and eventually death, though the cattle don’t
usually live long enough to die of it. Most cattle raised in this country begin
their lives on pasture but are sent to feedlots to fatten up during the last half
of life. Factory- farmed chickens and turkeys often spend their entire lives
without seeing sunlight.
On the other hand, if cattle remain on pasture right to the end, that kind
of beef is called “grass finished.” The differences between this and CAFO
beef are not just relevant to how kindly you feel about animals: meat and
eggs of pastured animals also have a measurably different nutrient compo-
sition. A lot of recent research has been published on this subject, which is
slowly reaching the public. USDA studies found much lower levels of satu-
rated fats and higher vitamin E, beta- carotene, and omega- 3 levels in meat
from cattle fattened on pasture grasses (their natural diet), compared with
CAFO animals. In a direct approach, Mother Earth News hosts a “Chicken
and Egg Page” on its Web site, inviting farmers to send eggs from all over
the country into a laboratory for nutritional analyses, and posting the re-
sults. The verdict confirms research published fifteen years ago in the New
En gland Journal of Medicine: eggs from chickens that ranged freely on
grass have about half the cholesterol of factory- farmed eggs, and it’s mostly
LDL, the cholesterol that’s good for you. They also have more vitamin E,
beta- carotene and omega- 3 fatty acids than their cooped- up counterparts.
The more pasture time a chicken is allowed, the greater these differences.
As with the chickens, the nutritional benefits in beef are directly pro-