How Much For A Steak Mister?

The real question when it comes to beef is what we have to give up to get, say, 1 pound of beef. Is the final cost worth whatever pleasure we get from eating it. Here are the facts.

It takes 2800 pounds of grain to bring a cow to slaughter. That grain requires 125,000 gallons of water to grow. Along with the other 2500 gallons of water the cow needs is a whopping 127,500 gallons of water. But what does that mean Paully? Let me break it down.

It requires between 2.07 and 2.24 pounds of grain and 100 gallons of water for every one pound of beef. The amount of grain it takes to bring 1 cow to slaughter would feed 6 people for 1 year. The meat from that 1 cow will not.

The grain that would feed the 6 people would fit into what we now call an anti-inflammatory diet which has been shown to reduce the risks of virtually every chronic disease. The beef has the exact opposite effect. Eating beef has long been shown to contribute to heart disease, cancer, arthritis, diabetes and others.

The environmental effects of raising cattle are numerous and mostly negative. In an organic farm setting cattle can be raised in a n environmentally neutral way, but on large factory farms the sheer quantity of animals and the waste they create destroys the soil and ground water not only on the farm raising the cattle but other land and ground water nearby.

Without the subsidies WE pay for with our taxes these large factory farms would not be able to raise cattle how they currently are raising them and continue to profit. The corn subsidies allow them to feed cattle for less than the actual cost of growing the corn. Does that make any sense to anyone?

Why do we need to make cheaper beef? So you can get a burger for a dollar at a fast food joint? So the ground round that you buy from the store (which is sprayed with ammonia to kill off the e-coli) doesn't cost so much that you can't afford the box of Hamburger Helper?

The simple fact is that red meat should be eaten rarely if at all. It is the new tobacco. We KNOW it isn't healthy for us, but we refuse to leave it. At least cigarettes have warning labels.

More soon....