I have recently become aware of something that I think the majority of people are blissfully ignorant of. We have long known that the Cattle Industry uses many different methods to quickly "fatten" up cattle so as to be able to sell them for higher prices. Cattle in North America are routinely injected with steroid growth hormones (and as such are banned for sale in Europe) and are fed expensive and wasteful fattening grains.

Those grains aren't really all that expensive at $5/tonne.

We all became aware of the Cattle Industry's perversion of nature when we found out that the probable cause of Mad Cow Disease (Bovine Spongiform Encepthatopathy or BSE for short) was the mixing of ground-up cattle parts and bone meal into cattle feed.

This is not true. Government propaganda would have you believe that the source of BSE was the introduction of nerve tissue (not "bone meal") from sheep offal into the cows' food chain. In actual fact, "BSE" and its human equivalent are the result of organophosphate poisoning from fertilizers used on the grass which our friend appears so fond of.

Here is a herbivorous animal that is designed to digest and redigest only grass and hay being fed meat from other animals just to quickly increase its weight for additional financial gain.

Oh yeah. And I suppose that while Daisy is grazing on the grass, if she happens to snarf up a worm or a beetle, she just spits it out, perhaps with a shudder of civilized disdain? Like hell. Evidence suggests that ninety percent of the protein intake of wildebeeste (the nearest wild relative of the domestic cow) comes from sources of this kind. Pigs will happily eat their own young if they are given half a chance, demonstrating that there is nothing intrinsically "herbivorous" about food animals. The only reason that cows do not stalk and catch rabbits is that a) they cannot move fast enough and b) their legs are too long and rigid for them to conveniently bite a small creature like a rabbit. If the countryside contained rabbit-like animals which were slower moving and had longer legs, we would think of cows as carnivores.

It was with a sigh of relief when various official government departments in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand informed us that such unnatural practices where to be prohibited by law. We then all went back to eating our big juicy steaks and continued to consume fast food junk in ever increasing quantities.

Big juicy steaks and junk fast food are unhealthy whatever the cows were fed. At least under the old regime we received a healthy dose of antibiotics with each bite. This was important, as, due to excessive government regulations, the last remaining effective antibiotic against multiply drug-resistant tuberculosis is forbidden to be prescribed to humans. The only way you can get it these days is by eating American beef.

But what most people are unaware of is that cows are still being fed ground-up animal remains, just not that of "ruminant" animals. A ruminant animal according to The Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary is "any even-toed, hoofed mammal" that is a cud-chewing quadruped. Ruminant animals include domestic cattle, bison and deer.

So what does the US and other countries allow cattle to be fed. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) explicitly allows the following, among others, to be mixed into cattle feed:

· Blood and blood products

Blood is a body fluid. Milk is a body fluid. Are we saying that cows shouldn't drink milk either?

· Gelatin

Gelatin is the stuff that makes Jello[tm] bouncy. It's not meat! It's dessert! I really don't know what he's talking about here

· Milk products

Here's a newsflash for you -- cows drink milk. They don't just happen to produce milk for the benefit of has-been actors, you know.

· Pork and Horse "protein products"

What type of madness prevails when you ban the inclusion of cattle remains, but allow blood and gelatin from cattle and even allow for pork and horse remains to be fed to cows that are not designed to eat anything but grass products.

And worms, insects, calves, hypothetical rabbits, etc

Even setting aside the strong objections of the Muslim and Jewish communities to feeding pork products to cattle, what proof do we have that this is safe?

Which part of "no establishment of religion" do you not understand? In Europe, maybe, but in the USA, it would be both constitutionally impossible and a breach of our WTO and NAFTA obligations

In the interests of preventing future outbreaks of BSE or as of yet unidentified diseases, such practices must be prohibited by law.

I would urge you to join in the call to ban the feeding of any type of animal byproducts to herbivorous animals. In the U.S. you may communicate your concerns to:

Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20201

Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman
U.S. Department of Agriculture
14th & Independence Ave., SW
Washington, DC 20250

Additional Information about what and how cattle are fed.

US Food and Drug Administration Guidance for Industry: Small Entities Compliance Guide for Feeders of Ruminant Animals with On-Farm Feed Mixing Operations

Canadian Food Inspection Agency Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy - Frequently Asked Questions

Public Citizen Letter to the FDA and USDA

[editor's note, by jsm] Additional material supporting the contrary case can be found at the Cow Feed Marketing Board's website.