What do organic cows eat and what do factory farmed cows eat?!
As for organic cows I'm pretty sure they eat hay, feed corn, grass and grain.
Answers: Factory farmed cows will start out on a formula of made in part from cows blood. As they mature hay, feed corn, cereal the grocers can't sell, that sort of thing. They also feed -get this- FISH to some cows to make their flesh and milk high in omega 3.
As for organic cows I'm pretty sure they eat hay, feed corn, grass and grain.
Organic cows eat available materials from the nature and the factory cows eat what future butcher provides them.
Grass fed, mmmmm sounds good. But what if it was a cow that stood knee deep in its own feces, shot full of drugs, eating genetically modified corn for 15 months in a factory farm? It got to eat grass for only its first 3 weeks after being weaned from its mother so they can write “grass fed” on the label without lying.
Then, there is the whole unveiling of the not really organic milk. Most of us now have heard how at least 10 percent of organic milk is also from factory farms and that many organic milking cows didn’t even have access to grass! Forget those posters and ad campaigns about happy cows.
What do organic cows eat
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what do factory farmed cows eat
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organic cows live on organic farms and have all oats and corn in their diet and factory farmed cows have a diet wich contains suplements.
Feb/Mar MotherEarth News
What You Need to Know About The Beef You Eat
By Jo Robinson
You can’t see it. And you can’t always recognize it by reading the label. But the beef in your supermarket has gone industrial.
Before factory farming took hold in the 1960s, cattle were raised on family farms or ranches around the country. The process was elemental. Young calves were born in the spring and spent their first months suckling milk and grazing on grass. When they were weaned, they were turned out onto pastures. Some cattle were given a moderate amount of grain to enhance marbling (the fat interlaced in the muscle). The calves grew to maturity at a natural pace, reaching market weight at two to three years of age. After the animals were slaughtered, the carcasses were kept cool for a couple weeks to enhance flavor and tenderness, a traditional process called dry aging. The meat was then shipped in large cuts to meat markets. The local butcher divided it into individual cuts upon request and wrapped it in white paper and string.
This meat was free of antibiotics, added hormones, feed additives, flavor enhancers, age-delaying gases and salt-water solutions. Mad cow disease and the deadliest strain of E. coli — 0157:H7 — did not exist. People dined on rare steaks and steak tartare (raw ground beef) with little fear.
What’s in Your Beef?
Today’s industrialized process brings cattle to slaughter weight in just one or two years. But it reduces the nutritional value of the meat, stresses the animals, increases the risk of bacterial contamination, pollutes the environment and exposes consumers to a long list of unwanted chemicals.
The beef contains traces of hormones, antibiotics and other chemicals that were never produced by any cow. That hamburger looks fresh, but it may be two weeks old and injected with gases to keep it cherry red. Take a closer look at that “guaranteed tender and juicy” filet of beef. The juiciness may have been “enhanced” with a concoction of water, salt, preservatives and other additives.
More ominous, the beef also may be infected with food-borne bacteria, including E. coli 0157:H7. Some experts believe this toxic E. coli evolved in cattle that were fed high-grain diets. Every year, hundreds of thousands of pounds of beef products are recalled. One of the largest recalls to date took place in October 2007 when Topps Meat company recalled 21.7 million pounds of hamburger because of potential E. coli contamination. The massive recall actually put the company out of business.
And now there’s mad cow disease, a mysterious disease that is not destroyed by cooking and has been fatal. You could ingest “prions” (abnormal proteins) by eating even a well-done rib roast. These prions infiltrate your brain, perforate it with holes, and cause death in a few years’ time.
The artificial manipulation of beef begins prior to conception. Many cows are treated with synthetic hormones, such as “melengestrol acetate,” that regulate the timing of conception, allowing all the calves to be born within days of each other — a “more efficient” process. In many ranches, herd bulls have been replaced by artificial insemination, which is a fast (read: more efficient) way to improve herd genetics. The goal is consistent size, tenderness and marbling. But industry insiders predict that many ranchers will be using cloned cattle in five or 10 years. The mass-produced calves will be carbon copies of each other. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted preliminary approval of cloning in December 2006, declaring that the meat is indistinguishable from normal meat, and is as safe for human consumption. In similar circumstances, no labeling has been required.
Goodbye Grass, Hello Feedlot
After the calves are born, they spend the first seven to nine months grazing on grass, the same way calves have been raised for generations. But when they reach 500 to 700 pounds, they are herded into trucks and shipped to auction barns where they’re sold to new owners and trucked to distant feedlots. The journey can take up to a week. Upon arrival at the feedlot, the stressed, thirsty and hungry calves are herded down chutes and subjected to a number of procedures, which can include dehorning, castration, branding and tagging. Then they are dewormed and vaccinated against various diseases. A common practice is to mix antibiotics with the feed, whether the now-stressed animals show signs of illness or not. Tetracycline, an antibiotic important for humans, is one of the most commonly used medications.
Lastly, the calves are implanted with pellets that contain growth-promoting steroid hormones that lose their effectiveness in a matter of months. Many animals are given new implants of higher potency to replace them. The aggressive use of hormone implants can add 110 pounds of lean meat or more to a calf. Every dollar invested in implants returns five to 10 dollars in added gain for each animal in the six to 12 months they spend in the feedlot.
Are Hormone Implants Safe?
Given the fact that nine out of 10 U.S. calves are treated with hormonal growth promoters, you can assume that most of the beef in your supermarket contains hormone residues. The FDA has approved five hormone implant growth promoters for cattle. Three of them — estradiol, progesterone and testosterone — are naturally occurring hormones that are identical to those found in humans. Zeranol and trenbolone acetate are synthetic hormones that mimic natural ones. In addition, melengestrol acetate is approved as a feed additive. Some implants contain a mix of these various substances.
Many consumers and advocacy groups are calling for a ban on these growth-promoting implants. They point to research showing that even trace amounts can promote tumor growth. At the Ohio State University, cancer researchers mixed human breast cancer cells with trace amounts of Zeranol, one of the five hormones used in U.S. cattle. Zeranol caused a significant spurt in tumor growth, even at levels 30 times lower than levels the FDA maintains are safe.
The European Commission Health and Consumer Protection Directorate-General has identified more than a dozen additional studies that raise concern about the safety of the implants, including the possibility they might cause birth defects and changes in sexual development in children. Weighing all the evidence, the European Union (EU) has banned the use of implants. They also refuse to import U.S. beef from animals treated with hormones. Although EU scientists concede there is no clear proof that the implants are harmful to humans, they assert there also is no proof that they are safe. What’s more, they say, Europeans have expressed a clear preference for hormone-free beef, even if no health risks are found. The World Trade Organization, at the urging of the U.S. government, now levies trade sanctions against the EU for closing their doors to U.S. beef.
Meanwhile, the FDA stands by its claim that beef from implanted cattle contains such small amounts of these drugs that they pose no threat to human health. In fact, the FDA is so confident in its ruling that it does not require hormone use to be listed on labels.
Grain and Antibiotics Go Hand in Hand
Hormones are just one way to speed the growth of young calves. Another strategy is to feed them an ultra high-grain diet, the standard fare in most feedlots. One reason calves are switched from grass to grain is that grain is a more concentrated form of energy. Calves fattened on grain reach maturity months ahead of grass-fattened calves. The less time cattle spend in feedlots, the greater the profit they return. Corn is the grain of choice because it’s especially high in energy.
Grain-feeding has another advantage: It keeps the assembly line moving steadily throughout the year. Grass becomes sparse during periods of drought and cold weather, which slows the growth of the calves. Grain is available year-round, allowing calves to gain as much weight in January as they do in June. It also keeps the meat cases stocked all year, a luxury we now take for granted.
But unnatural high-grain diets have a major drawback: They make cattle sick. To prevent or reduce the symptoms caused by grain-feeding, they are given a steady dose of antibiotics in their feed — adding yet another drug to the mix.
Why does grain-feeding cause health problems? Cattle, sheep and other grazing animals have a specialized stomach chamber called a “rumen.” The rumen is designed to convert fibrous plants such as grasses into a nutritious, easily digested meal. Replace the grass with grain and the rumen becomes too acidic. After several months, the condition can progress to “acute acidosis.” Cattle with acute acidosis develop growths and abscesses on their livers, stop eating, sicken and even die.
Retired animal science professor Jim Hayes, who holds a doctorate in reproductive physiology and animal science, and manages grass-based Sap Bush Hollow Farm in Warnerville, N.Y., puts it bluntly: “A high grain diet blows out their livers.” To keep the calves alive and gaining weight, they must be given a steady diet of antibiotics.
Even with these countermeasures, many calves develop “subacute acidosis,” a more aggressive form of acid indigestion. A calf with subacute acidosis will hang its head, drool, kick at its belly and eat dirt. Alarmingly, this is regarded as “natural” in the feedlot. According to an article in the trade magazine, Feedlot: “Every animal in the feedlot will experience subacute acidosis at least once during the feeding period. … This is an important natural function in adapting to high-grain finishing rations.” When calves are finished on high-grain diets, a certain amount of suffering is simply taken for granted.
Antibiotics as Growth Promoters
The calves are given antibiotics for it.
Wild cattle, from which today's domestic stock are derived from ate abundantly on a multitude of grasses, leaves, shoots and the list goes on and on.
So, today, the so called 'organic cow' is not really naturally loose but left out to pasture on limited types of grass grown by the farmer.
Factory farmed cows eat hay, (Lucerne, among a host of others, commercial feeds with lots of vitamins, minerals, blood etc ...
These animals have a limited array of food .....selectively given so that they taste great when consumed by.......us.
Who Cares as long as the Meat Tastes good in the end .
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