Temple Grandin's Insight: Current Issues

Hey everyone! This is a follow up to my previous blog Temple Grandin’s Insight: Animal Welfare. Today I’m going to be sharing what she thought about current issues. These are really important topics and most were brought up during the time that she left at the end of her talks for questions and discussion.

Beta-Agonists

                                T  Problems with beta-agonists are generally dosage related

                                T  Beta-agonists should not be used in the heat.

o   She doesn’t know why but she says that something funny happens in the heat. More lame cattle come in to packers. Animals start walking on their toes and shifting their weight back and forth from one foot to the other “as if the ground was hot lava.” More dead cattle come in to packers. Before beta-agonists the number of dead cattle coming in on trucks was 0. Now there is an increasing number of dead cattle with no bodily injuries.

                                T  Use in moderation. MORE DOES NOT MEAN BETTER

                                T  Your trade-off for bigger cattle is that it makes meat tougher

                                T  Use beta agonists to gain muscle! Don’t mess with the good genetics that are already there

                                T  Beta agonists need to be used with a correct diet

Food waste

                                T  Food waste should be the first thing we fix to increase global sustainability

                                T  Smaller portions at restaurants

                                T  Food needs to be sold in grocery stores that is packaged for single people

                                T  Implement low level rendering in all packing plants.If you don’t use low level rendering (separation of lean meat from fat to save the lean for things like hot dogs, sausage, canned meat) it is like “taking two truckloads of cattle, letting them out, and machine gunning them down. We are wasting that much meat when we don’t use ‘pink slime’ in packing plants.”

                                T  In Europe, they pass untouched food on to the next table in restaurants.

o   No, I don’t mean your leftovers. I mean things like uneaten breadsticks or rolls that are left. Or if your food was clearly made wrong and you hadn’t touched it, it can be given to someone in a timely manner. If the food is clearly untouched, why not use it? We waste so much food at restaurants here in America.

GMO’s

                                  T  “People in this country are really irrational.”

o   Amen to that! Read the reasons why in my Are you pro GMO? Blog

                                  T  We should be adding GMO’s to large farming. These two things should be working together to produce sustainable agriculture

                                  T  Producers are so far in the box, they don’t even know there is a box.

o   GMO’s and the latest technology are sometimes hard to teach farmers how to use; they can be really set in their ways, thinking that what their grandpa taught them is best. While in some cases that could be true, we want to help educate farmers to increase efficiency and safety.

                                  T  If Golden Rice (vitamin A rice) was created and introduced first, would we have a different perspective on GMO’s?

o   We have a bad outlook on GMO’s because the first GMO’s were meant to naturally repel insects without using pesticides. People think “that is so not natural there must be crazy stuff in my food that could harm me!” That’s not true. GMO’s were engineered to help us!

Sustainability

                                   T  Corn is not sustainable!

o   Corn is a monoculture, meaning there is no variety. Monocultures work great in the short run. There is energy security, but there is no net energy gain.

                                   T  “The person who is not hungry has many problems. The person who is hungry has only one.”

o   We are supposed to be able to feed the world. But in America we are too concerned with whether something has “chemicals” or “hormones” or GMO’s (p.s. Nothing is hormone free. Everything that comes from an animal is naturally full of hormones. Basic biology, folks, read my post about hormones here). Come on, guys! Instead of fearing for your life about these things that your parents and grandparents ate all of their lives with no problem, remember that your concerns are nothing compared to a person who is starving.

                                  T  Don’t push biology to hard!

o   I talked about this a little in my previous blog. If we choose genetics with bad feet conformation but great muscling, eventually we will have cattle that can’t stand up! We want to choose optimum not maximum.

To those of you who are advocates of agriculture (AGvocates!) Dr. Grandin and I want to encourage you to talk to the people who are sitting on the fence. We don’t want to sneakily entice people to come to the agriculture side like some industries or organizations do. We want people to know the truth! Help educate your friends and family so they can be savvy shoppers. But remember, 80% of people sit on the fence and need a hand in deciding, 10% will always be against today’s agriculture, and 10% who will always be for it! Focus on those middle ground people! Don’t lose hope if you happen to talk to those 10% of people who are against you. Leave your questions/comments below, and be sure to share this post!