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.”
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!
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