One of the most revolting things I learned while researching my new book "Animal Factory" is that some cattle are fattened on rations that include chicken manure. Poultry excrement is loaded with urea, which bovine stomachs are adept at converting into lean, ready-to-grill protein.
We feed chicken manure to cattle because it's cheap; and because we produce far too much of it to properly dispose of as fertilizer.
Today's "broiler" chickens are raised at record speed in massive, mechanized barns that cram tens of thousands of birds into a single confinement. Broilers live just eight weeks. But in that short time, their endless fecal droppings (birds don't urinate) mix into a bedding of woodchips and other material, yielding a thick "cake" of litter that's scraped from the barn after each flock is removed.
What becomes of all that feculence? Its nitrogen and phosphorous content is so high that land application uses are limited. In Maryland's Eastern Shore, litter runoff is helping to fuel fish-choking algal blooms. In Arkansas, traces of arsenic (a growth-promoting feed additive) were found in homes near cropland onto which pulverized litter was spread.
So why not convert that chicken dung into Chateaubriand?
To begin with, cattle were meant to eat grasses, not feces (nor corn, soybeans or other subsidized commodities). But there's another reason why chicken litter should probably be kept away from cattle.
Poultry feed often contains bits of rendered beef byproducts. Chickens are not tidy eaters: they spill copious amounts of food into their litter, which is then fed to cattle. And, as everyone knows, cows that eat cows can go "mad" with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or spongy cow-brain disease).
In 2004, the FDA proposed banning poultry litter in cattle feed, to avoid the spread of BSE. It was already outlawed in Canada. But days later, the agency postponed its change, citing "troubling feedback" from the agricultural sector. Some foreign countries balked at buying US beef, but the Bush Administration held firm, refusing to commit to a deadline.
Chicken litter is not the only way that American cattle eat cattle. Beef-containing restaurant scraps are often rendered into feed, and a formula for dairy calves (whose mothers' milk is deemed too valuable to "waste") contains bovine blood products.
I imagined that the Obama Administration would complete the work left undone by Bush and enact a universal ban on feeding beef products to cattle. Instead, I discovered that Obama's FDA had ratified what his predecessor proposed: Doing nothing.
Well, not exactly nothing. In April 2008, Bush's FDA published its final rule on "Substances Prohibited From Use in Animal Food or Feed," which took effect under Obama's FDA, in April 2009.
"FDA is amending the agency's regulations to prohibit the use of certain cattle origin materials in the food or feed of all animals," it wrote in the Federal Register. These include: "the entire carcass BSE-positive cattle; the brains and spinal cords from cattle 30 months of age and older; the entire carcass of cattle not inspected and passed for human consumption that are 30 months of age or older from which brains and spinal cords were not removed; tallow that is derived from BSE-positive cattle; (and) tallow that is derived from other materials prohibited by this rule that contains more than 0.15 percent insoluble impurities."
Feel better? The agency insists that BSE "prions" (deadly, deformed proteins) are only found in brains, nerve tissue and spinal cords, and not in muscle or blood. Since none of those are allowed into any animal feed, it's ok to feed cattle to cattle, FDA says, and there's no need to ban litter, table scraps or blood products.
"A cow would need to consume a very large volume of poultry litter to ingest an infectious dose of BSE," it wrote. "FDA believes that the risk of cattle exposure to an infectious dose of BSE through poultry litter is low," and that banning the above-mentioned materials "should reduce that risk even further."
In other words, it's possible, but we really don't think it will happen that often.
As for table scraps, "FDA disagrees that it is necessary to eliminate the plate waste exemption because, since 2004, human food has been required to be free of SRMs," (specified risk materials).
FDA also refused to ban blood products, even though infective prions were "demonstrated experimentally in the blood of sheep and rodents." Species differences, it argued, "suggest that these findings cannot necessarily be extrapolated to cattle."
And then came this rather unsettling statement: "While FDA agrees that more sensitive detection methods might some day demonstrate BSE infectivity in bovine blood, the agency believes that it is highly unlikely that the BSE agent is present in blood of infected cattle at levels sufficient to transmit disease."
In other words, if you can't test for it, why worry about it?
Personally, I'm not sure if "highly unlikely" is reassuring enough. Besides, if we can't produce food without giving feces, blood and old meatloaf to cattle, there's something seriously wrong with our system.
David Kirby is author of "Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment" (St. Martin's Press): More info at www.animalfactorybook.com
Laura MacCleery: Let Down Again: Obama's FDA Fails to Advance New Emergency Contraception Rules
Robyn O'Brien: Eight Steps the Department of Justice Could Take to Reform Farming
Glenn D. Braunstein, M.D.: Ban the Tan
Vegetable Growers Meet to Discuss New FDA Standards on Food Safety
Report Shows Decline in FDA Inspections
Legal and Ethical Veterinary Compounding
Recognized Consensus Standards
How To Maintain FDA Standards - Forbes.com
FDA Drug Standards: What's Safe Enough?
FDA Wants New Radiation Safety Standards for Popular X-Rays - ABC News
Update on Feed Enforcement Activities to Limit the Spread of BSE April 5, 2010
http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2010/04/update-on-feed-enforcement-activities.html
Monday, April 5, 2010
Update on Feed Enforcement Activities to Limit the Spread of BSE April 5, 2010
http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2010/04/update-on-feed-enforcement-activities.html
TSS
If the tables were turned and the animals were in charge, how many of us would eat our own poop?
Variety is good, but there are so many rules and variations that no comment or article is going to provide a magical equation. A good starting point is understanding that on average, a healthy ratio is [(9g carb/7g protein/1.5g fat) X (the number of calories you need to accomplish the mental/physical work your body will be required to do)]. If you are not in good health, that ratio has to be tweaked. There is no food or diet that is perfect, or perfectly healthy. Also, all the info you need is free. Buying a book about it is a way to avoid doing (or stopping) anything. Supplements are not food. All they do is build up non-digestible crap in your body. Pills and cigarettes are killing people using them more than very rarely. (You could eat straight chicken manure and be healthier than the average smoker, no offense)
And who produces meat raised on chicken manure? Big food corporations, of course. Profits not People.
Go vegan!
Why don't all the religious groups, who freak out whenever someone proposes giving homosexuals any kind of the human rights they should have, get involved in this. Their big argument against gays seems to be "this is against nature". Well, feeding animal products to non-carnivorous animals is far more unnatural, and far more dangerous to them and their children than same sex marriage will ever be.
We can no longer justify the torture and murder of 56 billion nonhumans each year. That is 147 million animals per day and that does not include sea animals.
Veganism is easy. http://www.veganpamphlet.com It's better for the planet, better for us, and most importantly, it's the morally right thing to do. If people are interested in veganism, there is a great book called "Becoming Vegan". It has plenty of information. You can find loads of fantastic vegan cookbooks with fantastic tasty recipes. Don't fall for the "humane" lie, that animals who were murdered lived "happy lives"
If you want to join the growing political grassroots vegan movement -- check out these sites http://www.abolitionistapproach.com & http://www.animalemancipation.com & http://www.unpopularveganessays.blogspot.com and http://www.facebook.com/livevegan
People need to realize that what they eat is the most powerful way they impact the world. Eat less meat, eat more fresh,real food... especially veggies. Calorie for calorie nothing beats leafy green veggies.
producers would have less incentive to raise livestock like this.
Oh and by the way (even tho it's the big elephant in the room) have no or only up to 2 children,
less population pressure less incentive to raise livestock like this.
You don't have to be vegan to make a big difference in this sick, dangerous system. I read that Amiercans eat 40% of their calories from animal products. If they could cut that number to 10%, esp. by replacing those calories with fresh wholefoods, think of the changes that would bring to their health, the environment, and the lives of these poor animals!
Factory farming and all the cruelty and health issues associated, is not going to end any time soon if ever. The reason being that while animals are chattel property, humans are allowed to do whatever they wish, as long as they can justify that we are benefiting economically or in some other way. The only way to end the property status of animals is for people to go vegan http://www.veganpamphlet.com & http://www.abolitionistapproach.com and educate others to do so. While we consume products of nonhuman slavery, we contribute to violence against our own health, violence against 56 billion nonhumans / year and we contribute to the ecological insanity animal use industries impose on our planet. http://www.51percent.org
Speciesism is an irrelevant criterion as to whether nonhumans should belong to the moral community. Speciesism is as immoral as racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, classism and should be addressed. We cannot complain about people like Michael Vick using dogs in barbaric dog-fighting, when we ourselves use animals also for our pleasure. We are as responsible as Michael Vick for the violence against nonhumans.
I would urge people to stop wasting time focusing on the "unnecessary cruelty" & the health & environmental issues regarding factory farming & focus the real issue --- the immoral use of animals. While there is use, there will be abuse. There is no such thing as "humane".
As Tolstoy said "Where there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields"