Reply #3: Say Mad Cow, I'm With You [View All]

[iamjoy]

From what I understand, Mad Cow Disease stems from feeding cows, feed contaminated with, er, other cows.

In the old days, man had farm. Man kept cow. Cow ate grass and hay. When man needed meat, man killed cow. It kind of made sense really, man was just part of the food chain, near the top for the most part, but eating meat involved a degree of personal sacrifice.

Ranchers and small family farms raised cows for consumption in nearby cities. Large pieces of animal carcass went to butchers. Butcher cut meat. Even if the connection to the animal we were eating wasn't direct, there was still something natural about the whole process, after all, as we urbanized not everybody could keep their own livestock.

Now, we have large factory farms where cows do not roam a range, but are kept in small boxes. They are fed grain and anything but grass because it suits consumer demand for meat. Large factory style slaughter houses send the meat to the store cut mostly ready to sell. The fact that the meat is prepared on an "assembly line" not only ruduces the need for skilled professions (buthers) by replacing them with cheaply paid manual labor, but increases the opportunity for contamination.