Corn-fed Cattle & E. Coli

September 18, 2006

The relationship between corn-fed cattle and E. coli.

The industry has convinced us corn-fed cows is a natural occurence.  What could be more pure and simple?  Not really.  Corn really messes up a cow’s digestive system.  Imagine if you were force fed rocks or something that you really can’t break-down and digest very well.  You wouldn’t get very much nutrition from rocks.  This may be a bit of  an extreme example.  I assume cows get some nutritional value out of corn but not enough  to stay healthy.  Basically, the cows would be undernourished and sick if it weren’t for all the additional goodies that are put into their feed (antibiotics, vitamins, hormones).  Here lies is the breeding ground of E. coli, an unhealthy cow gut.  Take a large cattle farm with large amounts of uncontrolled sewage run-off that ends up in our spinach patch, spinach + untreated cattle sewage = E. coli outbreak!

Turns out grass-fed cows have higher omega-3 fatty acid levels, the healthy fat that can prevent heart disease.   Corn-fed cows have higher saturated fatty acid levels, the unhealthy fat implicated in leading to high blood cholesterol levels which means increased risk of  heart disease, plus other chronic disease.    Corn-fed cows are bad for the enviroment and our health.   Next topic, why are we force feeding cows corn…

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