http://ecoble.disqus.com/Sustainable Innovation, Green Technology, and Clean Politics - Stuff for the Savvy Green Consumer, Reader and ThinkerenWed, 02 Sep 2009 04:19:08 -0000http://ecoble.com/2008/10/05/should-you-have-some-beef-with-your-beef/#comment-15752626Bullcrap. (No pun intended.) E. coli is normal intestinal flora for cattle AND for humans. Get your "science" straight. It's microbiology 101.DanielleWed, 02 Sep 2009 04:19:08 -0000http://ecoble.com/2008/10/05/should-you-have-some-beef-with-your-beef/#comment-15752623Bullcrap. (No pun intended.) E. coli is normal intestinal flora for cattle AND for humans. Get your "science" straight. It's microbiology 101.DanielleWed, 02 Sep 2009 04:18:42 -0000http://ecoble.com/2008/10/05/should-you-have-some-beef-with-your-beef/#comment-4089964Just to update: Michael Pollen sums it up best:<br>&lt;blockquote cite="In fact there is nothing inherently efficient or economical about raising vast cities of animals in confinement. Three struts, each put into place by federal policy, support the modern CAFO, and the most important of these — the ability to buy grain for less than it costs to grow it — has just been kicked away. The second strut is F.D.A. approval for the routine use of antibiotics in feed, without which the animals in these places could not survive their crowded, filthy and miserable existence. And the third is that the government does not require CAFOs to treat their wastes as it would require human cities of comparable size to do. The F.D.A. should ban the routine use of antibiotics in livestock feed on public-health grounds, now that we have evidence that the practice is leading to the evolution of drug-resistant bacterial diseases and to outbreaks of E. coli and salmonella poisoning. CAFOs should also be regulated like the factories they are, required to clean up their waste like any other industry or municipality.<br>It will be argued that moving animals off feedlots and back onto farms will raise the price of meat. It probably will — as it should. You will need to make the case that paying the real cost of meat, and therefore eating less of it, is a good thing for our health, for the environment, for our dwindling reserves of fresh water and for the welfare of the animals. Meat and milk production represent the food industry’s greatest burden on the environment; a recent U.N. study estimated that the world’s livestock alone account for 18 percent of all greenhouse gases, more than all forms of transportation combined. (According to one study, a pound of feedlot beef also takes 5,000 gallons of water to produce.) And while animals living on farms will still emit their share of greenhouse gases, grazing them on grass and returning their waste to the soil will substantially offset their carbon hoof prints, as will getting ruminant animals off grain. A bushel of grain takes approximately a half gallon of oil to produce; grass can be grown with little more than sunshine."JeremyWed, 15 Oct 2008 16:45:48 -0000