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(P.S I was stupid and forgot to write down which date I had for blog post, but I think it was this week??? So sorry if it isn’t. I am moronic sometimes.)
Blood and Guts and Chocolate Cake
We all know our food production system in America is quite honestly a disgusting disaster. What I mean is we get what we want to eat, yes. We are, after all, a nation in the throes of an obesity epidemic. But in order to provide all of that meat, all of those juicy, McDonalds hamburgers, all of that finely crafted Gorgonzola cheeses, we needed to engender a monster. And so, America’s agricultural system was born. The CAFO.
Primarily, we utilize CAFOs/AFOs to raise our animals for slaughter. You can think of a CAFO as a large prison, where the cells are tiny, dirty, and beyond crowded. The animals are literally prisoners, sometimes beaten, sometimes driven to cannibalism, and sometimes unable to move for weeks at a time. Their waste trickles down to manure lagoons that occasionally experience major disaster, spewing tons of raw manure into run offs and further polluting water sources. The odor from these lagoons lowers property values, and the pollution causes health problems such as asthma that affects nearby towns, which are generally of the lower class and or poverty stricken. Besides the typical respiratory problems, the pollution also contributes to the spread of disease and pathogens. The large amount of antibiotics being pumped into our animals to keep them somehow somewhat healthy in the pure hell they reside in is affecting us by building up our antibodies to a swathe of antibiotics.
We have created a money making machine, one capable of supplying Americans with the endless amount of eggs, meat, cheese, and milk we desire. But at what cost?
To be sustainable, can we reduce our meat consumption? Can we forgo that delicious bit of goat cheese and instead gradually rid ourselves of animal products? Or maybe we simply could start buying from local farms, where we know the animals have been tended to well and with love. It has to start somewhere. Avoid the McDonald’s and the Burger King and instead head to a local farmer and purchase a portion of a steer there, and make your own steaks, your own burgers.
It is, after all, a step in the right direction, although the wrong path calls to us in its siren song of convenience. It is possible, I promise.
-Camiell Foulger
WORKS CITED
“CAFO vs. Free Range.” CAFOs vs. Free Range, Organic Consumers Association, www.organicconsumers.org/categories/cafos-vs-free-range.
Gurian-Sherman, Doug. CAFOs Uncovered: the Untold Costs of Confined Animal Feeding Operations. Union of Concerned Scientists, 2008.