Sprol Again: This piece, our most popular, originally ran May 14th. It’s been updated with a few more links. Do you know of a large feedlot or other industrial facility near you? Tell us.
If you’ve ever driven between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and you were in too much of a hurry to take the coastal route, you’ve probably smelled this place before you saw it. This is what 120,000 cattle look like from space. You don’t need any fancy chemistry lessons or to imagine deadly radiation or dioxins slowly building up in your system here. One glance tells you that this is pretty disgusting.
It’s what goes into these animals that’s the really gross part.
This is the gigantic cattle feedlot in Coalinga, California along Interstate 5. Aside from the state prison, it’s the largest employer in west Fresno County, employing 1,500 persons in the feedlot, slaughterhouse, and fancy steakhouse. Vertical integration.
A feedlot is a confined area for controlled feeding of animals. This one is the largest in California and has several characteristics that are typical of the modern cattle feedlot in the United States. The cattle here are bound for places like McDonald’s, California Safeway stores, and precooked pot roasts and TV dinners. Lock ‘em in. Fatten ‘em up.
You’ll note that there is no shade, shelter, or grass on the ground. Cattle are ruminants, meaning that they would primarily graze on grass. Cattle in feedlots, however, are fed grain, and are often implanted with a series of steroid hormone implants inserted under the skin behind their ears. It makes them grow faster and can increase profit by $80 per steer. That this has the effect of poisioning the water, as well as every burger eater who snarfs one, is a fact that millions of dollars per year go to supressing.
After all, at 120,000 heads, we’re talking almost ten million dollars extra, every few months. Just for a few steroids. Just for this lot. They’re performance enhancing! Not okay for pro baseball but just fine for your 8 year old.
Cattle have four stomachs designed to process the cellulose fibers in grasses. Grain mixed with garbage like chicken feathers and bone meal really isn’t what these beasts are supposed to be eating. The food combined with regular doses of antibiotics cause the cattle to put on so much weight that their internal organs fall out and have to be stuffed back in by the ranch hands. No veterinary care is provided.
I spent countless hours stuffing 25lb of cow back inside the animal and then sewing the wound, the whole force of a 600lb heifer straining against me. source
All of that homones, antibiotics, and other garbage in the meat isn’t very good for people. It turns out that the hormones in the meat cause estrogen levels to rise in people who eat it. Even though the EU won’t allow it, the USDA insists that the rise in hormone levels is safe. Especially for children.
Do any of your friends have daughters who have experienced premature sexual development? You’d better not ask them.
Many doctors maintain that things like elevated levels of oestradiol, a powerful sex hormone, in your beef can cause all sorts of problems, such as the increased levels of cancers in the prostate, breast, and ovaries. Incidence of these diseases have been rising since the 1950s as beef consumption, heart disease, and obesity have all skyrocketed.
And people wonder why I don’t eat beef!
Yuck!
Hey, whatever it takes so I can get a jumbo jack for $ 0.99, I’m all for it… Are you with me people?!?!
All the beef ads that google is running on this page are making me hungry.
People are just igrnorant and they are happy to stay that way.
WHERE’S THE BEEF? oh, there it is.
Nice wrap-up of a lot of the problems of feedlots. They are a truly disgusting, mean way to make a living.
Plus, cows raised on small organic farms, where they can graze pasture as their bodies were built to do, make much better-tasting beef. No need to give up meat, just eat the kind that is better for you, the cow, the small business farmer, and the environment!
Wake up America your sucking the rest of the world dry. We are one planet. Don’t take, give.
oops, inflation struck. Jumbo Jacks have been $1.30 for over a year here. You now must settle for a Jack Jr (1/3 the size) for $0.99 (was $0.75).
Death to the Human RACE!!!! Death to the whole fuc#$%# system of the Universe. Whoever or whatever created it ought to be tortured like that…………
As something to think about…
I have rarely eaten beef over the last 15 years… I found that after not eating it for 3 or 4 weeks that I had MUCH more energy and a positive outlook on life. That is, I was not so sad and depressed. When I ate some beef as a trial, I got headaches and my mental state was heading down.
Oh, as an aside, my sex life improved when I did not eat beef…
Nasty.
To see what happens to these poor creatures after the feed lot look here..
http://www.meetyourmeat.com
There is no reason to eat animals.
It is just a bad habit.
I think PETA ought to do something about this. The People for the Eating of Tasty Animals ought to commend such an effifient and wholsmome food production facility!
I think that PETA oughta do something about this! Such an efficient and wholesome food production facility oght to be commended by the People for the Eating of Tasty Animals!
Thank God for Mad Cow Disease!
I don’t eat a whole lot of beef because I’ve seen the long term health effects my steak and potatoes Irish family, but I do love a good, slow cooked, charcoal and mequite chips BBQ’d steak every now and then. YUMMMMMMMMM!! I do agree that you should go for the organic, free range types of meats, its worth the extra cost, plus your money goes towards helping the little guy and not some soulless, scuzzy corporate whores who are plaguing the Earth.
You want to talk about a bunch of carnivores, we fat ass Americans consume so much beef now that we have to import it from Asia, Central and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain and even Russia to name a few.
The United States lost the ability to produce enough beef to feed the gluttonous population nearly thirty years ago thanks to the expanding population and the decrease in beef production due to raising cost, producers and the Government had to look outside the country to meet the yearly supply and demand and contain cost of the production.
The Government will not support or back the small rancher, only the super size ranches and the continuing over seas ranching operations by the corporate owned producers.
If you think it’s only beef we are talking about here you are very much mistaken, chicken and pork are fast going the way that beef did because of the enormous demand for it in this country, demand that can not be met by producing the product within this country.
Americans keep demanding more and more burger for the BB-Q’s, pork chops and chicken wings and wash it all down with a billion gallons of beer every year not thinking or caring where it all comes from, only that it comes and keeps on coming, nothing will ever change that fact.
We “Pig Out” and get fatter as corporate America does the same while many people in the third world countries starve to feed our appetite for more !
Interesting, but I’m okay with it. Steaks for dinner on the grill tonight whether I’m appalled or not.
Happy cows come from California.
… survival of the fittest…
I highly suggest for your viewing pleasure…SUPERSIZE ME and THE CORPORATION!!! FAST FOOD NATION is a great read!!! The next time you sink your teeth into your McDs burger you need to know that there is over 1,000 (!!!) cows in that one burger!!! YUM YUM. Check out those movies and you will definatly change your eating habits!!!
Can’t you tell from the smell of it cooking what the hell you’re eating? Humans have given up thier senses in return for pleasure. If you want to eat meat then you should firs remember that you are eating LIFE and revere it and thank it for sustaining you. the chemicals in the food available for consumption all have telltale odors. I’d rather dine on a vegitarian human than some of the shit I’m forced to choose from in the supermarkets I frequent. That bitter taste isn’t normal. And OOOOOOO that smell. That’s the smell of death all around you.
“At 12:16 PM, Anonymous said…
{You want to talk about a bunch of carnivores, we fat ass Americans consume so much beef now that we have to import it from Asia, Central and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain and even Russia to name a few.}
That’s so true, most people just don’t stop and think where all of the food they are eating comes from and just like so much of the junk that we buy that’s mass produced the quality really sucks.
Think about it, if beef and other livestock are being mass produced like half the crap that’s sold it probably isn’t very good or good for you.
I see by some of the post here people don’t really care, what a shame, when they are laying on their backs dying from a heart attack, cancer or some other little nasty thing I bet they still won’t care.
That’s the problem with ignorance and apathy, you don’t know and you don’t care until it’s to late to save your sorry asses !
Oh, that’s right, there is always prayer, right ?
So fucking what!? get a life you sad tree hugging saddos! You gotta die of something! Bet half you twats moaning about the intensive farming of cattle and how bad the meat must be, are shoving alcohol into your system and nicotine into your lungs!!!!!
When your numbers up mate….its up!!! KISMET/FATE OK?
the problem is for poor folks: they are not going to be able to afford organic beef.
And eating vegies alone is not much healthier as most plants are now genetically modified and tampered.
there is no escaping of hell.
This article was great and gross. I drove by this very spot several times and the vibe is strongly malignant. This feedlot is ghastly and keep in mind that there are others just as bad or worse throughout the country. It’s an outrage, but what can we do? STOP EATING BEEF. If we all just do our part and not eat the red poison or the parasite-riddled pork we can drive places like this out of business. The best thing to do is make your own statement every day by eating wild fish (not from fish farms): cod, mackeral, tuna (dophin safe tuna) and vegetables. The feeding of animal parts to the same living animals (forced cannibalization) is utterly reprehensible and should be halted immediately. Again…what can you do? STOP EATING BEEF! IT’S SHIT!!!
WHAT’S THE MATTER, YOU DON’T LIKE THE NEW WORLD ORDER’S FOOD? SURE, STOP EATING MEAT…AND EAT THE GENETICALLY ENGINEERED, EQUALLY DEADLY, PLANTS!
It’s all part and parcel of not having any real choices, especially if you live in poverty like most people. Lest you think 50,000 grand a year is real money, investigate the trillionaire cabals that control the planet.
I think that we should do the same to the meat producers and see how they like to be left out in the sun, cold and rain. I personally think that living by example is the best way to get people to think, but this makes me just want to go beat the crap outta those fat, greedy, cow torturing bastards.
Please, vampires, keep eating filthy flesh & secretions.
Natural selection will ensure that you’ll die off sooner that way.
Then true human beings can get on with life.
This is horrible.
Meat is an important ingredient in a healthy diet, however it does need to be consumed with caution.
I am against these farms that house animals back to back, ingect them with steriods, etc.
It seems the real problem is overpopulation. If we didn’t have so many people, would there be such a need for so much beef?
Me thinks not.
quoting the previous poster -
“Meat is an important ingredient in a healthy diet…”
you clown! now THERE’S a case of “parroting the textbook” if ever I heard it!
Humans are NOT biologically designed to eat meat – it is NOT a necessary part of the human diet… our bodies are adaptable enough to accommodate the stuff if you choose to stuff it down your throat, but you do NOT “need” meat in your diet…
and if you want to quote off a bunch of “nutritional experts” and other crap yada yada yada to “prove” that humans DO “need” meat, first just stop and consider this – of all the known primates, the closest similarity with humans is found in the internals of ORANGUTANS – which happen to be strictly vegetarian, and easily have the strength to rip your arm off and stuff it up your BUTT if they were so inclined (but thankfully, being gentle vegetarian creatures, they generally act with more consideration for others than that)…
And THAT is why I raise my own beef on grass (I slaughter my own 2 steers every year), milk my own cows, raise and slaughter my own chickens, ducks and turkeys, and raise laying hens and guineas for eggs. I raise my own organic garden and orchard, and drink my own ultra filtered deep well water. And next year, I’ll raise and slaughter my own pigs for the same reasons. I am an Anerican Farmer, and a woman of 55 years old. And I’m strong and healthy.
My only problem is I spend so much time caring for my farm -I have no extra time to fish.
You limp f*cks have nothing to complain about. You accept your impotence. You cling to it like a security blanket. ‘Don’t look at me. I’m just a regular guy. What do you expect ME to do about it?’
Eat Beef.
Organic Industry is a joke. You want to do something? Turn off the NASCAR and read a book. Lern gud how to rite. Connect with your representation in the legislature and make sure he knows his balls go well with your vice if he doesn’t start listening to what you have to say. Red staters are gonna die first. Oh wait. They already are. Hello heart disease, are those tulips for me? Beef. Its whats for dinner. Along with a side of growth hormones, and my gi-normous mantits for desert. Thank you Food Pyramid and Modern Nutrition and Health Class.
and all you veggos. Please stop. You stopped riding the bloody beef train? Fine. You have good reasons? Great. You’ve reaped the benefits and find yourself more healthy? Wunderbarr. Thats cool as hell and it makes the unicorns happy. But your arguement sucks sh*te. I’m not squeamish in the least. I eat animals for dessert. Because we have evolved to do so, and as a once healthy option for the continued maintenance of life, its super-retarted to be opposed to it.
Humane treatment of animals is prime. Healthy and ethical raising and breeding practices are fundamental. The natives everywhere have been able to coexist with and subsist off of animals for countless thousands of years. With respect and kindness to the animal spirit and animal body. Thats a lot more than PETA can manage, setting them up as little people. Lets buy them all sunglasses and sweaters and little cat sized martini glasses so they can look pathetic like mommy and daddy. Modern human farce. Be a man. Let them be animals. Don’t treat them like people. Don’t treat them like wheat stalks.
Poor middle class americans like myself have precious few choices. I can’t normally afford the organic beef. But i can easily afford two corporate burgers with cheese every noontime on my meager salaryman wages. I do what I can to go without. Eating healthier, but thats not something the powers that be want or even care about. You see what they make so easily available to you. 99 cents each. Five dollars worth of slow acting poison. The steers aren’t the only ones being treated like cattle. My feed is just as poisoned as Maggie Moo’s over there. Only it isn’t my body being consumed by the american dream. Just my spirit. Moo brother.
If you’re a meat eater, I recommend buying beef from a local, independent farmer/rancher. You can usually place orders and then pick up in your area on certain dates when the farmer comes into town.
Here’s a database site of community supported agriculture (CSA) and farmer’s market listings. Enter your zip code and you’re good to go: http://www.localharvest.org. It’s often cheaper and is always healthier, more humane, and better for your conscience than buying packaged meat at the supermarket.
Just so you all know, we consume 1.5 ounces of petrol for every ounce of food we eat.. So when the wells dry up…
Overpopulation is another myth being used to cram us into compact cities–i.e., massive concentration camps. Go check out Google’s satellite photos. There are certainly over-concentrated areas of humans, and those are called cities. The government has stolen most of the land, it should be open up to homesteaders so we can get back to natural living. Instead we’re supposed to be dependent on the poison peddling petrochemical-pharmaceutical-agricultural-military-industrial-complex global fascists.
It’s pretty pathetic that we’ve been turned against eachother by our real enemies–i.e., vegetarian vs. meat eater, etc. Let’s unite against the globalist scum who have reduced us into human chattel–human resources.
Human Resources folks aren’t so bad, they always bring donuts to meetings. Much more approachable than the bean counters in Finance, too.
I saw someone say “survival of the fittest”. How does that even make sense? Are you implying that YOU are higher up in the food chain and cows are not, so we should eat them? Do you kill the cows you eat? The pigs you eat? I’m guessing no. Contrary to popular belief, COWS WOULD DO JUST FINE IN THE WILD without us. They wouldn’t all “die” if we didn’t pack them into these disgusting places. The fact that we are more intelligent beings is exactly why we SHOULDN’T have to eat meat. We have a choice. Our teeth are mostly flat, not sharp and curved to tear through flesh anymore. We’ve evolved, get with the program.
Even though eating meat is SO unhealthy for our bodies and our minds, ignorant people are going to eat meat. Bottom line: cows don’t have to be treated the way that they are.
Give me some of that Soylent Green instead!
After reading all of this I want to kll myself.
That is just grotesque.
And “survival of the fittest” is a poorly thought out metaphorical contraption, and has nothing to do with what one puts on their dinner plate.
Great American type article! It is pure Americano. Yes do it the American way! Point the finger at the other guy! Don’t look at the damage done in your own front lawn with pesticides, herbicides, over fertilization, etc. Don’t look to the amount of animal habitat and farmland destroyed by the huge footprint taken up by the suburban house you have retreated into. Don’t look at the gas guzzling monster vehicle that sucks down 2 gallons of fuel on the trip to and from the 7-Eleven to purchase a slurpy – which by the way is made of nothing more than plastic, a combination of compounds which have been shown to have both hormonal and carcinogen effects. Yes, do it like O.J.! Do it like Bill Clinton! Do it the Americun way! Point the finger at the other guy! I am pure and clean and do no harm. But that other guy, well, he is the one who is causing the problem! If only those wicked, wicked beef producers could be brought under control, then our daughters would then behave properly. Bush would become a genius. Christ would rise again. What a wonderful world it would be if only it were not for beef. What a bullshit article – but done in true American style.
ha! talk about ‘true american style’ (see above post…) classic example of a fat, selfish sloth who, rather than acting upon information such as this and trying to change the world for the better, instead sits back doing nothing except using one example of immorality to justify another! now THAT is the american way… beautifully done
great report
if you have ever driven by this it is so vile that that car smells terribly
and it hits the soul as something so aweful, it can’t be right
america is about freedom , freedom to do what one wants
freedom is poison look at this
and it will never be corrected
too bad for us, we sleep while awake
thinking someone is going to do the right thing
nope, we’re fuct
this shows it
thanks for making it visable
and i get such crap for eatting organic , folks enjoy making fun of organic eaters
wonderful how freedom is poison
even japan doesnt want our meat like they used too, they thinkits too dirty like europe
now we have more then enough for everyone here
try some newzealand beef its yummy ,
oh yeh how is christ going to heal the sick if they are poison by chemicals
hmmm. i bet not
we are fuct if we eat this stuff, it real and not going away
remember noone cares about our food chain here in the usa its all about profits
Dear “Beautifully Done,”
You seem to be true, blue American. And for you and your cohorts, anyone who does not wave the flag and espouse the proper verbiage used by the “politically correct†is to be immediately categorized as “a fat, selfish sloth who, rather than acting upon information such as this and trying to change the world for the better, instead sits back doing nothing…” Yes, do it the American-way by using name-calling, labeling and stereotyping.
In fact, you know absolutely nothing about me.
But just for fun, I will tell you that my profession involves teaching ethics. And therefore, I could tell you a few things about how to build a moral argument and the importance of striving for a consistent ethic across issues.
And I might also tell you that “bomb throwers†who put out crap like that above do nothing to bring about the type of change that is needed in American food production, animal welfare, life-style, etc. Instead, the above posting only proves the danger of having Americans who are short of information (about food production in this case) and long in political bigotry (hubris of the Hollywood and San Francisco-type pseudo-intellectuals who wish to dictate lifestyle to the rest of the world).
And regarding bringing about changes in policy in Europe (and the USA and the rest of the world for that matter), I happen to have done more than you could ever image in relation to improving conditions for animals, including those used in food production. And I also am very much aware that one of the reasons the USA is behind the rest of the world in dealing with animal welfare is because of the backlash that has occurred among the public at large (and reflected in some of the above comments) because of the American extremists who write and post such crap as that above that lacks any constructive content.
And anyone who selectively picks out a satellite photo that shows one California feedlot could be accused of being selectively blind. Take a look at the satellite photos of I-5 and note that this roadway alone destroyed maybe as much 200 times the amount of wildlife habitat as did the feedlot shown. And if you really want to see what damage humans have done to the environment you might try taking a look at the gross damage done the earth’s surface by the cities of San Francisco and L.A.
Many years ago on the first Earth Day, Pogo (Walt Kelly) said it best, “We have met the enemy and he is us.†http://www.nauticom.net/www/chuckm/whmte.htm
But of course as a fat, selfish sloth, I wouldn’t really understand that ultimately it is not MY lifestyle as an individual that is the problem; rather, if I were a true, blue Americun, I would join with my like-minded brethren and wave the flag in the name of blaming the other guy for all the mess.
Fat, Selfish Sloth who Rides his Bicycle to Work
http://www.harrisbeef.com/
http://www.fresnobee.com/business/story/10597972p-11386763c.html
http://beefcowcalf.com/alliance/BeefByDesign.shtml
http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/unease42201.cfm
http://harrisfarms.com/affil.htm
http://www.harrisrestaurant.com/About.asp
Many of us do change our lifestyles and are aware of the other problems you have mentioned.That is one reason why I do not eat meat,It is one thing i can change.You are very judgemental yourself to asume that some one who opposes these feedlots are ignorant of “the real problems” There is much wrong with the world today,why get down on the people who have only changed one thing in their life?Educate them instead.And don’t tell me you are because no one is going to listen when you try to make your point with sarcasm and an arrogant attitude that you have displayed.
It is easy to show the level of ignorance of the original posting above. The posting contains a link within the following statement: “It turns out that the hormones in the meat cause estrogen levels to rise in people who eat it.”
However, when one clicks on the link, one gets the following information, “The clear international scientific consensus is that these approved and licensed products are safe when used in accordance with good veterinary practice. Even the EU’s own scientists agree with these findings.”
The EU uses the hormone issue as a trade barrier against USA beef. And the WTO has repeatedly ruled against the EU on this issue – because “only science” can be used as a basis for blocking trade on a given item.
And I for one, believe that the rules should be changed – and that “cultural traditions and regional mores” should be permissible bases for blocking importation of a food product.
But as long as the discussion about beef gets thwarted out with such misinformation as above – and simplistic proposals such as everyone should “eat no meat,” – then the topic of developing a sensible global trade policy is not likely to receive much attention.
haw haw, i have probably had sex with some of the beef you eat!