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Liliana Godina
Professor Olliff
English 115: Approaches to University Writing
24 November 2014
Feedlot Conditions
Factory farmers in the United States have been providing meat for consumers in the
society for a long time. Beef has also increased its popularity of being part of the everyday diets
of meat lovers. Not that many people in the United States population really question the quality
of the beef that is being bought in the grocery stores. All the people know is that the meat tastes
good and that it is very affordable. Most of the people in society do not realize exactly what kind
of chemicals and nutrients they are really consuming by eating the beef. The way that the
livestock is treated, especially the cattle, is essential to the quality of the meat. In Michael
Pollans book called The Omnivores Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, he explains
how farming has become a way to mass produce beef. He describes how the cattle are being
drawn away from their natural diets in order for them to be slaughtered at a faster rate since the
demand for meat in the United States has gone up drastically over the years. Cattle are supposed
to be allowed to roam and graze on the grass fields so that they can eat the grass and eventually
gain enough weight in order to be slaughtered. But now the cattle can only graze the fields
during their first six months of life and then they are brought to feedlots where they are feed corn
and other types of wheat (Pollan 69). The cattle are being fed corn because the corn allows them
to get fatter at a faster rate than if they were allowed to only graze on the grass fields. The cattle
need to gain weight faster so that they can be slaughtered sooner in order to meet the requirement
for the large demand of meat. But the problem with the cows having a diet made out of corn is

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that they were not biologically made to be able to digest corn and wheat properly. Industrial
farming harms the United Sates society because the new diet for the cattle not only affects the
cows by allowing them to be more vulnerable to diseases, but eventually the cattles new diet
affects the people that eat the meat because humans are now indirectly digesting harmful
chemicals and diseases, and the new diet also affects the health of the environment because the
feedlots do not need to grow grass.
Throughout the years many people have seen the harm that can come from industrialized
meat so many consumers are becoming more aware of the relationships between [their] diet and
[their] health and this has increased consumer interest in the nutritional value of foods. This is
impacting the demand for foods [and it] play[s] important roles in health maintenance and
disease prevention (Scollan). Since many more people are becoming aware about what is really
in their diets, people are seeing that the way cattle are being treated and fed make the meat
unhealthy to consume. Even though eating the meat gives a lot of other types of nutrients, there
are also a lot of diseases and chemicals that come with the consumption of industrially
slaughtered meat.
The reason why so much more meat contains more chemicals is because the cattle are
being injected with drugs such as antibiotics to get rid of the different diseases that the cattle get.
The cattle are being injected with chemicals because they get illnesses such as liver abscess from
being strayed away from their natural diet since they are eating corn instead of grass. Since the
industrial farmers do not want to have sick cattle, they decide to have the cattle injected with
medicine such as antibiotics. The chemicals that are put into the cattle in order to heal them from
their illnesses are then in a way put into the bodies of the people that decide to eat the meat
because the chemicals are in the blood stream of the cattle. There are other diseases such as e-

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coli that are also in the meat that is eaten by the consumers. The e-coli disease is supposed to die
in the ph level of the stomach acid in humans, but now the virus has become immune to the
humans stomach acid because the chemicals have changed e-colis natural form of living. The
reason why this virus has been found in the cattle is because e-coli exists in the manure of the
cows and since cows are now being kept in cramped up feedlots, they tend to lay and sleep on
their own feces. Since the cows lay in their own feces, the disease then goes on their skin which
then eventually travels to the inside of their body when they are being slaughtered. But if that
virus had not become immune to the stomach acid of the humans, then this would not be such a
big problem because then the virus would die once it was inside the stomach acid of the humans.
The reason why so many diseases have become immune to peoples body defenses is
because of the harmful chemicals. The medicine that is given to the cattle change the way their
natural body systems work. For example, the antibiotics that are supposed to heal the cattle from
diseases then makes the ph level of their stomach acids increase. The ph level of the cattles
stomach acid has gone from being almost neutral to basically being the same ph level as the
humans. Since the stomach acid of the cows closely match the stomach acid in humans, when
the e-coli enter the bodies of the cattle, the virus evolves and becomes immune to higher ph
levels. The whole entire natural process of how the human bodies work to fight against diseases
is now being tampered with and in turn allows for people to be more vulnerable to diseases that
are not even supposed to be a threat to the human health.
Just how mass production in industrial farming has tampered with the natural way of
fighting off diseases, it has also tampered with the natural way of the environment. Cows are
supposed to graze on the grass and they are supposed to eat the grass instead of eating corn
because the corn then causes diseases and then the farmers have a reason for injecting the cattle

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with chemicals. The idea of having the cattle graze on the grass is beneficial for the environment,
especially the grass. Even though it seems as if by allowing the cows to eat the grass cause the
farmers to have more work, it actually does not. The grass and the cows work together to
maintain each other alive. The grass knows how to deal with the cows and the cattle know how
to digest the grass. Cows have more than one stomach because the many stomachs allow the
cattle to be able to digest the grass properly. Humans, however, are not able to properly digest
the grass. Cows were born with the ability to fully digest the grass by digesting it again and again
by having the grass go through their many stomachs. The ability to fully digest the grass allows
for the cows to take out the nutrients provided by the grass. These good nutrients are then
supposed to go into the bodies of the humans when they decide to eat the cattle. But now since
the cows are not given the chance to eat enough grass all those good nutrients do not go into the
bodies of the humans through the digestion of the cows.
Just like how the cows benefit from eating the grass by being able to extract all of the
good nutrients, the grass also benefits from the cows. The grass benefits from the cows because
while the cows are grazing in the fields, they tend to leave their feces lying on the grass. Since
the cows do not have any bad chemicals, the feces is good for the growth and development of the
grass. The cow manure actually helps the grass reproduce and the manure allows for the grass to
grow healthier. But since the cows are taken out of the fields and put into the feedlots, this
natural process between the cows and the grass is broken and it breaks the natural food chain.
That is why grass does not really exist in feedlots because the cattle need to be fed corn in order
to be fattened up faster, so the farmers cannot afford to have the cattle eat grass and slow down
the process of getting slaughtered. Since the cattle do not eat the grass, the grass then becomes
too difficult for the farmers to maintain by having to make the cows rotate around the areas

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where they graze. So now instead of eating healthy cows that give humans naturally healthy
nutrients from being fed a natural diet, the cows that are being digested by the human population
are unhealthy and full of harmful chemicals and diseases.
Since the natural ways of living and eating has been taken away from the cattle, they are
more susceptible to diseases which then have to be treated by either a veterinarian or nutritionist.
So even though the feedlots and the industrial farms have a lot of negative outcomes, there are
some positive outcomes that come out from having feedlots and from having to treat the animals
with chemicals. One of the indirect positive outcomes that come from feedlot industries is that it
provides people with jobs because people are needed to take care and feed the cattle. These
feedlots provide society with jobs because the farmers need people to maintain the animals and
keep them alive until they are fat enough to be slaughtered. The food industry also provides jobs
for veterinarians and nutritionists. The industry allows for the consulting nutritionist and
veterinarian [to] typically spend more time at the feedyard than other advisors (Smith). The
reason why there are veterinarians and nutritionists on the feedlots is because their goal [is]
to provide the best possible advice and service to the feedlot for the benefit of the cattle, the
cattle owners, and ultimately the consumer (Smith). Since many cows get ill from being fed
corn, the farmers then need to hire veterinarians to cure the sick cattle and they need to hire
nutritionists to look at the food. The veterinarians come in to the feedlots to check up on the
cattle and to make sure that they are not ill from any diseases. Then once they see a cow that is
ill, they go on to proceed on diagnosing the cow with an illness. Once they find out what is
wrong with the cow, they tend to give the cow antibiotics or some other form of medicine so that
the cow will be healthy again. The nutritionists are needed so that they can examine the diets of
the cows. They then proceed to see what is wrong with the feed of the cattle. Then they usually

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put drugs in the food. The drugs are supposed to be there in order to prevent diseases from
getting into the cow. Since the cows are most likely going to get sick from their unnatural diets,
farmers have the idea of preventing the disease from getting into the cows from the very
beginning by putting drugs into their food. So even though some cows may not get sick from the
day they are born to the day they are slaughtered, they still have chemicals throughout their
bodies. The other jobs that are provided by the industrial farms may not provide a lot of people
with a good sturdy income, but at least it provides jobs for some people that need the money.
There are a lot of negative outcomes with the idea of feedlots such as having diseases that
evolve, but then there are also a few positive things that come from it such as having less
expensive meat. Since meat is being mass produced, a shortage for meat in the grocery stores
does not exist. When there is enough food to be sold in stores, the price of the product goes
down. This allows many people to be able to afford the cost of the meat. This then helps the
economy because a lot of people are buying beef and families are having meat as part of their
daily diets. So even if the feedlots negatively affect the cattle by giving it diseases, the
consumers by not having them eat healthy meat but instead, eat meat with diseases and
chemicals, and the environment by not allowing the grass to grow, at least the economy and
some workers benefit from the industrial farm.

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Works Cited
Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York:
Penguin, 2006. Print.
Scollan, Nigel, Jean-Franois Hocquette, Karin Nuernberg, Dirk Dannenberger, Ian Richardson,
and Aidan Moloney. "Innovations in Beef Production Systems That Enhance the
Nutritional and Health Value of Beef Lipids and Their Relationship with Meat Quality."
Meat Science, 74.1 (2006): 17-33.
Smith, Robert A, and Larry C Hollis. "Interaction Between Consulting Veterinarians and
Nutritionists in the Feedlot." Veterinary Clinics of North America: Food Animal Practice,
23.2 (2007): 171-175.