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brento1138
Joined: 17 Nov 2004
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 Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 8:12 pm Post subject: Mad Cow Fears |
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Like you, I thought Koreans were crazy to be crazy about Mad Cow disease in the USA. I thought, how could a nation that considers one of its national dishes (spam) to be just fine yet be at all worried about US beef? Spam, a dish slightly better than cat food, surely doesn't seem safer to eat than a steak from the good ole' USA. Well, I was listening to a radio show hosted by George Knapp which had on a special guest who goes by the name "The Mad Cowboy." This guy is fighting for better regulations in the USA... and you can see why. Some very scary things he talks about, especially the part about grinding up dead pets and feeding them to cows:
Since I can't send you the radio show wav files easily, here is a quote from something I found just by typing in "The Mad Cowboy" into google.
Following by Howard Lyman
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I am a fourth-generation dairy farmer and cattle rancher. I grew up on a dairy farm in Montana, & I ran a
feedlot operation there for 20 years. I know firsthand how cattle are raised and how meat is produced in
this country. Today I am president of the International Vegetarian Union.
Sure, I used to enjoy my steaks as much as the next guy. But if you knew what I know about what goes
into them and what they can do to you, you'd probably be a vegetarian like me. And believe it or not, as a
pure vegetarian now who consumes no animal products at all, I can tell you that these days I enjoy eating
more than ever.
If you're a meat-eater in America, you have a right to know that you have something in common with most
of the cows you've eaten. They've eaten meat, too.
When a cow is slaughtered, about half of it by weight is not eaten by humans: the intestines and their
contents, the head, hooves, and horns, as well as bones and blood. These are dumped into giant grinders
at rendering plants, as are the entire bodies of cows and other farm animals known to be diseased.
Rendering is a $2.4 billion-a-year industry, processing forty billion pounds of dead animals a year. There is
simply no such thing in America as an animal too ravaged by disease, too cancerous, or too putrid to be
welcomed by the embracing arms of the renderer.
Another staple of the renderer's diet, in addition to farm animals, is euthanized pets-the six or seven million
dogs and cats that are killed in animal shelters every year. The city of Los Angeles alone, for example,
sends some two hundred tons of euthanized cats and dogs to a rendering plant every month. Added to the
blend are the euthanized catch of animal control agencies, and roadkill. (Roadkill is not collected daily, and
in the summer, the better roadkill collection crews can generally smell it before they can see it.)
When the gruesome mix is ground and steam-cooked, the lighter, fatty material floating to the top gets
refined for use in such products as cosmetics, lubricants, soaps, candles, and waxes. The heavier protein
material is dried and pulverized into a brown powder-about a quarter of which consists of fecal material.
The powder is used as an additive to almost ALL pet food as well as to livestock feed. Farmers call it
"protein concentrates." In 1995, five million tons of processed slaughterhouse leftovers were sold for animal
feed in the United States. I used to feed tons of the stuff to my own livestock. It never concerned me that
I was feeding cattle to cattle.
In August 1997, in response to growing concern about the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (or
Mad Cow disease), the FDA issued a new regulation that bans the feeding of ruminant protein (protein from
cud-chewing animals) to ruminants; therefore, to the extent that the regulation is actually enforced, cattle
are no longer quite the cannibals that we had made them into. They are no longer eating solid parts of
other cattle, or sheep, or goats.
They still munch, however, on ground-up dead horses, dogs, cats, pigs, chickens, and turkeys, as well as
blood and fecal matter of their own species and that of chickens. About 75 percent of the ninety million
beef cattle in America are routinely given feed that has been "enriched" with rendered animal parts. The use
of animal excrement in feed is common as well, as livestock operators have found it to be an efficient way
of disposing of a portion of the 1.6 million tons of livestock wastes generated annually by their industry. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 11:20 pm Post subject: |
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The beef industry and the entire slaughterhouse industry is gross. It is not for wimps.
Anyway in other news here is an example of a mad cow.
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 11:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
The beef industry and the entire slaughterhouse industry is gross. It is not for wimps.
Anyway in other news here is an example of a mad cow.
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Both points are dead on. |
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bookemdanno
Joined: 30 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 12:50 am Post subject: |
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OP:
I see. And none of these things described are done by the Korean beef industry? Pray do tell.
If Rosie O'Donnell is a by-product of this industry, for example if she consumes any of the feed herself, that alone would be cause enough for me to go vegan.
BTW: Spam is an American product, made in Austin, Minnesota. Asians love it the most: one third of U.S. sales are in...Hawaii.
I love the way Koreans gift wrap it for sale in the stores.
There's more sodium in the a tin of this stuff than in a salt mine.
Still, I could really go for a Black Angus USDA prime porterhouse steak with a large fillet and A-1 sauce right about now.
Sidebar: a year before actor Robert Mitchum died, he decided the heck with it and gorged himself on prime steak. A search online of him wading in the water near his California beachfront home confirms as much. Pilot whales must have been calling in the distance. Mitchum was the TV voice for a spate of beef industry commercials in the 1990's "Beef: It's What's for Dinner." |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 2:40 am Post subject: |
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Okay. Reality check.
First of all, you cannot get Mad Cow from eating an infected cow, just as you cannot get Avian Flu from eating an infected chicken.
Second of all, Korean beef is disgusting. Almost 1% of the meat you eat in Korea is filled with antibiotics. Compare it with another comparatively high figure, 0.14% for the U.S., and you realize how scandalous this is.
Lastly, here the total number of deaths from Mad Cow is 150 worldwide. Only three of these cases emerged in America. The Korean fear of Mad Cow from U.S. beef is based on complete fear and monumental stupidity. |
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merkurix
Joined: 21 Dec 2006
Location: Not far from the deep end.
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| Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 3:25 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
Okay. Reality check.
First of all, you cannot get Mad Cow from eating an infected cow, just as you cannot get Avian Flu from eating an infected chicken.
Second of all, Korean beef is disgusting. Almost 1% of the meat you eat in Korea is filled with antibiotics. Compare it with another comparatively high figure, 0.14% for the U.S., and you realize how scandalous this is.
Lastly, here the total number of deaths from Mad Cow is 150 worldwide. Only three of these cases emerged in America. The Korean fear of Mad Cow from U.S. beef is based on complete fear and monumental stupidity. |
Kudos to Kuros,
Thank you for those awesome links! I now have some excellent news sources for generating discussion among my uni students who seem to be buying into the hype (or hysterics?) Anyways, thanks again.  |
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Milwaukiedave
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Location: Goseong
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| Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 3:49 am Post subject: |
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This is one time I find myself agreeing with Kuros.
Koreans are parnoid and the only thing they have is the pure fear the Korean media puts into them. The sad thing is that their own president has told them Korean beef is safe, but they don't believe him. My wife happened to tell me today that President Lee enjoys a 20% approval rating two months after he took office. And we thought George Bush was hurting?
Owch! |
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blade
Joined: 30 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 4:44 am Post subject: |
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| Milwaukiedave wrote: |
This is one time I find myself agreeing with Kuros.
Koreans are parnoid and the only thing they have is the pure fear the Korean media puts into them. The sad thing is that their own president has told them Korean beef is safe, but they don't believe him. My wife happened to tell me today that President Lee enjoys a 20% approval rating two months after he took office. And we thought George Bush was hurting?
Owch! |
I told my co teacher that getting hit by a car was much more likely to happen to the average Korean than ever catching mad cow from American beet and she just looked at me like I was crazy  |
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bookemdanno
Joined: 30 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 3:44 pm Post subject: |
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Kuros noted:
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| Lastly, here the total number of deaths from Mad Cow is 150 worldwide. Only three of these cases emerged in America. The Korean fear of Mad Cow from U.S. beef is based on complete fear and monumental stupidity. |
And, I might add, xenophobia and a double trade standard called "Let's-Cheat-the-Foreigners-If-We-Can."
By the way, notice how ALL the tuna sold in most stores are Korean brands?
The selection of fare is abysmal.
---
Korea: Crawling Toward the Twenty-First Century |
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