Meet Your Meat

This morning I picked up the K-State Collegian. I usually do not read the school newspaper, but this morning I got here early and decided to give it a once over. Well it sure did get my day off to a fiery start! An opinion column basically bashing the livestock industry is what really got my day off to the fiery start.

Here is a little from the Meet Your Meat by Beth Mendenhall:
Bacon is delicious. I know it, you know it, even the pigs probably know it. Despite its tastiness, however, eating meat is bad for the environment and human health and causes billions of animals to suffer needlessly.


Albert Einstein once said, “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet,” and he was right. This is especially true today as mechanized industrial farming has become the norm for poultry and swine production, and cattle feedlots have increased drastically in size and number.


Livestock agriculture is the leading cause of soil and water pollution, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. This is due in part to over fertilization of food crops — there is simply too much excrement and not enough land to absorb it without causing massive runoff into the water table. Waste from processing facilities, like Tyson’s meatpacking plants, adds to the problem. A U.N. report also identified factory farms as the leading cause of anthropogenic (human-caused) greenhouse gas emissions, more so than all modes of transportation combined. Simply put, our environment was not meant to handle the massive amounts of waste produced by industrial livestock operations or the fossil fuel emissions required to ship meat from rural communities to cities.

You can read the rest of the article by clicking here.

We have all heard these "stories" and myths before, and we all know that they are not true. We all know that the industry that we love and work in is full of hard working, compassionate, caring men and women. We know that farmers and ranchers care for their land and their animals because they are their livelihoods. We know that these farmers and ranchers work so hard to provide a safe, wholesome and delicious product for this country and the world.

I am asking you to make a comment in the comment section of this article to help correct the "stories" Beth is telling in her opinion piece.

Thank you and remember to EAT BEEF!