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Eating the cannibal cow
Posted: Wednesday, January 7, 2004
by Linda Edwards
Port-of-Spain
Eating has become scary. Science has taken an herbivore (the cow) and turned it into a cannibal by feeding it the body parts of other cows. Science has also stated that the most efficient food for any species is its own kind. This may justify feeding cows to cows, in the efficient process of producing better meat, bigger burgers and so on.
Now, Mad Cow Disease is again raising its wobbly head and the fingers of blame are pointing. "It's not our cow, it's a Canadian Cow" says the US Department of Agriculture, while Canada says, "If it's our cow it's not four years old, but six years old," while people cower wondering if they ate any part of that meat, knowing that the protein that causes Mad Cow Disease is allegedly not destroyed by cooking. The problem just shows up the poor records maintained with respect to a major item of western diets.
Oprah was right, although the Cattlemen's Association sued her (and lost) eating beef forces you to eat an animal that, in our time, has been changed from an herbivore to cannibal, not of its own choosing. No one is sure what cows in Global Agribusiness are fed nowadays, nor pigs, nor chickens for that matter, although no one has identified Mad Chicken disease yet, except when its head is chopped off in a backyard cooking session.
We could improve our health by consuming less meat. This may be a good time to reflect on this. It is not merely American beef. This disease first raised its head in England, then it was found to migrate to Canada and now to the US. It may be a worldwide scourge that is not yet identified in other places. Try fish. Of course you could get mercury poisoning from fish or you could choke on a fish bone but the idea of building up in our population the lingering effects of Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis (holes in the brain like Swiss cheese) is frightening. Populations worldwide are already struggling with the effects of AIDS, which many insist is a man made disease. Now, Mad Cow, another apparent error. You'd be mad to continue eating cows.
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