Why are you on that diet again?

Extracted from BBC.com

Cows into Burgers



After Coca-Cola, the hamburger is the best-known American food invention to spread around the world.

A hamburger is not made of ham but of ground-up beef, shaped into a patty, which is then grilled and placed between the two halves of a sesame seed bun.

It takes a lot of cows to provide the world's hamburgers, and turning so many cattle into so much beef meat needs an industrial process. Cattle eat grass at pasture or on the range, but in the USA many are specially fattened up for their last three months before slaughter.

In giant feedlots up to 100,000 cattle eat grain from concrete troughs, along with a cocktail of anabolic steroids and growth hormones. According to a recent study by the US Department of Agriculture, these crowded conditions are a breeding ground for infectious diseases.

Many feedlots are owned or controlled by the four giant meatpacking firms that slaughter 84% of the USA's cattle.

In 1960 a revolution occurred in this industry. A company called Iowa Beef Packers created a "disassembly" line for cattle slaughter that eventually did away with old-style skilled workers.

It was like the Henry Ford system for building motor-cars, based on "scientific management" theories of maximising efficiency. Each worker is required to stand in the same spot and do the same movements for an eight-hour shift.

When the cattle are driven into the slaughterhouse, the "knocker" shoots each one in the head with a compressed air stunner that drives a steel bolt into its brain, knocking the beast unconscious.

The cow falls down, and another worker attaches a chain round a rear leg which then hauls the animal into the air upside-down.

The "sticker" then severs the carotid artery in the neck, one every ten seconds. The whole carcase is then carried on down the disassembly line past other workers with chain-saws, hooks and knives who carve it up further into the bits for retail.

The de-skilled work of meatpacking is dirty and dangerous and rarely unionised according to Eric Schlosser who investigated slaughterhouses for his book Fast Food Nation.

Much of this work, Schlosser contends, is done by recent immigrants or illegal aliens in giant factories near the rural feed-lots.

Automated Meat Recovery Systems can get every scrap of meat off a bone. The bones, hooves, blood and scraps can also be rendered into pet-food.

Giant grinders are installed for making hamburgers. Modern plants can process 800,000 pounds of hamburger meat a day, from many thousands of different cattle.

The meat in a single fast food hamburger could come from dozens, or even hundreds of cows.

My First Discretion

I've been going at it for nearly three weeks and today was the first day I've eaten meat during lunch. I was on my first distinguished visitor flight and the stewardess put down a very delicious looking turkey and cheese wrap right in front of me. For about 1 second I thought about eating it, but this was a pretty good wrap. I'm glad the recession isn't affecting the military, because it turned out to be one of the best flights of my life.

I had originally planned on flying commercial from Frankfurt Germany to Seville Spain. Which sounds easy but Frankfurt is an hour drive from my house and Seville is a 45 minute drive from where I needed to end up. So if you tack on checking the bags and the layover at somewhere or another it was going to take me about 12 hours to travel to Moron. Flying a military flight, I dropped Lucy off at a friend's and am writing in my hotel room 5 hours later. Plus the seats on the plane made first class look cramped, the cookies were fresh, and there was no baggage claim or security.

But that doesn't excuse my slip up. I'll do my best to stick with pasta and salad to make up for it. All in all, I've done even better than I would have imagined. Most days I eat much less than 5 ounces of meat. Breakfast has been oatmeal, followed by a yogurt a few hours later. Lunch has been soup or a black bean wrap I found in a recipe book. What's surprised me is that I've also managed to cut out chips from my lunch without really noticing. Sandwiches always need a side of chips, but soup goes better with bread and the wrap works well by its own or with some fruit. Alicia has done really well in helping me out with dinner. We had pasta the other night, but she didn't throw in any meatballs.

I don't feel any different and I'm not sure I wanted too. Alicia asked why I was doing it if I didn't feel any different. My point is that we can't live the way we do eating the way we do and expect the environment to keep up. The amount of energy consumed producing meat is much higher than it cost for grain or wheat. Furthermore, the way that meat is produced in American is nearly unthinkable, which also produces a considerable amount of waste that ends up in our lakes and rivers. All in all, it's just a bad deal.

And I believe that the only way to change that is to lower the demand for meat. So that's what I'm trying to do.

Stupid Things I’ve been thinking about

I think Rush Limbaugh is still using drugs. Every drug addict I've ever met has relapsed at least a dozen times. Do you believe for a second he was able to kick the habit without dabbing into the medicine cabinet for a fix?

When you think of quality of life, do you think of iPods and DVD players? I don't, but that's how it's measured. I think that quality of life is relative to the access to education, health care and a steady pay check. I think most people would be willing to give up there iPhone for that stuff. Of course I could be wrong. There were some crazy mobs trying to get an iPhone.

America will experience a social revolution within my lifetime. The problem with any revolution is that there's always a counter revolution that sometimes as influential as the initial revolution.

In terms of the environment, we are probably screwed. But that doesn't excuse further abuses.

Do you know how good animal crackers are? Between the ages of 10 and 30 I probably ate 5 animal crackers. Now I eat bag a week.

Nothing makes me more constipated than fiber. Does that mean something is wrong with me?

Oatmeal really doesn't have any flavor. I only eat it because it's good for me and it's nice to have something warm in the morning.

In the long run, the US will spend more money in Iraq after the military leaves than while it was there. The frailty of government cannot be overcome with money. I think civil war is likely unless we keep pumping money in.

The thought of a dirty bomb scares me less than letting my mom drive. What a hoax.

I think we'll see a new internet in 5-10 years. I imagine it will be more like cable TV. You'll sacrifice revealing your identity for the security. Don't worry, it'll still have porn. The old one will be there, but you'll be crazy to put your credit card number into it.

I think the first email I ever got was that chain email saying Bill Gates was giving away money to people who forwarded this email. It was probably 1997. My mom sent me the same email a couple of months ago.

I developed a theory in my younger day's called "the Bottom Ten Percent". It's still on Urban Dictionary. I've thought about using it as a theory for a grad school paper just to see how my professor would respond.

Fantasy football isn't cool anymore. Really, any idiot can go online and download a sheet, follow the updates by some fool on ESPN.com and finish in the top 4 or 5. Back in the day, you actually had to know a thing or two about football. I mean, my sister plays.

I think we need newspapers. It's unfortunate that besides one or two, they haven't been able to become profitable. Can you subsidized a newspaper and expect to get freedom of the press? I sort of think you can.

The medium sized city in the US is dying; Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, Philly, Pittsburgh and Kansas City. Would you willing move to any of these places?

The Twins will finish below .500 this year. I don't think they did themselves any favors moving out of the dome. They lost their home field edge.

In the near future, I expect to see a huge food contamination problem. Worse than mad cow or the peanut butter scare. It's bound to happen.

I've had this long standing belief that Northern Ireland's stability is directly related to the economic prosperity of the region. Seeing recent violent activities really solidified my argument. My theory probably works anywhere in the world where there are two sects of people with a violent past.

Having a dog around with a little kid makes cleaning up after meals world's easier and sort of fun. Anything Lucy doesn't eat, ends up as Kelly's treats.

The US has had a trade embargo against Cuba since Eisenhower. Isn't that sort of like a college football team running the same offense since 1960? Let's give something else a shot because I don't think this is working.

Most blog's I've read are completely useless but entertaining. I don't think they'll ever take the place of more conventional news sources.

People ask why Bernie Madoff did it. Really, you don't know? Money.

If you don't think he had an insider within the SEC, you naïve in my book. No way he gets away with that without some help.

Did I mention I think deregulation is a bad idea?

I think the tax on gas should be about $2 a gallon. What? You wouldn't be able to drive your SUV to work with no one else in it? Get a bus pass.

I have mixed feelings about Thomas Friedman. He's a pretty smart guy who's from Minnesota and he's astutely aware of what's going on in the world in terms of economics and environment. But I really question his faith in the market.

If NPR is subsidized, why can't a newspaper be subsidized?

I must tell myself 4 times a month that I should write more. I usually follow that up with a beer and TV show.

I've always thought being a vegetarian would be hard. Now, I'm not so sure. Being a vegan would be difficult, but as long as I got eggs and cheese, I'd be cool.

I can't believe we haven't developed a better way to recycle. We still don't have a solution for tires. Aside from high school tracks, they are just pilling up. I'd trade the Joint Strike Fighter for a way to recycle tires.

I'm flying to Spain in a day and I'm hardly excited. Hopefully it's better than I'm expecting.

What’s cool on a Tuesday?

I just got done meeting a friend and his brother for dinner and few beers on a Tuesday night. I dropped them off at a hotel and was driving back home with a little inkling of desire to stay out and really party it up. But then I thought, when was the last time that I went out on a Tuesday and had a good time?

Most days have something. Monday has Monday night football. During the football season, there is always a party somewhere. Usually it involves cheap wings and cheap beer and women who know what they are looking for; dudes. Wednesday was always 'hump' day where I came from. Your week was basically over, so you might as well party it up some. A few cool bars come to mind; Sally's in Stadium Village near the U of MN and the Pump House in Fairbanks AK. Sally's had ladies night with 4 dollar mugs and some sort of crazy shots. Always a good time. The Pump House hosted Karaoke, had half price appetizers and deals on some sort of cocktails. It was easily the coolest night of the week to go out in Fairbanks.

Thursday nights was always a little overrated, but there was still enough to do. In college, it was always a night when the college kids and the working stiffs mixed it up downtown. Brother's was the place to be in Minneapolis, but I always thought it was sort of a dive that was a meathead magnet. The strippers in Fairbanks always went to the Detour on Thursday's, so we obviously followed suit. That was actually the first time I ever got into a bar with a fake ID and eventually led to me being crowned the best ass in Fairbanks.

Friday and Saturday are pretty self explanatory. Friday was always the 'happy hour' day and Saturday was usually more of a night club kind of thing, but weekends are easy.

Tuesday's on the other hand escaped me. I'm sure someone somewhere thinks Tuesday's kick ass, but I've never been there.