March 15, 2001

7:41 AM

More nasty factsabout what goes into our food. Do a search on the page for 'dead cats'. (My apologies for posting something old. I'm so shocked I couldn't help it).
posted by u.n. owen (11 comments total)

No need to apologize, very interesting article.
posted by Doug at 8:10 AM on March 15, 2001

It's new to me :-). And really horrifying. One of these days I'm gonna go back to being a vegetarian.
posted by jpoulos at 8:22 AM on March 15, 2001

You know, my roommate's a vegan & it's beginning to look more and more appealing every day..
posted by zempf at 8:26 AM on March 15, 2001

Also of note.

The book is a compelling read and will shock you. All I know is that I haven't touched fast food in months.
posted by hijinx at 8:44 AM on March 15, 2001

There's a reason I only eat at one restaurant ... the one I work at. I've heard many horror stories from co-workers. Thankfully my place of employ seems to geniunely care about not serving disgusting food.
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:53 AM on March 15, 2001

Note that concerns over mad cow disease, sheep scrapie and other such ailments that may be prion-based and may be related to Creutzfeldt-Jacob syndrome in humans have all become much more acute since this article was written. The practice of feeding animal protein to farm animals is still going on but there's a great deal more pressure against it now -- even from "the authorities."

Note also that the stuff they spray on fruits and veggies on corporate farms (which is chemically incorporated into the produce and can't be removed by washing) and the life lead by large numbers of migrant corporate-farm workers, are also pretty horrifying. Vegetarians, of course, could individually move to the country and grow their own with compost and marigolds instead of C-N-P fertilizer and Raid but you can't move an entire urban civilization to mom'n'pop farms. You want cities where billions of people can't grow their own? You get industrial, high-intensity, high-productivity farms, and unpleasant industrial methods on those farms. Don't want that kind of agriculture? You also lose NY, Chicago, LA, Tokyo, etc. (That's OK with me, btw, and I think that's what's going to happen eventually. But when it does start happening it will be a Hell such as Dante never imagined.)

posted by jfuller at 9:01 AM on March 15, 2001

oops, ah mean K-N-P

posted by jfuller at 9:54 AM on March 15, 2001

Hey, the article mentions Conway's Red Top! Man, I loved that place when I lived in Colorado Springs. They made the best damn chili-cheeseburger on the planet...and not a shred of dead cat in their hamburgers, nossir.
posted by MrBaliHai at 11:23 AM on March 15, 2001

Here's some up to date facts about the use of slaughtered animals in ruminant feed. [popup window warning]

I couldn't find any other credible references to domestic pets being rendered into cattle feed, but I did find this stomach-churning article on what goes into pet foods. Like something out of Fight Club ... a lot of the stuff I did find has the aura of activism, though (e.g. this vegan piece). Better references from the knowledgeable would be appreciated.
posted by dhartung at 3:12 PM on March 15, 2001

"Almost two-thirds of the grain produced in the U.S. is now used to feed livestock, mainly cattle."

To me, that's more of an indictment than feeding cows Tiddles and Patch.
posted by holgate at 4:16 PM on March 15, 2001

> Better references from the knowledgeable would be
> appreciated.

Ur-muckraker Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle at the turn of the last century, about the then-unregulated meat-packing industry. The book caused such a stink that it lead directly to government regulation of the food industry.

The first modern article I ever read about animal-carcases-in-animal-feed was a long article by Thomas Whiteside about what's in pet food, titled "Din-din," in The New Yorker, issue of 11/1/1976. Introduced me to the lovely industry concept of "4d" meat (dead, dying, diseased, decayed.) Apparently nothing much has changed since '76. 9 Lives still smells good enough to spread on crackers. Morrismania, anyone?

posted by jfuller at 6:13 AM on March 16, 2001