Transcript Lesson 2: How Does Your Garden Grow?

Lesson 2:
How Does Your
Garden Grow?
Meat and Milk Production
How is Meat Produced?

Corporate Controlled
-
Huge Corporations Process about 80% of
Meat in the U.S.
Tyson
o Cargill
o Swift & Co.
o National Beef Packing Co.
o Five Rivers
o Pilgrims Pride
o Butterball
o
Use of Antibiotics in Meat Production
Used to prevent infection in animals.
 Makes animals gain weight faster.
 In June 2010:

-
FDA* urged meat producers to stop using
antibiotics
Public Health Issue
May cause resistance to antibiotics in
humans
FDA – Food and Drug Administration
The U.S. organization
responsible for regulating
human and animal
medications, tobacco, the food
supply, medical devices,
cosmetics and dietary
supplements.
Large Corporate or “Factory Farms”
Linked to Inhumane Treatment of Animals
Food Poisoning Experiences
Safety Issues With Meat Production

Contaminated food causes:
-
48 Million Illnesses
128,000 Hospitalizations
3,000 Deaths Annually
Linked to unsanitary conditions in
industrial food plants.
 E. coli bacteria is the most dangerous

-
Found in ground meat
Greeley, Colorado 2009


380,000 pounds of beef
were recalled
JBS Swift Beef Company
Greeley, Colorado 2002
 Recalled 19 Million pounds of beef.


Con-Agra
Multi-state recall
August 2011
 Cargill pulled 36 million pounds of
ground turkey
 Caused salmonella
-
Found in chicken, turkey and eggs
Caused at least 1 death and 77
illnesses
 Largest recall in history
 This strain of salmonella is resistant to
anti-biotics

Mad Cow Disease
(Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or BSE)
Neurological disorder in cattle
 Results from feeding cattle meat-andbone meal from infected animals
 In 2010, 184,500 cases of mad cow
disease were reported
 Three cases were identified in the U.S.

The Meatrix
www.themeatrix.com
How is Milk Produced?
 Produced by a handful of multi-
billion-dollar companies.
-
Many are European owned
Mega-dairy farms

Dean Foods owns 40 brands of dairy
-
$10 billion dollars a year
Own Silk and Horizon dairy in Colorado
Dairy Farms Can Give Cows
 Artificial Hormones
- Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone
(rBGH)
GMO Artificial Hormone
 Artificially increases milk production by
10-15%.



Antibiotics
Highly concentrated feed
Most Cows Raised on Factory Farms
 No grass



May have 20,000 cattle on a farm
Close quarters
Life Expectancy is only 3-4 years
-
Compared to 20 years raised in a
pasture
FOOD FACTS




Dairy cow farms dropped from 648,000 in
1970 to 75,000 in 2006.
Total dairy cows fell from 12 million in 1970
to 9.1 million in 2006.
The average herd size rose from 19 cows in
1970 to 120 cows in 2006.
Milk production doubled from 9,751 in 1970
to 19,951 in 2006.
-
Average milk production per farm increased
twelvefold.