Most people have no idea what’s being fed to the animals that we consume. Some people have an idea, but they don’t want to know. While others really don’t seem to care at all. But they should. We literally are what we eat. The cells that make up our blood, organs, and tissue are constantly being turned over in our bodies. Where do the new cells come from? OUR FOOD. If we are what we eat, and animals are what they eat….then WE ARE WHAT ANIMALS EAT. Let’s take a look at what the USDA allows into our food supply. Keep in mind, these are not allowed in organic feed. This is what you will find (legally) at a Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO). This is where 95% of our meat comes from.
WHAT THE USDA ALLOWS CAFO FARMERS TO GIVE THEIR LIVESTOCK:
CEMENT DUST (increases an animals size by up to 30%)
PLASTIC CHIPS
MANURE (they literally scrape chicken poop off the floor and mix it into feed)
NEWSPAPER
SAWDUST (same effect as cement dust)
CARDBOARD
GMO CORN AND GRAINS(that doesn’t sound bad, but cows and chickens 
aren’t able to digest it)
CANDY
GROWTH HORMONE
ANTIBIOTICS
Why would a CAFO farmer feed their animals this stuff? MONEY. They get paid by the pound, not by lean body mass. The fatter the cow/chicken/pig, the more they earn. The more toxic an animal is, the fatter they are (much like us humans). When their liver can’t handle all of the toxicity, it gets thrown out into the body and into fat cells. Elevated toxicity levels leads to more and more antibiotics pumped into our food supply, which ends up in our bodies in the end.
If you’re a CAFO farmer, and you can trim your feed budget by recycling your leftover sawdust, plastic, cement dust, and poop, why wouldn’t you? And if this would make your livestock even bigger and fatter, what’s better than that? If that’s not enough, after the animals reach the end of their poor lives living in cages, standing in and eating out of their own feces, here’s what the USDA food safety inspectors allow for human consumption:
THE USDA ALLOWS FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION:
Animals with Cancer
Animals with Airsacculitis (Pneumonia)
Animals with Infectious Arthritis
Animals with Lymphoma
Animals with sores
Animals with tumors (But the tumors have to be cut off. The rest of the meat is presumably fine)
This is what they allow as far as the inspector can SEE. In the 1950’s food safety inspectors used to inspect 13 chickens a minute. Today they inspect 90 chickens a minute flying by on a conveyor belt. That’s less than one second per chicken!! How safe does that seem?
I’m not making a case for Vegetarianism here. I’m making a case for food quality and animal welfare. Cows are meant to eat grass, chickens are meant to eat insects and seeds. They are meant to live in an organic, free environment. If you can get your hands on this type of meat, the eat up. It’s some of the healthiest food you can consume. But if you’re buying food that comes from a CAFO, which is 95% of the meat out there, you might want to rethink your options.