One of the most charming things about the English countryside (aside from the discovery of off-the-beaten-path crumbling castles and quaint little pubs) is the inevitably frequent encounters that you can have with wide-eyed glossy-nosed cows. While they chomp lazily on the vibrant green patchwork of sprawling pastureland before them their impressively lengthy lashes flutter as they witness Leprechauns springing forth amid tufts of buttercups. (If you masticated as much chlorophyll-spiked gramineae as them you might experience similar hallucinations too.) The affection that I have for my bovine buddies with their robust good looks sweet demeanors and distinct personalities (YES they do have ‘em!) might lead one to presume that I do as the Hindus do and eschew moo-flesh. While there is an indelible soft spot in my heart for all creatures great and small it is hard to lose sight of the fact that cattle taste mighty fine (in moderation of course).

With the advent of Mad Cow Disease however my perspective was forever altered but it wasn’t always that way. Count me among the oodles of other flesh-eating homosapiens who never once feared the safety of my steak. During the mid-80s I was a happy-go-lucky intrepid traveler exploring the hills and dales of Great Britain wandering from national historic treasures to crowded city streets to exotic food emporiums indulging in the country’s distinct regional specialties with reckless abandon. Anything stuffed inside a flaky crust fast became the object f my salivary affection and thus my love affair with the Cornish Pasty was born.

Sounds harmless enough but the simple miner’s lunch was jam-packed with onions potatoes turnips carrots and lots of minced beef. At the time I thought that it was a blissfully cheap stick-to-my ribs meal that I justifiably gobbled up on a daily basis during my month-long excursion. Upon my return to the States news began to surface of a bizarre new disease called bovine spongiform encephalopathy a progressively lethal central nervous system condition that afflicted cattle and shockingly enough the people that consumed them. Gulp. Talk about uncanny timing.

BSE was initially recognized in cattle in the UK in 1986 the consequence of their protein-heavy diet of copious amounts of assorted butchered animals cattle carcasses and offal. Wait a second. Unwitting cannibalism aside aren’t they supposed to be die-hard vegetarians? The answer is a resounding YES.

Ruminant mammals with a compartmentalized stomach they were meant to consume grass hay and alfalfa which we seemingly have an unlimited amount of …it’s probably dirt cheap too.However grass-fed cattle are traditionally leaner than their more common grain-fed counterparts which ultimately means that it takes a lot longer to raise them for slaughter. Considering the mind-bogglingly high global demand for beef — in 1961 the world consumed 71 milliontons and by 2007 that figure jumped to 284 million tons - ranchers had to come up with a brilliant plan in order accommodate our lusty appetites.

That’s how grain entered the picture. It turns out that corn and other sources of high-starch high-energy grain and “by-product feedstuff” decreases the time necessary to fatten cattle and increases milk production in dairy cattle. A corn-laden diet facilitates rapid muscle production and yields flesh that is high in marbling which is quite appealing to consumers who appreciate flavorful and tender meat. Farmers eager to continue riding the wave of demand for their product had to diversify their cattle edibles in an attempt to further streamline the birth-to-slaughter process. That’s where things get hairy quite literally. They began to augment their grain offerings with a variety of protein sources including soybeans peanuts cottonseed restaurant scraps expired pet food chicken feces poultry feathers cow blood and a random assortment of animal parts unfit for human consumption (such as pigs horses fish and downed cattle). Many farmers jumped on the rendered animal part bandwagon because they were convinced by peers and industry heads that it was the latest greatest way to rapidly nourish their herds. Very few of them expected an epidemic of massive proportions to result.

A cow’s gotta eat right? Since miscellaneous body parts were/are nolonger an acceptable form of nourishment due to the threat of death and corn is becoming quite costly due to ramped-up ethanol production (maize is presently hovering at $7.50 a bushel approximately 119% higher than in 2007) what’s a farmer to do? How about skipping down the junk food aisle? Yup that’s right - it’s the latest craze and apparently everyone is doing it. Corn rations are now being cut with cocoa shells M&M rejects potato chips and a random assortment of the supplemental junk that we Americans know and love. Amazingly this is NOT uncharted territory. Hog farmers were the first to blaze the junk food trail with their utilization of cake frosted breakfastcereals chocolate syrup expired cookies and candy bars (still intheir wrappers) raw Tater Tots hash browns French fries banana chips yogurt-covered raisins dried papaya and cashews in their piggies’ feed.

From a recycling standpoint it can be argued that farmers and the junk food companies they are in cahoots with are at the very least being practical. The scraps that Frito Lay and Hershey’s would have ditched in a landfill are instead serving some sort of nutritive purpose. Hey — if it’s good enough for us it should be good enough for them right? Then again one can’t help but fixate on the famous adage “You are what you eat.” No one knows what the true health consequences might be but we can only imagine (based on human experience) that it isn’t pretty. Diabetic cows anyone? Can we get Type-3 Cow-To-Human-Osmosis-Diabetes? For some reason it seems quite disturbing to me that in its heyday my steak supped on chips and candy.

My fear is that ranchers and consumers are opting to close their eyes and plug their ears for as long as humanly possible. Current beef sales figures reflect their pervasive elective ignorance. In the US alone the sale of fresh beef yields about $50 billion in revenue; in fact burger-crazy Americans consume about eight ounces of beef each a day (which is roughly twice the global average of our flesh-consuming counterparts around the world). Overall growing global affluence and the proliferation of huge confined animal feeding operations has enabled beef to become a mega-cash crop… but one has to question why we are allowing money to overrule our sensibility. Haven’t we learned by now that tweaking with the nature law and order of things is a recipe for disaster? I don’t know about you but my craving for ol’ Bessie-on-a-bun is all mooed out.