Beef's Argument Over Grain-Fed Cattle

In today's society, organic food is a giant new thing in which food is produced without any chemicals. In other words, the product must be 100 percent natural. A major food source of the American people is meat, and the way that it is produced today is a major issue. In feedlots, where cattle are fed grain to grow before being slaughtered, the conditions are terrible and horrifying. Cattle are confined to a limited amount of space and not allowed to roam freely. Also in these cattle growing yards, the risk of disease is much higher in these animals than out on the open range grazing on the grass. Beef critics say that there are no cattle breeds that posses the amounts of marbling present to make a good steak. It is a true statement to say that

This is not the case. Beef cattle today are so much different than they were twenty-five years ago. They are even different than ten years ago. Modern Black Angus genetics today are outstanding. They are very easy keeping cattle, meaning that they require less food and nutrients to put on weight(Hasheider 34). Simmental cattle are the same way, they offer everything that Black Angus do, but in a more extreme muscled, more moderate package. Way back when, Angus and Simmental cattle were bred to be very long and elegant and extremely tall at the shoulder. Today, these cattle are very moderate in size. Over the years, ranchers have culled out cattle that are tall and long, and have been focusing on getting the angus cattle to be fairly short in height, but maintain that long skeleton to producing huge quantities of meat. These Angus genetics are so popular, that fifteen years ago, they began massive embryo transfer programs and cloning operations to keep these amazing genetics going. What embryo transfer allows ranchers to do is simply ground-breaking. It allows ranchers to flush their best cow, or a cow of their liking, with exceptional EPD's( expected progeny differences), and flush eggs out of the uterus of this great cow. The eggs are then fertilized to the bull of the ranchers choice. Once these eggs are fertilized, they are called embryos. The embryos are then implanted into recipient cows, and the cows carry the tiny embryo for nine months, until the baby is born. These recipient mother cows have absolutely no genetic tie to the young calf. They are only surrogate mothers, and they raise the calf until weaning time. Embryo transfer allows ranchers to produce multiple outstanding calves, out of a single outstanding cow, in a single year(Hasheider