A Cow's Life: It Isn't All Clover

Review: Cowed: The Hidden Impact of 93 Million Cows on America's Health, Economy, Politics, Culture, and Environment, by Denis Hayes & Gail Boyer Hayes (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2015). "Beef production is undermining the entire natural world--squeezing out wild animals, shredding ecosystems, slashing biodiversity." -- Denis Hayes & Gail Boyer Hayes Grass-fed organic steers grazing in Penticon, British Columbia. In the great tradition of American muck-raking (pun intended), this brilliantly written book on the cattle industry ropes you in with its folksy, down-to-earth tone and wry humor. Disarming or not, Cowed provides a serious look at the cattle industry's enormous hoofprint on the American landscape -- and psyche. You'll learn amazing things about the effects of cows and CAFOs -- concentrated animal feeding operations -- on our health, water, soil, vegetation, ecosystems, and polity. As Cowed reveals, the collective impact of our 93 million cows is clearly worth ruminating on. Whereas cows are the nominal subject, Cowed is also about all the resource issues just mentioned plus energy use, fertilizer, organic food, federal food inspection, greenhouse gas production, waste management, biofuels, diet and nutrition (Bossie's and ours). Plus much more. So Cowed in effect is about capitalism, resource exploitation, and sustainability, as these themes play out against the panorama of America's rangeland and cattle ranching, dairying, and feeding operations. ...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news