Is the American Feed Lot All that Bad?

Why beef isn't any worse than pork or chicken.

Number three in a six part series on Dispelling the Myths About Beef, this week I am talking about feedlots. For those of you wondering if I’m only going to write about meat, don’t fret, I remember what I said. This is an Enlightened Omnivore not Omni-meat newsletter. I’m getting there. But hopefully, my current paid subscribers see this series as a little perk. A THANK YOU bonus! Your paid contributions have been amazing! And for those of you not yet subscribers, or free subscribers, consider joining the paid club. You’ll get more content and special perks like recipes, recommendations, etc. Alright, enough with the shameless plug.

If you’ve ever driven Interstate Five through Central California, you know it bisects some of the most fertile and diverse farmland in the world. The San Joaquin Valley is home to bumper crops of cotton, grapes, garlic, almonds, walnuts, potatoes, and berries, just to name a few. Heading north just after Highway 33, about halfway between Sacramento and LA, it’s best to push the recirc button on your car’s A/C. Just trust me on this one.

The eastern horizon begins to resemble the set of a Spielberg-scale war epic. There is concertina wire-topped fencing. The hills are stripped of all vegetation and pockmarked with hoof prints. There are hill-high berms of manure surrounded by moats of frothy urine. Chemical warfare-strength ammonia dust billows across the freeway with each passing semi. Even at highway speeds, it takes minutes to drive past upwards of 250,000 head of cattle packed into an 800-acre shithole of lifeless soil. Welcome to the town of Coalinga. Welcome to the Internet infamous, “Cow-schwitz.”

Coalinga has another name, Harris Ranch. It’s one of the largest feedlots in the United States. Basically, a feedlot is a factory farm for cows. Animals are brought in off the range and concentrated into fenced paddocks. They’re fed a conveyor belt diet of grains and growth hormone for weeks or months before being shipped off to slaughter. Feedlots allow ranchers to produce a lot more beef. And Harris Ranch is no exception. It sells a mind-boggling 150,000,000 pounds of red meat every year to the likes of In-N-Out Burger, Costco, and California school lunch programs.