There is no denying that we live in a politically charged time in our nation, and that has trickled into nearly every sector of our society. The agriculture industry is certainly not immune to the rhetoric and in recent years the cattle industry in particular has come under attack by various groups seeking to advance their political agendas. That is the assertion made by local veterinarian Randy Burge, and he says many people are being misled by the fallacies being exported as truth.
Some of the common headlines that Burge points to included cows being major contributors to greenhouse gases, and beef being an unhealthy addition to our diet. He is seeking to set the record straight on these myths and several others.
“There is a lot of fear mongering going on to sell products. Some restaurants have come out with campaigns claiming certain facts just to scare people, which simply aren’t true,” said Burge.
One of those is the push toward meat that contains no antibiotics. “No beef that you buy has antibiotics in it. We know scientifically, just like in people, how long it takes for those to clear from the body. Those drugs that we give all have established withdrawal times,” Burge explained. “Any cow that is treated does not go into harvest until that time has cleared. All beef is tested and screened at the packing plants for antibiotics.”
Burge said he completely supports those producers who choose to raise beef or crops organically, and with no hormones. “There are just a lot of fallacies there on the consumer side. Whenever I see something that is produced organically, that’s great. But to me it’s a waste of natural resources.”
He said another fallacy that consumers are warned about is consuming meat that contains hormones which are being blamed for early puberty. The truth is, said Burge, the level of estrogen found in beef from a hormone implanted steer is a fraction of what is found in many other products we are being told are healthy choices. For example, three ounces of beef from an implanted steer contains 1.2 nanograms of estrogen. That same size serving of pinto beans contains 153,087 nanograms, three ounces of tofu has 19,306,004 nanograms, and soy flour contains a whopping 128,423,201 nanograms of estrogen.
“The big one right now is the environmental impact of beef production,” Burge continued. “Everything I have read suggests that cows produce around 2% of our greenhouse gases, and when you figure in transportation and all the other things that go into raising a beef animal it comes to about 3 or 3.5% of our greenhouse gas. We really don’t have a beef problem, it’s a people problem.”
Burge suggested that in general people don’t pay attention to fuel efficiency like they once did. When we want to go somewhere, we go. Transportation and increased travel accounts for 29% of our greenhouse gases, according to information presented by Burge. With our increase in technology electricity now produces 28%, and industry contributes 14% of the greenhouse gas in our environment. The chart shows agriculture as an industry with 9%, followed closely by the making of concrete which comes in at 8%. “And yet cities just keep building bigger and bigger,” he added.
The beef industry has a huge impact on Nebraska’s economy, with an estimated $6.5 billion in cattle sales every year. Nebraska ranks second in the nation in beef production with 6,800,000 head - and of that number Dawson County contributed about 235,000 head of cattle. Our state also ranks second in cattle on feed and red meat production, and second in beef exports. In fact, Nebraska supplies 62.6% of beef exported to the European Union. Our beef industry really is the engine that powers Nebraska’s economy.
While we are often told that consuming beef is not a healthy part of the American diet, Burge disputes that claim. He cited the fact that beef contains 10 essential nutrients, and is a great source of protein, iron, zinc and B vitamins. “I wouldn’t say to go eat a greasy burger and fries three times a day, but if you choose wisely and choose lean beef you’re good. Almost all nutritionists agree on one thing, and that is whole foods are much healthier than foods that are processed. And I don’t know that you can get much more processed food than fake meat.”
Beef is very nutrient dense and has an excellent protein to calorie ratio, Burge said. “In comparison to three ounces of lean beef, you would have to eat eight ounces of chicken to get the same amount of iron and seven times as much chicken to get an equal amount of zinc. Lean beef also has 20% fewer calories and 80% less sodium that fake meat alternatives,” said Burge.
Lean beef has also been attributed to improving LDL levels, helping maintain a healthy weight and has even been suggested to help with healthy brain development and cognitive function. Even so the attack against the cattle industry continues to ramp up. Burge said our neighbor state to the west, Colorado, is essentially leading the fight under current governor Jared Polis. “There are some organizations, like Mercy For Animals, HSUS and PETA that want to end all animal agriculture. And they are using all of these fallacies we’ve talked about to try to do that.”
Burge explained that Governor Polis has appointed an openly anti-agriculture person to the Board of Veterinary Medicine and their political assault against the livestock industry is underway. “They passed a cage free bill, and honestly the mortality rate for chickens tends to be higher in those free-type situations - but that’s fine. But the big one now is Initiative 16, the PAUSE act. They haven’t passed it yet but they are working on getting enough signatures to go on the ballot.
“The two big things with that are redefining what sexual abuse is of a cow, so preg checking, artificial insemination, semen testing of bulls would all be banned. The other one is redefining the life span of an animal and they can’t be killed until they have reached 25% of their life span. They somehow came up with a life span of 25 years for a cow, so if this would happen to pass we couldn’t harvest anything that wasn’t five years or older. If that would happen it would just decimate Colorado’s ag economy.”
He used the example of Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who claimed that he had evidence that the MMR vaccine largely contributed to Autism in children. Of course Wakefield later admitted that he had made up the whole thing, but by that time the damage had been done - and still to this day there are many who believe that to be true.
“That’s my biggest fear with the beef thing. It started out small but just keeps growing, and there is a lot of fear mongering going on,” Burge explained.
That is why he and so many others are working to educate the public on the realities of beef and the hard working ranchers who produce them.
The Link LonkMay 21, 2021 at 04:06AM
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Burge sets the record straight on common fallacies of beef - Gothenburg Leader
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