Cowed: The Hidden Impact of 93 Million Cows on America’s Health, Economy, Politics, Culture, and Environment

Those already ambivalent about beef won’t be surprised by the revelations in this exposé. Much of what the authors say regarding the cattle industry and its negative effects on health, the economy, and the environment will sound familiar. They echo sentiments expressed by Frances Moore Lappé’s Diet for a Small Planet (1971), Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation (2001), and Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006). In this substantial volume, the Hayeses, longtime sustainability advocates, rail against the treatment of livestock in feedlots across the country. They provide substantiated figures: feedlot beef, for example, “produces five times more global warming per calorie” than pork or poultry, takes 11 times as much water, and uses 28 times as much land. The conditions in which cows are often raised are frightening to consider. A place “that is hell for cows is paradise for germs”; pollutants in feedlots and lagoons, where farmers store animal sewage, can “rise into the air and travel long distances on the wind,” and also sink into groundwater. Discussions on processed beef filled with “nitrates and nitrites (and sometimes nitrosamines)” and bull castration make meat consumption less than appetizing as well. The authors present a strong case against feedlot beef, giving readers significant and serious food for thought. (Mar.)