They are feeding sugar to the cows now

(Clare) #1

This is a BBC podcast I listen to sometimes called the food chain. I was utterly horrified to discover that cows are being fed skittles and biscuits etc.

I buy beef direct from the farm and I’m pretty sure my guy isn’t doing this - he takes such a pride in his livestock being naturally reared.

If you can get past being infuriated then it’s interesting to have reinforced that farmers know what we know - sugar makes you gain weight quickly. But cows should not be eating skittles. FFS!!!
Is it me?

(Sophie) #2

I’ve not listened to the podcast but it doesn’t really surprise me. In a former life, I once worked in a bakery outlet and we sold day old bread and those lethal little snack cakes. When all that stuff became too gross to sell, we would pull it off the shelves and stuff it into huge garbage bags and sell them to the local hog farmers for $2 a bag. We referred to it as Hog Bread! And of course it was used for fattening.

All of this being said because this is apparently a part of our forgotten history. Our grandparents knew it and so did their parents, etc.

(Duncan Kerridge) #3

Most cows are fed on corn, soya and other crap they don’t eat in nature to fatten them up as quickly as possible. In the long term this diet would kill them - not that there’s usually a long term for a beef cow. So unless your local farmer is feeding them and finishing them on grass (nearly all cows spend the last few months of their life eating corn) then your local cows are probably eating a diet just as toxic to them as skittles and biscuits.

#4

This is nothing new. A lot of farmers feed out of date Hershey bars etc to cows. Its cheap, and cheap!

(Georgia) #5

I spent my summers during college working at a bakery outlet thrift store, too! And we had one farmer who would come in on Friday afternoons to pick up barrels of the breads and cakes we couldn’t sell.

There was also a news story recently of a semi truck that overturned on the highway and lost its load of misshapen Skittles. The article said the load was being used as cattle feed.

(Clare) #6

That skittle story features in the podcast.
What I find particularly concerning is that where farmers are doing this purposefully, people are commenting that the meat taste sweet. In addition, it appears to change the balance of fat types in the meat - so it is higher in polyunsaturated and lower in saturated fat.

I can’t help but feel that this practice is deliberately screwing up one of the last decent foods we have left.

I buy grass reared beef and lamb but not everyone can afford that.

Bread is one thing - but skittles?