The US relaxed its approach to antitrust enforcement in the 1980s. Today only four companies process 85 percent of all the cattle produced in the US. They’re crushing small ranchers.
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Argentina raises a whole lot of cows, and they raise a whole lot of burps. When you’ve got four stomachs and eat plants all day, gas happens. That gas is mostly methane, and each cow belches about 300 liters of it daily. It’s a polluting greenhouse gas, but it’s also fuel. Argentinos want to use all that gas to power up their cars — or maybe even cook up all that beef.
More:
“Argentine scientists tap cow burps for natural gas,” Maximiliano Rizzi, Reuters
“El gas de las vacas puede alimentar un motor,” INTA Informa
Reuters video here
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A 5-ounce hamburger will be served up in London next week at a cost of nearly $400,000. Fries cost extra.
The precious patty of burger meat will be “in-vitro” beef, laboratory- grown from a cow’s stem cells. “Right now, we are using 70 percent of all our agricultural capacity to grow meat through livestock,” says meat manufacturer Dr. Mark Post of Holland’s Maastricht University. “You are going to need alternatives. If we don’t do anything, meat will become a luxury food and will become very expensive.”
In 2009, Oscar Mayer ran an ad campaign claiming its Jumbo Beef Franks beat out Ball Park Franks in a national taste test. Ball Park Franks manufacturer Sara Lee countered by claiming that Oscar Mayer did not cook Ball Park wieners correctly during the tests and falsely stated that its Oscar Mayer tube steaks are “100 percent pure beef” when they are not.
Sara Lee is suing Kraft, accusing the rival firm of “willful, false, misleading, deceptive, defamatory, and unfair commercial advertising.” The suit has reached U.S. District Court in Chicago, and newspapers have been serving up hot, juicy puns:
You’ve heard that meat is dangerous. Here’s proof.
A Louisiana woman threw a frozen beefsteak at her boyfriend and hit him in the face. Police say the 51-year-old man was bleeding when they arrived. The woman was arrested for aggravated assault.
Other frozen foodstuffs and alcohol may have been contributing factors. The alleged perpetrator was said to be upset at the lack of freezer space for cooling her “Tequila Rose” pre-mixed strawberry cream liqueur and tequila blend. Confirmed carnivores will probably blame the strawberries.
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A 2006 UN study claimed meat production is responsible for creating more greenhouse gas emissions than the exhaust of all cars, SUVs, buses, planes and trucks combined. Methane and other greenhouse gases are produced by cow flatulence and burping.
If you need to discuss it in polite company, the process that makes cows gassy is called “enteric fermentation.” Cow burps are “ruminant eructation.”
A 2009 study estimated that half of all greenhouse gases are generated by livestock. Investigators have been collecting cow gas emissions (methane and nitrous oxide) in huge plastic containers for analysis. People concerned about Global Warming have urged a reduction in meat eating in order to reduce the size of gassy cattle herds.
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