Words by Molly Longman<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m looking at a dead cow.<\/span><\/p>\n On the outskirts of a feedlot in Chappell, Nebraska, population 926, the rotting carcass coalesces with the dirt. The brown of the hide blends with the muddy earth, morphing into one wasted, lifeless entity.<\/span><\/p>\n Cindy Williams, the co-owner and bookkeeper at <\/span>Chappell Feedlot<\/span><\/a>, is nervous. Only moments ago I divulged to her that I\u2019m not only a journalist and former 4-H\u2019er, but also a vegetarian, scouring her lot for facts that would reaffirm or refute my belief system about the treatment of animals within the beef industry.<\/span><\/p>\n I can\u2019t help but hear Mufasa going all \u201ccircle of life\u201d in the back of my mind as Williams tells me the feedlot\u2019s death rate is under one percent. There\u2019s panic in her voice as she says, \u201cYou don\u2019t have to look at it,\u201d while I crank my neck to stare at what will someday be part of my dog\u2019s Purina.<\/span><\/p>\n This was the last thing I saw on my tour of Chappell. After spending a few hours chatting with Williams about the ins and outs of the beef industry, I came away fixated on one dead cow among approximately 7,500 other alive and mooing creatures. Williams explains that this inclination to be consumed by the small slivers of sadness in an industry that feeds the world is typical within the beef business. \u201cOne bad apple incident can ruin it for everyone,\u201d she said. And she might be right. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Most people don\u2019t like to think about where their food comes from. They push their hot dogs\u2019 humble beginnings into the far corners of their minds as they douse the rubbery skins in relish. I am not one of those people. I hate relish, and after spending a few years raising cows for 4-H, perhaps I spend too much time analyzing every bite I take. I read labels. I count calories. I pay the extra 92 cents for organic kettle chips.<\/span><\/p>\n I wanted to see for myself exactly where beef products come from. I wanted to follow a calf through its short life, starting on a family farm, proceeding to a feedlot, a slaughterhouse and finally landing on a table at Texas Roadhouse.<\/span><\/p>\n I also found myself craving steak. And not just regular steak. I wanted cool steak. Like triple-seared Kobe steak cut from one of those sake-massaged, beer-fed, Japanese Wagyu cows. The kind of steak that makes you drool all over your laminated menu. The kind that tastes like beefy champagne. The kind that makes you moan a little when you take a bite.<\/span><\/p>\n This would not a be a particularly phenomenal statement since I\u2019m from Iowa, where we\u2019re weaned on corn syrup and have myoglobins running through our nice, plump veins.<\/span><\/p>\n But it is. Because yesterday I was following <\/span>PETA on Instagram<\/span><\/a> and hadn\u2019t eaten an ounce of red meat for two years. Yesterday, I was a socially conscious, liberally inclined vegetarian. But not one of those vegetarians who actually plays by the rules. A rebel vegetarian. I would occasionally throw chicken into my lettuce, and one time after Thanksgiving, I woke up in the middle of the night to eat leftover turkey. Trust me, tofurkey is a nightmare of dilapidate-in-your-mouth, Elmer-glue-flavored mush.<\/span><\/p>\n But red meat was different. I was being ethical. I saw a Steve-O video and\u2014I won\u2019t bore you with the details, but I truly thought that I was giving up on delicious, doused-in-evil animal byproducts because their manufacturing was inhumane.<\/span><\/p>\n But then I talked to Mike Nenneman.<\/span><\/p>\n I met Nenneman in the middle of a field. It was harvest season, so he hardly had time to stop. He agreed to talk with me because I already had an in: he was from my hometown. He owned the cows I once named Oreo and Annabel. The cows I spent two frigid Iowa winters sledging through muck to care for. The cows I had nothing to show for now but a few purple ribbons and a sinking feeling in my stomach when I enjoyed steak or watched Humane Society ads. I climbed up into Nenneman\u2019s monstrous green combine and chatted with him about cows, corn and people I used to know, while he distractedly harvested the golden-brown corn stalks.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had cattle since I can remember, and I just can\u2019t imagine doing anything else. It gets in your blood,\u201d Nenneman said.<\/span><\/p>\n He sells most of the 100-head of cattle he shepherds to feedlots when they weigh \u201caround 750 pounds.\u201d He says he has some of the nicest heifers, bulls and steers in auction rings every year. He\u2019s proud to raise quality beef and feed the world. After he sells his cows, they\u2019ll go to a feedlot like Williams owns, where they\u2019ll ramp up the grain intake, aiming for three pounds of gain every day, harvesting at least 1,200 pounds.<\/span><\/p>\n That night, I went to Nenneman\u2019s cattle pens. I filled buckets with grain, pouring yellow waterfalls of it over fences into troughs\u2014just like I\u2019ve done a thousand times before. The Angus cows all have giant, deep black eyes that shimmer and look kind, but sometimes crazy. I thought of the cute way Oreo used to drag me through the mud. I couldn\u2019t decide if I was feeling guilt or resentment as I buttered a new bull up for a feedlot.<\/span><\/p>\n When I arrived at the Chappell feedlot, Williams was hesitant to have me poking around. She worried I\u2019d portray her family\u2019s livelihood in a biased or unfair way. She feared that I\u2019d talk about my experience out of context. She was probably concerned that I\u2019d do something like start my story with a dead cow anecdote.<\/span><\/p>\n When she said \u201cone bad apple\u201d could ruin things, she wasn\u2019t referring to the dead cow I saw. The apple represented the beef industry as a whole. It signified the few inhumane lots in a world full of regulated ones\u2014the abusive exception to the rule that is often depicted of the industry.<\/span><\/p>\n But a few bad seeds in the cattle industry can ruin it for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n -Brad Skaar<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Williams, Nenneman, and most feedlot operators agree that agriculture has a bad rap with the media, and vice versa. Brad Skaar, an associate professor of animal science at Iowa State University, thinks he knows why. Skaar put it to me like this: lots of good and bad people own dogs. And if a schnauzer owner abuses his dog, it\u2019s horrible\u2014but not everyone who owns a dog takes the rap for him. \u201cBut a few bad seeds in the cattle industry can ruin it for everyone. <\/span>Feedlots aren\u2019t hiding anything<\/span><\/a>. They just have been misrepresented so many times by outlets like PETA they\u2019d rather not take their chances with the media,\u201d Skaar said. Feedlots don\u2019t trust media reps not to tell their stories out of context, and media tend to be distrustful of feedlots because they\u2019re not generally open operations. He says that if the two entities could both be more willing to work with each other, the \u201cfalse stigma\u201d that feedlot operations are inhumane might cease.<\/span><\/p>\n Skaar argues that spending all day, every day with cattle isn\u2019t a job for someone who doesn\u2019t like them. \u201cYou can\u2019t work with animals every day and not love them,\u201d Skaar said. But we don\u2019t hear feedlot fairytales about happy cows very often\u2014except maybe in Babybel cheese commercials. We hear from PETA reps like Emily Lavender who scare us.<\/span><\/p>\n My conversation with Lavender got real, fast. As we casually chatted about \u201cthird-degree burns\u201d and \u201ctesticles \u2026 ripped out of their scrotums without pain meds,\u201d I felt a little faint. <\/span><\/p>\n And yet, my time with Nenneman and Williams opened the door to an array of questions about how the meat industry is represented, and the role I play in said representation. It\u2019s our job as journalists to tell stories. But it\u2019s not news if someone feeds and cares for their beagle everyday like they\u2019re supposed to; it\u2019s news when they hit him with a baseball bat.<\/span><\/p>\nMindful Eating<\/h6>\n
A Cow Named Oreo<\/h6>\n
Agriculture vs. the Media<\/h6>\n