Do you know what’s in the beef you eat, or where it comes from?
The recent Netflix documentary series You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment centres around a Stanford University study of 22 sets of identical twins over eight weeks, wherein one twin ate a healthy omnivore diet, and the other ate a purely plant-based diet.
The study had many surprising results: the vegan-diet twins experienced an increase in life expectancy, an increased sexual drive, a reduced risk of heart disease and reduced levels of visceral fat, which accumulates around your organs and increases the risk of stroke, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
At the same time, the series discussed in depth the history of the Standard American Diet (or SAD) and the modern realities of the meat industry in the USA.
These realities included viruses like salmonella and E. coli running rampant in supermarket poultry; pig excrement being sprayed into the air as fertilizer and tainting local homes, with contaminants found rotting on the sides of houses, in people’s laundry and even on children’s toys; and salmon farming breeding fatty, deformed offspring sold as fresh-caught cuts — to name a few.
You Are What You Eat is primarily concerned with the United States, which may present a false image to Canadian viewers that this is an American-exclusive problem.
It is not.
According to Statista, just under 60 per cent of the beef exported to Canada in 2023 came from the States. Furthermore, a USDA Foreign Agricultural Service public distribution report discloses that in 2024, the United States is “expected to maintain more than 80 per cent share of total Canadian chicken meat imports.”
However, many Canadian-owned meat industries employ similar unethical, unsanitary and unsustainable practices. Regardless of where it comes from, the truth is that much of the beef that Canadians consume daily is sourced from shocking environments, not the green grass pastures that many people imagine.
Almost everywhere you look, industrial-born beef products are being sold. Hamburgers are mass-produced at fast food chains, grocery store shelves are always full and some of the ‘finest’ dining experiences are in steakhouses.
In their 2022 Fast Fact Sheet, Canada Beef detailed just how much beef is produced in a year. In 2021, Canada produced 3.54 billion pounds of beef of which 1.1 billion pounds was exported, mostly to the United States. 3.54 billion pounds of beef, and yet they only produced two per cent of the world’s beef supply, estimated at the time in 2022 to be 58.7 million metric tonnes. That’s a lot of cows. In Canada, 80 per cent of these cows are located in Alberta, home to a “sheer number of feedlots.”
The Canadian Cattle Association’s website gives the following feedlot information:
“Grain-finishing produces tender, marbled beef and significantly reduces the overall environmental footprint for beef production. The cattle have plenty of room to move around in the open-air feedlot pens and have free access to feed and water… Cattle will typically spend 90 to 200 days in a feedlot where they are fed nutritionally balanced rations until they reach the optimum weight for being sold to a processing plant and processed into beef. (my emphasis)”
Ignoring the statement about beef production’s environmental footprint for now, the way they put it, feedlots don’t seem so bad. Cattle have room to roam, and they are fed “nutritionally balanced rations” to be nice and juicy for us. However, the reality of what feedlots look like don’t paint such a nice image.
In photos taken by We Animals Media of a Quebec feedlot, cattle barely have room to breathe, let alone move; they live and sleep in their own excrement. With that, they frequently become sick and die of symptoms such as “diarrhea and dehydration, liver abscesses, infections of the lungs, heart and/or kidneys and neurologic symptoms” due to their high caloric intake.
With all these diseases running rampant, many Canadian beef producers use antimicrobrials, like tetracyclines and macrolides, to keep their produce healthy and profitable. With antimicrobials being overused, though, numerous research articles have identified enteric bacteria in cattle that are resistant to these medicines.
If these bacteria get into human enteric systems, they can cause illnesses associated with higher mortality, extended patient stays, and an increased risk of re-admission. There is a severe lack of research in this area, yet the meat industry continues to grow.
Despite Canada Beef claiming that this meat is “Good for you, great for the environment,” this couldn’t be further from the truth.
As well as the risk of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria getting into the enteric system, further research has shown that red meat is likely a carcinogen and processed meat is definitely a carcinogen — specifically but not exclusively regarding colorectal cancer. Eating fatty beef can also increase the risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.
The environment also suffers because of the beef industry. To account for the colossal demand for meat, over 80 per cent of the world’s farmland is used for livestock. Some may be familiar with the fact that the Amazon Rainforest is shrinking due to deforestation and wildfires, with 2019 being a particularly bad year for the latter. Most of this deforestation comes from cattle ranchers, who are suspected of starting illegal fires to clear more land. Despite Canada being urged to cease trade with Brazil for these reasons in 2020, such trading relations continue.
What’s more, cattle contribute an astonishing amount to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, one of the leading factors of climate change.
A Guardian article from 2021 said that the entire food production system, including farming machinery, spraying of fertilizer and transportation of products, creates 17.3 billion metric tonnes of greenhouse gases every year. Of that number, meat production accounted for 57 per cent, and beef alone counts for a quarter of the total emissions. As a comparison, they said that “to produce 1kg of wheat, 2.5kg of greenhouse gases are emitted. A single kilo of beef, meanwhile, creates 70kg of emissions.”
Canada is a significant contributor. A 2020 study of beef production GHG emissions in Saskatchewan found 8.52 billion CO2 equivalent released in the year 2014. Of this immense number, 63.12 per cent came from enteric methane — deriving from the eructation and flatulence of cattle — 18.73 per cent came from manure nitrous oxide and 13.38 per cent came from manure methane. The remaining contributors, soil nitrous oxide and energy carbon dioxide, only contributed 1.39 and 3.39 per cent, respectively.
Perhaps the most visually shocking element of the beef industry is the genetic modifications, like altering the myostatin (MSTN) in cattle’s genetic codes “where loss-of-function mutations result in muscular hyperplasia causing a phenotype known as double-muscling.”
The Canadian Shorthorn Association describes double-muscling as such: “While it can be negatively associated with heavier birth weight, calving difficulties, thinner bones and less fat cover, it is also linked to traits that can be seen as positive, such as leaner meat (less intramuscular fat), more tenderness, larger rib eye measurement and higher carcass yield.”
While double-muscled cows don’t suffer as much as genetically modified chickens, whose legs often break and whose hearts and lungs can fail under the pressure of their rapidly growing bodies, they – and other genetic endeavours like lab-grown meat – still present potentially uncomfortable realities that nobody seems to be talking about.
Compare these facts to the recent controversy with the Impossible Burger, a meatless alternative now sold in supermarkets and even at Burger King. People complained that the burgers were hyper-processed, contained GMOs, were not healthy and were not real food. At the same time, they ignored that fast food beef and other packaged meat are similarly if not more processed, contain the GMOs just mentioned, are severely unhealthy and are no more ‘food’ than cardboard is.
While the GMO argument is true, it’s also unfounded. Impossible manufactures their heme — which makes their meat ‘bleed’ and used to be derived from soybean roots — from yeast, an FDA-approved process. In contrast to these other real, harmful genetic modification practices, this argument over modified soy hardly seems monumental.
The truth is that the beef industry harms people, animals and the planet as a whole, and other mass-produced meats aren’t any better. While eating a vegetarian or vegan diet can still give you enough calories and protein, and sometimes be healthier than omnivore diets – depending on what you eat – veganism can be a challenging transition.
Other alternatives to mass-produced meat are plant-based meats and local produce. The St. Catharines Farmers’ Market, for example, runs on Thursdays from 8 a.m to 2 p.m and on Saturdays from 8 a.m to 2 p.m., and houses dozens of local businesses. Talk to your local farmers and see where their produce comes from; that way, you can support local businesses and continue eating meat that’s ethically sourced. There are some vegan restaurants in St. Catharines, like Rise Above and The Lemon Tree. Almost everywhere you look, beef products are being sold. But if you dig a little deeper, you can find that beef and other mass-produced meats are not the only way to survive. Choosing to eat less meat can reduce your risk of becoming ill; it can help limit the demand for beef, thus limiting the requirement for mass production and environmental destruction; and it can lead to a healthier lifestyle.
So the next time you think about getting that burger, or that rotisserie chicken, think about the impact it could have. Maybe try the plant-based burger instead.