The word feedlot is thrown around a lot these days, and the meaning is lost on many. A feedlot in its purest form is a place where livestock is sent once it reaches a minimum weight requirement and are "finished" this finishing prepares the livestock; whatever it may be, for sale in the marketplace. What is meant by finishing is essentially a glorified form of fattening up, the animal is fed a large amounts of grain and energy dense foods so each animal produces as much meat as possible. Feedlots weren't always around, in fact it is a rather young concept that only came about in the last forty or fifty years. Originally feeding operations were separate from all other parts of the industry. This was true until around the 1960's when usage of hybrid grains and new innovative irrigation techniques allowed for a large amount of
cattle to be fed on site. Thus the birth of the modern day feedlot, and though it brings increased productivity and a controllable environment is it truly ethical to take away this animals quality of life and essentially turn it into a walking pile of meat? On top of that they are injected with all sorts of antibacterials to prevent spread of disease because they are kept in such close quarters. Sounds harmless I know, but what do you believe happens when you eat the beef, you're getting very low doses of the same injection. What this does is it kills of all the weakest specimen of bacteria and only the well adapted survive which means we're essentially breeding super bugs.
"This is caused because consumption of the feedlot beef is likened to dosing yourself over and over with a very frail version of the anti bacterial injection. This causes the weaker variants of the bacterium to die off but all the strong and healthy specimen survive and we essentially breed super bugs." Pull Quote
