The dangers of beef. (Environmental Watch).

In the United States beef is a dietary staple. It's the norm. It's what almost every typical family eats numerous times a week. It's eaten at summer barbecues or a quick stop at McDonald's when there's no time to cook. It's quick and it tastes good.

With all the beef we consume there has to be a way for it to be economically produced and sold. Ranchers use many different methods for the mass production of cattle. These aren't always good. It's quite common for them to inject cattle with hormones and antibiotics and to damage the environment through overgrazing. Overproduction and overconsumption of beef puts both the ecosystem and us at risk.

The agricultural world has generally embraced each new scientific invention and technique for raising cattle. Ranchers have become accustomed to using the cheapest and most productive methods to raise their herds. In order to be able to sell at low prices and make the highest possible profit, they have to put huge numbers of cattle onto large pastures and fields.

There is plenty of cheap land in the tropical rainforests of Central and South America that is steadily being cleared for grazing space. Even though many people may not be aware of it, there's not much rainforest left on this planet. Mexico and Central America used to have 100,000 square miles of rainforest; today there are less than 50,000 square miles remaining. Much of the depletion is a result of ranchers burning and clearing these areas for grazing land.

The soil from rainforests is actually poorly suited for cattle grazing. Its base is very thin because most of the nutrients are immediately recycled back to the canopy of the forest. When this land is grazed, the soil is depleted after a few years and ranchers must move on to new land, ruining still more rainforest. It is shameful and irresponsible that we are so wasteful with one of our richest and most diverse natural habitats. Short-term monetary gain is the motivation and long-term environmental harm is the result. In his 1994 book Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture, environmental scientist Jeremy Rifkin says:

   Each of us bares some of the responsibility for the loss of the world's
   ancient rainforests. For example, it is estimated that for every
   quarter-pound hamburger that comes from a steer raised in Central and South
   America it is necessary to destroy approximately 75 kilograms (165 pounds)
   of living matter including some twenty to thirty different plant species,
   perhaps 100 insect species, and dozens of birds, mammal, and reptile
   species.

Not only does this irresponsibility destroy the natural inhabitants but these practices have other serious results. Many people are oblivious to the useful products that come from the tropical rainforests, such as plants declared to have anti-cancer properties. Products derived from plants are used in many surgical procedures and are also ingredients in some birth control pills (cortisone and diogenin are made from the tropical wild yam.) Many natural rubbers, latex, resins, gums, dyes, waxes, and oils are used in industrial materials and cosmetics. All of these--and numerous other plants and animals--are suffering because of beef production.

Cattle ranching not only endangers the natural flora and fauna of rainforests but the native people as well. Only a small percentage of the population (most of them wealthy) own the farm and grazing land of Central and South America. The poor are being pushed off their lands as rich landowners require more and more pasture. Today in Brazil, 4.5 percent of the country's landowners own 81 percent of the nation's farmland, while 70 percent of the rural households are landless. These landowners' greed for profit from beef production is threatening the way of life of millions of people as well as their land.

The production of cattle is also an environmental issue in the United States. Letting cattle ravage large areas of grassland is harmful to our ecosystem too. Overgrazing is one of the biggest problems. Typically the cattle graze extensively on one large area of land, cropping the grass in such a way that the grass species they like best are decimated. The pasture erodes and degrades. Many native plants can no longer be found and other foreign grasses--such as filaree, Russian thistle, halogetan, and cheat grass--take over. Cheat grass is highly flammable after it dies and it can be very susceptible to wildfires, which often burn out of control and destroy wildlife habitat.

After a pasture is ruined, many ranchers plant non-native grass species like crested wheat grass for their cattle. They also spray herbicides on the fields, killing all the bushes and brush. Both these procedures greatly reduce wildlife habitat. They ruin the native shrubs and grasses that wildlife use for nesting, cover, and sustenance.

Some of the most endangered areas are the riparian zones in the southwestern United States. These are the lush, green, fertile areas adjacent to streambeds. Such fields are usually teeming with diverse complexes of plant and animal life. But once cattle touch these lands, the areas quickly degrade. The cattle eat all the new shoots, preventing new growth, and the banks quickly erode. All the undergrowth gets trampled, and the streams become wider and shallower. Many types of fish, including trout, can no longer survive as the streams become shallower, lose oxygen, and grow warmer. When there is no abundant green vegetation, the floodwaters rush through much faster, causing even more erosion. The National Wildlife Federation reports that 75 percent of all endangered species which live in or move through the southwestern United States depend on streamside habitat.

The U.S. population eats beef, loves it, and keeps eating more of it. This has been especially true in the last few decades with the rise of the fast-food industry. In 1970 Americans spent around $6 billion on fast food, and in 2000 they spent more than $110 billion. Marvin Harris states in his 1985 book The Sacred Cow and the Abominable Pig that over 6.7 billion hamburgers are sold to Americans annually at fast-food restaurants. In addition to the convenience for people on the go, eating at fast-food restaurants can be economical for people on low budgets, even if that food hasn't been produced in the healthiest ways. One can buy a burger for a buck.

Beef can be sold at low prices because ranchers can raise large numbers of cattle by pumping them full of hormones and antibiotics. Hormones promote growth in cattle. Gary Kuhl, quoted in Orville Schell's Modern Meat: Antibiotics, Hormones, and the Pharmaceutical Farm (1983), states:

   I don't think that there is a producer who can afford not to use implanting
   as a management tool. If you can increase that rascal [a steer] by thirty
   to forty pounds with a two dollar bill, there isn't a rancher in the world
   who wouldn't trade places with you for that kind of deal, because that's a
   ten-dollar return for every dollar invested.

Antibiotics are also making it possible for ranchers to raise meat that can be sold at low prices. The drugs enhance the growth of the animals. Cattle can be kept in very confined areas while staying healthy and disease free. These drugs are instituted at every possible opportunity and it seems as though most ranchers couldn't or wouldn't be able to raise meat without them. Today about nine million pounds of antibiotic feed additives are used annually, and the rancher who doesn't use them is an exception.

But this overuse of antibiotics could be potentially dangerous for our health. An editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine states that research demonstrates a connection between the drugs that are given to animals and the creation of superbugs that are immune to some antibiotics.

The hormones used in cattle can also be transferred to humans through eating beef. For example, estrogen is commonly injected into cattle, resulting in humans receiving large doses of it through consumption. Estrogen is naturally produced in the female's ovary and placenta; it stimulates the growth of these organs and also regulates the menstrual cycle. During the past three decades, it has been used in livestock to promote growth (although scientists still aren't completely sure why the hormone works this way). Now studies show that human consumption of estrogen from hormone-fed beef can result in cancer and premature puberty.

It's not just the drugs put into beef that endanger our health; it's also the amount of beef we consume. Because this meat is economical, we buy more of it with little thought for how it was produced. According to Pan Carney in Schell's Modern Meat:

   I'll just say that my family has always had a freezer full of beef and pork
   and we eat meat at every meal. It's just a way of life with us, so I don't
   think much about it. I don't worry that I will be hurt by anything that I
   might buy at the grocery store.

Most people are unaware of the effects beef can have on their health. A diet consisting of too much red meat, especially grain-fed beef, is particularly unhealthy. Grain-fed beef is high in saturated fats and cholesterol. Three of the nation's top ten causes of death are heart attack, cancer, and strokes. Diets high in saturated fats and cholesterol are a major factor in all three. People need to be more conscious of the dangers of excessive beef consumption.

Another issue with grain-fed beef is the fact that a steer eats an average of twenty pounds of grain a day. Grain that could be fed to hungry people in the developing world instead is fed to cattle, which is later fed to people of more economically developed countries. One out of every four people in Africa is starving; in South America nearly one out of every eight people is malnourished. Yet grain which could appease their hunger is fed to cattle to produce meat to appease the tastes of wealthy people--meat which in the long run isn't even healthy for us. As Rifkin says in Beyond Beef, "While the rich are dying from the diseases of affluence, the poor of the planet languish for want of the bare essentials of life."

Destroying rainforests, ruining natural habitats, endangering wildlife, and relying on hormones and antibiotics has become the normal mode of raising beef cattle. It is the way for the rancher to increase profits and ensure success. Overconsumption of beef endangers our health. We need to become more aware of all this and try to change these practices. As conservationist Wendell Berry says, "It is the landscape of monoculture in which both nature and humanity are most at risk."

We don't need to eliminate beef production and consumption entirely, but we do need to pay attention to the warning signs. We need to think about what we are doing and how it will affect both our future and the future of our planet. Then we need to act accordingly to create healthier lifestyles and an ecologically balanced environment.

Zara R. John is a sixteen-year-old student at Watershed High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This essay placed third in the thirteen-to-seventeen-year-old age category of the 2001 Humanist Essay Contest for Young Women and Men of North America.