What Can Cows Do?

Anyone who knows me on any personal level won’t hesitate to deny my love for cows. In the summer before 8th grade, I saw a picture of a blow-dried cow and I immediately fell in love. The cow owners shampooed, conditioned, and blow dried their cows and took them to the local cattle show. Their coat looked so fluffy. Y’all it looked like a carpet. After nearly a year of begging my parents for a cow, I got one– more precisely, I got a whole farm. I spent my summers shampooing, conditioning, and blow drying my cows. 

From February 22 of my freshman year to February 22 of my sophomore year, I went vegan. A lot of people thought I went vegan because I just loved my cows so much, but good gosh can they be farther from the truth. It was a dare. I love my meat with a burning passion. I eat meat at least 21 times a week– three times a day (for every meal), seven days a week. Initially, I was so staunchly set on the idea that I would not benefit in the slightest bit from going vegan. But a couple months into my new diet, I saw undeniable changes. 

I became less lethargic. I was able to wake up every morning at 5:30 without an alarm. This is especially surprising considering the fact that I do not get up until someone wakes me up. Throughout the day, my mind was clearer, and my grades got better. Additionally, I lost 17 pounds while I was on my diet. Because I lost so much weight, it was easier to move around; I was quicker, and working out was less hard. Finally, my skin had much less oil; my skin cleared up. 

These reasons may be enough to influence you to go vegan forever, but I can say for sure that the vegan life isn’t for me. However, when you look at it from an environmental aspect, grass fed cows– and really just cows in general– aren’t the best for the planet. Grass fed cows consume what grass is left on the earth. Granted, they don’t eat all of it, but the earth ought to have an ideal, “x” amount of grass on the planet’s surface. Additionally, the belching and farting from cows release immerse amounts of methane into the atmosphere– much of which is very uncalled for. A push to prevent global warming is not a means to get rid of carbon emissions and methane all together. It is more of an effort to reach the equilibrium point of emissions and planet health. 

By no means am I saying that we should stop eating beef and go vegan as a whole. Instead, I am proposing consuming protein from a source from a lower level on the energy pyramid. Soybeans, for example, are an excellent source of protein— one that I frequently ate during my one year of going vegan. Soybeans are producers, meaning that they are on the first level of the pyramid. This allows us, the next consumers, to absorb 10% of the energy the soybeans have to offer. On the other hand, beef is on the second level of the pyramid. Cows would consume grains or grass (which is a producer- first level), thus claiming 10% of the energy from their food. This leaves us, the humans, to obtain only 1% from the beef we eat. This can be said for all animals we consume- poultry, beef, pork and seafood. 

All in all, I am encouraging all of y’all to be aware of what we consume on a daily basis. Perhaps being more concerned for what we eat may lead to decreased obesity rates and blood pressure. We may even save the planet. Instead of striving to revamp our entire ecosystem, we can take a look at our meat sources and determine our environmentally conscious choice of the day. Let’s start with the cows!

https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/cows-save-the-planet/ 
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vegan-diet-benefits
http://www.nursingdegree.net/blog/19/57-health-benefits-of-going-vegan/