Originally sent, Friday, 10/5/2001
Rant! - My Beef With Cows!


You know, cows really fascinate people. My niece loves cows. If you want to make her happy, buy her something with a cow on it. I don’t know how her husband feels about the cows, but she was always a cow-nut.

I heard on the radio recently that you can not go one day in America without seeing a cow. Not necessarily a live cow, but at least a picture of a cow. Try it, you have to pay attention, but you will see a cow everyday. They can be: on billboards; on milk containers; as figurines; action figures; cartoons; they’re absolutely everywhere.



As a matter of fact, today at lunch we got into a discussion – did you know that cows have four stomachs? Four! What’s with that?

Apparently they stuff themselves like crazy for half a day filling stomach Number-One which can hold up to 75 gallons of stuff. Then after a few hours, they regurgitate, (yuck!), that partially digested stuff back up, (now called cud.) They chew it some more then swallow it again, this time into stomach Number-Two. Now is it just me, or is this a horrible existence?

And under what sort of circumstances would nature determine that this is the right evolutionary step to take? I mean what is this? I imagine cows walking around one day, millions of years ago, with only one stomach except that one of them has a mutation giving it a second stomach. Now one afternoon, this mutant character accidentally barfs. Instead of just letting it spew, he chews it back up, and digests it in his second stomach. And somehow evolution decides that THAT cow has an evolutionary advantage over all others.

I think we should do a LOT of research into whatever circumstances existed that made the cows evolve in that direction. Because if those circumstances come along some day for human, I don’t want to be around. Chewing up barf all afternoon, that’s no way to live!

So along that trend, a friend of mine who is in a position to know, once told me something that has always bothered me. Even before he told me his story.

He said, that there is nothing from the bovine that they do not use. That includes everything from the skin, (leather) to the tail, (soup). So I went out to the Internet and did some investigating. I wanted to find out exactly what all came from our old friend the cow. Below is a diagram, and a list of all of the major “cuts”, and I apologize to vegetarians:



Popular Cuts
1. Shin - Gravy Beef
2. Round
3. Silverside
4. Topside (opposite side of Silverside)
5. Rump
6. Sirloin
7. Fillet
8. T-Bone
9. Thin Flank
10. Set of Ribs
11. Rib Eye
12. Chuck
13. Blade
14. Brisket
15. Shin - Gravy Beef

Source

To this list I’ve added various things that I know of that also come from our hapless friend, the cow. Here they are, and I apologize again to vegetarians or anyone with any good sense:

Bologna (Mysterious Content)
Dog Bones
Dog Food (Mysterious Content)
Ground Meat (Mysterious Content)
Haggis (It’s a Scottish thing – enough said)
Head Cheese (I don’t really know, and I don’t really want to know)
Hot Dogs (Mysterious Content)
Jerkey (Mysterious Content)
Leather
Liver
Roast Beef
Slim Jims (Mysterious Content)
Spam? (I think is just ham, but I couldn’t say for sure so I’ve included it)
Tripe (that’s stomach and remember there are FOUR of these)
Tongue

Now here is the problem. Even with my simple understanding of biology, that leaves a lot of cow left over. There are literally TONS of other: internal organs, brains, eyes, ears, lungs, intestines, kidneys, spleens, stomachs (Four!), esophagus, heart, lymph nodes, cartilage, bones, etc. that are apparently unaccounted for. And if you multiply that by the total number of cows “processed” in this country per year, you are looking at an enormous amount of stuff.

I know that your initial reaction is to say, “Come on Bill, that's all dog food” but let me tell you, there just aren’t enough dogs in the world to eat all this stuff. Then there are other outlets such as the “Mysterious Contents” of Spam, hot dogs and Slim Jims. But do you even know anyone that eats Spam or Slim Jims (or tripe for that matter)? And really, how many hot dogs do you eat a year? Maybe five? And where are all the bones going? Our streets should be littered with bones from the amount of cows “Processed” each year.

There is something very strange going on here. I don’t know what it is, who’s behind it, or what they are trying to do. But you, wary reader, can sit back and relax. I’m on the case for you. I’ll find out what’s going on here. And I’ll get you some answers.

You can count on it.
Billo