NEWSLETTER



DOS & DON'TS

Everybody's got their dicks in a knot about Chinese bootleggers and how they're ruining our movies but I think they did a pretty good job with "Oh God!" Comments/Enlarge | See all


What the fuck are you glowering about? If that sexball let me put my freckly hands all over her person I'd be doing dances with her that make Skeritt Boy look like a tree-sloth who hates sex, not getting into staring problems with every other guy in the room. I guess heavy hangs the face that wears the tits. Comments/Enlarge | See all






RELATED ARTICLES

VICE FASHION - KIDS VS KIDS
Photos by Sanna Charles
Styling by T...
AIN'T NO FUN
If Lovvers Can't Have None
WALTER PFEIFFER - PART 2
Here's an idea for you: Up in the moun...
THE VICE GUIDE TO SURVIVING JUNI...
Adidas is cool. It's always cool, but mak...



FROM THIS ISSUE

MUTT POWER!
Mixed Blood Is Stronger
RAT HUNTING
New York's Newest Sport
I WANT MY DVDS
Mythbusters: Vol 1,2 & 3, Moog, Haack-The...
I'M BUSTED
At FCI Gilmer, in the hills of West Virgi...





THE CYCLE OF LIFE

Water to Beef to Shit and Back



You learned in first grade about the magic of the food chain, right? Algae gets eaten by flies get eaten by frogs get eaten by crocodiles get eaten by people get eaten by God, and so on. But that is grossly outdated. Modern life has a different set of way stations in the cycle of consumption. Here are two ways it REALLY works now.

THE NICE LITTLE FARM PATH
(Move your cursor over the images below)

 


THE FACTORY FARM PATH

If you are trying to decide between big farms and small farms, you need to factor in some details that don’t really fit in a food cycle graph.

At the feed yard, your factory calf and 80,000 of his buddies spend the majority of each day crammed in pens where they eat, sleep, and shit. The farm calf is left to wander and graze as he will.

The uniform administration of antibiotics by Cactus Feeders ultimately strengthens the shit-born bacteria besieging factory-calf’s immune system, whereas Dick and Torrey only give medication to li’l farmy if and when he’s actually sick.

The distance covered by the factory path reflects the range of factory-calf’s possible distribution, so that if there’s anything wrong with the industrial frankenbeef before shipping, not only is there no way to trace it back to cow zero, but you’re also left guessing how many other people in how many other places are eating things made from the same issue-meat (hence those million-pound recalls every so often); meanwhile, if you get sick from your burger at the White Dog, all you have to do is call up the chef and crisis averted. It may mean doing a little extra work and being a bit nerdy about where you eat, but in the end keeping it close to home is a pretty fucking good idea.

LEROY GUMPTION


See all articles by this contributor

< PREV

Comments


POST A COMMENT [SIGN IN]
Hi, in case you haven't heard, you can now sign up to become a "member" of Viceland.com, which entitles you to all sorts of amazing benefits like pictures and a nickname. Click here to make your own profile. You can still comment if you don't, but you gotta do it all 'nonymously.

Name:
Comment: