Thanksgiving and Meatloaf

We were planning to go to Texas to be with our kids and grandkids for Thanksgiving, but a couple of weeks ago our dog, Sally, had to have surgery.  She had a ruptured disc in her back and we ended up taking her to the Oklahoma State University veterinary teaching hospital to have emergency surgery.  It was her left hind leg that was most affected, but she is doing well and looks like she will regain most, if not all, use of it.  However, for the next 4 to 6 weeks,we have to keep her crated and quiet and take her out 3 to 4 times a day for 5 - 10 minutes for limited exercise.  Long story, short - we couldn't leave her in a boarding kennel and couldn't take her with us.  So, we stayed home.

With just Tom and myself here, I didn't want to do the whole turkey and dressing thing, so I did the next best thing.  I cooked meatloaf (Tom's favorite main dish).  I bought the ground beef for the meatloaf from a vendor at our local farmers' market.  I like to buy it from them because they raise their calves on pasture.  You see, almost all of the beef sold in grocery stores comes from a feed lot somewhere. 

A feed lot is a nasty place.  The cattle stand around in their own muck and are fed a grain-based diet (mostly corn).  Grain is not a natural food for cattle.  They have multi-chambered stomachs that evolved to digest grass.  The first chamber is the "rumen" and it is the primary site for microbial fermentation of ingested feed.  Grain-based diets cause acid buildup in the rumen which, in turn, causes abscesses through which bacteria can enter into the blood.  Antibiotics are routinely fed to cattle in feedlots to counteract these ailments.  This routine feeding of antibiotics helps to produce resistant strains of bacteria.  Not good for cattle or people.

Finally, grain-based diets can promote Escherichia coli (E. coli) within the digestive tract, and these E. coli are more likely to survive the acid in the human stomach and make us sick. It has been shown that cattle switched from grain-based diets to hay are less likely to shed harmful E. coli.

So, that's why I buy locally grown, grass-fed beef.