Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - [Livingontheland] Antibiotics (was Re: Sustainable Table Issues)

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Harvey Ussery <harvey@themodernhomestead.us>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Antibiotics (was Re: Sustainable Table Issues)
  • Date: Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:10:56 -0500

/Antibiotics are also used to make the animals grow faster. This is contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in humans. /[Earlier post]

I'm not sure that this is an accurate statement. From what I've read antibiotics are basically used to offset the side affects of growing animals too quickly, and feeding them crap that they aren't genetically predisposed to eat (cows shoveled with grain, which starts to break down their digestive systems- antibiotics are given to keep this breaking down from prematurely killing the animals). ~Mark

I think you're right, Mark, that giving confinement animals antibiotics in their *feed* is done these days because otherwise they would all die (which is another way of saying that as a matter of fact they are all *sick*), but actually, antibiotics were first fed because of the observed boosting of growth (for reasons no one understood--but when has that ever stood in the way of progress?). [See Heuser, FEEDING POULTRY, available from Robert Plamondon's Norton Creek Press.]

So I think "boosting growth" with antibiotics has been a part of the CAFO strategy from the beginning, though the more corrupted the model became, the more and more "necessary" became the feeding of antibiotics to prop up the massively stressed animals.

~Harvey

--
Harvey in northern Virginia
www.themodernhomestead.us





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page