How Does a 1,200 Pound Cow Get Enough Protein?
Everything that you learned about cows as a child is wrong.
As a child, I learned about cows and other herbivores. I learned that cows ate grass, that they produced milk for my breakfast cereal, and that they have four stomachs, while humans only have one. I learned that we raised male cows to make steaks and hamburgers, and that we raised female cows to get milk, which we could turn into all sorts of delicious foods, like processed American cheese singles and ice cream. (I did not have the healthiest diet as a child.)
I grew up in a fairly suburban area, so I didn’t see a cow up close for several years, not until an expedition to a farm roughly around age ten or eleven. I was a fairly small child, and I marveled at the size of these large, slowly grazing creatures that ambled past me, looked at me out of one placid eye, and constantly munched and chewed on mouthfuls of grass or hay.
After building up my courage, I gathered a handful of straw and held it out to the nearest cow. I was delighted when the animal used large lips to pluck the straw from my fingers with surprising dexterity, incorporating the straw into the bundle of wet grass already being masticated in her mouth.
In elementary and middle school classes, my classmates and I learned about the differences between herbivores and…
