• blargh513@sh.itjust.works
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    4 days ago

    Theyre typically fed corn because it is cheaper, easy to store and transport and it makes beef taste “better”. Cows are supposed to eat grass, not corn.

    • Cort@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Pedant here: corn is a grass. Modified by centuries of selective breeding, and not endemic to the region where the aurochs were domesticated.

      • Pyr@lemmy.ca
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        4 days ago

        Corn is a grass, but you are typically feeding them the grain of the grass rather than the stalks and leaves which they should be eating.

        Normally grass grains aren’t the majority diet of cows, it’s the leaves.

        • Successful_Try543@feddit.org
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          4 days ago

          AfaIk, the entire plant is chopped, fermented and fed to cattle. Yet, compared to grass, corn has a higher content on easily digestable carbohydrates.

        • Cort@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          Not quite the same way. Bread and sugar are products we make from grasses (wheat & sugar cane).

          High fructose corn syrup is grass in the same way as sugar and bread, and beer for that matter.

          • Pulptastic@midwest.social
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            4 days ago

            It has been cultivated to produce huge starchy kernels and is then refined to remove all other parts.

    • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      From what I’ve heard from farmers, the really good beef is grass fed and then corn/grain finished. So the animal eats grass most of their life, and then for a little while before slaughter they are fed corn to build up their fat content.

      Could be wrong, but I’ve had multiple people who raised cows tell me this diet plan.