Why is a cow more efficient at utilizing rough forage crops than humans?

Answer 1

It all comes down to differences in digestive systems. Humans have a monogastric digestive system, designed to break down proteins and starches from bread and meat and other protein sources. Meat takes longer to break down but is broken down more efficiently than plants, which only stay in our stomach for so long before, being unable to have any more nutrients extracted from the fibrous material, is passed through much faster than the protein-based food.

Cows, on the other hand, have a stomach with four large chambers that are designed to break down fibre and use it to their bodily needs. The rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum all have an important role in breaking down tough, fibrous material that would simply pass through a human's digestive system as feces.

Answer 2

This is a common misconception from those who oppose the use of livestock for agricultural purposes, stating that it is a "waste" of grain to feed 1 cow for beef than it is to feed several humans with the same amount. They say that it takes 10 (or 9 [some like to use the exaggerated number of 16]) pounds of grain for a "cow" to gain 1 lb of beef (on the hoof, mind you), where several more people can use that 10 lbs of grain and split it amongst each other. To convert that to ready-to-serve beef, that means it took approximately 20 lbs of grain to make 1 lb of edible beef (since we are factoring that the carcass weight is ~50% of the liveweight).

However, most of these folks don't realize there are holes to this whole beef-to-plate efficiency problem. First of all, we humans cannot utilize grain like cows can. We have a much more simpler digestive system that disables us from consuming such coarse plant material (even though grain is not considered a "roughage" by ruminant nutritionists) that cows can literally thrive off of. We are what scientists call monogastrics, being only able to have a single-chambered stomach that is designed to primarily digest protein, carbohydrates (like starch), sugars and fats--such which is found in meat, eggs, dairy products, nuts, and fruits. This clearly indicates that we are omnivores, not herbivores. We do not have the same type of bacteria, protozoa nor fungi that are able to break down cellulose and fibre found in forages and grains in our simple stomachs like cows do in their rumen. Such foods simply pass through without being digested or absorbed. Thus, if we were to live off of grain and/or grass alone like cows commonly do, we'd literally starve ourselves to death. Cows, on the other hand, which are herbivores called ruminants, have a multiple-chambered stomach that naturally and much more efficiently digest such coarse plant material as forages (like hay, grass, and silage) and grain (especially when processed to increase surface area and expose starch granules and break protein matrixes) all thanks to the bacteria, protozoa and fungi present in their rumens. Such microbes break down these otherwise unusuable coarse plant material into something useful that a cow can use for energy, metabolism, reproduction and growth.

In order for us humans to able to utilize and digest these grains, they need to be processed. Processing, in human terms, means that what goes in comes out in two forms: "stuff" we can actually use, and "waste" that we can't use. the "stuff" that comes out of the milling and grinding of grain comes out as flour. This flour cannot be eaten right away, and must be mixed with other ingredients like water and yeast to make bread and other pastries and pasta goods. The waste is dumped in some corner of the mill plant to be thrown away. This waste includes the hull and seed coating of the grain we cannot eat.

That's a heck of a lot of work to do just to "eat" these grains that some of us are claiming are less efficient going through the cow than through our bellies. Approximately, the hull and seed coating that is removed during the milling and grinding process, takes up about 1/3 of the seed. If we were to process 20 lbs of grain that has been considered a "waste" feeding to a cow that has only a 50% carcass weight of its liveweight and use it for ourselves, we would be throwing away 7 lbs of that 20 lbs of grain. That means we're only using 13 lbs of that grain. Sure, that can make quite a few loaves of bread, feeding a whole lot of people, but what about that waste? Well, it can be fed to that cow, and be converted into beef--or even milk. The "garbage" that comes from, in this example, the milling industry, is considered as "by-product." Such by-products were never made to be used as feed for livestock, but if you stop and think about it, it is far better to be "re-using" this "garbage" as something else--in terms of feed--instead of letting it rot and be true waste in a land-fill.

As far as grain alone is concerned, though, even though it is not considered a "natural" feed source by any means (heck, neither is hay nor silage a "natural" feed!), it should be obvious by now that it is not more efficient to feed grain to people than to cows. Even though you can feed more people on a pound of grain than you can to cattle, you are still having to waste much of what is going to be "fed" to people when the cow can utilize it all quite easily.

Agruably, it is also apparent that processing grain to expose its starchy form from the endosperm of a grain kernel or seed is bad for people's health: Feeding more grain to people mean that people are more likely to get sick from it than if they were to consume meat, eggs, dairy along with a high and healthy amount of vegetables and some fruit. The common misconception is that too much meat is bad for your health. In fact, too much grain is more of a health concern than too much meat due to its high carbohydrate content: carbohydrate equates to energy, and when energy intake is above and beyond what someone will use in a day, that energy will get converted into fat (adipose tissue). Too much fat makes a person obese, and also leads to cardiac issues, Diabetes (carbohydrates can easily convert into sugar with the right enzyme processes), and other health issues. Current health studies have shown that meat does not contribute to such significant and serious health problems.

Additionally, grain is also a cause for concern for cattle. However, it is not so serious a concern or that much of something to be opposed to when you understand how it's used properly and what it can be used for. Many claim that grain is unhealthy and unnatural for cattle to eat because it causes acidosis. The problem with that statement is three-fold: Grain is in fact healthy for animals that have problems digesting roughage and forage alone, such as very young, very old, underweight, or high-metabolic-rate animals. Grain provides a needed energy (and some protein) source that such animals will not be able to obtain from grass or forage alone, and is an excellent supplement to fall back on when forage is low in energy. Grain is just as natural as hay or silage; grain from cereal crops are just grass seeds. Grass is a natural plant cattle eat on a regular basis, and tamed grasses used in monoculture crops like corn, wheat, barley, oats, triticale, rye and sorghum are fed to cattle in the grain, or grain + plant form. Finally, grain alone does not cause acidosis. Introducing a high-concentrate (i.e., high energy) ration too much too quickly to cattle on a high-forage diet is what induces acidosis. To go further, cattle on a high-forage ration that are supplemented with a low amount of grain will not get acidosis compared to those that gorge themselves on grain or a high-concentrate ration the first day they come off of pasture.

To conclude, it is hoped you can know clearly see why the fact that feeding cows grain is less efficient than feeding grain to humans is false due to differences in utilization based on digestive morphology, utilization of waste products by ruminant animals, and the truths behind the health effects and consequences of feeding grain to both humans and cows.

Answer 3

This is actually a common misconception brought on by the extremist anti-animal agricultural groups in their attempts to defend their diet and spread half-truths to justify their means. No, it is not more efficient to feed people with grain than cattle because people cannot make use of almost an entire plant where cereal grains come from like cattle can, and do not have the same well-developed, highly efficient digestive system like cattle do that can digest such feedstuffs and turn it into meat and milk. Also, a grain-rich diet has been found by more and more scientists to cause more problems for humans than what has been initially thought, and have been undoubtedly linked to obesity, diabetes, cardiac disease, and possibly (though it is still quite debatable) cancer. The Standard American Diet calls for a diet high in grains and low in meat, and it is now considered the reason why so many people are obese and overweight.

Back to the topic at hand, the reason one may think that it is "more efficient" to feed people grain than cattle because it is said that it takes around, on average, 8 to 9 pounds of grain (some people love to grossly exaggerate these numbers, claiming that it takes upwards of 16 lbs of grain--which, really, is a 1900's to 1950's average, not a 2013 number) to produce one pound of beef, whereas you can feed six to eight people 8 to 9 lbs of grain. However, there are many, many holes to this argument that can be covered only breifly in this answer.

People cannot nor do not consume grain like cattle can and do, even with as little processing done to it as possible. Humans are monogastrics, not ruminants like cattle, thus lacking a large four-chambered stomach and a functional cecum, and do not have the bacteria nor microflora that are adept at breaking down and digesting the fibre, cellulose and starch which makes up a single wheat seed or corn kernel.

Grain, especially cereal grain which is surrounded by a hull, must be processed in the form of milling, separating the hull from the rest of the seed or kernel, leaving just the bran, germ and endosperm attached. "Whole grain" is what such grain is made up of. Refined grain is where the bran and germ is removed, leaving only the starch-rich component of the grain. The hull portion is discarded as waste. When grains are harvested, they too are wasted as "chaff" on the field, and are often tilled under in preparation to next-years crop. That's a whole lot of waste just to feed a few people.

With cattle, practically nothing is wasted: Cereal grains, if not harvested in their entirety and ensiled or used as greenfeed and when harvested as a grain crop, has the chaff often gathered up as straw to be used either in feed or a bedding source or both. Crop-residue grazing is also gaining popularity, where cows are set to graze a post-harvested field and contribute their portion of Nature to increase the fertility of the soil. You don't see people doing that.

When you feed beef cattle grain, the hull is literally almost never removed. If it is, it goes right back to the animals as a feedstuff. The only "processing" that may be done to it is rolling, tempering or crushing the grains just to make it easier for the rumen microflora to digest and break down the nutrients found within the grain that would otherwise be difficult for them to access if these grains were fed whole.

What is also looked over in such an argument is that feedlot cattle, which this question obvious is referring to, are only in the feedlot for three to four months of their lives. If you take the average lifespan of a feeder steer, which is around 20 to 24 months (let's say 24 months as a guesstimate), that means that steer spent 20 months of its life on pasture, living a life full of grazing grass in the summer and eating hay and/or silage with maybe a little grain in the winter before it was sent to the feedlot to be put on an 85 percent grain diet for the last four months of its life.

Additionally, as mentioned above, humans don't really need grains in their diet. Grain is purely and primarily an energy source, a source that is high in carbohydrate, and therefore high in calorimic value. That, essentially, is what the S.A.D. diet is all about: half of what comprises such a diet is refined grains. Since we humans don't really need grains or so much carb-dense foods, there's no need to have to want to take grain fed to cattle and give it to people. Why, cattle don't need to be fed grain either, and can do just fine on grass. This would mean that we shouldn't be arguing about how much more grain is fed to cattle than is fed to humans, but rather how much more grain feilds can be converted back to pasture to raise--or finish--these animals on. Since people can't eat grass either, cattle would make far better use of such lands--most land that is farmed is unsuitable for growing crops anyway--than people in the first place.