Friendlier Cow Burps. Old News? Good News? No News at All?

Okay, so I'm reading today and I see an article that I could swear I heard about on NPR months and months ago. (Does this ever happen to you? Reporters act like something is a new thing, when in reality it's old news?) Could it be deja vu?

This particular article is about the fact that belching cows hold a suffocating 75% of the world's methane. This isn't news. We all knew that, or at least that's what we're told.

This makes me question. This makes me wonder, how exactly do they know this? I mean really. How are they measuring this. Is it a guess? Are they sure they didn't "test" a cow or two with some really bad indigestion due to onion grass overindulgence? Or what if the cows felt like they were being watched, making them nervous, therefor more apt to belch? Did you watch their test? Did you ask questions? Did they have a good control group?

And just who exactly are THEY and who do they take their orders from? Who's bribing them? Who's calling the shots?

PETA? Are they behind this? You'd think they'd be smarter about that; cows don't take birth control and the only other alternative is to neuter or spay (costly, and inhumane - to me anyway, though not to them I'm sure), or to slaughter them (I'm really thinking they would not like this route.)

Or is it the people who are behind the veggie burgers and turkey franks and soy milks that are behind this study? They'd like that, wouldn't they. Poo poo the cows and there's millions to be made! Mooohoooahhahahahah!

Okay, so now we move on.

The article was on more than just methane cow burps. It went on to talk about a new(?) idea. Scientist are now breeding eco-friendly cows. According to this article, this means, "cows that produce 25% less methane than less efficient cows."

Than less efficient cows? So 25% less than the queens of belching? What does this really do? I say it simply balances things out. What, so now we'll have more "normal" cows? It's not dropping anything to 50% from 75% necessarily. And how did they go about doing this? And what about the mutated cows that are born each day? The ones with 5 stomachs instead of 4? I'm sure they're out there. How do we know they're not? How do we know they're not the super belchers?

So now ranchers are being asked to breed cows that grow faster so they don't spend as much time being alive. The faster they grow, the shorter a life they can have. (Sweet) Please, like this is going to help anything. I can see the hunger in the farmers eyes. No less cows will be on the face of this earth at one given moment. I can see this going the way of a lot more cows for a lot more profit.

"Another method already being used to reduce methane emissions is feeding livestock a diet higher in energy and rich in edible oils, which ferment less than grass or low-quality feed." This shortens their time to market, in other words gets them fatter sooner. Well this is awesome if you like fatty steaks. No lean beef for me, thanks. If I were a slaughterer, I'd feel like I got milked in the eye over this one; cut a cow open, expect to find some nice meat only to find.... fat!

It seems to me scientists are making fools of themselves again, and you have to wonder where their principles lie. And if you ask me, this is no news at all.

To read the article that humored me so much this morning, got to http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE55L5O620090622

So what are your thoughts?

Thanks for reading, and see you in the comments.

Gorgeous photo above courtesy of National Geographic blog at http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/admin/mt-search.cgi?tag=food&blog_id=59