Without getting into details of the animal welfare aspects of feed, let’s focus on the grain-based diet laced with chemicals, antibiotics and hormones.  Cattle are ruminants.  Their diet is only grass and legumes.  When they are forced to eat grain such as corn they grow very fast but at a cost. The animals have to be fed antibiotics and other chemicals to overcome the detrimental effect that the grain diet has on their immune and regulatory systems.  All of the feed additives end up in the beef we eat.  The current problems with our food system have quietly snuck up on us over the past fifty years and are not isolated to the beef industry.  Consumers demand access to produce that is out of season.  The demand bigger and perfectly shaped or colored produce.  But this is easy to change.  Buy local, buy in-season, know where your food comes from.  By making choices like purchasing our local grass-fed beef, factory-farming will quietly disappear and give way to a food chain that is transparent, responsible and accountable.