Are beef animals consuming grain that could be used to feed humans?
If we take into consideration the entire lifetime feed intake of cattle, only 7% of their diet is made up of grain. The other 93% of the animal’s lifetime diet will consist largely of feed that is inedible to humans. For every 0.6 pounds of human edible protein cattle consume, there is a return of 1 pound of human edible protein in the form of beef. And 86% of what livestock eat globally is not in competition with human food. Cattle are ruminant animals, meaning they have a four-chambered stomach. This unique stomach system is found in other farm animals like sheep and goats. These animals have the ability to graze pastures and eat forages that humans and other animals with non-ruminant stomachs cannot digest due to the fiber content. Cattle diets also consist of feed that has been converted from grain milling and processing waste. Cattle are able to convert this into a high-quality protein for their diets.