English calls the living animal cow but its meat beef, thanks to Latin
Cow comes from Middle English; beef descends from Latin bōs, though both share one ancient root. The same split gives English pig and pork, sheep and mutton, deer and venison. Behind the word lies a food with a long history and the heaviest climate footprint of any farm product.
People were eating wild cattle long before farming. Neanderthals hunted the aurochs, ancestor of today's herds, and aurochs gallop through hunting scenes in early cave art such as Lascaux. Cattle were domesticated at least twice: Bos taurus about 10,500 years ago, and humped Bos indicus in the Indian subcontinent roughly 7,000 years ago, with a possible third, African line around 8,500 years ago. Farmers wanted meat, milk and leather, and bred countless breeds for beef quality or quantity. The seldom-used plural is beeves.
Beef is now the world's third most eaten meat, behind pork and poultry, and the top three producing countries in 2018 were the United States, Brazil and China. American ranching boomed after the Southwest's grasslands were acquired in 1848, beginning with half-wild Longhorn cattle, and the stockyards of Chicago and New York profited first. Hinduism and other Indian religions forbid eating it.
Most American beef comes from concentrated feeding operations, which hold about 70 percent of the country's cattle. Crowding and manure can spread dangerous E. coli strains, and one analysis of federal sales data found 42 percent of medically important antibiotics in the US went to cattle, raising fears about resistant bacteria. Nutritionally, beef provides protein, iron and vitamin B12, but heavy consumption of red meat, especially processed, is linked to higher rates of colorectal cancer and heart disease.
The environmental bill is steep. Beef needs more land and water than almost any other farm product and produces the most greenhouse gas. A 2021 study estimated its full lifecycle at about 4 billion tonnes, or 9 percent, of human-caused emissions in 2010. Grazing cattle occupy around 26 percent of Earth's land, and 91 percent of Amazon land cleared since 1970 became cattle pasture.
Source: Beef
