— Overview
The notes stay with a six-part book on cattle and Western civilization, and with an American ranch whose grain-fed cattle, they write, sit on the far side of a Western film.
— Contents and key concepts
Figures from the notes, and a divided plate
The notes stay with Beyond Beef. The author is not named. They record, as the book gives them, about a billion cattle on the earth, livestock occupying some 25 percent of the world’s land, and some 30 percent of the world’s grain grown as feed. People in rich countries, they write, take in high calories from plenty of meat, while people in poor countries go hungry for lack of food grain.
Raising cattle and other livestock also releases large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, which, they write, hasten warming. These figures are given as they stood in the notes, not as current official statistics.
Part 1, from worship to productivity
The book has six parts. Part 1, under a heading the notes give as “Cattle and Western civilization,” starts from the history of the cow and follows the human relation to cattle from an object of worship to a notion of economic productivity. The record, they write, begins around 5000 B.C., the period they take as the start of civilization.
The writer would have been more interested, they say, if an earlier prehistory had been included — for example, Homo sapiens a hundred thousand years ago, and a shift toward eating meat in an ice age when plant food ran short. That earlier story is the writer’s wish, not a chapter they attribute to the book.
Grain-fed cattle, and the other side of a Western
Part 2, they write, shows how ranching developed in the United States and, bluntly, what that did to the earth. One account that interested them is that today’s beef industry came to weigh so heavily on the planet because the British acquired a taste for fatty beef at the same time that farming and ranching were joined. It was new to them that cattle were not simply grass-fed, but fattened on cultivated grain, and that today’s crisis follows from that.
The killing of buffalo and the fall of Native peoples during the opening of the American West felt, they write, like watching the other side of a Western film. The notes do not go on into Korean cases.
The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.
Sources
- The notes, a student reading of Beyond Beef: about a billion cattle and other figures as they stood in the notes, a first part on cattle and Western civilization from around 5000 B.C., and a second part on U.S. ranching, grain fattening, buffalo, and the other side of a Western film.
Last updated: 15 November 2026
Frequently asked questions
What figures do the notes record, and how should they be read?
The notes are a student reading of Beyond Beef. The author is not named. They record, as the book gives them, about a billion cattle on the earth, livestock occupying some 25 percent of the world’s land, and some 30 percent of the world’s grain grown as feed. People in rich countries, they write, take in high calories from plenty of meat, while people in poor countries go hungry for lack of food grain. Raising cattle and other livestock also releases large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, which, they write, hasten warming. These figures are given as they stood in the notes, not as current official statistics.
What does part 1 cover, and what does the writer wish had been added?
The book has six parts. Part 1, under a heading the notes give as “Cattle and Western civilization,” starts from the history of the cow and follows the human relation to cattle from an object of worship to a notion of economic productivity. The record, they write, begins around 5000 B.C., the period they take as the start of civilization. The writer would have been more interested, they say, if an earlier prehistory had been included — for example, Homo sapiens a hundred thousand years ago, and a shift toward eating meat in an ice age when plant food ran short. That earlier story is the writer’s wish, not a chapter they attribute to the book.
What in part 2 stays with them?
Part 2, they write, shows how ranching developed in the United States and, bluntly, what that did to the earth. One account that interested them is that today’s beef industry came to weigh so heavily on the planet because the British acquired a taste for fatty beef at the same time that farming and ranching were joined. It was new to them that cattle were not simply grass-fed, but fattened on cultivated grain, and that today’s crisis follows from that. The killing of buffalo and the fall of Native peoples during the opening of the American West felt, they write, like watching the other side of a Western film. The notes do not go on into Korean cases.
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