Recently I have had to witness something a little nasty and something most people never have to witness–the butchering of a steer. Yes, that’s right. I walked into a room where the smell of blood was extremely strong and there were slabs of beef EVERYWHERE! It was disgusting, but my parents seem to enjoy chopping up an innocent animal. Now I love a juicy burger or steak, but having to observe how it gets from a animal to a package isn’t rainbows and unicorns.
Now, you’re probably wondering why I’m describing the dissection of an animal in a sports column, but the meat packing industry has a lot to do with sports. If you have ever seen the Rocky movies with Sylvester Stallone, you know he works out in a meat locker punching a frozen slab of beef to get in shape. An average side of beef is about 300 pounds, and he seemed to get in shape and win a lot of fights, so hitting dead animals in a frozen environment must have worked.
Beef is also a good source of protein, vitamin B12, zinc, creatine and iron. Livestrong.com said meat can be a healthy part of your diet depending on what cut you choose. So athletes eat meat for protein to build muscle. Who knew the horror of seeing an animal get chopped up could be so knowledge-building?
Muscleandfitness.com says the saturated fat and cholesterol in beef increases testosterone levels as well as strength and muscle mass. That’s why body builders consider it important to their diets. As I was researching the lovely world of beef, I came across a photo of a woman body builder with a shopping cart full of red meat, and it looked like she could bench press us all. Too much muscle becomes disgusting! There is a difference between working out by punching a side of beef and looking like you have been injected with beef. There should most definitely be a limit to body building. I’m a sucker for muscles and abs, but in this case less is more. There is even a gym called The Meat Locker. The images on that site surely could be classified as pieces of beef. All these images bring me to the subject of steroids. Face it. They can just mess with your brain because some of these so-called body builders look like they are about to explode. It’s so overboard that they no longer look human.
Back to beef. Have you ever noticed how the mob is always leaving their victims in meat lockers on the big screen? Or how they leave them hanging by a chain just like sides of beef? In Gangs of New York, which is based on a true story and also includes my love Leonardo DiCaprio, there is butchering of both beef and humans. Who knew real life could get so gory? Stay with me…this comes back to sports because the mob is always trying to fix athletic gambling. See? Full circle…sort of.
I must say, going to the grocery store to buy a package of hamburger or watching Stallone punching a side of beef is much better than witnessing what actually happens to cattle. I love food, but I didn’t eat for a while after that. I know I’m never going to build too much muscle. You have to respect people with strong enough stomachs to butcher meat or work out by punching frozen sides of beef, but I’ll stick to eating my juicy burger on the sidelines at sporting events.