Tascosa Feedyard, Texas (detail) source: Mishka Henner

Those little black and whitish specks that look like ants on the left?  Cows.  That enormous acid green pool of slime to the right?  No idea.  But I know this: there is something terrible going on with our food production in this country. It’s poisoning us and it’s poisoning the environment.  I can’t imagine any of those poor cows are too psyched about it either.

But wait, there are many more horrifyingly fascinating aerial views of America’s heartland shot by photographer Mishka Henner at his website.  Take a look here.  I dare you.  When you’re done please join me at the paragraph below.

Done?  Ok.  I’m sure we can all agree that no kid (or cow) should ever have to spend the day on any of those farms.  And I consider myself a kind of casual, quasi-expert on this farm thing after having lived on a beautiful New Zealand farm where happy cows grazed in wide open pastures with no slime in sight.

So me, myself and everybody else, let’s choose to rethink our purchases.  Let’s choose to rethink our family’s diet.  Let’s choose to buy grass fed beef, locally farmed if at all possible.  It’s usually less convenient and definitely more expensive so let’s just buy less of it.  Or none at all.  If ever we could collectively be inspired to become organic farmers, vegetarians or vegans it should be right now… as we sit here staring at all those little American cow-ants imprisoned on the shores of Lake Slime.