Cattle Eat Hay and Grass and Turn It Into Beef

Cellulose. This polysaccharide is an important component of the cell walls of the vegetation that carpets the ground around the world – which leads it to be the polymer in the most abundance on the Earth. It even makes up 40 – 50% of wood!

So, why do I bring this up? It just so happens that the most abundant polymer on Earth is also one of least digestible polymers for simple stomach mammals such as humans, and its main purpose is to serve as a “dietary fiber.”


A field of one form of cellulose - grass hay - that has been mowed and will be baled soon.

Ruminants such as cattle, sheep, and goats, however, are able to digest various forms of cellulose due to microorganisms that live within their gastrointestinal tract. To explain in further detail, ruminants have a complex stomach that consists of four compartments: the reticulum, rumen, omasum, and abomasum. The rumen contains certain bacteria, such as Ruminococcus, which break down cellulose into glucose that can be utilized during energy production. Simply stated, cattle and other ruminants are physiologically designed to eat cellulose because they have a very small amount of the exact right kind of bacteria in their stomach.

I find this astonishing! Such a small percentage of symbiotic bacteria present in the stomach of a ruminant animal allow an otherwise indigestible polysaccharide to be degraded to glucose and utilized for the production of animal protein which can be consumed by humans and feed our families. And remember when I said cellulose is the most abundant organic polymer in the world??

This is a hay baler - it picks up the mowed hay and winds it into
large bales which are used to feed livestock and horses.

These are some pictures from my family’s operation during the hay season. Yes, due to baling hay and other feed production methods, cattle can continue to utilize cellulose to convert it to animal protein throughout late fall and winter when grass is dormant and of poor nutritional value! Long after the pastures have turned brown from the cold, cattle are eating grasses and forages that are unfit for human consumption to produce safe, healthy and wholesome beef.

Thank you for reading,

Jacob