To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (33423 ) 3/28/1999 5:24:00 AM From: nihil Read Replies (2) | Respond to
Newsprint is 98% pure cellulose -- something cows (unlike us) can easily digest and enzymatically hydrolyze into sugars. The ink is carbon (good for adsorbing gas) or vegetable based. Cattle (and most ungulates) prefer about 30% browse (twigs and small branches, loaded with lignin) to richer food or grass and will clean a forest or patch of woods of every thing within their reach, give pastured woods a clean parklike appearance (except you have to watch your step.) When I was a kid, I thought it grossly unfair that my grandfather fed the pigs with the household slops, buttermilk, and corn (on the cob) while the cows only got ground cobs and dry, brown mouldy smelling plant scraps. My grandfather explained that you can't always get what you want to, but if you try real hard, you just might find that get what you need. He also explained that by eating such dry matter (which the pigs and people couldn't digest) you didn't have to live with or compete with the pigs (or people). It had the added advantage, I later learned, that cows get their tits pulled every day (the milker rests his or head against the cow's side to steady her), all through the winter (of course, its all done by machinery today, and neither the milker or the cow (or the barn cat) get much enjoyment from it), while pigs get slaughtered in the fall. That once was a great, bloody, squealing, stinking, greasy festival, describle only by Herman Melville.
