The Many Uses of a Cow

The fat that does not end up at the butcher's is turned into a product called tallow. Fatty acids in the tallow give it a slick, oily consistency, which adds to the texture in some body creams, cosmetics, soaps, and toothpaste.It is also found in a lubricant in anti-freeze, hydraulic brake fluid, and jet engines, and is even being tested as a biofuel for planes in the United States (US) Air Force. But powering planes is just the beginning. We also rely on cattle for certain life-saving medicines, like insulin. Bovine insulin is nearly identical to that of humans. So, the cow pancreas is often used to make insulin injections for diabetics. Likewise, the adrenal glands are used in certain steroid drugs. Cartilage is found in medicine for osteoarthritis, and cows' lungs are used in blood thinners, such as heparin. Medicine aside, we even use cattle leftovers in plastic surgery.Collagen – from the hide – is purified and injected into the face for a younger look. But, it turns out that plastic surgery isn't the most common use for collagen. That title goes to gelatin, which is made by boiling cow bones and hide. Gelatin gives certain foods like marshmallows, caramel, gummies, and jams that distinctive gummy texture. There are more than 727 000 beef farms in the US that slaughter roughly 30 million head of cattle each year. While we usually think about the meat that ends up on the grill, the parts we ignore are present in our everyday lives.We expect the contents of most of the products we use these days to be man-made, however, many everyday products still use animal body parts as an ingredient, with companies finding innovative ways of making sure every little bit of the animal is used. From the sheep parts hidden in your soap, to the fishy ingredient in your favourite pint, the bits of the animals that do not make it to our dinner plates often end up being turned into products we use every day.This is the weird and wonderful world of animal by-products, where industrious companies have devised clever ways of taking the inedible parts of animals like cows, pigs and sheep and using them to make covetable consumer items. One such firm in Norfolk collects cow intestines by the bucketful from local abattoirs and turns them into the kind of natural gut strings favoured by many of the world's top tennis players. It has been reported that it takes about four cows' guts to string the average racquet.To produce the strings, the cow guts are cleaned and cut into 40ft strands before being chemically treated to preserve them. Each string is made up of 15 individual strands which are spun very tightly together to coalesce them, before being dried out in a humid room to prevent cracking.It is a painstaking process that is said to take six weeks from start to finish. Synthetic string will stretch and stay stretched, but because gut has a natural memory, it always tries to return to its original form, therefore absorbing the shock a lot more and reducing the risk of tennis elbow.The company, which has been plying its unusual trade for more than 100 years, also uses the same techniques to produce gut strings for harps and other early instruments. For as long as beef has been eaten, cow hide has been turned into leather, and cattle bones, transformed into fine bone china, have found their way into the finest dinner services and tea sets imaginable. In a more modern innovation, cow hooves have also become part of an important product. A protein called keratin, extracted from the hooves is used to make a special fire-extinguishing foam used by airport fire-and-rescue teams across the United Kingdom. The foam is specifically designed to quell the hotter, high-intensity fires triggered by aviation fuel. The keratin helps to bond the foam bubbles into a durable blanket, which stops it breaking up on impact with the fire, and makes it very effective at smothering flames. “I don't really think too much about where it comes from,” says firefighter Simon McRae. “It's a good barrier between myself and a fire, so as long as it's keeping me safe when I'm using it, I don't have a problem.” * Farming Portal, Agri News Net (also published in the Namibia Agricultural Union newsletter)

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