Fed Like Cattle: Why Your Cravings Aren’t Your Fault—And What You Can Do About It
“Every major food company has biologists, chemists, and neuroscientists on staff who study your brain and engineer your cravings.”
— Michael Moss, Salt Sugar Fat
I grew up in rural East Texas. My grandfather—Pappaw—raised cattle as a hobby, and I was lucky to be raised by him and my grandmother. That meant early mornings, (sometimes) hauling hay, and witnessing firsthand how animals were fed and raised for market. Most of the time, those cows lived out on pasture, eating grass and roaming freely, enjoying a natural rhythm of life. But when it came time to get them ready for sale? That’s when everything changed.
Suddenly, the grass wasn’t enough.
To fatten them up fast, Pappaw would switch their diet to grain. Buckets and buckets of it. Corn, soy, wheat—the trifecta. High in calories, cheap to produce, and proven to pile on weight quickly.
Sound familiar?
It should. Because it's exactly how most of us are being fed today.
If you’ve read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, you already know how deeply embedded corn is in our food chain. It’s not just in tortilla chips or corn syrup-laden sodas. It’s in our meat (because livestock are fed corn), our snacks, our condiments, our breads, our protein bars. Add soy and wheat to that list and you’re looking at the foundation of 90% of the processed foods on store shelves in the U.S., according to USDA data.
And the scary part?
This isn't accidental.
Food scientists and corporations have spent billions engineering foods that override your brain's natural satiety signals. They optimize flavor, crunch, mouthfeel, and shelf life. They balance sugar with fat with salt—a trio designed to hijack dopamine pathways and keep you reaching for more. And they do it with stunning precision. Your cravings? Not random. They’re the result of years of corporate-funded neuroscience.
A 2021 NIH-controlled feeding trial compared ultra-processed and whole-food diets. Both were matched calorie for calorie, macronutrient for macronutrient. The results? Participants on the ultra-processed diet consumed 508 more calories per day, simply because they ate more. They didn’t feel as full. Their hunger cues didn’t kick in.
Even more revealing is a 2023 cross-cultural study, "Energy Expenditure and Obesity Across the Economic Spectrum," which found no significant difference in total daily energy expenditure between populations in high-obesity vs. low-obesity regions. Translation? It's not about how much we move. It's about the fuel we’re running on.
Let that sink in. People in rural parts of Africa and people in suburban America move about the same amount, burn similar numbers of calories daily—yet obesity rates are wildly different. Why? Because the diet is different. Ultra-processed vs. whole food. Grain-laden vs. ancestral. Engineered vs. evolved.
This brings us to a critical truth:
We are not broken.
We are not lazy.
We are overfed.
Fed like livestock. Fed to bulk up. Fed for profit.
Let me be clear: exercise matters. Movement and lifting heavy shit is essential for longevity, cardiovascular health, and quality of life. But if you’re trying to change your body composition, boost your energy, or protect your metabolic health as you age, you cannot ignore the quality of your food. You have to fight back against the system.
That means shifting away from ultra-processed foods and returning to basics: single-ingredient, nutrient-dense, high-protein meals. Think fewer packages, more produce. Fewer barcodes, more balance.
Here are a few ways to get started:
1. Audit your pantry. If most of your calories come from foods in a box, bag, or bottle—it might be time to rethink your staples.
2. Cook at home more. You don’t have to be a chef. Just learn to prepare simple meals with protein, vegetables, and healthy fats.
3. Eat what your great-grandparents would recognize. Meat, eggs, beans, berries, greens. These are the foods that have nourished humans for generations.
4. Read labels. Learn to identify hidden sugars, industrial seed oils, and mysterious additives.
5. Stop fearing carbs—but choose wisely. Carbs aren’t the enemy. But ultra-processed carbs, especially when combined with cheap fats, are.
You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to be aware. Awareness breeds better choices, and better choices over time lead to transformation.
Our food culture is broken. But you don’t have to be.
Eat real food.
Pay attention.
Push back.
Because you’re not livestock. You’re a human being with agency, biology, and the ability to choose differently.
And choosing differently? That might just change everything.