Farm animals are legally allowed to eat actual plastic, not only microplastics. If you’re afraid of microplastics or accumulation of substances maybe don’t eat meat.

Legal limit of plastic in animal feed is 0.15% in the EU

A cow eats 25kg of dry food a day

25/100*0.15 = 0.0375kg = 37.5grams

A plastic bag weighs 6-8grams.

You are legally allowed to feed your cow 5 plastic bags a day (as a snack)

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Bioaccumulation concentrates more pollutants the higher up the food chain you go. It is part of why most meat we eat comes from vegetarian animals. The fish we eat are often predatory so common advice is the keep the smaller and younger ones that are still big enough to be worth filleting. You don't actually want to eat a trophy sized fish because they've accumulated more pollutants. Trophy sized fish are better off being realsed, they are often good breeders and help keep healthy population numbers.

[–] F04118F@feddit.nl 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Of course, something that eats cows that eat a shitton of plastic, will have even more plastic in it.

But that doesn't mean that it's healthy to eat an animal that has been fed (assuming they are slaughtered at 3 years, and ignoring the climate impact, the ethics of slaughtering an animal in its youth, etc)..

41 kg of plastic

[–] amzd@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think if you don’t count the culling of baby calves the average age is ~6years so like 82kg of plastic.

[–] F04118F@feddit.nl 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thanks for your feedback, I was guesstimating off the top of my head. On doing some research, I see meat cows are usually slaughtered at 18 months - 2 years old in the Netherlands.

5-6 years is the number I see for dairy cows.

[–] amzd@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Ah that’s the one I must’ve been thinking of, thanks.