McDonald’s wants to make flatulent cows less of a problem for environment

The average McDonald’s customer is perhaps not thinking about the impact that cattle burps – or worse – can have on the environment as they chow down on a Big Mac.

The company, however, is. McDonald’s is working with seed company Syngenta and Lopez Foods, one of the fast food giant’s meat suppliers, to feed cattle Syngenta’s Enogen corn, the firms said in a statement.

Enogen is a feed that has been genetically modified with an enzyme “that quickly converts starch to usable sugars, delivering more available energy to cattle while being easily digestible”, according to the statement on Thursday.

That easy digestibility could mean fewer greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming.

As cattle and other livestock digest food, they produce methane, usually through belching or flatulence, which represents about a quarter of all the agriculture industry’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

As well as potentially fewer bovine burps, cattle that eat Enogen corn can also reach slaughtering weight faster and with a smaller environmental footprint, according to the companies.