If you don't slaughter the cows, how do you make them into hamburgers?

I got into a mental tailspin about the fact that, usually, beef cattle are actually steers, not cows. Cows are used for diary and breeding.

But then, it occurred to me that there were unfortunate cow slaughterings occurring in Europe because of hoof and mouth and mad cow disease. But then, I thought, oh, those are unusual exceptions and people won't get hung up on that. Or will they...

And so I proceeded down my mental vortex, which is when, instead of trying to sum it all up, I just asked why I had even started down the cow path ... [you asked emoticon]