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Agreed:)
> it is the healthiest possible food, and it is the most environmentally friendly option.
These two require a huge citation. I've never heard of meat being the most healthy food and I've only ever heard of how its one of the worst foods for the environment due to the huge amount of land and water it takes to grow.
I've always grown up learning that greens(vegetables are the healthiest food you can eat).
What citations would you put forward to show that meat isf the most environmentally friendly food you can eat and the healthiest food you can eat?
I found this:
https://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/study-environment....
> The environmental impact of meat versus vegetables is staggering. A serving size of meat compared to a serving size of vegetables is linked to 20 times more greenhouse gas emissions. It also takes 100 times the amount of land as consuming vegetables. Unprocessed red meat has twice the water impact of nuts.
Its not. You need 30 kg of grain or other edible product to make just 1 kg of meat. We are literally turning more food to less food.
An unrelated statistic showed that if the world has increased its meat consumption just a little bit more, we would run out of food. The conversion rate is that bad.
...
Context:
https://www.worldanimalprotection.us/blogs/hidden-driver-fac...
> It is estimated that livestock consume 70% of the grain grown in the US, and that half of the water consumed in the US is used to grow grain for cattle
Second, feed lots can use things like by-products of sugar production (molasses, beet pulp pellets, etc...) for feed. These are not human consumable and require no extra food to be grown. I've worked with a company that does over half a billion in revenue on this alone.
There is a lot more to this than your comment is indicating.
Nope. The majority of cattle industry has transitioned to factory farming and the cattle in factories are fed with edible produce. Not grass. The current meat demand is not something that mere grazing can support.
Even if it was possible to do with mere grazing, that's still not an argument: Grazing is done on land that could be used for many other purposes ranging from residential urbanization to vertical farming. Its not done in the Sahara desert or Siberian taiga where the land is actually not usable for anything else.
Regarding byproducts: Such biological products are still valuable for many other purposes, leaving aside that many of them can be easily made edible through different processes.
It again boils down to this:
We are turning more food into less food. That's not a rational thing to do.
It’s not any less wasteful though. The system requires a massive amount of rangeland and grain to produce beef.
Huh? Most land used for grazing and hay production is rural, remote, not suitable for crop agriculture and has little other use.
Either we feed livestock with that grass or do nothing with it.
In the West, or globally? Because commercial agriculture here relies on corn/grain feed most of their life.
Cattle are indeed raised on grass for the majority of their life, however they are fed grain to make weight for slaughter. In a sense, both positions are incorrect, because the image of cows grazing on grass most of their lives with little grain at the end is a very skewed picture (without grain the lifecycle would be substantially longer), but it is also the case that all cows do start off on grass.
The whole narrative that cows are “good for the environment” because they eat grass is fairly absurd though. The amount of land they require alone in the US is absolutely massive, and you can just take a look at the many fights over western water rights to see that even the impact of grass feeding is substantial.
You dont seem to be aware of factory farming...
https://www.worldanimalprotection.us/blogs/hidden-driver-fac...
> It is estimated that livestock consume 70% of the grain grown in the US, and that half of the water consumed in the US is used to grow grain for cattle.
As I explained in my statement, cows are finished at factory farms.
It’s very clear that you have a very surface level understanding of how the American cattle industry works. At no point did I claim anything about how cows don’t consume a massive amount of grain.
Unlike chickens and pigs, the American cattle industry is decentralized. Cows are raised on a series of different types of ranching operations, traded along the way, until they end up at a factory farm at the end where they rapidly gain weight due to grain feeding.
No. They live there from birth to death. A factory farm is not a slaughterhouse. You seem to mistake them for it.
https://thehumaneleague.org/article/factory-farmed-cows
> At no point did I claim anything about how cows don’t consume a massive amount of grain.
You actually did. You said in repeated comments to me and others that in the west the cows consume grass. And showed it as an argument against the food inefficiency criticism.
Citation needed, no where in your source does it substantiate your claim that cows are reared on factory farms, where they subsequently live out their lives.
> You actually did. You said in repeated comments to me and others that in the west the cows consume grass.
Because they do feed on grass.
Look I get it, you clearly care about animal welfare, which is a good thing, but I was not making the argument you think i was making. Disagreeing with a factually incorrect statement does not mean I am an advocate for the meat industry.
The story is more complicated than you make it out to be, and it is important to have it right. Cows in America start on grass and finish on grain, this is a fact. This does no imply that there isn’t a huge amount of grain used in the process. The food inefficiency criticism is true, it is, however, untrue to say that cows spend their entire lives in CAFOs.
Factory farming is the same everywhere. Here's another citation.
https://www.aspca.org/protecting-farm-animals/problem-factor....
Another.
https://thehumaneleague.org/article/what-is-factory-farming
Another.
https://sentientmedia.org/factory-farms/
Another extensive one with more references inside.
https://animalequality.org/blog/2022/10/14/factory-farming-f...
> Because they do feed on grass. Look I get it, you clearly care about animal welfare... however, untrue to say that cows spend their entire lives in CAFOs.
That's the old world.
You seem to have adopted a better 'factory farming' in your mind than what actually exists, in which you somehow combine old ma & pa small farms with 'some factories'.
That doesn't exist anymore. Some stragglers existing in this or that particular state and still fighting 'the man' does not a reality make. There is no competing with the cattle sector that takes in ~$40 bn subsidies and employs factory farms. That is now the reality of cattle farming in the Angloamerican West. And its a major source of conflict in between the Eu and the US because the Eu does not permit the same to be done in Europe.
And you miss the elephant in the room: Even if the cattle was 'first grass fed then shipped to factory farms to fatten' like you argue, the factory farming consuming ~70% of the grain in the US at that point would STILL make my argument. That's bad. That's inefficient. There is no defending it, even if your argument was true.
This is a long topic, and I have no interest in fighting the inaccurate but more humane perception that you have adopted. The references I provided should be more than enough to get to the bottom of this if you are interested. Good afternoon.
> Even if the cattle was 'first grass fed then shipped to factory farms to fatten' like you argue, the factory farming consuming ~70% of the grain in the US at that point would STILL make my argument. That's bad. That's inefficient. There is no defending it, even if your argument was true.
You’re arguing against a point I never made! I never said factory farms didn’t exist, that they were good, or that the system itself is good! You’re fighting for the sake of fighting.
All I said is that it is true that cows start off on grass. That’s the beginning and end of my point. It’s a factual statement and you do yourself a disservice by continually arguing against basic factual information.
Factory farms (for meat) don’t rear animals. They buy animals from other ranches that oversee other parts of the process of raising cattle. They then take those cows and feed them a mountain of grain to fatten them up and slaughter them. It’s gross, it’s terrible for the cows welfare, etc.
If you want to criticize the system, though, it is important to understand how it actually works, or you don’t look credible. That is my point, it is incredibly frustrating to be told over and over that I support factory farming, or somehow deny its existence, because I am pointing out information that is false on your part.
If they do spend most of their time consuming grass, I wonder if they are carbon-neutral for that period, or if that requires constant migration to fertilize new lands which might not occur.
The big development in this sector is the new seaweed supplements / additives, which should reduce methane emissions by a staggering amount. Some places are beginning to adopt it, not sure about the US. Naturally the green sphere is not thrilled, because there's so much overlap with the vegans.
Pretty much any industry site will openly provide an overview of the process:
https://www.pabeef.org/raising-beef/beef-lifecycle
“Calves are weaned from their mother’s milk at about 6 to 10 months of age when they weigh between 450 and 700 pounds. These calves continue to graze on grass pastures. About 1/3 of the female calves will stay on the farm to continue to grow and to become new mother cows the following year… After weaning and/or during the stocker and backgrounder phase, cattle may be sold at livestock auction market… Mature cattle are often moved to feedyards (also called feedlots). Here cattle typically spend four to six months [editorial comment, these are “factory farms”] … Once cattle reach market weight (typically 1,200 to 1,400 pounds at 18 to 22 months of age), they are sent to a packing plant“
>If they do spend most of their time consuming grass, I wonder if they are carbon-neutral for that period, or if that requires constant migration to fertilize new lands which might not occur.
As far as this goes, I personally have no idea. I think it’s a bit of a moot point, however, because the feedlots are an integral part of the process at this point and that’s where a ton of emissions happen (not to mention bio waste aka manure/runoff). Additionally the amount of rangeland cows take up is absolutely massive. Other commenters will say that there’s “no other use” for that land, as if every inch of land needs to be used for farming purposes. We need wild areas too.
This paints a picture of indeed grazing on grass for majority of lifespan, albeit not an overwhelmingly large portion. Also that they are slaughtered at a surprisingly young age.
Raising on grass and finishing on grain is economically optimal in many parts of the US that produce beef. It wouldn't even make sense to factory farm from birth if you cared about profit, since it would be more expensive.
The US is a large place with diverse geography. Few assertions about agriculture generalize.
Therefore 32g * 30 = 960g of corn protein to create 260g of beef protein.
There is always some efficiency loss at every stage, but we’re turning something that is not ideal for human consumption (conventional field corn) to something that is very palatable.
and you know this by what mechanism?
As for the environment, depends on the animal - this is usually about methane (from cows) and land encroachment (also, because of soybean crops or whatever).
I think we can get a pretty good ballpark estimate, by virtue that suffering categorically requires a certain level consciousness.
The animals I mentioned do, even if very simple ones. If you really want to question this bivalves are a better example, as I've seen many debates in vegan circles about them.
No different than pain receptors, you mean.
> Plants have no brains or analog at all
No brain, yes. But what of "no analog" if the qualifier for suffering is deliberately clouded in ambiguity?
The only reason the brain matters qua suffering is owing to the capacity for consciousness. Plants have no brain, well, sardines have no cerebral cortex.
If you're going to trivialize the cerebral cortex based on whim/feeling, you can do the same for the whole brain. By extension it makes as much sense to attribute the possibility of consciousness to insects as it does to plants, because you're throwing the particulars of the brain out the window. Some "magical unknown thing 'X'" is giving them consciousness - but there's no reason "magical unknown thing 'X'" has to be specific to a brain.
Not the best argument. I don't really mind my pain receptors going off if the signal doesn't make it to my spine. Do you?
The goal is to minimize suffering. What could you possibly do with the information that plants feel pain? Your options are to:
1. Die
2. Decide there are no perfect options and give up on minimizing harm completely
3. Do your best to pick a diet and lifestyle which minimizes harm with actionable heuristics
What exactly do you suggest?
Keep the goalpost planted at "suffering" which requires consciousness. So we're still at #3. The analogy of the plant is just to reflect that there's sloppy conjecture used to project the capacity for suffering onto certain animals that by all the counts should not (where suffering entails a conscious awareness of pain and despair).
THat's pretty much in line with naturally expected behavior, because intuitively we don't expect much from insects.