Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless • Hacker News Board

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#81

Post by xexers » Wed, Mar 08, 2017, 2:33 AM UTC

jimmywanger wrote: post #65

arcticbull wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbon footprint for meat is significantly higher because you have to grow the plans and feed it to the animals, and moving up a trophic level is usually ~10% efficient. It's much more efficient to consume the plants directly.

> It's much more efficient to consume the plants directly. We can't consume most plants directly, and the ones that we do, we consume only a tiny minority of the plant (most of the time).

> and the ones that we do, we consume only a tiny minority of the plant (most of the time)

So do the animals. The soy and wheat we feed the animals is a tiny portion of the plant... so what? If we have 1000 calories of wheat, it's better to feed that to a human, than a cow; The cow will only produce 100 calories of meat for the same grains that we would have eaten.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#82

Post by sanswork » Wed, Mar 08, 2017, 2:33 AM UTC

Koshkin wrote: post #12

There will always be exceptions. Meatless? Not for animals in the wild. Not for hunters, either.

It's possible we get to a time where hunting animals is seen as completely socially unacceptable.

As for animals in the wild it's expected you understand that they are referring to humans.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#83

Post by alrs » Wed, Mar 08, 2017, 2:33 AM UTC

nkozyra wrote: post #50

alrs wrote: post #47

I'll never go meatless, the health benefits of meat are too great.

Can you elucidate? What can't be substituted / augmented otherwise?

http://www.ketotic.org/ advocates my position better than I could.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#84

Post by booleandilemma » Wed, Mar 08, 2017, 2:35 AM UTC

sethbannon wrote: post #9

Animal agriculture seems to me like one of those things that in 50 to 100 years people will look back on with bewilderment. "You mean you birthed whole animals, let them grow for two years, fed them all the while, just to kill them, chop up their remains, and ship that to people?" Plant based protein and maybe even more so cultured/clean meat (e.g. http://www.memphismeats.com/ ) seem likely to totally replace how we…

How long something has been around is often a good way to determine how much longer it will be around in the future.

I'd be willing to bet that humans will stop driving cars much sooner than they stop farming. Humans have been practicing animal agriculture for a long time...

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#85

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 08, 2017, 2:35 AM UTC

warent wrote: post #49

cmdrfred wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we all lived in 3 foot by 7 foot cubes it would cost a great deal less to heat our homes as well. Just because a more optimal way to do things exist doesn't mean anyone actually wants to do it. I enjoy eating meat, thus I will continue to do so.

Fair enough. It may be worth empathizing that animals probably don't enjoy being farmed and slaughtered by the billions

[deleted]

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#86

Post by kranner » Wed, Mar 08, 2017, 2:36 AM UTC

soheil wrote: post #56

sethbannon wrote: post #9

Animal agriculture seems to me like one of those things that in 50 to 100 years people will look back on with bewilderment. "You mean you birthed whole animals, let them grow for two years, fed them all the while, just to kill them, chop up their remains, and ship that to people?" Plant based protein and maybe even more so cultured/clean meat (e.g. http://www.memphismeats.com/ ) seem likely to totally replace how we…

And then 50 to 100 years after that people will look back on with bewilderment. "You mean you planted whole seeds, let them grow for months, watered them all the while, just to kill them, chop up their leaf, and ship that to people?" Plants are alive too.

Are they as sentient? Do they suffer as much? I don't think there is reason to believe these things.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#87

Post by ars » Wed, Mar 08, 2017, 2:37 AM UTC

sethbannon wrote: post #9

Animal agriculture seems to me like one of those things that in 50 to 100 years people will look back on with bewilderment. "You mean you birthed whole animals, let them grow for two years, fed them all the while, just to kill them, chop up their remains, and ship that to people?" Plant based protein and maybe even more so cultured/clean meat (e.g. http://www.memphismeats.com/ ) seem likely to totally replace how we…

> Animal agriculture seems to me like one of those things that in 50 to 100 years people will look back on with bewilderment.

Really? It's not like we've been doing that for 5,000 years or something. But in 50 years they'll be like "What were you doing for the last 5,000 years?"

Animal agriculture is not going to be one of those things. In fact I can guarantee you that even if we figure out a meat replacement people will still eat animals in 100 years. Something that's been done for 5,000 years doesn't get stopped that quickly.

As evidence look at how many people want to "go back to the farm", and raise their own animals. On the surface, why? It's harder and more expensive. Yet, people want that anyway.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#88

Post by arcticbull » Wed, Mar 08, 2017, 2:38 AM UTC

jimmywanger wrote: post #60

arcticbull wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue the difference here is we could just, you know, eat the plants but we don't want to. 36% of US corn goes to feed animals for meat and dairy (3%-40% efficient). [1] There would be significantly more food to go around if the plants were just eaten directly. It would be more like if there were plows at the time that operated on solar but nobody wanted to use them, and instead, decided to tie horses to the…

> we could just, you know, eat the plants but we don't want to. You're really arguing something separate here. We can't eat a lot of plants that animals can. 36% of corn goes to feed animals for meat, but what percentage of corn is inedible for humans? (husks, leaves, cobs) There's a reason we don't domesticate carnivores - we're not creating any more food sources. We don't compete with things that digest cellulose.

I believe that corn stalks and husks are not particularly good feed for livestock, they're very low protein (3-4%) and thus usually have to be supplemented. Ideally, it would be mulched back into the ground to prevent erosion and soil depletion, AFAIK.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#89

Post by sanswork » Wed, Mar 08, 2017, 2:38 AM UTC

notyourwork wrote: post #54

sethbannon wrote: post #9

Animal agriculture seems to me like one of those things that in 50 to 100 years people will look back on with bewilderment. "You mean you birthed whole animals, let them grow for two years, fed them all the while, just to kill them, chop up their remains, and ship that to people?" Plant based protein and maybe even more so cultured/clean meat (e.g. http://www.memphismeats.com/ ) seem likely to totally replace how we…

"You mean you planted that whole acreage with seed, let them grow, watered and fertilized them all the while, just to cut them down, chop them up and ship that to people?"

This would work better if we didn't have to grow more plant material to feed the meat than just feeding ourselves directly.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#90

Post by alrs » Wed, Mar 08, 2017, 2:39 AM UTC

xexers wrote: post #55

alrs wrote: post #47

I'll never go meatless, the health benefits of meat are too great.

That's funny... I went vegetarian for the health benefits alone.

The ethics of vegetarianism are sound, but the health benefits far less so. https://www.medpagetoday.com/cardiology/cardiobrief/63427