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Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

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

#91

Post by grue0 »

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.

Can plants suffer?

How much energy/resources/time does it take to raise plant food sources vs an analogous amount of animal food sources?

Do plants require antibiotics to raise at scale?

What are the environmental tolls taken by raising plants vs animals?

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

#92

Post by maerF0x0 »

This is just shareholder value. Scaling meat has so many problems, but if you can sell fake meat at meat prices suddenly there is so much more profit margin to be returned to shareholders.

I do not believe for 1 second that Tyson cares about health, environments, farmers or the well being of animals.

> "We just got to the point last year where the consumer is demanding [the elimination of antibiotics in the food chain] and wants transparency."

The only reason your animals need antibiotics is because they're living in overcrowded cells eating the wrong food (they're ruminants, corn/soy is not their food), covered in fecal matter etc. etc. A small number of animals per acre , lots of sunlight (ultraviolet light) and proper waste disposal (bugs, rains, etc).

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

#93

Post by kranner »

bobcostas55 wrote: post #70
arcticbull wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is one's uncomfortable, the other you're just used to. Plants are no less tasty, they're just different. I eat meat too, I'm just saying.

>Plants are no less tasty Sketch out a model of the evolution of dietary preferences in the ancestral environment (esp post-fire) and you will quickly see this is an insane thing to believe.

You're talking pre-agriculture.

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

#94

Post by maerF0x0 »

arcticbull wrote: post #34
intrasight wrote: post #2

Seems a certainty to me, assuming that eventually the cost of the carbon footprint gets passed down to consumers.

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.

Certain lands cannot support human edible plants, but can be used for grazing. Suddenly non-productive land can be producing meat.

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

#95

Post by agitator »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #45
xsmasher wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's already a more efficient way to turn energy and matter into food - plants. Running it through animals before we eat it is the inefficiency.

Livestock can subsist on plants, like wild grasses, that are unpalatable or even inedible to humans. These plants often grow on "unarable" land that won't support human crops. For millennia, humans raised livestock on pasturing lands, seemingly without harming the environment too badly. What stops us from doing that now? I suspect the real problem is closer to wasting arable land, water, shipping (with all of those e…

Yes, and the high demand for animal based proteins has been a large cause of deforestation. Also, beef and other livestock produce a large portion of green house gas emissions.

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

#96

Post by jimmywanger »

xexers wrote: post #81
jimmywanger wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> So do the animals.

Not really. Cows, goats, sheep raised somewhat naturally eat grass and leaves and twigs, things we cannot digest. They can also eat the parts of the tomato that we don't eat, such as the stalks and leaves.

If you're talking about feeling animals with grains, the way we grow grains is even more problematic, with huge amounts of petroleum and water inputs.

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

#97

Post by arcticbull »

bobcostas55 wrote: post #70
arcticbull wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is one's uncomfortable, the other you're just used to. Plants are no less tasty, they're just different. I eat meat too, I'm just saying.

>Plants are no less tasty Sketch out a model of the evolution of dietary preferences in the ancestral environment (esp post-fire) and you will quickly see this is an insane thing to believe.

Fair, I could restate that not as 'no less tasty' but 'tasty in their own right'. Though there are also plenty of societies that are primarily vegetarian, as in South India, and I don't see them running for the nearest meat market due to the insane flavor advantages of a good cut of meat.

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

#98

Post by cmdrfred »

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

I doubt corn wants to be farmed and eaten either. Should we stop the use of antibiotics to preserve the lives of billions of bacteria? You see its not a matter of caring about life when you boil it down. The majority of vegans are pro choice for example. This is a matter of where you draw the line. You may move that line a little bit further down the food chain than I but all mammals must kill to survive.

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

#99

Post by sanswork »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #45
xsmasher wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's already a more efficient way to turn energy and matter into food - plants. Running it through animals before we eat it is the inefficiency.

Livestock can subsist on plants, like wild grasses, that are unpalatable or even inedible to humans. These plants often grow on "unarable" land that won't support human crops. For millennia, humans raised livestock on pasturing lands, seemingly without harming the environment too badly. What stops us from doing that now? I suspect the real problem is closer to wasting arable land, water, shipping (with all of those e…

We don't need to use that land though. If we're not feeding livestock then we don't need near as many crops to support ourselves so let the unusable land return to the wild.

Also if you want to use scrub land to feed your livestock you're going to need a lot of it like in Australia.

>For millennia, humans raised livestock on pasturing lands, seemingly without harming the environment too badly.

For millennia most people wouldn't be getting access to 200lbs of meat a year. There was also a lot fewer of us to feed that much meat to.

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

#100

Post by fluxby »

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…

The future is in algae based proteins. They contain all essential amino acids, naturally anti inflammatory and have no known allergens. The taste profile problem will be solved eventually and algae based chemical compounds as taste and color additives will be omnipresent in our foods in 5-10 years. @sethbannon you should also consider investing in algae based meat alternatives. (I.e. Solazyme / TerraVia)
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