Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 215 posts

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#181

Post by dkersten »

duncan_bayne wrote: post #178
wahnfrieden wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - and given that's the situation with meat consumption, it's no wonder some of us decide on throwing out the whole premise and going vegetarian :)

Have you carefully examined how the dairy industry works? I'm not convinced that a vegetarian diet that includes factory farmed dairy involves much less cruelty than an omnivorous diet. Maybe more, if the omnivore were to avoid factory farmed meat and dairy. That said, I'm not a vegetarian myself, because I don't believe it's in my rational self-interest.

There are plenty of forms of vegatarian: lacto-vegetarians that eat dairy, ovo-vegetarians that eat eggs, lacto-ovo-vegetarians that eat both, vegans that eat neither (don't eat any animal products), raw-vegan that only eat raw foods, etc

If you believe that factory farmed dairy is just as cruel, then don't consume factory farmed dairy.

I don't believe its in my rational self-interest

Unless you count the environmental impact, it shouldn't be about your self-interest, but rather doing something that some see as cruel and unethical treatment of other living creatures.

(PS: I'm not vegetarian either, so I'm not attempting to change your opinion)

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#182

Post by ivanbakel »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #176
Clownshoesms wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes fair enough, maximizing what we do with the carcass once the animal is dead is only fair. I guess I was leaning more towards the lengths we've gone to, for something that doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the first place (i.e. we waste more on the animals' inputs than we get out). Although in this case getting parts of the spinal cord/fluid/brain in with sausages also sounds like a hazard.

> we waste more on the animals' inputs than we get out Is this true? Plenty of humans are reaping the benefits of this industry existing. While beef, dairy et al may be disturbing from multiple points of view, few industries are as subsidized as the corn industry in the united states. If there was a single vulnerability to be used as an entry point to tear apart the elaborate farming empires and thoroughly tackle was…

That's a different kind of waste. It's indisputable that meat production is a waste of land, crops, and resources, if your main metric is producing as much food as possible.

If you're talking about money waste instead, it works pretty well. But while corn may be over-subsidized, I'd rather eat it than starve.

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#184

Post by ronjouch »

ekianjo wrote: post #163
sbilstein wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Beef brains and veal (juvenile beef) or calf's brains are used in the cuisines of France; Italy; Spain; El Salvador; Mexico, etc. where they are called sesos in Spanish and are eaten in tacos and quesadillas; Pakistan, where they are known in Urdu as Maghaz; Portugal; Indonesia; and in the United States, especially in St. Louis, Missouri, and the Ohio River valley." People do eat cow brains...I have at regular ol' r…

This is true in France, but the practice of doing so is decreasing and considered "old fashioned" especially after CWD.

Yup, it's called "tête de veau" ("veal head"), https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%AAte_de_veau

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#185

Post by maxerickson »

jcoffland wrote: post #63
maxerickson wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would put bacteria in that role and call them green goo. One thing I find interesting is that gray goo would have to compete with bacteria for resources. I'm not sure that it would necessarily be easy.

Prions are not alive and therefore do not need to compete for resources to further their existence.

Now that the giant logic thread has played out below I feel I have to point out that I was saying that technological gray goo would have to compete with green goo, I wasn't talking about prions competing for resources.

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#186

Post by swerner »

ivanbakel wrote: post #182
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we waste more on the animals' inputs than we get out Is this true? Plenty of humans are reaping the benefits of this industry existing. While beef, dairy et al may be disturbing from multiple points of view, few industries are as subsidized as the corn industry in the united states. If there was a single vulnerability to be used as an entry point to tear apart the elaborate farming empires and thoroughly tackle was…

That's a different kind of waste. It's indisputable that meat production is a waste of land, crops, and resources, if your main metric is producing as much food as possible. If you're talking about money waste instead, it works pretty well. But while corn may be over-subsidized, I'd rather eat it than starve.

That metric only applies under the assumption that all land can be used equally to feed livestock or for crops. However, humans don't eat grass, and some land cannot be used to grow vegetables on. There, grazing livestock is one of the few methods available to generate food for humans.

Grazing is also better for biodiversity than planting crops.

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#187

Post by option_greek »

ergothus wrote: post #131
Clownshoesms wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here I am teetering on the edge of vegetarianism, and people are talking about blowing meat chunks off spines to extract that last bit of cash, and workers inhaling aerosolized pig brains. Might be the push I needed!

I've been vegetarian for a bit over a decade (no fish, but dairy and eggs okay) - If you live in the right area, and have the right tastes, it's downright easy. In other areas, it's quite difficult. My personal tips & notes: * If you otherwise enjoy meat, there are a lot of meat-substitutes out there and more being developed. These tend to do a great job of mimicking processed meats and a terrible job of mimicking "r…

Good read! If you get a chance, visit India/South Asia to try out various vegetarian dishes (preferably from different regions). You will be surprised by how much variety is available for vegetarians.

The ones branded as Indian cuisine outside India tend to be mostly a collection of popular dishes rather than sampling of everything. So you will end up feeling that most of them taste similar.

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#188

Post by nstj »

Researcher: "I have no solid idea where this problem could be coming from. As a last resort I'll examine whether the ritualistic consumption of decomposing human brains may have something to do with it"

> Lindenbaum had a hunch about what was going on, and she turned out to be right. It had to do with funerals. [0]: Ibid.

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#189

Post by soVeryTired »

duncan_bayne wrote: post #178
wahnfrieden wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - and given that's the situation with meat consumption, it's no wonder some of us decide on throwing out the whole premise and going vegetarian :)

Have you carefully examined how the dairy industry works? I'm not convinced that a vegetarian diet that includes factory farmed dairy involves much less cruelty than an omnivorous diet. Maybe more, if the omnivore were to avoid factory farmed meat and dairy. That said, I'm not a vegetarian myself, because I don't believe it's in my rational self-interest.

> ...because I don't believe it's in my rational self-interest.

Can I politely suggest you uncurl from the solipsistic ball you've tucked yourself into? It's nice out here...

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#190

Post by LordKano »

sbilstein wrote: post #136
touchofevil wrote: post #23

I did a bunch of research (googling) back in the late 90's or 2000s when the mad cow disease outbreak first happened mainly in England. I thought it was pretty terrifying and I wanted to know what the hell was going on. I read about Kuru all the way back then and the take away was that people shouldn't eat the brain and nervous tissue of other people or Kuru could result. But also it seemed that mad cow disease was o…

"Beef brains and veal (juvenile beef) or calf's brains are used in the cuisines of France; Italy; Spain; El Salvador; Mexico, etc. where they are called sesos in Spanish and are eaten in tacos and quesadillas; Pakistan, where they are known in Urdu as Maghaz; Portugal; Indonesia; and in the United States, especially in St. Louis, Missouri, and the Ohio River valley." People do eat cow brains...I have at regular ol' r…

When I was a kid my great-grandmother used to occasionally make and eat calf's brains.

I was never willing to even consider trying it.

Post reply on HN