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Chile’s salmon farms may use more antibiotics than any other meat industry

oceana.org

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Re: Chile’s salmon farms may use more antibiotics than any other meat industry

#51

Post by jdavis703 »

DrScump wrote: post #49
belorn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since this article talk about fish farms there is very obvious solution and that is eat wild caught fish, preferable from places where there is either a overpopulation or where there are invasive species. Plenty of such meat in the world where eating it would have a net-positive on the environment. Know one lake where the price of the overpopulated fish species in it is so low that just transporting it to a cat food…

eat wild caught fish But how does the consumer know the true origin of a product? "Wild-caught" claims are only as reliable as the least honest entity in the supply chain.

Perhaps because they caught it themselves? If I had the time and land I’d go fishing and hunting. But since I don’t I just restrict myself to a vegetarian diet.

Re: Chile’s salmon farms may use more antibiotics than any other meat industry

#52

Post by barrkel »

swombat wrote: post #6

Do you feel helpless to stop the problem of antibiotics use in the meat industry? You’re not! Here’s a simple easy trick you can use to reduce its impact on the world: eat less meat. You don’t need meat in 3 meals a day. Reduce it to 1 meal a day and you’ve already reduced your antibiotics impact by 2/3. Cut down to one meat meal a week and that’s a 96% reduction. You’re not powerless. Vote with your wallet and your…

This will make meat cheaper and people who currently don't eat as much meat because of price will start eating more.

You cannot solve a collective action problem by individual action; the incentives for others to cheat means that you are trying to push water uphill.

Re: Chile’s salmon farms may use more antibiotics than any other meat industry

#53

Post by whyenot »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #3
notadoc wrote: post #2

Humans are squandering antibiotics for the most inane uses, rapidly growing superbugs and resistance along the way. This will become a major public health crisis if nothing is done about it sooner than later.

> rapidly growing superbugs We can outsmart them. We have biochemistry and flocks of 30 year old PhD students. They have a random number generator.

For the "they" side you elided natural selection, lateral gene transfer, and generation times measured in hours.

Re: Chile’s salmon farms may use more antibiotics than any other meat industry

#54

Post by bastawhiz »

swombat wrote: post #6

Do you feel helpless to stop the problem of antibiotics use in the meat industry? You’re not! Here’s a simple easy trick you can use to reduce its impact on the world: eat less meat. You don’t need meat in 3 meals a day. Reduce it to 1 meal a day and you’ve already reduced your antibiotics impact by 2/3. Cut down to one meat meal a week and that’s a 96% reduction. You’re not powerless. Vote with your wallet and your…

A personal anecdote: I've tried cutting my meat consumption many times in the past, but I ultimately fail to keep up a low-meat diet for the following reasons:

- Vegetarian food is really not that tasty in my opinion. (edit: the kind I can reasonably prepare myself)

- It's very difficult to eat enough vegetarian food for me to meet my Calorie requirements (I target 3500/day).

- Eating a balanced diet of vegetarian food that tastes half-decent requires a substantial amount of preparation, especially if you have carb/protein targets. Non-vegetarian pop-it-in-the-microwave food is plentiful. There just aren't enough hours in the day.

I stumbled along with this for years, trying and failing over and over. One of my best friends became a vegetarian and I watched as he basically dialed down his diet to peanut butter and lentils.

Last year, I unintentionally became mostly-vegetarian entirely by accident: I started drinking Soylent. It's high-Calorie, it's consistent, there are five different flavors (three with caffeine!), each flavor tastes decent enough, and it's not a pain in the ass. Other than the odd takeaway order (two or three times a month, or if I run out of Soylent) effectively zero meat enters my apartment.

My coworkers have rolled their eyes dramatically, but it's pretty good. The bottles get recycled, they come unrefrigerated direct from the manufacturer, and the drinks are (seemingly) made from half-decent stuff. If my office put them in the lunch line, I'd probably stop eating meat at work, too.

(And they're pretty cheap!)

Re: Chile’s salmon farms may use more antibiotics than any other meat industry

#55

Post by barrkel »

Retric wrote: post #32
enord wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When has this attitude _ever_ been the solution to a shared-resource problem? I'm not being snarky, I want to know. It feels like solving traffic mortality by pasting a "drive carefully"-sticker inside the windshield, doing nothing other than establishing who is morally responsible.

It works very well for moderate changes. Look into the history of Boycotts and they have actually changed quite a bit about how several industries work. Antibiotics is actually a fairly minor benefit to the meat industry, so it's a winning strategy assuming significant popular support.

Boycotting isn't individual choice, however; boycotts, when they work, usually work due to PR and reputational effects rather than market effects.

Re: Chile’s salmon farms may use more antibiotics than any other meat industry

#56

Post by greglindahl »

enord wrote: post #46
akoncius wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your analogy would work if parent comment would say “just eat meat carefully”. overall it makes sense to reduce meat consumption, because if you look deeper in reasons for antibiotics use in meat industry, mainly it is used as a consequence of high demand for meat, to reduce risk of diseases in overpopulated farms, while feeding animals growth hormones and stuffing as much food as possible to ensure quick growth, so…

I believe you're reading something else out of my analogy than what I tried to say; I was making a point about the effectiveness of the method, not the message as such. Everybody agrees we should drive carefully, and everybody agrees we should not revert to pre-antibiotic treatment of infections. How did we address the former? Through moral admonition and personal prudence? (That was a rhetorical question)

One way we addressed the former was to put up signs that say "Drive Carefully", so apparently your dislike of that technique is not universal. It's called a "nudge", and it has significant (but limited) effect.

Re: Chile’s salmon farms may use more antibiotics than any other meat industry

#57

Post by enord »

jdavis703 wrote: post #48
enord wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When has this attitude _ever_ been the solution to a shared-resource problem? I'm not being snarky, I want to know. It feels like solving traffic mortality by pasting a "drive carefully"-sticker inside the windshield, doing nothing other than establishing who is morally responsible.

Look at how popular organic, ethical and local food has become in the last few years. You have restaurant chains based on these ideas, supermarkets like Whole Foods, and food processors like Amy’s. This is because consumers are voting with their wallet. I like to think it’s been inspired in part by documentaries like Fast Food Nation, What The Health and Supersize Me, certainly that’s how I became a more conscious co…

Yes, but farmed salmon is making a killing. How many documentaries before you quit sushi?

Can you be a conscious consumer on all aspects of your consumption, can anyone?

Re: Chile’s salmon farms may use more antibiotics than any other meat industry

#58

Post by barrkel »

greglindahl wrote: post #47
enord wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When has this attitude _ever_ been the solution to a shared-resource problem? I'm not being snarky, I want to know. It feels like solving traffic mortality by pasting a "drive carefully"-sticker inside the windshield, doing nothing other than establishing who is morally responsible.

Note that it wasn't proposed as a solution. Are you saying that no one should do anything good, or encourage others to do anything good, unless it fully solves a problem? I suspect that's not the point you were trying to make, but it sure sounds like that if you read your words.

The suggested action wouldn't actually do any noticeable good, though, because of market effects - price would fall, then consumption would rise again.

It's far more effective to lobby for regulation than rely on individual action to solve collective action problems.

Re: Chile’s salmon farms may use more antibiotics than any other meat industry

#59

Post by kayhi »

swombat wrote: post #6

Do you feel helpless to stop the problem of antibiotics use in the meat industry? You’re not! Here’s a simple easy trick you can use to reduce its impact on the world: eat less meat. You don’t need meat in 3 meals a day. Reduce it to 1 meal a day and you’ve already reduced your antibiotics impact by 2/3. Cut down to one meat meal a week and that’s a 96% reduction. You’re not powerless. Vote with your wallet and your…

I sometimes wonder with problems like these that the underlying solution is controlling the global population.

Re: Chile’s salmon farms may use more antibiotics than any other meat industry

#60

Post by petecox »

Salmon seemed abundant and cheap, relatively, at Chile's coastal restaurants and I guess now I know why.

Perhaps I'll pick something else on the menu the next time I visit. I wasn't a great fan of deep-fried seafood empanadas or ceviche but paila marina was tasty!

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