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Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

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Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its quite rare for beef cattle to be 100% range raised. Beef cattle generally start out in rangeland or pasture where they eat grass with supplementary grain feed for a year or so. Then they get moved to an extremely dense feedlot or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation where they are fed mostly grain based feed for the next 6 months or so.

That's what gives cows the taste most consumers recognize as "prime beef". Eating solely grass-feed is definitely a different taste;I'm not sure most consumers would like it, at least initially (outside of a hamburger).

Not sure why parent was voted down but it's true. The inputs have a lot to do with the outputs. Grass fed beef has its advantages in many ways, but grain fed does as well. Generally, you see a nice balance when a cow is grass fed most its life and then fed grain the last couple months to fatten it up.

Aaron Franklin talks about this in his book and mentions he only uses grain fed beef for BBQ. Grass fed briskets just aren't as tasty and lack the marbling of a prime Angus brisket, in his opinion. But the guy has cooked over 100 briskets each day for over a decade so I imagine it carries some weight.

In my preference for steaks, I like both. But it depends on the cut. For a Ribeye I'll take the grain fed. For a filet I'll take grass.

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#242
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most of us think it is possible to live healthily as vegetarians, but much more difficult. Meat from other mammals contains almost all the nutrients we need in a convenient and properly balanced format. In particular the protein quality and digestibility is higher than in most plant sources. For those of us who are active athletes, there are a lot of anecdotes about people who tried vegetarian or vegan diets…

There are around 300 million vegetarians in India. That is close to the population of the United States. Whatever health problems you think they may suffer from it isn't the ability to procreate. I gave up meat 6 years ago. All of my non subtle clinically diagnosed health problems went away. I did it because I couldn't think of killing animals anymore and the wonderful side effects of obesity, high blood sugar, and h…

Most of the benefits you mention come from weight loss, and almost any intervention that can cut weight during the first years would report similar improvements.

Plenty of people lose weight, drop blood sugar and drop blood pressure by going keto. And some with a more extreme carnivore diet.

The real comparison here would be to have "2 people like you" 6 years ago and have two interventions. One going vegetarian and another going keto or carnivore, and see where there are now.

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#243
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the beef you're eating was raised on a deforested area (anything from a big fast-food chain almost certainly was) then that's still pretty unethical though. I agree it doesn't mean that beef is inherently unethical. But people will need to be willing to accept higher prices in order to make it ethical.

As unethical as eating soy from a deforested area. Or eating mostly anything with sugar, canola oil or palm oil. But people don't ask those to be in non deforested areas, and they don't ask to increase the price to make sure soil is not destroyed by monocrop cultivation.

That's not entirely true. There is a whole movement around boycotting palm oil for example, just as there is with beef. It certainly could be more widely supported.

It's worth noting that a lot of the soy from deforested areas also goes towards feeding livestock. The soy that humans eat (or drink) tends to be more more ethical on average.

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#244

How much could this reduce the total environmental food print of cattle? I.e. including all the energy used to grow the crops they eat, the deforestation to make room for the crops + cattle, the waste the cows produce. Animal farming creates vast damage because of how inefficient it is and seaweed won't address how much feed cows need or that the world is eating more and more meat as countries get richer: > The energ…

Re "Amazon deforestation" — those lands haven't been deforested because of the western country's consumption of meat, they've been deforested because people are starving, and they need to put food on the table, and be lifted out of poverty. And countries, such as Brazil, are only now doing what the western countries have been doing all throughout the 19th and the 20th century. I know this sounds terrible, but you hav…

I am pretty sure Amazon deforestation affects the rest of the world too.

While I don't completely agree with the need of deforestation of the country, I upvoted you because I agree with the rest of the message. Specially, I agree other countries are using the moral superiority card after getting a early start causing the current climate crisis.

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#245
post #207

This is a small and positive win it seems, why do many disgruntled ? People get very passionate about our food source being the cause for climate change but really, what about the real ultimate more severe causes? Fracking, mining, burning coal and oil ? Nuclear and renewables makes these things obsolete, but we still need food. Edit: Want to add I’m fully onboard with the east less meat crowd and minimising deforest…

My guess is our food choices are something we can more immediately control. > but I can’t help feel we should focus on the bigger, more high value targets first? I don't buy this line of thinking as it makes the assumption that a society can't tackle or talk about multiple issues at once.

>food choices are something we can more immediately control

A great deal of evidence suggests otherwise.

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#246

This is a small and positive win it seems, why do many disgruntled ? People get very passionate about our food source being the cause for climate change but really, what about the real ultimate more severe causes? Fracking, mining, burning coal and oil ? Nuclear and renewables makes these things obsolete, but we still need food. Edit: Want to add I’m fully onboard with the east less meat crowd and minimising deforest…

There's no need to focus on just one. However people are passionate about advocating for eating a plant based diet because it is so easy, relatively speaking. Getting fracking to stop at even just one site is a lot of work, but getting more and more people to stop eating animal products, because it's directly within their own control, is simple. Many are also passionate about it because there are other benefits that…

It is not as simple as you think, and there is quite a bit of people cannot be healthy with such diet.

> Many are also passionate about it because there are other benefits that come with it - no longer needing to kill sentient beings (you probably wouldn't eat your dog, so why eat a pig who is of equal awareness and intelligence?)

Plenty of "sentient beings" are killed for crop farming. I am not even sure meat eaters cause more deaths than most vegans, specially if they are not pbd.

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#247
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the beef you're eating was raised on a deforested area (anything from a big fast-food chain almost certainly was) then that's still pretty unethical though. I agree it doesn't mean that beef is inherently unethical. But people will need to be willing to accept higher prices in order to make it ethical.

As unethical as eating soy from a deforested area. Or eating mostly anything with sugar, canola oil or palm oil. But people don't ask those to be in non deforested areas, and they don't ask to increase the price to make sure soil is not destroyed by monocrop cultivation.

> As unethical as eating soy from a deforested area.

Not really, though - the GP link says it takes 50 calories of feed to make 1 calorie of Beef, so eating the feed directly would require 50 times less land.

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#248
post #209

This is a small and positive win it seems, why do many disgruntled ? People get very passionate about our food source being the cause for climate change but really, what about the real ultimate more severe causes? Fracking, mining, burning coal and oil ? Nuclear and renewables makes these things obsolete, but we still need food. Edit: Want to add I’m fully onboard with the east less meat crowd and minimising deforest…

It is the highest value target. Livestock agriculture is the leading driver of climate change AND biodiversity loss. It emits more GHG than all forms of transportation combined. Additionally, if we would let nature reclaim the land that's currently used for livestock agriculture, it has the potential to capture >100% of the CO2 emissions until 2050. Some recommended reading: https://blog.yeticheese.com/eating-local-h…

> Livestock agriculture is the leading driver of climate change AND biodiversity loss.

I am pretty sure that's not correct, not even close [1]. Transportation is the main driver of gas emissions (28%) followed by electricity production (27%) and industry (22%). Agriculture (livestock and crop) is In most countries, livestock can graze in areas where cultivations cannot happen (Australia is a good example iirc) and can help with soil health.

> Additionally, if we would let nature reclaim the land that's currently used for livestock agriculture, it has the potential to capture >100% of the CO2 emissions until 2050.

Most of the food livestock consume are leftovers of human-grade crops. So we would still "need to" have that cultivations going and throw the leftovers anyways. Or most likely some company would find a way to feed humans that.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#249
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost 80% of the usable land is used for livestock agriculture. In which other areas do you propose to increase trees and plants? This seaweed additive they propose is a distraction. Even if it would work, it's a band-aid at best. The real, more simple, cheaper and healthier solution is to make meat and dairy from plants directly.

> of the usable land What are you referring to when you say "usable land"? What means usable? Presumably you refer to agriculture and I'm not sure where your number comes from. 42 percent of the land acreage of Canada is covered by forests. This is the percentage forest cover by each State in the U.S. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_cover_by_state_and_terr... > In which other areas do you propose to increase t…

By usable I mean usable for agriculture: https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food

I'm not talking about lab-grown meat, I'm talking about plant-based meat and dairy. The most important thing to do is to creat plant-based meat and dairy alternatives that are better than animal-based products. It's hard but it's possible already possible today (e.g. see Impossible Foods).

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#250
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is our food choices are something we can more immediately control. > but I can’t help feel we should focus on the bigger, more high value targets first? I don't buy this line of thinking as it makes the assumption that a society can't tackle or talk about multiple issues at once.

>food choices are something we can more immediately control A great deal of evidence suggests otherwise.

True. Maybe I should have said food choices feel like something we can control?
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