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Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

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Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a complicated topic, with multiple responses, but I'm only going to touch on one specific aspect of it. Reducing violence in regular farming is an admirable goal that people should strive towards. It's also worth talking about the environmental costs of ingredients like palm oil, and it's worth talking about the human costs of products like cocoa. I don't mean to diminish any of that at all, it's all worth pa…

> However, the majority of meat we eat today comes from factory farming, and the majority of the feed for those animals comes from... traditional crop farming. This is incorrect. Cattle is fed primarily on grass. They are grain finished to increase weight at the end. A lot of that space is unusable as crop fields. Also a lot of animal feed is based off of plant byproduct, corn husk, wheat "What most livestock in the…

> A lot of that space is unusable as crop fields.

It may be unusable as crop fields, but grazing it often prevents it from developing into a richer ecosystem that might be able to support a greater variety of wildlife and sink more carbon dioxide.

A rather extreme example of this somewhat famously happens down in Brazil, but there's also a not completely off-the-wall hypothesis that this phenomenon also at least partially explains the Little Ice Age. IIRC, the basic goes that the American peoples relied heavily on a version pasture-based livestock agriculture, which involved limiting the growth of forests in order to ensure plenty of grassland for large bison herds. The wave of plague that killed people off after European contact meant that the pasture land was no longer being maintained, and began to revert back to forest. This, in turn, sucked so much CO2 out of the atmosphere that it altered the world climate.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#702
post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have words for it but if you've met shelter dogs or animals that have suffered abuse, they definitely understand the concept of evil. I have a rescue pig that I adore but he doesn't trust men because he lived a life of abuse. I can only assume that he sees men as evil, even if he can't make that statement. Some things are just natural. Humans seem to think we have a superior understanding of all things but…

Your example of evil just seems like the animals having a sense of danger to me. Animals usually instinctively will try to avoid danger. This doesn't require them to have a concept of evil.

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Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#703
post #94

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That nutritional profile also includes increased risk of GI tract cancers among other serious conditions, so I'm not sure what the argument you're trying to make is.

There is no compelling evidence that eating unprocessed beef carries any significant cancer risk. This claim is obvious a-priori bullshit if you know much about human metabolism. Plain old meat is very rapidly metabolized almost entirely into peptides and absorbed; there is little room for it to cause GI problems. Hence why there are a lot of people with plant-related digestive issues (e.g. celiac) but very few peopl…

> There is no compelling evidence that eating unprocessed beef carries any significant cancer risk.

Red meat has an IARC classification of 2A, probably carcinogenic to humans. This is based on limited evidence from epidemiological studies, but also (contrary to your claim) mechanistic evidence.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#704

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Here's a riddle for you: if seed oils were not toxic, why are mice given seed oils as low as 4-5% of calories in order to cause cancer in the presence of other carcinogens? They don't get cancer with the carcinogens alone, they have to add the seed oils to trigger the cancers.

20g of flaxseed oil (180kcal) contains a bunch of ALA, pick a massively low conversion ration to DHA/EPA of 0.5% or 1% or whatever, and you'll see that you'll get very near if not over the recommended daily amounts of 250-750mg.

Maybe, I don't have the exact figure either but it is known that a specific mutation (which I don't have) is needed for efficient conversion. This is telling that at some rather recent point (agriculture) humans started consuming less animal fats.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#705
post #651

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I absolutely respect your choices and your opinion, but I don't understand them. Is the wolf diabolically evil? No cash involved of course. Is that the issue? What if I hunt the animal and kill it and then consume it, like the lion, the tiger, the hawk, and the dolphin? Is the hunter morally superior to the farmer who raises a steer, providing clean water, well grassed pasture, and then kills in a humane manner for p…

animals do not have a concept of good and evil so why would we apply it to them? I think looking at how things in the animal kingdom work and using that as a justification for our actions is a very low bar. We have the cognitive and emotional ability to understand that things like murder/rape/etc. are wrong do we not? If you just take a small step from that and recognize the sentience of animals, it doesn't seem too…

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Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#706
post #618

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While not as efficient as if we'd eat that grain directly, it doesn't seem terribly inefficient, and it may reduce the number of individuals that need to be born & die. (Of course under a stark analysis of whether to have cattle at all, the conclusion could be different, so the question is what analysis you're using this info for). Anyway, if on top of that you subscribe to the hypothesis that grain is not good for h…

From what I understand grain used for animal feed is of a poorer quality and can't be used to make bread. And so it's essentially a waste product (usually because of rain just before a harvest). I won't claim to be an expert, this information was given to me by an arable farmer friend of mine.

Meanwhile “More than half the U.S. grain and nearly 40 percent of world grain is being fed to livestock rather than being consumed directly by humans.”

Your anecdote makes it sound like animal feed is just a fixed waste cost of growing food for humans.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#707

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I don't get why exact taste of burgers is so important to some people. I can stomach burgers from McDonald's if I haven't eaten them in few months. But if I eat them more than one or two times a week they very quickly start to taste like the garbage they are. It's really dreadful form of food and I was assuming people eat it as last resort when they are really hungry. Not that they indulge in them because the specifi…

It's almost as if burgers from McDonalds and good burgers are completely different things.

It's quite possible. Then again most of them are made of beef all beef (except for raw) just tastes dreadful for me, so I don't have high hopes that tasty burgers exist.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#708

While it is not my experience at all, I understand that some folks have certain negative opinions of Beyond Burgers, and other fake meat/imitation burgers: - The texture is off - Maybe they cook strangely - Potentially less taste But the most important thing about them, and the reason I urge everyone to at least _try_ Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals. This is not an argument that fairs well…

Impossible meat is way ahead in texture compared to beyond meat when cooked IMO

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#709
post #556

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As a vegetarian maybe I can provide some insight to my position. The reason I consume dairy and eggs is because I think that fundamentally dairy and egg (honey too) production CAN be ethical, whereas I think intentionally killing an animal for food can never be ethical. I'm aware not everyone shares the same opinion - but for me, killing a conscious being for food is not something I want a part in, even if it had a g…

Not to be condescending, but I practiced the exact same mental gymnastics for many years. I used the exact same reasoning ("can be ethical"). I also did select organic/etc eggs and dairy. Buttt... This lead to people believe that I was okay with dairy/eggs, and when others picked for me I had a hard time rejecting. And dairy and egg producing animals are hurt big time: children taken away, caged, slaughtered, selecti…

What do you feel about keeping your own hens though?

I don't eat many eggs, but I find when I cut out dairy and eggs entirely, I do end up suffering some health problems.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#710
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the issue is also that there is simply far less grassland now. The prairies and other grasslands used to be huge , and supported 2/3rds of the number of bovines. Now they're a tiny fraction of the size and supporting 50% more.

Pastureland makes up 27% of the US; crop land is 18% [1]. What do you mean by "tiny fraction?" Is pastureland different than grassland? [1] USDA National Resource Conservation Service "Range and Pastureland" https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/national/la...

That is more than I had understood remained, and also a surprisingly high number. Possibly there is an issue of definitions.

This site, for instance, calculates that 40% of the US used to be grassland, and it's now under 5%. [1]

Possibly there is a difference been "old growth" unmanaged grassland, and "pastureland" that is mostly seeded with purchased grass and clover seed.

Certainly the old prairies do not exist in any meaningful sense. If you ever read Little House on the Prairie you might recall that they traveled for weeks across grassland that was uninterrupted and looked simply like a flat sea of grass for as far as the eye could see.

In any case, even if those numbers are correct it seems like the number of cows is 50% higher and the amount of grassland is about 25% lower (from 40% to 30%).

1. https://www.nathab.com/blog/grasslands-a-lot-more-than-just-...

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