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US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

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Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#41

Post by emptiestplace »

akudha wrote: post #31
AznHisoka wrote: post #18

If they kill this much chicks, why are people who choose to be vegetarian for moral/religious reasons OK with eating eggs?

Not defending vegetarians (or anyone else) here, but people decide how much morality/ethics they are willing to go for. There are people who don't eat steak/chicken etc, but eat seafood. Some people don't consider fish as meat, some don't consider chicken as meat. I don't claim to understand their logic, but each to their own. There are people who don't eat meat, but drink milk (dairy industry is horrific too) or eat…

I think it is important that we are compassionate to those who haven't yet found their way over, but I draw the line at tolerating defense of vegetarian 'ethics'.

> each to their own

So while I generally agree with this, is it fair to say it when it doesn't apply equally for all sentient life—or is it just convenient?

> There are people who classify honey as an animal product and there are people who disagree.

This really isn't subjective.

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#42

Post by i_love_retros »

AznHisoka wrote: post #18

If they kill this much chicks, why are people who choose to be vegetarian for moral/religious reasons OK with eating eggs?

Because they are ignorant or don't care as much as they pretend to about animals. Otherwise they'd be vegan.

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#43

Post by lalalali »

akudha wrote: post #29
poincaredisk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We aren't gonna reduce our meat consumption, Why? This is certainly possible if we, humans, really wanted to. So I assume you just don't believe society will ever decide to do it. This is unnecessarily negative outlook IMO - the first step to change something is to believe change is possible.

This is not negativity, this is reality. I have never eaten meat in my life. But I am surrounded by meat eaters. Even polite, rational, calm discussion about reducing meat consumption doesn't last more than a minute. It is as though people are more addicted to meat than alcohol and somehow it is drilled into their heads that humans need meat for protein and strength, though there are tons of vegetarians who lead heal…

> try talking to someone about reducing their meat consumption and see how the conversation goes.

Just saying you are vegan is unheardable and makes turns people on defence mode.

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#44

Post by metalman »

aziaziazi wrote: post #37
akudha wrote: post #12

During COVID, farmers were killing pigs with steam. Imagine being steamed alive. Animal industry is cruel beyond most people's imagination. Anything to lessen that cruelty is good, very good. We aren't gonna reduce our meat consumption, the least we could do is lessen their suffering https://www.humanesociety.org/blog/factory-farms-are-baking-... From the article above In an even more extreme form, referred to as VSD…

The non-plus VSD is described as so: > Ventilator shutdown involves locking a flock or herd of animals in a building and turning off the ventilation systems. As the temperature rises and gases inside the building accumulate, the animals suffocate to death, usually over a period of many hours. Rising "gases" is CO2. Suffocation by co2 is one of the worse death because that’s how the body knows he needs to inhale. Most…

there are abetoirs that have continious public viewing, and pigs are gassed, with CO,carbon monoxide, knocking them out, and then then they are bled never know a thing, CO causes no reaction other than going to sleep.Holland I think

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#45

Post by akudha »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #23
poincaredisk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We aren't gonna reduce our meat consumption, Why? This is certainly possible if we, humans, really wanted to. So I assume you just don't believe society will ever decide to do it. This is unnecessarily negative outlook IMO - the first step to change something is to believe change is possible.

This is a classic is-ought situation. Seems easier to improve the process and ethics of killing animals for consumption rather than reducing meat consumption at a society level. People don’t change their ways very easily. I know I have to fight rolling my eyes whenever someone suggests the the solution is simple: eat less meat.

Seems easier to improve the process and ethics of killing animals for consumption rather than reducing meat consumption at a society level.

This is the point I am also trying to make. At least short term, I do not see meat consumption going down. Maybe younger folks growing up today might understand climate change and the meat industry's contribution to it more than their parents/grandparents and be willing to make changes to their diet, but changes like this take a lot of time, if they happen at all.

In the meantime, anything we can do to lessen the cruelty to factory farmed animals (for ethical reasons) and anything we can do to reduce harm caused by meat industry on the environment, however small, is worth pursuing

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#46

Post by [deleted] »

metalman wrote: post #44
aziaziazi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The non-plus VSD is described as so: > Ventilator shutdown involves locking a flock or herd of animals in a building and turning off the ventilation systems. As the temperature rises and gases inside the building accumulate, the animals suffocate to death, usually over a period of many hours. Rising "gases" is CO2. Suffocation by co2 is one of the worse death because that’s how the body knows he needs to inhale. Most…

there are abetoirs that have continious public viewing, and pigs are gassed, with CO,carbon monoxide, knocking them out, and then then they are bled never know a thing, CO causes no reaction other than going to sleep.Holland I think

[deleted]

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#47

Post by belorn »

This technology has existed for quite a while now, I think well over 10 years. Talking to farmers, they are also well aware of it, but like tangential technology within dairy farming, the main reason they aren't using it is costs. Any added costs would have to be added to the price.

Where I live, the highest standard (in term of animal welfare) eggs costs around 40 cent per egg. The lowest standard cost around 10 cent, which is also generally the most sold type of egg. Getting this kind of technology widespread would either mean regulation + tariffs or getting it cheap enough that only cultivating eggs with female chicks in them becomes a cost saving technique.

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#48

Post by cbau »

akudha wrote: post #29
poincaredisk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We aren't gonna reduce our meat consumption, Why? This is certainly possible if we, humans, really wanted to. So I assume you just don't believe society will ever decide to do it. This is unnecessarily negative outlook IMO - the first step to change something is to believe change is possible.

This is not negativity, this is reality. I have never eaten meat in my life. But I am surrounded by meat eaters. Even polite, rational, calm discussion about reducing meat consumption doesn't last more than a minute. It is as though people are more addicted to meat than alcohol and somehow it is drilled into their heads that humans need meat for protein and strength, though there are tons of vegetarians who lead heal…

As someone arguing against vegetarians in the past, I get the point, but I actually made the switch recently, not because of ethics, but simply because of cost and laziness.

It's a silly story: I recently wrote a program to create my diet from the week based on local grocery store nutrition labels and prices for a couple hundred items, subject to constraints for calories, macronutrients (supporting my goals in the gym) and micronutrients (hit all RDIs for vitamins and minerals plus some speculative stuff). Meat is never included in the generated output because it's too expensive relative to what it offers from a nutrient perspective. All of my daily needs can be met for cheap and with minimal prep on a diet consisting basically of rice, beans, eggs, soy milk, oat milk, pea protein, Brussel sprouts, carrots, and apple juice, which works out to I've basically become a vegetarian out of sheer frugality and laziness (I don't like cooking and I don't like solving a puzzle to hit my macros each day). I imagine many people could be convinced to be weekday vegetarians from this angle, but it did take me several months to work through nutrition science books/videos to arrive at this point. (Shout out RP Strength.)

The other issue with my diet is that it is not optimized for taste or variety. I don't mind this (condiments go a long way and I'm pretty focused on my fitness goals), but I think I'm an outlier in this respect.

Anyway, all this to say I see an economic angle for hope, except that all messaging to the public on nutrition science is awful and confusing which leads to consumption decisions not based in any logical framework, and I doubt that behavior will change anytime soon unless we go through another economic shock.

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#49

Post by aziaziazi »

metalman wrote: post #44
aziaziazi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The non-plus VSD is described as so: > Ventilator shutdown involves locking a flock or herd of animals in a building and turning off the ventilation systems. As the temperature rises and gases inside the building accumulate, the animals suffocate to death, usually over a period of many hours. Rising "gases" is CO2. Suffocation by co2 is one of the worse death because that’s how the body knows he needs to inhale. Most…

there are abetoirs that have continious public viewing, and pigs are gassed, with CO,carbon monoxide, knocking them out, and then then they are bled never know a thing, CO causes no reaction other than going to sleep.Holland I think

I suggest you have a look at the video I posted above. I'm sure plenty slaughterhouses does a good job at mixing CO2 with something else. We only need to regulate the maximal CO2 concentration, the prices won't move neither the bacon availability but there will be much much less suffering

https://edepot.wur.nl/546026

> The principle of gas stunning or Controlled Atmosphere Stunning (CAS) is that animals are exposed to a high concentration of CO2, CO2 mixed with inert gases, or inert gases only

> Carbon dioxide especially at high concentrations (above 40%) is pungent and painful to inhale and leads to a highly aversive response involving very loud and high-pitched vocalisations and vigorous attempts to escape from the gondola and the exposure to the gas, including scratching other pigs vigorously with the claws of the front legs and trampling of pigs that have become recumbent. Furthermore, during the induction phase animals will show increased breathing and gasping associated with signs of breathlessness (“air hunger”). Induction of unconsciousness with CO2 stunning does not immediately induce unconsciousness and the process is associated with fear, pain and respiratory distress (Verhoeven et al., 2016; Beausoleil and Mellor, 2015), lasting from the start of exposure to CO2 until loss of consciousness

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#50

Post by akudha »

cbau wrote: post #48
akudha wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not negativity, this is reality. I have never eaten meat in my life. But I am surrounded by meat eaters. Even polite, rational, calm discussion about reducing meat consumption doesn't last more than a minute. It is as though people are more addicted to meat than alcohol and somehow it is drilled into their heads that humans need meat for protein and strength, though there are tons of vegetarians who lead heal…

As someone arguing against vegetarians in the past, I get the point, but I actually made the switch recently, not because of ethics, but simply because of cost and laziness. It's a silly story: I recently wrote a program to create my diet from the week based on local grocery store nutrition labels and prices for a couple hundred items, subject to constraints for calories, macronutrients (supporting my goals in the gy…

I remember reading somewhere that over 80% of the grains grown in the U.S is for animal consumption, not human. Those animals are then slaughtered for human consumption. I don't know how true that number is, but even if it is half that, it is still highly inefficient and wasteful. That article also calculated the amount of resources (water especially) to produce one pound of meat vs a pound of fruits/vegetables.

None of this is rocket science, it is fairly straightforward to understand. Reducing meat consumption makes sense economically, ethically, environmentally etc. But, people like their hamburgers and their sea food and their KFC...

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