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Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

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Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#111

Post by mtnGoat »

rmbyrro wrote: post #95
_3u10 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, the US and Europe are free to reforest but choose not to for some unexplained reason. Brazilian beef is frankly way less deforested than anything from the U.S. or Europe. The three most forested countries in the world are Russia, Canada and Brazil in that order. In all honesty I’m perfectly fine with the bans / boycotts it keeps farmers here poor and beef cheap.

If the Amazon was in the US or Europe, there'd be nothing left of it today.

Not sure what leads to this believe, we have lots of untouched and well managed forests in the US. Sure we logged most of the eastern states but we also learned their importance before we completely destroyed them, hence wilderness and national park areas that can’t be logged.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#112

Post by chinupbuttercup »

verisimi wrote: post #43
jterrys wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the rainforest is important in regulating global temperature and oxygen production, much more so than the (probable) temperate climate forests you are from. You are living in a post destruction area, with new forests planted to supplement the destruction that was there before. Most of these forests aren't more than 70 years old, that's about when we finally made an effort to fix how badly we totally fucked up…

I didn't shoot myself in the foot. Someone around here did clear the forests for farmland... and people are doing ok. Its not that everyone died, as the comment I responded to said.

To substantiate your point, I was thinking about deforestation for farming in Indiana (where I live) and Ohio last week and learned that Indiana was 90% forest until taxes got in the way. It's crazy that something as silly as taxes can cause most of your forests to become farmland.

https://woodlandsteward.squarespace.com/storage/past-issues/...

We are still alive. I wish we had the forests, but we have survived and the environment has adjusted.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#113

Post by mrighele »

emptysongglass wrote: post #27
mytailorisrich wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an uneeded "optimisation". There is nothing wrong with eating meat and breeding cattle. Again, the issue is that the environment has a limited, finite capacity, which we exceed when we are 10 billion with good standards of living. To reduce quality of life (because it's not limited to meat, it's comprehensive restrictions) simply to accomodate ever more humans on the planet is madness and unsustainable, anyway…

> There is nothing wrong with eating meat and breeding cattle. You're not doing a whole lot to explain why there is nothing wrong with eating meat and breeding cattle. I can think of a whole host of reasons why it is wrong in matters of ethics and mercy. Who is there to advocate for the cow? We know cows feel a gamut of emotions just as we do. They are not insensate. Most humans, when given a knife or a captive bolt…

> You're not doing a whole lot to explain why there is nothing wrong with eating meat and breeding cattle.

Why should explain why something is NOT bad ? It's up to you to convince him (or others) that it is bad, and the reasoning "according to MY ethics it is bad" is not a good argument.

There is a good argument to be made that in the West we should eat less meat, but that doesn't mean removing it completely: it is harder to make a balanced vegan diet, so for most people that would mean a less healthy outcome that just eating a moderate amount of meat.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#114

Post by aembleton »

user90131313 wrote: post #89
block_dagger wrote: post #28

[flagged]

No, there is no better protein

You could use Quorn instead and just eat more of it. It has less protein by weight, but more for the same number of calories. Also beans are very good.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#115

Post by nolverostae »

debacle wrote: post #97
cogman10 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out the model of the primarily meat eating ancestors may be wrong. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... Which sort of makes sense when you consider our closest relatives are primarily plant eaters.

If 30% of what they ate was meat, then roughly 3/5ths of their caloric intake was meat. And as the study you posted states, they were eating mammals not fish or birds.

I guess you're assuming this is about the weight of food they are eating. Why?

What they're actually doing is measuring the isotopes in the carbon of the bodies of the human remains. You don't get any carbon in your body from the water or from the fiber in plants.

So your estimate correction needs to go the other way - the study says that > 80% of carbon in the bodies of early human foragers comes from plants. That means that also > 80% of the caloric intake comes from plants. Or alternatively, it would mean that > 95% of what they ate (by weight) was plants.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#116

Post by carlosjobim »

sandworm101 wrote: post #70
carlosjobim wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That should be the last concern of any decent human being. If they outlaw breathing, will you stop? Hunting is something our species has done for over a billion years by this point.

>> Hunting is something our species has done for over a billion years by this point. Sustenance hunting yes, but the rules about selling wild meat are to prevent market hunting. There are more humans by weight than any other land animal. If the general population started eating hunted meat, any wild population would be wiped out. So we have careful rules to ensure hunters do not hunt simply to sell the meat.

I agree that there is a difference, but a very small difference. Even animals share their prey with those who didn't participate in the hunt.

If the general population started eating hunted meat, vast agricultural areas would be returned to nature, giving a slight offset to that problem.

But jumping back to reality, those people who actually hunt and purchase hunted meat right now are people who care about nature and shepherd it with responsibility. They can safely ignore any hacker that starts yapping about some law written by unnatural people.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#117

Post by mtnGoat »

hpestyghr wrote: post #55
nanna wrote: post #11

A month or so ago a ship filled with 19,000 Brazilian cattle destined for the Middle East docked in Cape Town. The cows were living in such horrendous conditions that the stink of the ship took over the entire city. Living in pools of excrement, sick, lame, pregnant and even dead cows among them. The South African animal protection service had to put many down. It's easy, its right to blame the Bolsonaro regime for h…

In this specific case, it's because Middle Eastern countries want live imports due to halal requirements. Live exports should be entirely banned.

It’s really profitable to. I know a Greek fella that transports goats in bulk and has said it’s very profitable due to not many ships fitted to do it well.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#118

Post by [deleted] »

debacle wrote: post #97
cogman10 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out the model of the primarily meat eating ancestors may be wrong. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... Which sort of makes sense when you consider our closest relatives are primarily plant eaters.

If 30% of what they ate was meat, then roughly 3/5ths of their caloric intake was meat. And as the study you posted states, they were eating mammals not fish or birds.

[deleted]

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#119

Post by micromacrofoot »

jonahbenton wrote: post #66
andsmedeiros wrote: post #38

[flagged]

Tell that to your genetic predecessors.

Tell them what? that we've grown so fat and stupid on the abundance the earth provides that we can't properly manage it and will probably cause millions undue suffering because we don't want to reduce our meat consumption to less than 250lbs per year despite it being easily possible?

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#120

Post by MandieD »

ljf wrote: post #56
chasd00 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t selling venison against the law?

I'm in the UK - but yes he's a registered 'pest controller' - he gets paid by local farmers to keep the invasive deer population low (muncjac and Chinese water deer), and is also licenced to sell the meat. You can get either a whole/half skinned and basically butchered deer from him, or any selected cuts, for £9 a kg - which pretty damn cheap really!

That is a fantastic deal for meat you can feel good about! I pay that much for pork at the big organic grocery chain in Germany (ebl) that I can only hope they’re telling the truth about, and far more for the occasional beef steak there.
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