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40% of lost calories globally are from beef, needing 33 cal of feed per 1 cal

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Re: 40% of lost calories globally are from beef, needing 33 cal of feed per 1 cal

#141

Post by worik »

rayiner wrote: post #69
mhurron wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The market should decide if beef consumption is viable The market has decided, ant it decided that the well off are more important than the rest so they get what they want at everyone elses expense. Maybe we should stop thinking market forces are in any way right or moral. At least saying 'I got mine, fuck you' would be honest.

This is stupid thinking indulged in by westerners who were born in the lap of luxury. The market is incredibly moral. When my dad was born in a village in Bangladesh, 1 out of 4 kids didn’t live past age 5. Thanks to market reforms and the resulting economic growth, child mortality in Bangladesh has plummeted. Bangladesh’s under-5 morality rate is better today than America’s was at the same time my dad was born. If I…

Bangladesh has done well, in difficult circumstances

Market reforms helped. But those reforms could not have happened unless the state did sensible things

Those same market reforms impoverished the entire middle class in New Zealand, where the state did not do sensible things (the reverse)

Markets are good at fully allocating resources, which feudalism and central planning is not. But they also concentrate wealth into the hands of very few (that is what wrecked New Zealand's middle class) and it takes deliberate government policy to avert that.

Re: 40% of lost calories globally are from beef, needing 33 cal of feed per 1 cal

#142

Post by [deleted] »

Alupis wrote: post #131
Dylan16807 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you understood the crop we're discussing is rarely destroyed - and more often donated, diverted to secondary markets (ie. sold in grocery stores), or exported - yet still felt compelled to say a home cook could use them? In the context of someone talking about home cooks using them, and you acting like "People do not eat tart cherries directly." is a counterargument , yes I felt compelled to correct that. The in…

People do not eat tart cherries directly. The overwhelming majority of people will never process them into something edible either. "People in need" are not going to spend time and money processing tart cherries into juice concentrate or pie filling... especially when a can of either is cheaper than the raw ingredients to make your own. Your point is ridiculous, absurd and pedantic beyond any reasonable purpose.

[deleted]

Re: 40% of lost calories globally are from beef, needing 33 cal of feed per 1 cal

#143

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

bee_rider wrote: post #101
unglaublich wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in a pure market that would mean that during overproduction times, prices should be low. Which they artificially aren't through industry price fixing.

I’m not sure what a pure market is. The result that free markets are Prato optimal, though, requires conditions like low barriers to entry, perfect information, and low cost transactions… none of which seem very well met in the case of agriculture.

It turns out that low barriers to entry, perfect information and low cost transactions are almost never present.

Re: 40% of lost calories globally are from beef, needing 33 cal of feed per 1 cal

#144

Post by californical »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #99
darth_avocado wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of proposal that might fly well when it comes to the discourse over meat. People say “but we could be growing other crops instead of feed for cows”. Well yes, but you need protein in the diet. You can’t grow potatoes and veggies and expect people to survive only on that. Then there’s the question of land utilization. Historically cattle was raised for meat and dairy where agriculture was more difficu…

> You can’t grow potatoes and veggies and expect people to survive only on that. I'm sure most medieval people survived (without food types being a detriment to their health/lifespan) on vastly less meat than most of us eat nowadays. I don't want to live a "medieval peasant" lifestyle, obviously, but I don't think the food part of it would be unhealthy (assuming enough food).

Yes, I believe we could cut beef consumption in half in the US and probably be healthier for it, without even compromising people’s standard of living (beef more as a “treat” than everyday ingredient).

We’d be healthier, and the reduction of water use from all of the crops grown for feed would eliminate all water shortages in the west

Re: 40% of lost calories globally are from beef, needing 33 cal of feed per 1 cal

#146

Post by dmitrygr »

rjrjrjrj wrote: post #85
dmitrygr wrote: post #45

> "needing 33 cal of feed per 1 cal" The calories cows eat are ... useless to humans. We cannot digest cullulose (grass) and most of the rest of the things we feed to cows. Anyone throwing this number around has an agenda, and is not objective

Cows are sometimes fed human-consumable calories (eg corn). Other crops that humans can digest can be produced on land currently used for grass. Other animal species that eat grass require fewer feed cal per calorie produced.

Most pasture is land that cannot support human-edible crops. Cows eat low quality grass that needs no fertilizer or pesticides. Stuff that lives in very alkaline soils, etc. Cows and us, we do not compete for farmland.

Re: 40% of lost calories globally are from beef, needing 33 cal of feed per 1 cal

#147

Post by wolpoli »

lkbm wrote: post #9

> If excess beef consumption were reduced to healthy quantities, as defined by the EAT-Lancet healthy reference diet, and substituted with chicken in forty-eight higher-income countries, the lost calories avoided would be enough to meet the caloric needs of 850 million people. It's really impressive how efficient chickens are compared to beef. Obviously thinks like legumes are way more efficient, but we've really bre…

> EAT-Lancet healthy reference diet

I am unable to find this diet. It's likely referring to something called Planetary Health Diet [0]

[0] https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet/the-planetary-health-diet/

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