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The cartel that controls the US meat industry

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Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#151

Post by slothtrop »

myshpa wrote: post #146
slothtrop wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of sustainability is contingent on increased encroachment of land and emissions, and that is contingent on growing demand overtaking gains in technological efficiency. The demand is growing as a matter of policy: immigration to prop up the GDP. Growing demand for just about anything will increase emissions, pollution and land encroachment - some just exacerbate things faster than others. That does not mean all o…

Few assumptions and oversimplifications, let's address them one by one: > Lack of sustainability is contingent on increased encroachment of land and emissions, and that is contingent on growing demand overtaking gains in technological efficiency. Sustainability is not solely dependent on one aspect but is the result of a combination of factors, including land use, resource management, environmental impacts, and ethic…

> not solely dependent on one aspect

That's why I mentioned more than one.

> Even with improved technological efficiency, the sheer scale of demand for animal products still pose significant sustainability challenges.

That is exactly what I said. Demand is outstripping rate of innovation.

> The demand for animal products is influenced by various factors, including cultural preferences

Most immigrants have that cultural preference, dietary habit, etc.

> advertising, and economic factors

Weakly for staple products, but consumers will spend less on meat when finances are tighter.

> While GDP growth and immigration can play a role in shaping demand, they are not the only drivers, and sustainability issues related to animal agriculture go beyond immigration policies.

It is overwhelmingly the strongest driver. It's not even close. So far the U.S. population has grown by 1,706,706 since 2022. What's more likely, that the growing demand for animal products is a cultural shift, or that there are more people demanding animal products?

Clearly the cultural shift among the middle class and affluent has been a) marginal increase in vegan and vegetarian identity, b) recent enthusiasm between both omnivores and vegans/vegetarians for plant-based products. Despite the latter, the actual vegan demographic does not budge much. If it did, demand for animal products would steadily fall - it does not. It grows. This is not because carnivore dieters are deciding to eat an extra steak to spite you.

> You can't solve all of these with algae:

Moot point if the demand is not growing faster than technological innovation.

Immigration and developing countries growing wealthier is inextricably linked to what you deem as unsustainable.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#152

Post by Trisell »

declan_roberts wrote: post #114

Moving to the country has really opened up my eyes for food production, especially meat. There are so many small farmers here that are basically shut out from the economy because of impossible USDA guidelines. And we're honestly supposed to believe that mega meat processing plants are somehow better for us? It's delusional. Call your representative and ask them to support the PRIME act. https://ij.org/initiatives/foo…

100% this. As a small time farmer. I cannot butcher my own animals and sell them to anybody directly. I have to sell them "on the hoof" in a minimum size of a quarter of an animal and then have a custom butcher process the animal. I can't sell any of my meat directly to a person after it's butchered, or to a restaurant. I can only sell in those cases if I go to an FDA certified meat processor, which is 400 miles one way from my property. So essentially I'm limited to selling meat to either friends and family or shipping my animals 400 miles and paying $2 a pound in processing costs.

So no the Prime act isn't a way for corporations to go around the rules, it's so small guys like myself can sell meat to people without having to truck it 800 miles.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#153

Post by rndmize »

Trisell wrote: post #152
declan_roberts wrote: post #114

Moving to the country has really opened up my eyes for food production, especially meat. There are so many small farmers here that are basically shut out from the economy because of impossible USDA guidelines. And we're honestly supposed to believe that mega meat processing plants are somehow better for us? It's delusional. Call your representative and ask them to support the PRIME act. https://ij.org/initiatives/foo…

100% this. As a small time farmer. I cannot butcher my own animals and sell them to anybody directly. I have to sell them "on the hoof" in a minimum size of a quarter of an animal and then have a custom butcher process the animal. I can't sell any of my meat directly to a person after it's butchered, or to a restaurant. I can only sell in those cases if I go to an FDA certified meat processor, which is 400 miles one…

Reading from the linked website, it looks like the PRIME act is a way to avoid federal regulation in favor of potentially looser state regulation. Now I have no dog in this fight, but why couldn't we say, push for the house ag committee to get some people from the FDA to explain why these slaughterhouse regs are so onerous? Is passing a bill the best way to get something done?

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#154

Post by Trisell »

rndmize wrote: post #153
Trisell wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this. As a small time farmer. I cannot butcher my own animals and sell them to anybody directly. I have to sell them "on the hoof" in a minimum size of a quarter of an animal and then have a custom butcher process the animal. I can't sell any of my meat directly to a person after it's butchered, or to a restaurant. I can only sell in those cases if I go to an FDA certified meat processor, which is 400 miles one…

Reading from the linked website, it looks like the PRIME act is a way to avoid federal regulation in favor of potentially looser state regulation. Now I have no dog in this fight, but why couldn't we say, push for the house ag committee to get some people from the FDA to explain why these slaughterhouse regs are so onerous? Is passing a bill the best way to get something done?

I would say that anybody who is interested in the system should listen to this. All of the people in this panel, called by both Republicans and Democrats, call out the need for serious reforms of the FDA inspection system. And how the FDA system specifically allows large meat corporations to cut the little guy out of cutting meat. If you think that the current system limits 'bad meat' from entering the system. You need to understand that the FDA is fully captured by the corporations that it's supposed to be governing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9xcOkwgdi0&pp=ygURcHJpbWUgY...

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#156

Post by rm206 »

myshpa wrote: post #46
rm206 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is still unclear if the land that is used for grazing could be suitable for growing crop that could be used for human consumption. Where do you think the grazing land comes from? Clearing natural habitat. And no, except for extreme conditions (like people living in extreme cold), meat is not a necessary food. An average human living in a city/village with moderate temperatures (especially when most of their time i…

We don't need those grazing lands for growing food (some nuts forests would be cool, though). We should afforest/rewild it to store maximum carbon in those lands, repair water cycle, enable biodiversity to return (70% of species is lost in the last 50 years or so), and use land for animal feed crops to feed humans instead. If we'd switch to plant based diets, we'd free an area the size of Africa to return back to nat…

Ooh boy the numbers are bigger than I remember. I don't think the world will shift to a completely plant-based diet for the foreseeable future but we really do need to atleast move toward that reality.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#157

Post by johnnyanmac »

mikeyouse wrote: post #76
Sparkyte wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was free how are the operating costs covered?

I think you misunderstand - prisoners and people that are "diverted" from prison to rehab are being sent to chicken processing plants as part of their sentences. The taxpayer is paying the bills to these institutions and then Tyson is getting labor for free.

ahh, the most under talked about part of modern slavery. "But they got arrested for a good reason, so of course they need to do labor to repay society". Yup, exactly the kind of narrative a private prison incentivized to detain people wants to spread.

Shame it will take a much more radical change to how people view prisons to truly break this mentality.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#159

Post by myshpa »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #138
myshpa wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vegans have cheese. Salty and fatty, melts. You should try it. There is no magic ingredient in cow (dog, giraffe, lion, bat, dolphin) milk that we couldn't get from plants instead. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcN7SGGoCNI https://www.vegancheese.co/discover (1700+ cheeses from all over the world)

To call other things "cheese" that aren't cheese is torturing the very definition of the word, much like "milk", which, of course, as a precursor to cheese, has been traditionally understood, inconveniently for you, as excretion from mammary glands. A lot of of cheesemakers have also traditionally depended upon rennet, a product of animal stomachs, so in the effort to replace it as a coagulant, the definition of "ren…

> To call other things "cheese" that aren't cheese is torturing the very definition of the word, much like "milk"

Yes, if it doesn't have torture, blood, puss, pesticides, antibiotics and estrogens in it, it can't be called milk or cheese. Why torture? How else would you call forced impregnation, year after year, and forced separation of mothers and calves? Just to shorten the cow's life from 25+ years to 5 and then turn her to burgers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcN7SGGoCNI

> has been traditionally understood, inconveniently for you, as excretion from mammary glands

Inconveniently for you, soybean, almond, coconut, rice, oat, hemp, even poppy milk was used for centuries, millenia even, all over the world.

> and my eyes alighted on "gypsum"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsum#Food_and_drink

So you probably don't drink beer, eat baked goods or farmed mushrooms too. Got it.

Btw, there are other coagulants, like nigari, epsom salt, calcium chloride, lemon juice or vinegar ... Not everybody is scared of 1 tbsp of gypsum in several kg of tofu, so that's why they probably use it. In my view it's much better than contents of someone's stomach. But I'm me.

I wonder what other poisonous chemicals were there. Do you have the list? :)

Btw, do you know, that there's l-cystein in most flours on the market, and that's often made from human hair?

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/ma...

Our food industry is so ingenious.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#160

Post by prepend »

ceejayoz wrote: post #109
HDThoreaun wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't need excuses to raise prices, this explanation still doesn't explain why they waited. Cartel's don't care what their consumers think since they've cornered the market on an inelastic product.

> Cartel's don't care what their consumers think since they've cornered the market on an inelastic product. They do care about attracting the ire of regulators, which can be triggered by consumers getting fed up with price increases.

So what about regulators is different now than 10 years ago or 20? It seems like the same crappy level of price regulation now as 40 years ago.
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