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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

#171

Post by tracker1 »

capitainenemo wrote: post #160
tracker1 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the answer is reduce though... I think it's increase... humans wiped out so many of the ruminant animals (buffalo mainly) that kept the grasslands healthy... we've largely over-farmed in the interim since. We need more ruminants, not less. This means raising much more than we currently do, and probably a reduction in slaughter numbers for the next 50+ years to increase the domestic supply. Can't speak f…

Yes. I saw that TED talk about desertification being reversed by ruminants, and while it got a lot of critics, it had some pretty good points. But, those ruminants would be better off not being beef cattle in terms of biodiversity. Also, if they were beef cattle due to the lack of anything better, hopefully it would be short term, and if you're making a case for use of marginal land, they really shouldn't be finished…

I think cattle are fine... though I'm also okay with more Bison, goats, sheep, deer, elk, etc. I'm also more than okay with less use of feed lots and direct butchery of grass fed ruminants.

As for marginal land... personally, I can only handle mostly eating meat and eggs, doing much better with ruminants. I'd be just fine with the majority of uninhabited lands being used by mostly wild ruminants over any kind of farming, especially farming that is using chemical fertilizers and stripping the land.

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

#174

Post by Boxxed »

Argonaut998 wrote: post #136
xvxvx wrote: post #73

Stop filtering your nutrition through animals. It’s inefficient.

Yes let me eat 5.7kg of broccoli per day instead of 500g of beef to meet my protein macros

It works both ways: "Yeah, let me eat 100kg of beef per day instead of 500g of broccoli to get my Vitamin C."

But anyway, legumes are much more efficient source of protein than beef. I don't understand why you decided to compare against broccoli.

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

#175

Post by luqtas »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #74

Cows eat grass. Humans use more calories digesting grass than they gain from eating grass, so cows are infinitely more efficient than humans at gaining calories from grass. And there are places in the world where growing human food would destroy the land. Semi-deserts like Texas and Montana. Grazing cattle there is a good idea. Bison would be even better because the native prairie there is adapted to bison, but cattl…

you type like using land from semi-deserts isn't destroyed for meat production...

you need to plant, fertilize and apply pesticides to maintain grass! or do you think grass with sometimes 60% of protein per gram grows out of nowhere? or that the global grain production, which more than 85% goes into feeding livestock that it's sometimes 20 times less efficient to produce the same quantity of protein, can't be distributed to the population?

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

#176

Post by GeoAtreides »

tracker1 wrote: post #145
datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the deforestation of the Amazon overblown? What about the draining of American aquifers?

[flagged]

>In terms of the Amazon... that was done BY humans... the cattle didn't tear down any trees

literally the funniest thing I have ever read on HN, well done

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

#177

Post by Aloisius »

joaohaas wrote: post #60
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

The grass most cows eat also need to be planted. The point of this post is that we could be planting stuff we can eat so you don't have to 'pay' the conversion cost.

That depends entirely on where you are.

In India, for instance, dairy cattle are fed almost exclusively on crop residues and by-products. Crop residues being what's left over in the field after you harvest and by-products being what would otherwise be waste left over after you process for human use.

Elsewhere, in addition to crop residues/by-products, you also have natural grasslands that aren't planted or irrigated, legume feed grown between major crop seasons when you can't grow anything else that also replenishes the soil and feed grown on otherwise marginal land or barely managed land.

Certainly some crops grown for cows would be edible by humans or the land repurposed for growing crops edible for people, but there's often a cost involved like heavier fertilizer requirements, pesticide use, water requirements, added infrastructure and/or labor.

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

#178

Post by metalman »

false comparison, as most calories cattle consume are from things people dont eat, even if there are simmilar variets of plants that both people and animals eat, they are not interchangable. Animals also eat huge quantities of human food, that has been rejected through some technical consideration, just size, as many crops produce many fruits or vegetables that are iether too large or small to be processed, or are misshapen or damaged, cow dont care nom nom nom, gone by the ton, and the trucks are still comming. The true unforgivable waste is by people over eating, wasting, throwing away, and destroying good foog for countless beurocratic reasons.

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

#179

Post by yesfitz »

tracker1 wrote: post #130
kaleinator wrote: post #52

Surprised how many people in the replies actually think their beef is grass fed.

A large amount of beef is mostly grass fed and finished on a grain feed lot the last month of life.

Got a source for "last month of life"?

Penn State University Extension says "...approximately 95% of the cattle in the United States continue to be finished, or fattened, on grain for the last 160 to 180 days of life (~25 to 30% of their life), on average."[1]

Oklahoma State University Extension also cites a study that compares "growth and carcass attributes of calves finished for 98 to 105 days in a grass system or a legume system"[2]

That puts us between 3 to 6 times longer than you stated, and gives us the context for how much of the average cattle's life that is. (USDA Prime, Choice, and Standard are all 30 to 42 months. Select is under 30 months.[3])

1: https://extension.psu.edu/grass-fed-beef-production 2: https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/finishing-beef-cat... 3: https://www.ams.usda.gov/grades-standards/slaughter-cattle-g...

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

#180

Post by luqtas »

tracker1 wrote: post #77

I think we need more ruminant animals raised on grass as a means of regenerative farming... I think beef largely gets a bad rap for a lot of reasons that largely don't hold to grass fed cattle farming.

then your next step is to cite research from the guy who used to hunt elephants in Africa and it's the heirs of a multi-million livestock industry, doing TED talks about the topic meanwhile no independent or state funded research except their organization could replicate the findings over the decades?
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