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

iopscience.iop.org

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

#181

Post by irishcoffee »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #30
choilive wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The market should decide if beef consumption is viable. Ultimately energy is the basis all food production. Cheap and plentiful energy solves the food production and distribution problem, then its just matter of preferences.

It’s hard for the market to decide on its own when the environmental damage of meat production is left as an unpriced externality and when government subsidies are handed out like candy.

Pretty sure the western US states are in a water shortage because they grow almonds et. al. In places that were not meant to be agricultural, importing water, fucking up the entire ecosystem of the region and causing massive water shortages, and massive environmental damage.

But yeah, we can keep focusing on the farting cows, that’s the problem.

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

#182

Post by voxl »

nh23423fefe wrote: post #91
voxl wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no reason to obliterate food, you should give it away to those in need.

Ok drive to Michigan and haul away 3 tons of cherries.

Insightful retort, did you forget the slight issue of it being illegal?

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

#183

Post by recursive »

Boxxed wrote: post #174
Argonaut998 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe we should eat both then.

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

#184

Post by bryanlarsen »

luqtas wrote: post #175
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 distrib…

Ranches in Montana and Texas definitely do none of those things. It's native grass, running about 1 cow per acre. Fertilizer and pesticide for an acre would be way more expensive than the profit on 1 cow per acre.

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

#185

Post by _aavaa_ »

irishcoffee wrote: post #181
_aavaa_ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard for the market to decide on its own when the environmental damage of meat production is left as an unpriced externality and when government subsidies are handed out like candy.

Pretty sure the western US states are in a water shortage because they grow almonds et. al. In places that were not meant to be agricultural, importing water, fucking up the entire ecosystem of the region and causing massive water shortages, and massive environmental damage. But yeah, we can keep focusing on the farting cows, that’s the problem.

Ask yourself why they are growing almonds there if it’s such a problem? Because those almond growers have water right contracts that are absurdly cheap and are use it or lose it.

Fine by me though, add in the environmental costs for almonds too. Would you support an initiative of pricing these externalities on food, or is it just a snarky comment about cow farts?

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

#188

Post by irishcoffee »

Barrin92 wrote: post #139
kshahkshah wrote: post #6

Not trying to be overly flippant... who cares? The paper opens with "to feed a growing population" without asking is that what we need? want? where we are actually heading to? Is feeding the world a real problem? I've yet to see compelling evidence that it really is except as a secondary effect of logistics, energy supply, and war. edit: I understand the environmental impacts. I think we should solve our energy probl…

>I understand the environmental impacts. I think we should solve our energy problems first. is there a rational argument in here or is this just a cheap psychological reflex to keep eating beef? Because it's not clear to me how solving our energy problems and the consumption of beef even intersect so that we couldn't do both at the same time. You might as well have said "man I really should stop drinking and smoking,…

Isn’t that entirely their point? Stop bitching about cows (not a real problem at all) and fix an actual problem. Seems like you nailed it.

People aren’t going to stop eating beef, full stop. Won’t happen, full stop. It’s akin to suggesting we need to stop eating eggs, also will never happen.

These threads pop up on here every so often and it amuses me in a morose way. Nothing will ever change in the beef industry, not even in places like California, who are actively causing a water shortage in order to grow crops. That is a much bigger problem than farting cows, the whole region is aware of the problem, and no movement has been made to create a fix.

Give it up on the cows, there are bigger fish to fry.

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

#189

Post by asdff »

Another factor that these studies seem to miss from the beef question is the fact there is more pasture land than viable agriculture land. Beef are often grazing on marginal land that would not be fit for much else. Clearcutting the amazon to meet beef demand is one thing but that isn't the case for I'd guess most places they have been farming beef for the past 100 years.

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

#190

Post by victorbjorklund »

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).

Starving people in North Korea are surviving (since per definition they are surviving if they are not dead). Doesn’t mean North Korean diet is something we should strive for.
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