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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

#211

Post by piva00 »

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 recommend you visiting the Brazilian region of Pantanal, if possible travel through Mato Grosso do Sul -> Mato Grosso -> southern Pará where it transitions into the Amazon.

You will see vast areas of cattle ranching, soybeans plantation used for cattle feed, and other crops that can be used as cattle feed. All that area used to be the Pantanal and Amazon, now transformed to grow beef.

If we would reduce the calories wasted on beef, this area could still have a lot more native vegetation. Of course, it's purely wishful thinking because this ship has sailed, beef consumption will take a long time to stop growing, these farms will fight for their lives to keep producing, and we've lost a huge area of incredible nature to eat some steaks and burgers.

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

#212

Post by some_random »

whalesalad wrote: post #37
brightbeige wrote: post #5

Actual title: Only half of the calories produced on croplands are available as food for human consumption

This is a really big shocker to most people, especially in America. We see these big huge farmlands with rows and rows of corn. We hear the propaganda that farmers are the backbone of this nation and we can't live without them. Songs sing in our heads, "amber waves of grain, from sea to shining sea". People get a warm and fuzzy feeling. Country music psyop perpetuates this. Meanwhile a substantial portion (as noted h…

I'm sorry that is an insane thing to say, if this is genuinely representative of your worldview you need to step back and reevaluate some things.

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

#213

Post by XorNot »

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #88
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. You don’t think the two are related at all? When you say “solve” energy problems, do you mean from supply-side solutions or demand-side solutions?

No amount of efficiency improvements matters if all the energy is still coming from burning fossil fuels at the end of the day.

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

#214

Post by onraglanroad »

piva00 wrote: post #211
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 recommend you visiting the Brazilian region of Pantanal, if possible travel through Mato Grosso do Sul -> Mato Grosso -> southern Pará where it transitions into the Amazon. You will see vast areas of cattle ranching, soybeans plantation used for cattle feed, and other crops that can be used as cattle feed. All that area used to be the Pantanal and Amazon, now transformed to grow beef. If we would reduce the calorie…

And none of that is for feeding starving people who have no food.

It's all to grow profitable luxury food.

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

#215

Post by Barrin92 »

irishcoffee wrote: post #188
Barrin92 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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, no…

>and fix an actual problem.

but it is an actual problem. The beef industry has a large ecological impact. You yourself bring up the water shortages as a result of crop production... who do you think are the crops grown for?

You're just yelling "lalala I'm not listening" basically. The world doesn't consist of "real" and "fake" problems depending on how much you're offended by the topic, the world has a million problems, the more we tackle of them the better.

Sure you can say nothing will ever change, I don't care, but that's not an actual argument, that's just screaming like a kid who doesn't want his toys taken away, how is that an adult conversation. If you can't even tackle the cows how are you going to tackle bigger fish? Are the bigger fish being dealt with?

The only people who ever pretend you can ignore an ostensibly small regional problem, to fix the world are people who literally fix neither because in reality they're nihilists who don't want to solve anything because they never want to take any personal responsibility.

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

#216

Post by XorNot »

irishcoffee wrote: post #188
Barrin92 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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, no…

Not just bigger, but actually tractable problems. The revolutionary fall in the price of solar power and batteries means we can actually displace coal, and have, without really asking much of anyone to do it. That's a massive advantage to have with a big problem!

There's a world coming where automation means electrified heavy equipment stops using diesel entirely, already happening in mine sites in Australia.

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

#217

Post by idle_zealot »

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…

> edit: I understand the environmental impacts. I think we should solve our energy problems first.

There's no "first." There's not a queue of problems that the people of the world work on one by one. It's not a matter of limited labor/money either, we're talking about policies to change allocation. If anything is limited here it's political will, but that doesn't really work like money or physical limitations, it's more abstract and nonlinear. It's quite possible that a platform containing more changes earns more will than one with fewer, so budgeting is the wrong impulse.

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

#218

Post by victorbjorklund »

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.

No, not all land isn’t the same. It is far more profitable to grow a high value crop vs plain grass. But some land just isn’t great for other things than grass. You have large cattle farms in Australia where you can’t grow anything other than grass and other wild plants.

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

#220

Post by irishcoffee »

Barrin92 wrote: post #215
irishcoffee wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, no…

>and fix an actual problem. but it is an actual problem. The beef industry has a large ecological impact. You yourself bring up the water shortages as a result of crop production... who do you think are the crops grown for? You're just yelling "lalala I'm not listening" basically. The world doesn't consist of "real" and "fake" problems depending on how much you're offended by the topic, the world has a million proble…

Clearly I struck a nerve, this isn’t a genuine conversation. I gave up reading your reply at paragraph 2.

Have a nice day!

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