As an American why would you buy Brazilian beef when it’s already available here probably for cheaper, local, and higher quality?
[flagged]
Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger
221–230 of 295 posts
Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
Resource intensity may or may not be decreasing but that's not solving the issue if you look at global numbers of poor people versus economic and consumption growth needed to bring everyone to, say, European level of living standard. We are already wreacking havoc on the planet and marginal decrease in resource intensity is not going to make a difference because our total impact needs to be slashed . I never understa…
> marginal decrease in resource intensity We're seeing more than simply marginal decreases - if we can successfully transition our power. The gap in per capita CO2 emissions between developing, middle-income, developed is not nearly as great as what you are suggesting [0] and will decrease even further in the time that it takes to raise people in poverty now to developed-world standards. > I never understand the insi…
CO2 emissions for power generation, or in general, are only a small part of our impact. The environmental crisis is not only caused by this, but by our total consumption of resources and production of many pollutants.
And so we are screwed.
Now the West is already slashing its own population, birth rates have crashed. The issue is that it's refusing to let it go because it's not the easy option, and at global scale this is a taboo subject.
And so we are doubly screwed.
Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I keep seeing people make this claim that cattle spend their entire lives on feed lots, but I've never seen this anywhere and I've been all over cattle country. Where do they do this? Nobody does that, it’d be way too expensive. People here on HN have absolutely zero knowledge of how industrial cattle farming operates and have some really bizarre beliefs about the process. Largely because their only experience with…
I'm not here to police tone, but it sounded like you were disagreeing with the parent comment but your factual claims do not appear to disagree. >> typically only spend about 2-3 months there after having very happy lives as calves on a ranch. > After a calf is raised and weaned from their mother, they are sent to “background” on pasture and the last few months a cow spends packed in a feedlot is just to fatten it up…
Thanks, edited for clarity.
Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that there is a difference, but a very small difference. Even animals share their prey with those who didn't participate in the hunt. If the general population started eating hunted meat, vast agricultural areas would be returned to nature, giving a slight offset to that problem. But jumping back to reality, those people who actually hunt and purchase hunted meat right now are people who care about nature and…
> If the general population started eating hunted meat, vast agricultural areas would be returned to nature, giving a slight offset to that problem. I don't think the math works here. There isn't enough agricultural area on the planet to sustainably generate enough hunted Calories for the general population.
I wrote "slight offset".
Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't shoot myself in the foot. Someone around here did clear the forests for farmland... and people are doing ok. Its not that everyone died, as the comment I responded to said.
To substantiate your point, I was thinking about deforestation for farming in Indiana (where I live) and Ohio last week and learned that Indiana was 90% forest until taxes got in the way. It's crazy that something as silly as taxes can cause most of your forests to become farmland. https://woodlandsteward.squarespace.com/storage/past-issues/... We are still alive. I wish we had the forests, but we have survived and t…
The US has increased in forest cover over the last 100 years. The loss in your state(s) is somewhat offset by gain in others.
https://www.wri.org/insights/tracking-global-tree-cover-gain
And, the Amazon is pretty damn big. The potential effects of its loss are detailed here:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-the-amazon...
Finally, tropical forests (/jungles) are a lot more productive in terms of growth (and carbon capture) than temperate forests.
https://news.mongabay.com/2011/06/tropical-forests-more-effe...
Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
I keep seeing people make this claim that cattle spend their entire lives on feed lots, but I've never seen this anywhere and I've been all over cattle country. Where do they do this? Because around here feedlots are only for finishing cattle and typically only spend about 2-3 months there after having very happy lives as calves on a ranch.
[flagged]
What is the "disgusting hypocrisy of cattle farming?" The term "happiness" is an anthropomorphic emotion term to describe animals not living in the distress so well characterized by Temple Grandin. The theory is growing the animal in a low stress environment leads to a higher quality product. Given the scary prions which spread in part by feeding cows to themselves, it makes sense to avoid some of the conditions humans often find aesthetically or morally objectionable.
Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's an uneeded "optimisation". There is nothing wrong with eating meat and breeding cattle. Again, the issue is that the environment has a limited, finite capacity, which we exceed when we are 10 billion with good standards of living. To reduce quality of life (because it's not limited to meat, it's comprehensive restrictions) simply to accomodate ever more humans on the planet is madness and unsustainable, anyway…
> There is nothing wrong with eating meat and breeding cattle. You're not doing a whole lot to explain why there is nothing wrong with eating meat and breeding cattle. I can think of a whole host of reasons why it is wrong in matters of ethics and mercy. Who is there to advocate for the cow? We know cows feel a gamut of emotions just as we do. They are not insensate. Most humans, when given a knife or a captive bolt…
Vegetarians also have higher levels of depression. [1]
1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01650...
Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
I keep seeing people make this claim that cattle spend their entire lives on feed lots, but I've never seen this anywhere and I've been all over cattle country. Where do they do this? Because around here feedlots are only for finishing cattle and typically only spend about 2-3 months there after having very happy lives as calves on a ranch.
> I keep seeing people make this claim that cattle spend their entire lives on feed lots, but I've never seen this anywhere and I've been all over cattle country. Where do they do this? Nobody does that, it’d be way too expensive. People here on HN have absolutely zero knowledge of how industrial cattle farming operates and have some really bizarre beliefs about the process. Largely because their only experience with…
I agree with everything you said except:
>"The whole point of beef is utilizing marginal land that can’t grow human food."
FYI: 36% of corn is grown just to feed cattle/livestock. I'm trying to breed chickens that are less dependent on commercial foods, so I'm somewhat familiar with the topic.
Also if anybody is interested in reading about how cattle are raised just read the USDA's page on it: https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/cattle-beef/...
Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger
#229I grew up on a (very) small farm - so I knew where all the meat we ate (and eggs, apple, plums and jam) came from. One of the things I find most disconcerting as an adult is the disconnect with the food I eat. Even the local 'farmer butcher' - I don't actually know if the meat they sell me is what they say it is. I buy a lot of deer from a friend of a friend as it feels slightly more known to me - even if I have no i…
I grew up similarly and it's part of the reason I've cut back on my meat. Shoving 100 cattle into a 1 acre feed lot for their entire lives is unfortunately how a lot of beef is produced. They spend their lives covered in shit, sleeping in shit, and trapped with no where to roam. And instead of addressing this problem, my state (Idaho) made it illegal to take photos of the issue. [1] [1] https://legislature.idaho.gov/…
> Shoving 100 cattle into a 1 acre feed lot for their entire lives is unfortunately how a lot of beef is produced. They spend their lives covered in shit, sleeping in shit, and trapped with no where to roam.
And then being shoved into a truck, shipped who knows how many thousand miles to a butchering facility that does it for 3c cheaper and then end up in a line with all your peers to be killed in a horribly industrialized way.
When I lived in central Europe there was a story about pigs or cows, I don't remember, being shipped to Morocco for butchering, imagine that!
People would be vegetarians in a heartbeat if they saw how meat is produced.
> And instead of addressing this problem, my state (Idaho) made it illegal to take photos of the issue. [1]
Same in Canada. Very disappointing.
Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't make any sense. What makes hunting any more natural than agriculture? Isn't exerting control over our environment one of the defining characteristics of humanity?
It is more natural because creatures in nature do it. Together with mating, hunting is one of the foundations of life itself for the predator or omnivore class of animals. All the behaviours that we have in common with other mammals are natural and eternal. They can never be legislated away, even though many have tried and they have died. Including kings trying to ban hunting certain game for commoners and having the…
"Creatures in nature" also "farm" and have symbiotic and/or co-evolutionary relationships with other species.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20630-zoologger-the-f...