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Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

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Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#231

Post by maleldil »

barbazoo wrote: post #229
cogman10 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 industri…

> People would be vegetarians in a heartbeat if they saw how meat is produced.

No, because most people wouldn't care.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#232

Post by block_dagger »

augusto-moura wrote: post #194
block_dagger wrote: post #28

[flagged]

That doesn't sound like a solution, and it is not attainable at all unless we are talking about thousands upon thousands of years. Meat is culturally important, and only a small percentage of the global population is willing to give up on it. PS: When you talk about mammals only, are you still pro-consumption of fish and avians?

No, I think fish and avians should be avoided for consumption as well but the article is about beef and we need to start somewhere. Cows are sentient emotional social animals as we are.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#233

Post by shmageggy »

guhidalg wrote: post #136
debacle wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counter point, livestock are a critical part of the regenerative ag movement. Our property was farmland for 150 years before it basically ran out of nutrients in the 1970s. After one year of a pretty good harvest (not great) in 2019, we couldn't grow anything. One home testing kit later, and we found that there were virtually no minerals in the soil. Fast forward five years and between heavy composting and gener…

Where did the feed for the animals come from?

This is currently downvoted, but it's a valid question. The concept at play is "ghost acres". The idea being that you might have a wonderful regenerated plot of productive land, but if it requires a massive amount of land elsewhere to maintain, you might not have gained as much as you think.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#234

Post by throwup238 »

Sightline wrote: post #228
throwup238 wrote: post #184

Earlier 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 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.go…

That's also very misleading because the vast majority of the corn we feed cows isn't fed to them fresh. It's distillers grains, an industrial waste from ethanol production: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains

It's a cheap type of corn [1] only grown on marginal farmland that is one step above pasture land.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dent_corn

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#235

Post by giantg2 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #205
giantg2 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Most of the agricultural trespassing, disruption, etc laws don't just apply to slaughterhouses, but also include the farms and such. Many states have general secret recording that apply to nearly all scenarios if you're referring to recording. If you're talking about just trespass, if you "broke" into a beyond meat facility you would in fact face similar penalties in other west…

Utah at least specifically only protected things like slaughterhouses. I am not familiar. The penalties in these laws are higher than just generic secret recording.

I think both depend on which state.

Do you have the law that prevents the recording in UT? I only see the tresspassing law. Which by the way, would appear to be a class B misdemeanor if it was agricultural land or if it was a building (same for both your examples).

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#236

Post by tcgv »

TechDebtDevin wrote: post #221
righthand wrote: post #145

As an American why would you buy Brazilian beef when it’s already available here probably for cheaper, local, and higher quality?

[flagged]

It's not hard to understand: It's affordable, culturally acceptable, the taste is appealing to the palate, it's an easy source of protein, people are disengaged to know the details of the supply chain and as such don't really engage on discussing the ethics of modern meat production.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#237

Post by giantg2 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #206
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you broke into a Beyond meat factory you wouldn’t be eligible You're saying that there wouldn't be penalties for breaking and entering?

You would not have as high penalties if it wasn’t an animal facility and you were filming.

Do you have the law on that? It seems your example in Utah would be class B misdemeanors for trespass in either scenario. I didn't see any law specifically about recording slaughterhouses.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#238

Post by quonn »

asoneth wrote: post #92
quonn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the human suffering in this concept comes from being able to think, compare and ideas about the good life and then those thoughts create the suffering. The actual physical suffering is limited, although present. Cows can‘t do that and don‘t have the point of reference to compare. I doubt even humans could unless they are raised to be taught all the cultural norms and what‘s good and bad.

> Cows can‘t do that and don‘t have the point of reference to compare. I doubt even humans could unless they are raised to be taught all the cultural norms and what‘s good and bad. By that logic, would it be ethical to eat humans who do not have a point of reference to compare and have not been taught cultural norms and what's good and bad?

I was not talking about eating, I was talking about living conditions.

Furthermore (again regarding living conditions): Still no, because those humans likely have loved ones or family and additionally no because of what this would do to the other humans who housed them so.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#239

Post by merry_flame »

mtnGoat wrote: post #111
rmbyrro wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Amazon was in the US or Europe, there'd be nothing left of it today.

Not sure what leads to this believe, we have lots of untouched and well managed forests in the US. Sure we logged most of the eastern states but we also learned their importance before we completely destroyed them, hence wilderness and national park areas that can’t be logged.

Same in many countries in Europe. Also see France's South American forests in French Guyana. Much better managed than Brazil's. Incomparable, actually.
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