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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

#231

Post by mcv »

neuralRiot wrote: post #197
capitainenemo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if food shortages aren't an issue, reducing the amount of land dedicated to food production is a win for ecosystems. Not saying people have to go vegetarian, but reducing meat consumption or using more efficiently produced meats (in terms of land use) would overall make the world a nicer and more interesting place. And, really, with the whole neu5gc thing, it might be that humans would be better off focusing on…

>Not saying people have to go vegetarian I’ve vegan for 20+ years and find weird the obsession people have with meat that without even talking about milk. Literally there are hundreds of alternatives better for health, for the environment and for the animals yet we keep looking for justifications to consume them.

Yeah. I used to be vegetarian (I eat some meat again), and I love cheese, but I'm well aware that it's almost as bad as beef. Quitting cheese feels like a bigger sacrifice to me than quitting meat. But I've been reducing my cheese consumption lately. That's something at least.

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

#232

Post by mcv »

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…

Exactly. Beef could be sustainable if it was done on a much smaller scale. But everybody wants beef, so we feed it enormous amounts of corn.

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

#233

Post by mcv »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #193
yesfitz wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The world is bigger than US. A minority of the world is US.

Yeah, but outside the US there are also a lot of grain fed cows.

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

#234

Post by irishcoffee »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #185
irishcoffee wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

So you're good with artificially fucking the water supply?

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

#235

Post by foxyv »

tracker1 wrote: post #128
foxyv wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that cattle agriculture can make rainforests into wastelands. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802...

[flagged]

Cattle agriculture is not cows. It's human beings farming cattle. Also, they are only regenerative under certain conditions. Cows are especially bad in wet soil areas and they can damage the area reducing plant growth through pugging. This can cause soil runoff and flooding. In addition, cattle will displace native flora and fauna.

https://extension.colostate.edu/resource/managing-cattle-imp...

https://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/em-9694-ponding-pl...

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

#236

Post by foxyv »

tracker1 wrote: post #172
californical wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well nobody is upset at the cows. We’re talking about excessive consumption of cows, in agriculture.

[flagged]

Carrots and beans take up a fraction of the land required for cattle. Especially considering that most beans are grown to feed cattle.

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

#237

Post by ysleepy »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #187

Aha. All the grass humans could eat instead of the cows. Not all land is great for growing crops at. Other land is just good for growing grass for cattle to graze on.

Ah yes, beef is produced predominantly using grad fed cows? The feed is an agricultural product produced on farmland that could be used to produce food.

I'm not a vegan or whatever, but get real with the impact of meat production.

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

#238

Post by saalweachter »

jshen wrote: post #196
saalweachter wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the last time I looked into it, if you grow 2 acres of corn and 1 acre of soy, and feed it to chickens, you get out a similar number of calories (and more protein?) as 3 acres of soy. Soy is pretty good, but corn is insane .

what?!?!

Corn produces something like 15M calories per acre, soybeans like 6-8.

When you feed those 36M calories to chickens, you get back 12M calories of chicken, which is actually less than 6 x 3 = 18M calories for the soybeans, so I'm misremembering something (maybe it's just an equivalent amount of protein? maybe chicken feed is a 3:1 corn:soy ratio?) or was just wrong.

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

#239

Post by fredthompson »

cogman10 wrote: post #203
Alupis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tart cherries are supply-controlled because they are processed into other goods, like pie filling, and can be stored for long duration (multiple seasons). The supply-control regulation is designed to prevent a surplus crop from depressing the market to the point where it's no longer viable to grow tart cherries - reducing future supply, ie. the regulation is designed to provide a consistent, stable supply. Surplus ta…

Yup. The regulations on food in the US is exactly to make sure the shelves stay stocked no matter what. Without such regulations, you'd experience random items being unavailable and price shocks. One thing people often don't figure or realize is food takes time to grow. It requires long term thinking to make sure supplies are sufficient. Left to their own devices, farmers will often chase after last season's cash cro…

[flagged]

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

#240

Post by rolph »

trophism is very much like manufacture.

you always have to pay to continue the process, and sometimes to put it on hold.

Transfer of Energy between Trophic Levels:

https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_and_Gene...

Ecological efficiency:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_efficiency

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