Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

iopscience.iop.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 360 posts

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

#241

Post by nradov »

mcv wrote: post #222
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…

Feeding the world is mostly a political-economic problem. Political-economic decisions make it hard to feed everybody, when we technically have more than enough to feed everybody. But one of the decisions that make it hard to feed everybody is the decision to eat lots of beef in rich countries. Land that's used to grow food for cattle could (in many but not all cases) also be used to grow food for poor people, but th…

In most places where there is chronic, widespread malnutrition the root cause problem is not lack of arable land but rather local violence and corruption. It doesn't matter how much food you grow if a rebel group with AK-47s shows up and steals it all.

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

#242

Post by aziaziazi »

mcv wrote: post #231
neuralRiot wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

If that helps, some non-cheese that might trigger your taste buds:

- Brewer/nutritional/super yeast (with a bit of oil and/or smashed cashew): in place of Parmesan

- Tahini: less cheesy but equally bold taste as yeast

- Lactic acid fermented Tofu: whey cheese.

- Tempeh: my favorite, just oiled-panned with salt and pepper. Between chicken and soft-Camembert

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

#243

Post by alamortsubite »

dh2022 wrote: post #168
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

Medieval people were a lot shorter too. When I was in Saint Basil Cathedral in Moscow I was amazed how narrow and low were the corridors inside those side towers. I hit my head multiple in that church. Btw- the average male and female height adjusted for location keeps increasing which points to protein deficit: https://ourworldindata.org/human-height (In the world graph towards the end the height seems to decrease s…

At 6' I'm unlikely to ever dunk on my 6'4" brother, which is a bummer, but ego aside I'm not really impacted much by my height since I can secure food and shelter by pressing buttons and pushing a mouse. From an evolutionary perspective I understand the preference to be bigger, but I wonder if it's still a logical aspiration for modern humans. More cells means a higher risk of cancer, after all.

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

#244

Post by alamortsubite »

fredgrott wrote: post #95
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…

commercial beef cows eat grain not grass... its in the paper....and some of us on this site grew up working for commercial beef ranchers.....for instance me!

You're not from Argentina. Though I read even there they're switching to the grass/grain model.

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

#245

Post by b65e8bee43c2ed0 »

r_p4rk wrote: post #191
b65e8bee43c2ed0 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

those 33 calories are dirt cheap carbs. there's absolutely no shortage of soy and corn syrup for you to consume.

Soy is an excellent protein source?

1. "protein" is a blanket term for a number of amino acids we need, and vegetable sources tend to miss a bunch of them.

2. atrocious calorie to protein ratio due to carbs. I imagine eating a pound (dry weight!) of any legume every day would get real old real fast.

3. phytoestrogens. not just soy, all legumes are full of them, even peanuts.

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

#246

Post by dcreater »

some_random wrote: post #212
whalesalad wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it would be better if you shared a logic based argument as to why you disagree with him?

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

#247

Post by array_key_first »

fredthompson wrote: post #239
cogman10 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

It's true though, these regulations exists because speculation and profit-chasing in agriculture is what lead to the dust bowl and worsened the great depression. We really, really don't want a repeat of that.

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

#248

Post by burnt-resistor »

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…

Totally wrong. A large fraction of commercially-grown cows are fed eponymous cow (field) corn, and require antibiotics so they are kept alive just long enough to grow and be slaughtered. Field corn is what takes up 5% of all land area in America.

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

#249

Post by cromka »

onraglanroad wrote: post #214
piva00 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People starving come from parts for the world affected by global warming, which unsustainable farming is one of the reasons. Which, in turn, crates mass migration issues. Which, in turn, is a major reason behind massive shift of Overton window and the current world situation we're in.

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

#250

Post by throw0101a »

choilive wrote: post #22
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…

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.

> Agreed. The market should decide if beef consumption is viable.

Until The Market™, especially in the US, starts dealing with externalities (like climate change), it should not. Something like carbon pricing (per Greenspan and Volcker):

* https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economists%27_Statement_on_Car...

Even Mr. Free Market himself, Milton Friedman, thought a price on pollution was a good idea:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YGfwSvLkC0

Post reply on HN