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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

#261

Post by mytailorisrich »

mrguyorama wrote: post #258
mytailorisrich wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it always impossible to have an adult discussion on this issue? (An interesting question for academics, I think) Obviously we are all people. The question is do we keep chasing an ever increasing population or do we accept that it cannot keep growing and should in fact probably decrease? Most developed countries have birth rates below replacement rate so this is already happening. We need to accept it and adap…

>The question is do we keep chasing an ever increasing population We aren't. Every bit of evidence is that Human population is on the path to stabilizing. Developing countries plateau, and all that "India and china are going to outreproduce us!" rhetoric was stupidity; people extrapolating an S curve as if it were an infinite exponential curve. All you have to do is give women an education and legal access to birth c…

Oh we are. While global birth rates are indeed down this is seen as a catastrophe. Governments have policies to increase birth rates and in Europe we're also madly opening the doors to massive immigration to keep the population growing.

I have yet to see a government declare that they will let population decrease and initiate programs to adapt. Perhaps Japan comes close but we'll see.

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

#262

Post by diegoholiveira »

fyt2024 wrote: post #189

Give Brazil time. Things will improve again. I hope the EU Mercosul FTA puts protections in place if it is ever signed. Brazil reached 92 percent renewable energy. So there are good news. https://www.gmexconsulting.com/cms/brazil-hits-92-renewable-...

> Give Brazil time. Things will improve again.

What mechanisms were put into action that indicate improvement?

I'm Brazilian, living in Brazil and I don't share your optimism.

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

#263

Post by cutemonster »

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]

Why would they care, when they can't see the animal suffering in front of their nose? When it's just something abstract in the newspapers sometimes, and it's more fun to watch Netflix or hang out with friends than read more about that?

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

#264

Post by adolph »

carlosjobim wrote: post #256
adolph wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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...

That's an uninteresting reach, isn't it?

>>> What makes hunting any more natural than agriculture?

>> It is more natural because creatures in nature do it.

> "Creatures in nature" also "farm"

Thus "hunting" is not "more natural" than agriculture and domestication of other species.

If you don't find it interesting that non-human life has been performing behaviors humans think unique to themselves, well that's your problem.

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

#265

Post by thejazzman »

toolz wrote: post #142
notesinthefield wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

There is no hypocrisy in cattle farming. No species on earth other than humans care about another species existence other than how it will benefit their own species. I'm not saying humans shouldn't be different, but there is no hypocrisy in keeping in line with every other species in the known universe.

I don't disagree with you, but I'm unaware (naive?) of any other species farming/enslaving/capturing hordes of another species and effectively torturing them the way humans do

Being suddenly killed by a lion is a rather short torture/cruel experience compared to what humans do at larger and larger scales. I think animals even have a mechanism that I forget the name of that spares them a lot of the pain involved in such a situation (adrenaline, "going into shock", etc)

I really do wish I/we could do something to be less cruel but everything seems driven by profit margins and that makes it rather difficult/impossible. They're outlawing 'lab grown' meat! :|

(I eat meat, but I don't feel good about it when I think about it)

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

#266

Post by Sightline »

throwup238 wrote: post #234
Sightline wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

[flagged]

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

#267

Post by hombre_fatal »

carlosjobim wrote: post #185
mathieuh wrote: post #134

Earlier 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…

> It is more natural because creatures in nature do it. All the behaviours that we have in common with other mammals are natural and eternal. They can never be legislated away

We outlaw all sorts of things that can be found in nature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide_(zoology)

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

#268

Post by hombre_fatal »

tcgv wrote: post #236
TechDebtDevin wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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.

You can also push a concession out of most normal people that it's unethical, in person. Only online do people act like it's not an elephant in everyone's room—just one that we don't think about unless scrolling past a documentary or something. It's just incredibly hard to red pill out of the comforts you were born into.

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

#269

Post by hombre_fatal »

freejazz wrote: post #240
righthand wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who buys the chain burgers fast-food companies burgers?

Americans.

Actually, everyone.

Even stereotypical food snobs like the French https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/19/the-french-have-fallen-in-lo...

The world would be much better if fast food were a US-only phenomenon but that's trivially untrue.

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

#270

Post by cutemonster »

zackmorris wrote: post #217
wil421 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it’s cheaper for Mc’Donalds and Burger King but probably not for the average consumer. Grocery store beef quality has gone down after Covid except Prime grade and local butchers $$$.

For context, I've known that McDonald's uses rain forest beef since the mid-1980s when my dad first told me about it. I thought they stopped that for a while, but nope: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-30/mcdonald-... Nothing has been done to stop it because of a number of cultural problems: 1) Americans love beef: "why would I eat what food eats?" 2) America could stop all conflict around the world, f…

> 2) America could stop all conflict around the world, from deforestation to war to civil rights abuses

That's nonsense. China and Russia are exploiting development countries as best they can (too). I wonder how you got the idea that it'd be only the US?

Websearch for "china cobalt mines congo" for example.

Interesting about McDonald's anyway

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