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

271–280 of 360 posts

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

#271

Post by hackable_sand »

irishcoffee wrote: post #188
Barrin92 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I understand the environmental impacts. I think we should solve our energy problems first. is there a rational argument in here or is this just a cheap psychological reflex to keep eating beef? Because it's not clear to me how solving our energy problems and the consumption of beef even intersect so that we couldn't do both at the same time. You might as well have said "man I really should stop drinking and smoking,…

Isn’t that entirely their point? Stop bitching about cows (not a real problem at all) and fix an actual problem. Seems like you nailed it. People aren’t going to stop eating beef, full stop. Won’t happen, full stop. It’s akin to suggesting we need to stop eating eggs, also will never happen. These threads pop up on here every so often and it amuses me in a morose way. Nothing will ever change in the beef industry, no…

You sound like an addict

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

#272

Post by mhurron »

rayiner wrote: post #151
mhurron wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the Socialism that produces higher quality of life in Scandinavia as compared to to say the US where the oh so moral market decides if you weren't born into the upper end of society you deserve to die of disease and conditions that can be treated? The market is not moral, it is amoral and it serves those with the money to direct it.

> You mean the Socialism that produces higher quality of life in Scandinavia as compared to to say the US where the oh so moral market decides if you weren't born into the upper end of society you deserve to die of disease and conditions that can be treated? Scandinavian countries have highly market oriented economies. Denmark and Norway are in the top 10 in Heritage Foundation’s economic freedom index and Sweden is…

Every single one of those economies are highly regulated to prevent 'the free market' deciding peoples lives.

Without it, you get the US. You get the life your wealth dictates, if you're not wealthy, you didn't deserve life.

Sweden's costs for insulin are over 10 times lower than that of the US, because the US let the free market decide and Sweden has a socialist political system.

At a place I lived earlier, my neighbour got out of the hospital after heart surgery with a $100k medical bill that they never recovered from. My dad had heart surgery in Canada and left the hospital with a $150 parking bill.

But no, please lets continue to try and argue the free market is moral and just.

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

#273

Post by hackable_sand »

Argonaut998 wrote: post #136
xvxvx wrote: post #73

Stop filtering your nutrition through animals. It’s inefficient.

Yes let me eat 5.7kg of broccoli per day instead of 500g of beef to meet my protein macros

Why not switch to 500g of dog meat?

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

#274

Post by renewiltord »

boothby wrote: post #257
array_key_first wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The amazing thing about people failing to learn from history is that everybody thinks they're too smart to (a) learn history or (b) follow rules enacted to prevent the disasters of yesteryear.

[flagged]

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

#275

Post by throwaway-11-1 »

tracker1 wrote: post #119
lkbm wrote: post #9

> If excess beef consumption were reduced to healthy quantities, as defined by the EAT-Lancet healthy reference diet, and substituted with chicken in forty-eight higher-income countries, the lost calories avoided would be enough to meet the caloric needs of 850 million people. It's really impressive how efficient chickens are compared to beef. Obviously thinks like legumes are way more efficient, but we've really bre…

Legumes and soy in particular is a pretty common allergy... it's nearly impossible to get sufficient protein without meat if you have a legume allergy. The impact of non-natural feeds on the overall nutrition profile for chickens and pork are larger than with ruminant animals. Chickens have been bred and changed a lot through environmental manipulation to grow much faster than in nature. There are a few breeds of cow…

Overall legume allergies affect 1-5% of the population, this is all legumes combined including peanuts etc. Soy allergies are 0.3 - 0.5%, not sure what you qualify as pretty common. For the record I have a fairly serious peanut allergy and abstain from meat and dairy with zero issues.

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

#276

Post by cogman10 »

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]

I grew up on a farm and lived around farmers. This is my lived experience.

I saw first hand farmers tear up a barley fields to plant wheat when the price got high enough.

Farming is a game of speculation. Planting last year's cash crop can be a successful strategy just like buying APPL today will likely yield good returns. Yet, it's a very hard market to predict with a lot of luck involved. Maybe only a few chase the cash crop and you win big. Maybe everyone does and you lose. Maybe there's a natural or political disaster that pumps up your crop.

There was nothing insulting, condensing, or dismissive about my comment. Highly speculative markets, like food, have booms and busts that can swing wildly. That's bad for something like food. The free market does not work with crops.

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

#277

Post by yesfitz »

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.

Not a minority in terms of beef.[1] Only Brazil produces more.

But if you have any sources about cattle finishing practices in other countries, I’m keen to read them.

1: https://www.cattlerange.com/articles/2026/04/global-beef-pro...

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

#278

Post by _aavaa_ »

irishcoffee wrote: post #234
_aavaa_ wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Do you care about the water use from almonds or is it just a shallow hatch point to not have to talk about the damages from raising animals for food?

Is the water use from almonds a problem or is it fine and any changes would be “fucking the water supply”?

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

#279

Post by _DeadFred_ »

tracker1 wrote: post #154
capitainenemo wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I was saying ecosystems. Filling the world with cows is not the same as natural ecosystems. Also, kurzgesagt did a pretty good episode on meat production (edit - they did several, but one was on the production demands in terms of energy and environment), and if I'm to trust their figures, the "cattle grazing exclusively on the pampas" is far from the majority of world cattle. If it was, that probably would be an…

I don't think the answer is reduce though... I think it's increase... humans wiped out so many of the ruminant animals (buffalo mainly) that kept the grasslands healthy... we've largely over-farmed in the interim since. We need more ruminants, not less. This means raising much more than we currently do, and probably a reduction in slaughter numbers for the next 50+ years to increase the domestic supply. Can't speak f…

I mean we have the strategic buffalo herd in Montana, and the cattle grazing you talk about is often by for profit farmers on public land.

Seems like we could reintroduce buffalo from our reserve, a much better solution than government managed/subsidized free range cattlemen. Get government out of the cattle business, end government handouts and all that other free market talking point stuff.

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

#280

Post by rayiner »

mhurron wrote: post #272
rayiner wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You mean the Socialism that produces higher quality of life in Scandinavia as compared to to say the US where the oh so moral market decides if you weren't born into the upper end of society you deserve to die of disease and conditions that can be treated? Scandinavian countries have highly market oriented economies. Denmark and Norway are in the top 10 in Heritage Foundation’s economic freedom index and Sweden is…

Every single one of those economies are highly regulated to prevent 'the free market' deciding peoples lives. Without it, you get the US. You get the life your wealth dictates, if you're not wealthy, you didn't deserve life. Sweden's costs for insulin are over 10 times lower than that of the US, because the US let the free market decide and Sweden has a socialist political system. At a place I lived earlier, my neigh…

> than that of the US, because the US let the free market decide and Sweden has a socialist political system.

Sweden doesn’t achieve lower prices for insulin through “socialism” or regulation. In Sweden, middle class people tax themselves heavily to pay for insulin for poor people. It has nothing to do with free market versus socialism. It’s free-market capitalism with very high taxes on individuals and low taxes on capital and corporation.

> But no, please lets continue to try and argue the free market is moral and just.

It is just and moral. Before Sweden had the free market, it was poor as shit and one quarter of the population of Sweden came to America. Whatever socialism you think Sweden has now, it got only after becoming rich through capitalism.

Post reply on HN