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Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

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Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#581

Post by runarberg »

DamnYuppie wrote: post #27
drewg123 wrote: post #2

This is the best news I've heard all week. The more widely vegan "meat" is available, the more likely it is to be adopted by average people and not just dedicated vegans. Reducing the demand for real beef is probably one of the best things we can do in the short term for the environment, due to the amount of land required for cattle farming, and due to the surprising amount of methane emitted by cattle. (see the docu…

I truly don't understand the methane issue. Historically worldwide the # of ungulates is probably well below historical averages. It looks like today we have around 98 million head of cattle in the US. Historically we had bison in excess of conservatively 60 million. This doesn't even begin to count all the animals in Africa. Overall wide life is declining. https://www.statista.com/statistics/194297/total-number-of-c…

I’m gonna guess that wild grazers get predated on by a much more varied species than just carbon polluting humans and their domesticated wolfs. In the wild a bison might get eaten by a pack of wolfs or it might live long and die of old age and be eaten by a host of different scavenges, as well as insects and fungi. All supplying other niches in the ecosystem. I’m guessing that in the wild the methane that gets emitted by grazing herd animals is offset somewhere else in the ecosystem by the niches which these animals create by their behavior.

It might be that allocating all of these grazing animals for just one species destroys most other parts of ecosystems which would otherwise have adjusted for the greenhouse gasses emitted by them.

Or who knows, maybe we fluctuate between warm periods in our ice ages because enough grazing animals have farted enough to start a runaway global warming effects... though I doubt it.

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#582

Post by _9omd »

DamnYuppie wrote: post #27
drewg123 wrote: post #2

This is the best news I've heard all week. The more widely vegan "meat" is available, the more likely it is to be adopted by average people and not just dedicated vegans. Reducing the demand for real beef is probably one of the best things we can do in the short term for the environment, due to the amount of land required for cattle farming, and due to the surprising amount of methane emitted by cattle. (see the docu…

I truly don't understand the methane issue. Historically worldwide the # of ungulates is probably well below historical averages. It looks like today we have around 98 million head of cattle in the US. Historically we had bison in excess of conservatively 60 million. This doesn't even begin to count all the animals in Africa. Overall wide life is declining. https://www.statista.com/statistics/194297/total-number-of-c…

I think a lot of what you're saying makes sense. People tend to lump all types of raising cows together, when it's really only the factory farming type or rainforest clearing kind that needs to be stopped. There's a tremendous amount of dry or hilly land that isn't suitable for other types of agriculture, so it really makes sense to raise cattle on these lands in low density. I drive by a lot of these places regularly, and seeing cows on them looks extremely natural and the animals seem very content.

So we should outlaw factory farming and clearing rainforest for cattle, which will drastically cut the supply and allow prices to settle much higher so it's more of a luxury than an every day thing.

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#583

Post by lovemenot »

lurgburg wrote: post #567
matkoniecz wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note conversion of C02 into methane. If methane has bigger effect than the same amount of coal within C02 then your argument fails. > While CO2 persists in the atmosphere for centuries, or even millennia, methane warms the planet on steroids for a decade or two before decaying to CO2. > In those short decades, methane warms the planet by 86 times as much as CO2, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Cha…

A somewhat surprising corollary: if you have methane and you can burn it, it's better to do that than vent it directly. (Of course, better still to leave it in the ground, if that's where your methane is coming from...)

@nightski Yes, natural gas is about half as bad as burning oil and one third as bad as coal in terms of energy output per tonne of CO2 emitted.

Although methane is usually the largest component, natural gas is typically a mixture of methane, propane and butane. So not quite the came as cow burps.

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#584

Post by trashface »

Great, another way to load up on Omega 6 acids via vegetable oil. Exactly what Americans need. Hello obesity and inflammation disorders. The for-profit medical industry in the US will love this.

I'm a vegetarian, so it doesn't affect me too much, but you meat eaters may be better off with moderate consumption of actual (good quality) meat.

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#585

Post by stephenr »

legitster wrote: post #129

I enjoy eating meat and have no plans of going off of it completely. But we eat so much of it as a culture. And when you add up every hot pocket, frozen pizza, slider, hot dog, or chicken nugget, it's hard to argue that most of meat actually being consumed can't be easily substituted. For something healthier and cheaper too! And I know people blast tech companies for focusing too much on making things flashy and cool…

> hot pocket, frozen pizza, slider, hot dog, or chicken nugget, it's hard to argue that most of meat actually being consumed can't be easily substituted

But then what will they do with all the eyeballs, assholes, and cartilage?

I'd imagine that the amount of actual animal tissue humans would otherwise consume, that ends up in any of those products you mentioned is negligible.

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#586

Post by omosubi »

redisman wrote: post #356
unchocked wrote: post #80

All of the sudden - I get it. These co's are dealing with a really shitty, commodified form of beef that they'd love to develop an alternative to. So the immediate benefit is they get to serve vegetarians, but the long term is they can transition off their price-above-all meat supply chain.

Kind of a win-win-win. Companies like it if they can just press soy or peas and fats into patties, environment likes having less bottom of the barrel meat farms, animal welfare is better at the high end farms, maybe the veg patties are a bit healthier(?).

I'm very skeptical that these patties are healthier. I'm guessing that in 5 or 10 years it'll come out that eating them regularly is terrible for your system and it'll be like the margarine/butter debate. I don't have evidence for this but I'm very curious to see

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#587

Post by fastball »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #404
fastball wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drawing the line at cognizance is not something you do "in theory". That is where the vast majority of people on the planet draw the line. You going one step further doesn't make the line you've drawn any more objective.

I don't think this is true. People don't care about the thoughts and emotions of the animals we eat and we can eat other huamns, just as cognizant as ourselves, easily enough. Cannibalism is common throughout human history and there have been even quite advanced societies that practiced it widely, for instance the Aztecs. In any case humans have killed other humans for all sorts of reasons that do not include eating…

I dunno, but 99.9% of human societies have outlawed murder.

Name one that has outlawed killing all animals for food.

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#588

Post by soyftware »

Kharvok wrote: post #314

Almost all of livestock farming emissions come from transportation and powering the processing facilities. See Frank M. Mitloehner at UC Davis research on methane emission from livestock.

This paper:

https://clear.ucdavis.edu/sites/g/files/dgvnsk7876/files/inl...

References:

https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/inventory/pubs/reports/2000_2018/g...

Which says on page 17:

> Livestock emissions are almost entirely CH4 generated from enteric fermentation and manure management, and most of the livestock emissions are from dairy operations.

Enteric and manure management seem fairly close, both between 11-12 million tonnes with manure management being higher by some hundred thousand.

I'm not sure what manure management is, I'm sure part of it is transportation, etc, but that's not "almost all of livestock farming emissions."

In this paper (the errata):

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987

> In total, the “no animal products” scenario delivers a 28% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors of the economy relative to 2010 emissions (table S17). The scenario of a 50% reduction in animal products targeting the highest-impact producers delivers a 20% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#589

Post by belorn »

hamax wrote: post #513
leadingthenet wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cow wouldn't even exist if it weren't useful to us. Let's treat them as humanely as possible, while not pretending they're something they're not. If you want to help animals, let's tackle the issue of rewilding and reforestation more seriously.

This is a really strange argument. Even though you wouldn't exist if not for your parents, but you would still probably agree that they shouldn't have you for dinner?

When animal smugglers are caught at the border, the police has to handle the animals. They can't release them into the wild, they can't repossess and sell them because of the unknown health risks and costs, and they can't keep them at the border for all time. The most common result is thus to kill them.

Similar when there is an dangerous pandemic among animals, the most common response is to kill all the sick and those close by. Culling is the most common response to bird flue.

For obvious reason we do not treat humans in the same way, and it would be extremely inhumane to do so.

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#590

Post by brailsafe »

DamnYuppie wrote: post #139
jdavis703 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just cow farts. Raising and killing a whole cow is an inefficient way to extract calories from plants. Even chicken would be more efficient.

My understanding is that cooked meat has much higher caloric value than vegetables. To be honest if it wasn't so good for us we wouldn't have evolved to consume it!

I agree, but I don't know if it necessarily needs to be very good for us to evolve to eating it. We could have either already been adapted to eating it, or it just needs to be the most viable food source among few. If the only thing around to eat is treebark, there's going to be something that eats it, but not us, so we eat that thing.
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