Bye bye MEAT! How will the post-meat future look?

[CNT36]

Testing found evidence of antibiotic-resistant E.coli and Staphylococcus aureus in locations including Norfolk and the Wye Valley​

Campaigners have raised concerns that intensive livestock farming techniques are exacerbating the threat posed by antibiotic-resistant bugs (Photo: Edwin Remsberg/Getty)
By Cahal Milmo, Andrew Wasley
November 22, 2022 6:01 am(Updated 10:18 am)

British rivers are “awash” with antibiotic-resistant superbugs and drug residues linked to pollution from livestock farms, according to new research.
Testing commissioned by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) found evidence in locations including Norfolk and the idyllic Wye Valley of antibiotic-resistant E.coli and Staphylococcus aureus – two microbes blamed for rising human infections and deaths – in waterways near poultry and pig farms.
Genes indicating resistance to antibiotics were found downstream from so-called “factory farms” raising pigs and chickens as well as in waste from cattle farms, suggesting harder-to-treat microbes are entering the environment from farming locations.

Britons at risk as rivers 'awash' with antibiotic-resistant superbugs

Testing found evidence of antibiotic-resistant E.coli and Staphylococcus aureus in locations including Norfolk and the Wye Valley

inews.co.uk

Apparently the use of antibiotics is going down but the UK has not banned preventative use like the EU.

 

[Funky_monks]

I've bought more clothes this year than the last 4 years combined I reckon. About 12 T shirts. 18 pants and a similar number of socks. Maybe 24 pairs. A pair of shorts two hoodies (+1 on a time share). Above numbers include presents etc. I also invested in some waterproof trainers today and some vans a couple of months ago. Is that a lot, a little or a middle? I've definitely gone nuts with shoes tbh. I used to get one maybe two pairs a year but got about 5 or 6 in the last two years including sandals and other stuff that gets trashed in water. I also have wellies bought in late 2018.

I think the problem with blaming fashion etc is best illustrated by Terry Pratchett's "boots" theory -

"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet"

Although It is somewhat more complex.
Ive just bought 4 pairs work trousers because my last lot were starting to get a bit threadbare etc, would I have still had to do that if I could afford more expensive trousers?
I have expensive shoes, Im still wearing t hem every day and I bought them in 2017 - they may need resoling at some point.

 

[Funky_monks]

Britons at risk as rivers 'awash' with antibiotic-resistant superbugs

Testing found evidence of antibiotic-resistant E.coli and Staphylococcus aureus in locations including Norfolk and the Wye Valley

inews.co.uk

Apparently the use of antibiotics is going down but the UK has not banned preventative use like the EU.

You won't pass your farm assurance if you do (unless vet approved). You'd also need to consult with a vet - antibiotics are prescribed, you can't just buy them over the counter.

However, the good news is:
Antibiotic use has more than halved over the past 6 years
UK veterinary antibiotics sales more than halved over the past six years

But actually, much more critically where human health is concerned:
"........it is crucial to use them responsibly, and to reduce unnecessary use of antibiotics, especially Highest Priority Critically Important Antibiotics (HP-CIAs) - which are vitally important for human medicine - in animals. This is the sixth consecutive year of declines, giving a total reduction of 79% since 2014, and they now account for only 0.5% of the total antibiotic sales in 2020"

Vets just won't give you them - I had a hell of a time trying to get Baytril for my dog a while back and she (obviously) wasn't going to enter the food chain.

 

[CNT36]

I think the problem with blaming fashion etc is best illustrated by Terry Pratchett's "boots" theory -

"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet"

Although It is somewhat more complex.
Ive just bought 4 pairs work trousers because my last lot were starting to get a bit threadbare etc, would I have still had to do that if I could afford more expensive trousers?
I have expensive shoes, Im still wearing t hem every day and I bought them in 2017 - they may need resoling at some point.

It's expensive being poor.

A lot of the problem though is fast fashion. Shit that's bought, worn a couple of times and ditched. I don't think Pratchett's boots come into that.

 

[CNT36]

You won't pass your farm assurance if you do (unless vet approved). You'd also need to consult with a vet - antibiotics are prescribed, you can't just buy them over the counter.

However, the good news is:
Antibiotic use has more than halved over the past 6 years
UK veterinary antibiotics sales more than halved over the past six years

But actually, much more critically where human health is concerned:
"........it is crucial to use them responsibly, and to reduce unnecessary use of antibiotics, especially Highest Priority Critically Important Antibiotics (HP-CIAs) - which are vitally important for human medicine - in animals. This is the sixth consecutive year of declines, giving a total reduction of 79% since 2014, and they now account for only 0.5% of the total antibiotic sales in 2020"

Vets just won't give you them - I had a hell of a time trying to get Baytril for my dog a while back and she (obviously) wasn't going to enter the food chain.

The article does talk about the reductions.

 

[Funky_monks]

The article does talk about the reductions.

It does, but I don't think it mentions that its specific classes of antibiotics that are the critically important ones for human health.

There are, of course other reasons to reduce antibiotic use for animal health, superbugs could have serious impacts on food production.

However, I think it's important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater - antibiotics are incredibly useful things, just at the right dose at the right time. I've never used them in a preventative way, but I have used them to treat animals and I would consider it negligent if people didn't.

Edited to add - one of those is the Wye, which is full of human sewage, there nothing to say superbugs didn't come from that.

 

[editor]

And at 10% fashion is almost as bad as meat and everyone can cut down on the amount of clothes they buy. Vegetarians can't cut down on the amount of meat they eat.

It's literally nowhere near as bad.

But I don't buy loads of clothes anyway.

 

[editor]

Britons at risk as rivers 'awash' with antibiotic-resistant superbugs

Testing found evidence of antibiotic-resistant E.coli and Staphylococcus aureus in locations including Norfolk and the Wye Valley

inews.co.uk

Apparently the use of antibiotics is going down but the UK has not banned preventative use like the EU.

It's utterly appalling.

British rivers are “awash” with antibiotic-resistant superbugs and drug residues linked to pollution from livestock farms, according to new research.

Testing commissioned by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) found evidence in locations including Norfolk and the idyllic Wye Valley of antibiotic-resistant E.coli and Staphylococcus aureus – two microbes blamed for rising human infections and deaths – in waterways near poultry and pig farms.

Genes indicating resistance to antibiotics were found downstream from so-called “factory farms” raising pigs and chickens as well as in waste from cattle farms, suggesting harder-to-treat microbes are entering the environment from farming locations.

Data released on Monday showed there were nearly 150 daily severe antibiotic-resistant infections in England last year, with the UK Health Security Agency warning that resistance is emerging against even the newest antibiotics.

According to the World Health Organisation, some 1.27m people are already dying globally each year as a result of AMR, a figure that will rise to 10 million by 2050, unless action such as reducing antibiotic use is taken.

Campaigners have long raised concern that intensive livestock farming techniques, which place animals in close proximity to each other in conditions potentially allowing bacteria to thrive, are exacerbating the threat posed by AMR by encouraging use of antibiotics to both treat and prevent disease.

 

[Funky_monks]

GHG Emissions from all agriculture: 14% (which includes cropping and land use change), livestock and manure 5.8%.
Fashion: 10%

Hmm.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

I guess the plan is just spam the thread as much as possible with the same shit until people can't be arsed to reply.

Certainly seems to be your strategy.

 

[CNT36]

It does, but I don't think it mentions that its specific classes of antibiotics that are the critically important ones for human health.

There are, of course other reasons to reduce antibiotic use for animal health, superbugs could have serious impacts on food production.

However, I think it's important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater - antibiotics are incredibly useful things, just at the right dose at the right time. I've never used them in a preventative way, but I have used them to treat animals and I would consider it negligent if people didn't.

Edited to add - one of those is the Wye, which is full of human sewage, there nothing to say superbugs didn't come from that.

Isn't critically important just one of the WHO categories though? I mean they are all important highlighted by the fact that the lowest category is important. The critically important are often those that are a last line of defence against bacteria that already have a high level of resistance.

 

[editor]

Here's another great idea:

Wahaca introduced carbon labels to give customers clear information about their choices, she says. People feel "completely overwhelmed" by the extreme weather events they are witnessing around the world, such as the devastating floods in Pakistan, says Miers. "[Carbon labels] help them realise that they do actually have quite a lot of power at their fingertips.

"Food choices are political. If we begin to realise this and start voting with our mouths, then we have a lot of power as a consumer."

Our food choices have a huge impact on the climate. Global food production is responsible for 35% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Within that figure, emissions from plant-based foods contribute 29%, while emissions from animal-based foods account for 57%. The remaining emissions come from the conversion of land used to grow crops such as cotton into fields for food crops. And while animal products contribute the majority of emissions, they provide only 20% of the world's calories.

The restaurant chain partnered with Swedish startup Klimato, which calculates and communicates the climate impact of food, to develop the labelling system.

Dishes with a CO2e (or "CO2 equivalent") level of 0.6kg or lower, such as a sweet potato burrito (0.46kg), are labelled "low carbon". If they have a carbon footprint between 0.6kg and 1.6kg of CO2e, such as a grilled chicken club quesadilla, they are "medium-carbon". Any dishes with a higher footprint, such as a chargrilled steak burrito (3.04kg CO2e), are tagged "high-carbon".

The calculations cover the emissions of growing all the ingredients, as well as those generated transporting, storing and cooking them.

It seems to work too, with more people going for veggie/low emission meals:

Study participants were presented with a menu in one of the following four formats: high-emission defaults with or without carbon labels, and low-emission defaults, with or without emissions information. Both these tweaks to the menu led to participants making lower-emission choices.

"The average reduction of CO2e emissions per dish was 500g for the default switches and 200g for the CO2 labels," says Seger.

When people were given menus with low-emission dishes, such as a coconut curry with tofu instead of beef, as the default, CO2e fell by almost one third. Simply labelling with carbon emissions led to CO2e decreasing by 13.5%.

No doubt some meat eaters will predictably whine away or try and discount this research. but I think it's a great idea.

The menu tweaks that lower diners' emissions

Beyond ingredients, seasonality and calorie content, some restaurants are now offering information on their food's carbon emissions – and it may help us make more sustainable choices.

www.bbc.com

 

[editor]

Here's the research

Changes to Menu Messaging Can Increase Sales of Climate-friendly Food

Food-production accounts for a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, with animal-based foods contributing double the amount of emissions to plant-based foods. Shifting consumer demand away from animal-based foods toward more plant-based alternatives is critical for reducing food-related...

www.wri.org

 

[Funky_monks]

Certainly seems to be your strategy.

I've not once reposted the same source, except perhaps when I've quoted myself to answer something I've previously answered.
It's been done ad infinitum by some posters

 

[8ball]

I wouldn’t have any qualms with a decent labelling policy. For starters, it would focus the minds of producers on creating efficiencies in production.

Would need to be careful to disincentivise them leaning on other externalities, obv.

Is something that could be done with clothing too.

 

[CNT36]

Isn't critically important just one of the WHO categories though? I mean they are all important highlighted by the fact that the lowest category is important. The critically important are often those that are a last line of defence against bacteria that already have a high level of resistance.

Proper explanation here though as it goes on gets more US specific but still better than my shitty memory. The UK has its own list based on the criteria under local conditions.

1. “Critically Important,” which includes two subcategories deemed “Highest Priority” and “High Priority.” An antimicrobial designated “Critically Important” must meet two criteria. The first is defined as “the sole, or one of limited available therapies, to treat serious bacterial infections in people” (Criterion 1). In addition, those infections must either “be transmitted to humans from nonhuman sources” or have the potential to “acquire resistance genes from nonhuman sources” (Criterion 2). Finer distinctions are made among the “Critically Important” antimicrobials, such as those with a “high frequency of use,” a “high proportion of use in patients with serious infections in health care settings,” or else those used “to treat infections in people for which there is evidence of transmission of resistant bacteria or resistance genes from nonhuman sources.” In turn, antimicrobials meeting any of these distinctions earn the designation “Highest Priority.”
2. “Highly Important” antimicrobials meet either Criterion 1 or 2 listed above but not both.
3. “Important” antimicrobials are any other products used in human medicine, meeting neither Criterion 1 nor 2.
4. “Currently not used in humans” is a category that reappeared on the 2016 list for the first time since 2005 and is listed in Annex 2 of the 2016 CIA.

The majority of antimicrobial classes on the WHO CIA list fall within the “Critically Important” category, with fewer classes in the “Highly Important” category, fewer still in the “Important,” and even fewer in the “Currently not used in humans” categories (Fig. (Fig.11).2 The Critically Important, Highly Important, and Important categories are also referred to as “Medically Important Antimicrobials.” The “Currently not used in humans” category is also referred to as “Non‐medically Important Antimicrobials.”

In 2017, the WHO published four broad recommendations on the use of medically important antimicrobials in food animal production in order to maintain effectiveness of these antimicrobials in human medicine.3 To develop the basis for its recommendations, the WHO commissioned two independent systematic reviews, the first of which was published in Lancet Planetary Health in 2017.1, 15 The review concluded that interventions aimed at reducing antibiotic use in food‐producing animals were associated with reduced antibiotic resistance in these animals, but there was less compelling evidence that these interventions also reduced antibiotic resistance in human populations.
The first WHO recommendation calls for an “overall reduction in use of all classes of medically important antimicrobials in food‐producing animals.” Similarly, the second recommendation calls for the “complete restriction of use of all classes of medically important antimicrobials in food‐producing animals for growth promotion.” Those two recommendations were well received by experts in the food‐animal industry, particularly in the United States, where the FDA had already achieved a de facto ban on the use of medically important antibiotics for growth promotion in 2017 through voluntary withdrawal of labels by drug sponsors.
By contrast, Recommendation 3—which calls for the “complete restriction of use of all classes of medically important antimicrobials in food‐producing animals for prevention of infectious diseases that have not yet been clinically diagnosed”—has been rejected outright by many.16, 17 The main issue with this recommendation seems to be that there is no universally accepted definition of what is meant by prevention, as organizations each defines prevention in different ways and adds to the confusion. Nevertheless, on November 30, 2018, a major U.S. poultry producer committed to achieving the equivalent of the third WHO Guideline recommendation by March 2019 by removing its use of gentamicin and virginiamycin from its prevention protocols.18
Recommendation 4 from the WHO, which is a two‐part recommendation, is widely viewed as highly controversial.16, 19, 20 Recommendation 4a states that antimicrobials classified by WHO as “critically important for human medicine (…) should not be used for control of the dissemination of a clinically diagnosed infectious disease identified within a group of food‐producing animals.” Recommendation 4b states that antimicrobials that are the “highest priority critically important for human medicine should not be used for treatment of food‐producing animals with a clinically diagnosed infectious disease.” These latter two recommendations (4a and 4b) are supported by the lowest quality of evidence (per GRADE criteria) and are not strongly made by WHO (in contrast to Recommendation 3)

 

[Poot]

And at 10% fashion is almost as bad as meat and everyone can cut down on the amount of clothes they buy. Vegetarians can't cut down on the amount of meat they eat.

Now we can all go on about how tedious people who don't buy fast fashion are. There they go, ramming it down our throats again, the people who rarely buy jeans. Bloody noclothesians. Makes you want to write in to a local paper's comments section on any article about reducing your fashion footprint and say, Look at me! I'm enjoying buying all this tat from Primark during my lunch hour! I'm not even going to wear it!

Those do-gooders can keep WELL away from my growing collection of colourful tank tops and hooded capes and my massive Saturday shopping addiction. Fucking noclothesians.

 

[8ball]

Now we can all go on about how tedious people who don't buy fast fashion are. There they go, ramming it down our throats again, the people who rarely buy jeans. Bloody noclothesians. Makes you want to write in to a local paper's comments section on any article about reducing your fashion footprint and say, Look at me! I'm enjoying buying all this tat from Primark during my lunch hour! I'm not even going to wear it!

Those do-gooders can keep WELL away from my growing collection of colourful tank tops and hooded capes and my massive Saturday shopping addiction. Fucking noclothesians.

The poor nudists also get oppressed in public by the police.

Still, they live a lot longer than the nofoodians.

 

[WouldBe]

I've bought more clothes this year than the last 4 years combined I reckon. About 12 T shirts. 18 pants and a similar number of socks. Maybe 24 pairs. A pair of shorts two hoodies (+1 on a time share). Above numbers include presents etc. I also invested in some waterproof trainers today and some vans a couple of months ago. Is that a lot, a little or a middle?

That's enough to start a small clothes shop.

I think I've bought 1 t-shirt and a pair of gloves this year. Most of my clothes shopping is done on eBay.

 

[WouldBe]

Here's another great idea:





It seems to work too, with more people going for veggie/low emission meals:


No doubt some meat eaters will predictably whine away or try and discount this research. but I think it's a great idea.

The menu tweaks that lower diners' emissions

Beyond ingredients, seasonality and calorie content, some restaurants are now offering information on their food's carbon emissions – and it may help us make more sustainable choices.

www.bbc.com

Here's the research

Changes to Menu Messaging Can Increase Sales of Climate-friendly Food

Food-production accounts for a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, with animal-based foods contributing double the amount of emissions to plant-based foods. Shifting consumer demand away from animal-based foods toward more plant-based alternatives is critical for reducing food-related...

www.wri.org

1 if those claims 35% the other 25%. What is this? Pull a figure out your arse science?

Iirc most of the links you've posted up claim the figure is only 15% hence my comparison with emissions from clothing.

 

[editor]

1 if those claims 35% the other 25%. What is this? Pull a figure out your arse science?

Whatever you say, expert.

 

[WouldBe]

Whatever you say, expert.

You can't see that most of the links you keep posting come up with wildly different figures?

Or do you see something that agrees with your pov and just post it without checking it over?

 

[editor]

You can't see that most of the links you keep posting come up with wildly different figures?

Or do you see something that agrees with your pov and just post it without checking it over?

That's because there is no way of finding out the precise exact numbers - something I underlined just a few days ago in this post:

Cows, sheep, pigs and other livestock are responsible for about 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a peer-reviewed assessment led by researchers at the University of Illinois and published last year.

And researchers fear the impact may be greater, after recent efforts to measure emissions at individual U.S. farms - by, say, flying a methane-detecting plane over them – showed them churning out much more than estimated.

Bye bye MEAT! How will the post-meat future look?

Stirling university students take bold stance against animal abuse and environmental devastation. Obviously the gammon press are pretending to furious about it, one wonders what the 'anti-colonial' animal ag apologists on U75 will think...

www.urban75.net

 

[WouldBe]

That's because there is no way of finding out the precise exact numbers - something I underlined just a few days ago in this post:

If you were a scientist instead of an amateur there would be a way to work it out pretty accurately. In fact someone has already posted (jokingly) a way to do it.

 

[editor]

If you were a scientist instead of an amateur there would be a way to work it out pretty accurately. In fact someone has already posted (jokingly) a way to do it.

You should drop these a guys a line and tell them how wrong they all are.

Cows, sheep, pigs and other livestock are responsible for about 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a peer-reviewed assessment led by researchers at the University of Illinois and published last year.


And researchers fear the impact may be greater, after recent efforts to measure emissions at individual U.S. farms - by, say, flying a methane-detecting plane over them – showed them churning out much more than estimated.

"We seem to be wildly off. Virtually every time these ... measurements are conducted they disagree with (official data)," said Matthew Hayek, a researcher at New York University.

 

[8ball]

1 if those claims 35% the other 25%. What is this? Pull a figure out your arse science?

You just joined the thread, then?

 

[WouldBe]

You should drop these a guys a line and tell them how wrong they all are.

It's usual on scientific papers to include your qualifications. The only one on that that has anywhere near quals stated is a statistician.

 

[WouldBe]

You just joined the thread, then?

Unfortunately I've been on this thread since the start.

 

[8ball]

It's usual on scientific papers to include your qualifications. The only one on that that has anywhere near quals stated is a statistician.

OI!!!

 

[editor]

It's usual on scientific papers to include your qualifications. The only one on that that has anywhere near quals stated is a statistician.

You can look them all up yourself and. Its not hard.

• Prateek Sharma,
• Shijie Shu,
• Tzu-Shun Lin,
• Philippe Ciais,
• Francesco N. Tubiello,
• Pete Smith,
• Nelson Campbell &
• Atul K. Jain

Which parts of their research do you find too be inaccurate?