Opinion: "The End of Meat Is Here" - NY Times

[Funky_monks]

Even if the horrendous cruelty is ignored, it really is time to cut back on meat production.

EU's farm animals 'produce more emissions than cars and vans combined'

Greenpeace says bloc must get a grip on reducing greenhouse gases from livestock or risk missing Paris agreement targets

www.theguardian.com

We've been through the methane cycle at length and how it's a natural cycle, ruminants as a whole are decreasing - but grazers (wild or farmed) are necessary within grassland ecosystems. Remove farmed ruminants and wild ones will replace them. Methane levels remain unchanged.
The rise in atmospheric methane mirrors the rise in fracking. Coincidence?

 

[Funky_monks]

Untended pasture with wild herbs, lots of clover etc

These are from where I get mine

View attachment 232551

As an ex shepherd, that looks fly-tastic (both the excess wool and the dense herbage). I bet they needed a close eye.....

 

[Funky_monks]

Sustainability?
I like the idea of waste feeding animals.

 

[WouldBe]

Sustainability?
I like the idea of waste feeding animals.

It used to be like that. Schools used to have swill bins for leftover food that used to be collected for feeding pigs.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Urban's resident animal torturers still living in their fantasy bubble I see.

 

[Funky_monks]

Urban's resident animal torturers still living in their fantasy bubble I see.

A fiver says you've never worked with animals or been on a livestock farm in your life.

 

[Funky_monks]

It used to be like that. Schools used to have swill bins for leftover food that used to be collected for feeding pigs.

The problem with that is/was that if swill isn't heated enough it can cause disease outbreaks - it is widely blamed for F&M in the early 2000s

 

[Jeff Robinson]

A fiver says you've never worked with animals or been on a livestock farm in your life.

I'd put a lot more than a fiver on you being an absolute cock.

 

[Funky_monks]

I'd put a lot more than a fiver on you being an absolute cock.

So that's basically confirming that I'm right, isn't it?

 

[WouldBe]

Urban's resident animal torturers still living in their fantasy bubble I see.

Says Urbans resident fantasist that thinks people are going to stop eating meat.

 

[Funky_monks]

Says Urbans resident fantasist that thinks people are going to stop eating meat.

Or stop killing millions of animals to produce viable crops?

 

[sleaterkinney]

I had a nice rare steak tonight, just saying. Not as bloody as I would like it.
The end of meat?. No.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

So that's basically confirming that I'm right, isn't it?

No, you're not right and even if you were it would be irrelevant. Of course, I'm not surprised that you'd subscribe to the utterly cretinous, anti-intellectual idea that somebody can't have an informed understanding of a phenomenon without having first-hand experience of it.

 

[ddraig]

I had a nice rare steak tonight, just saying. Not as bloody as I would like it.
The end of meat?. No.

"Just saying"
Well done you

 

[Funky_monks]

No, you're not right and even if you were it would be irrelevant. Of course, I'm not surprised that you'd subscribe to the utterly cretinous, anti-intellectual idea that somebody can't have an informed understanding of a phenomenon without having first-hand experience of it.

Except you have neither.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Except you have neither.

I know you are

 

[editor]

Just to put that awesomely flawed 'veggies are killing rainforests with their demand for soya' argument to bed.

Growing soya in this way, and at such a massive scale, is not sustainable. But who’s eating it all?

Some point the finger at vegans and vegetarians. All that soya in tofu, soya burgers, soya milk must be the reason forests are being destroyed? Who else eats that much soya right?

Wrong. Most of the world’s soya is grown for the meat industry. Only 6% of the soya grown globally is eaten by humans. 90% of all soya is fed to chickens, pigs and cows. (The rest is used for things like pet food and biofuels.)

Over the past 50 years, meat production has more than quadrupled. Today, more than half the mammals on the planet are livestock, and the impact of this shift has been enormous. Grazing and feeding these animals takes up an area of land the size of North, Central and South America combined, and the industry produces nearly a sixth of global greenhouse gas emissions.

WATCH: Are vegans and vegetarians destroying the planet?

Forests are being burned to make room for giant soya plantations. But are vegetarian soya burgers really to blame?

www.greenpeace.org.uk

 

[David Clapson]

Whenever I cook fake meat at home it tastes revolting. It's always made of peas, so it seems a bit pointless to me. I don't want to live on peas. So my meat consumption continues to be massive. I'm on a keto diet, so I eat very small quantities of fruit and veg. I just cannot get on board this goodbye-to-meat train.

I've just had some peas-made-to-look-like-bacon, and I'm feeling a bit queasy. Most of the packet will go in the bin I'm afraid. It's all a bit depressing. I love animals, I once worked in a slaughterhouse, and I eat large numbers of them.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Whenever I cook fake meat at home it tastes revolting. It's always made of peas, so it seems a bit pointless to me. I don't want to live on peas. So my meat consumption continues to be massive. I'm on a keto diet, so I eat very small quantities of fruit and veg. I just cannot get on board this goodbye-to-meat train.

I've just had some peas-made-to-look-like-bacon, and I'm feeling a bit queasy. Most of the packet will go in the bin I'm afraid. It's all a bit depressing. I love animals, I once worked in a slaughterhouse, and I eat large numbers of them.

Awesome wells 0.8 now is it? I’ve lost count.

people who do the keto diet are kunts.

 

[David Clapson]

Yeah, thanks. The keto diet is my only chance of recovering from ME.

I've not read the rest of the thread so I've no idea what your 0.8 spiel means.

 

[belboid]

Awesome wells 0.8 now is it? I’ve lost count

Naah, most of David’s posts aren’t ‘interesting’ enough to be AW.

 

[Funky_monks]

Just to put that awesomely flawed 'veggies are killing rainforests with their demand for soya' argument to bed.

WATCH: Are vegans and vegetarians destroying the planet?

Forests are being burned to make room for giant soya plantations. But are vegetarian soya burgers really to blame?

www.greenpeace.org.uk

So, no mention of soy oil then, which is precisely what the soy is grown for.....


Production of vegetable oils in the world and in Egypt: an overview

 

[editor]

So, no mention of soy oil then, which is precisely what the soy is grown for.....
View attachment 238445
View attachment 238444
Production of vegetable oils in the world and in Egypt: an overview

I'm struggling to get your point here, even with those MASSIVE screengrabs.

 

[Funky_monks]

I'm struggling to get your point here, even with those MASSIVE screengrabs.

I posted a link to the entire article if you wanted to read it. The images were apparently in a format not supported, by the board software, not that it's really relevant to the point.

The point is (and it's possibly not the first time I've made it) that soy, by and large is primarily grown for oil.
In order to extract the oil, you have to press the beans. Typical yield is somewhere around 14% (so 86% of the bean remains). The by product of this is soymeal, it is not fit for human consumption, and thus is sold as a cheap additive to animal feed.
Were there to be no demand for the oil, soy wouldn't be a profitable crop.

It is human consumption driving soy growing.
I'm not entirely sure why the author of the greenpeace article feels victimised for being a vegetarian over this, because soy oil is in loads of things, (including some plastics) and is widely used to cook in in China.

The point remains that none of the farmed livestock actually need soy (especially not ruminants, who are generally not getting much of it, as the vast majority of their feed is grass, and in the case of sheep, many of them never see any feed that is not grass or a grass product (hay, silage).

In order to stop forest being cleared, you need to understand what drives the deforestation, and it's not animal feed. You'd do much better to avoid soy oil (start looking at food labels, you'll be amazed).

 

[editor]

I posted a link to the entire article if you wanted to read it. The images were apparently in a format not supported, by the board software, not that it's really relevant to the point.

The point is (and it's possibly not the first time I've made it) that soy, by and large is primarily grown for oil.
In order to extract the oil, you have to press the beans. Typical yield is somewhere around 14% (so 86% of the bean remains). The by product of this is soymeal, it is not fit for human consumption, and thus is sold as a cheap additive to animal feed.
Were there to be no demand for the oil, soy wouldn't be a profitable crop.

It is human consumption driving soy growing.
I'm not entirely sure why the author of the greenpeace article feels victimised for being a vegetarian over this, because soy oil is in loads of things, (including some plastics) and is widely used to cook in in China.

The point remains that none of the farmed livestock actually need soy (especially not ruminants, who are generally not getting much of it, as the vast majority of their feed is grass, and in the case of sheep, many of them never see any feed that is not grass or a grass product (hay, silage).

In order to stop forest being cleared, you need to understand what drives the deforestation, and it's not animal feed. You'd do much better to avoid soy oil (start looking at food labels, you'll be amazed).

So it's being grown 'primarily' for oil and not for animal feed then? Gotcha.

So why does this article say:

On a weight basis, most of the global soy output is used for animal feed (about 75%); much less is used for human consumption as either whole beans, meal or oil (20%) and biofuel or other industrial purposes (5%)

The growth of soybean has been driven by the demand for soy for crushing (Figure 1). Whole soybeans are crushed to separate oil (about 20% by weight) and cake (about 80% by weight). The protein-rich cake is an important animal feed ingredient, accounting for around 70% of the global production of protein meals7,8. Soybean is unusually rich in fat for a legume. Soy oil accounts for over 25% of global vegetable oil production (second only to palm oil)7 and is mainly used in industrial food manufacturing and as a biofuel. Soybeans that are not crushed are either used as a whole bean feed for animals or to produce foods for human consumption, such as tofu, edamame and soymilk.

Soy: food, feed, and land use change | FCRNfoodsource

www.foodsource.org.uk

.

 

[Funky_monks]

So it's being grown 'primarily' for oil and not for animal feed then? Gotcha.

So why does this article say:


View attachment 238461

Soy: food, feed, and land use change | FCRNfoodsource

www.foodsource.org.uk

.

Your diagram has quite literally just supported my point. "Cake" is what's left over when the oil has been extracted, and this is the bit that's fed to animals (the 1% that goes to humans is flour additive, I believe).

The profit that drives the production of soy pressed for oil (which leaves oil and cake) is from the soy oil and not the byproduct used for livestock feed.
And again, livestock production (especially ruminant production) could easily go on without soy - decent clover/silage can achieve protien levels of 16%, which is as much as ruminants need - most concentrated feed "nuts" for cattle and sheep are 14-18% protien (often from soymeal, beans, peas or a combination thereof).
It's soy oil we need to be avoiding.

Edited to add (for interest), whilst soy is 20% oil, the extraction process isn't that efficient, and averages somewhere around 14%

 

[editor]

Your diagram has quite literally just supported my point. "Cake" is what's left over when the oil has been extracted, and this is the bit that's fed to animals (the 1% that goes to humans is flour additive, I believe).

If you completely ignore the percentages that are clearly displayed in the graph, yes.

 

[Funky_monks]

If you completely ignore the percentages that are clearly displayed in the graph, yes.

I haven't, I've just explained them.
You've posted a diagram (it's not a graph) that supports what I've been saying.

Look at it again. That "cake" bit is what's left over, which is only suitable for feed, which is why it's fed to animals. The money is in the oil.

I've thought of an analogy which might help. To say we grow soy for the cake and not the oil is a bit like saying that we grow wheat for the straw and not the grain.

 

[WouldBe]

If you completely ignore the percentages that are clearly displayed in the graph, yes.

From your diagram only 7% of all soy production is used directly for animal feed. The rest of the animal feed is waste product.

If there wasn't a human use for the oil then there would be no point in processing it, with its associated costs, you could just feed it directly to the animals.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

You’re both assuming that the ‘cake’ is the byproduct of the oil and not the other way round. The following analysis suggests animal products are the primary economic driver of soy production:

An argument could be made... that increases in the production of soy have primarily been driven not by the demand for animal feed, but by the demand for soy oil for human consumption. One might view soy cake as only a by-product of the production of soy oil, as its economic value is much lower (a kilogram of soy oil is about twice the value of a kilogram of soy cake). However, since the crushing of soybeans produces much less oil (20% by weight) than cake (80%), only a third of the overall value of a kilogram crushed soybeans is derived from the oil, as compared with two thirds from the cake. Soy oil is also one of the cheapest vegetable oils on the commodity market, whereas soy cake is the most valuable of all oilseed cakes due to its favourable amino acid profile and the low levels of anti-nutritive compounds it contains after heat treatment.

It is therefore likely that the growth in soy production has primarily been driven by the demand of soy cake for feed, and hence by the growing demand for animal-based products. However, because the oil and the cake originate from the same bean, there is a mutual and economically convenient dependency between their uses. The rapid expansion of soy and its use for feed is therefore likely to have been facilitated by concurrent increases in the demand for vegetable oil.

Soy: food, feed, and land use change

The global growth in the production of soy and its use for different types of foods has been, and continues to be, a major contributor to land use change in the Amazon and other regions in South America. This building block explores the connections between soy, land use change, and discussions...

www.foodsource.org.uk