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

[bcuster]

Is the Pope vegan? Catholic leader tells Europeans to eat less meat

The Pope has urged that we “break this self-destructive trend” of consumerism.

www.euronews.com

 

[WouldBe]

To all those that whine about the amount of water used by animals, it's just been on the news about a farm that's using 50,000 litres of water an hour to grow spuds. You'd need a lot of cows to get through that much water.

 

[editor]

To all those that whine about the amount of water used by animals, it's just been on the news about a farm that's using 50,000 litres of water an hour to grow spuds. You'd need a lot of cows to get through that much water.

Here. Educate yourself.

How much water is needed to produce food and how much do we waste?

As much as 50% of all food produced in the world ends up as waste every year according to figures from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. But how much water is needed to produce it?

www.theguardian.com

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

To all those that whine about the amount of water used by animals, it's just been on the news about a farm that's using 50,000 litres of water an hour to grow spuds. You'd need a lot of cows to get through that much water.

You're making the standard mistake of not including the water usage of growing crops to be fed to animals in the production of meat.

 

[WouldBe]

You're making the standard mistake of not including the water usage of growing crops to be fed to animals in the production of meat.

Except in the UK most of that comes from the grass they graze on.

 

[WouldBe]

Here. Educate yourself.
View attachment 331986

How much water is needed to produce food and how much do we waste?

As much as 50% of all food produced in the world ends up as waste every year according to figures from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. But how much water is needed to produce it?

www.theguardian.com

You've posted that several times before. Until someone shows exactly how they have worked those figures out then they may as well have just pulled them out of their arse.

50,000 litres of water an hour will just about fill an Olympic swimming pool in 2 days.

 

[editor]

You've posted that several times before. Until someone shows exactly how they have worked those figures out then they may as well have just pulled them out of their arse.

50,000 litres of water an hour will just about fill an Olympic swimming pool in 2 days.

Oh so you're going for usual denial because you don't like the figures you see?

The source is the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Go look it up. And then feel suitably stupid.

And here's some more uncomfortable reading for you:

Surprise and disbelief. That’s what often follows when people learn about the large water footprint of many meat products.

Common responses include: “Really?” “That can’t be right.” “That’s ridiculous.”

Shock is reasonable after discovering that the global average water footprint – or the total amount of water needed – to produce one pound of beef is 1,800 gallons of water; one pound of pork takes 718 gallons of water. As a comparison, the water footprint of soybeans is 206 gallons; corn is 108 gallons.

The large water footprints for beef, pork and other meats indicate the large volumes of water used for their production. They also suggest a great use of resources beyond water. The question then becomes, why is raising livestock and poultry for meat so resource-intensive?

The answer is mainly based on the food that livestock eat. Here, the water footprint concept can provide some insight. What the water footprint reveals is the magnitude of water “hidden” in meat as a tally of all the water consumed at the various steps during production. Better understanding meat’s resource intensity necessitates a closer look at two crucial factors.

The first has to do with an animal’s efficiency to turn its food into body mass known as feed conversion ratios (FCR) (i.e., identical units of feed to meat, so feed: meat). The range of FCRs is based on the type of animal, and according to Dr. Robert Lawrence of Johns Hopkins University, the ratios are approximately 7:1 for beef, 5:1 for pork and 2.5:1 for poultry. The larger the animal, the larger the percentage of that animal’s body mass is inedible material like bone, skin and tissue. This is why beef conversion ratios are the highest and it takes exponentially less water and energy inputs to produce grains, beans and vegetables than meat. To be clear, raising a beef cow takes more resources because a typical beef cow in the US eats thousands of pounds of the above-listed corn and soybeans during its lifetime. Of course, the cultivation of field crops that are eventually fed to beef cattle require huge amounts of water, fertilizers, fuel to power farm machinery, land for farm fields and so forth. It all adds up.

The second reason for meat production’s great resource intensity is due to its immense scale. Globally, there is a projected “food animal” population of over 20 billion, more than twice that of the current seven billion humans the planet carries, with the animal count expected to rise along with human population growth. The animal production system expanding rapidly around the world is the industrialized concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFOs) model. CAFOs are more efficient strictly in terms of more animals produced, faster animal growth and shorter meat-to-market times because huge numbers of animals are combined into one facility where they are fed grains (and growth promoters) before being butchered. The enormous quantity of feed given to large populations of livestock, poultry and even fish – consisting primarily of corn, soy and other grains – can also exact a heavy toll in terms of resources and external pollution because of the industrial production of these crops. So even though there are perceived economic efficiency gains due to scales of production, the sheer size of these operations – including industrially produced crops and their overreliance on fossil fuels and fertilizers – swamps those gains entirely in terms of real, absolute resource-use and pollution

That’s why revealing the virtual water hidden in meat and explaining its resource-intensity matters; acknowledging the potential problems and limits can lay the groundwork for sensible, sustainable ways forward.

Meat’s large water footprint: why raising livestock and poultry for meat is so resource-intensive

Why revealing the virtual water hidden in meat and explaining its resource-intensity matters; acknowledging the potential problems and limits for ways forward.

foodtank.com

 

[editor]

And more

On average, 70 percent of the freshwater we use on the planet goes toward agricultural production. And meat is some of the most water-intensive food to produce, requiring almost 1,800 gallons to make just 1 pound of beef; nearly 575 gallons per pound of pork; and 470 gallons per pound of chicken. Most of that water is used to irrigate crops that feed the animals. A smaller portion is used in troughs to quench their thirst and to clean up bloody messes in slaughterhouses.

“The math is simple; producing meat requires a lot of water,” says Robert Lawrence, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Meatless Monday adviser. “The conversion of feed to meat is inefficient: about 7:1 for beef, 5:1 for pork, and 2.5:1 for poultry. So, Meatless Monday has the potential of reducing the drain on increasingly scarce supplies of water by about 15 percent.”

The Ripple Effect of Meatless Monday: Can it Extend to China?

The Ripple Effect of Meatless Monday: Can it Extend to China?

www.discovermagazine.com

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

50,000 litres of water an hour will just about fill an Olympic swimming pool in 2 days.

How many acres are we talking about here? If you look at Idaho's water use, it sounds like a lot, but they grow potatoes for most of the US. They average 34 gallons per pound of spud. Its considerably less than the amount needed to raise beef. Raising food uses water. The question we really need to ask is how can we get the most efficiency out of our water use? Personally, I get annoyed when I look at some corn fields. I used to detassel* corn in the summers, and we'd be hip deep in water (and pig manure) in some fields. It seemed like a huge waste. Near as I could tell this was for several reasons. It was cheaper to runs the water than it was to use labor to monitor the field. In addition, many of the fields contained little to no organic matter, which hold water. Soil that has been properly maintained doesn't need as much water to grow the same amount of food as ones that have eroded soil. On the other hand, I've seen water sprayed on cattle all day, every day during the summer to keep them from overheating. In short, this is a complicated topic, but the worldwide average says that raising beef is a less efficient use of water than growing potatoes.

* detasseling is part of the process of producing hybrid corn seed. The tassel is removed from some rows so that only the other rows will reproduce their genetics. It creates corn plants that all look and perform alike.

 

[Chz]

Here. Educate yourself.
View attachment 331986

How much water is needed to produce food and how much do we waste?

As much as 50% of all food produced in the world ends up as waste every year according to figures from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. But how much water is needed to produce it?

www.theguardian.com

They've left off what I think it the worst offender. Coffee. Thankfully 1kg of coffee goes a lot further than 1kg of beef.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

They've left off what I think it the worst offender. Coffee. Thankfully 1kg of coffee goes a lot further than 1kg of beef.

Lawns are probably one of the worst offenders. There's all kinds of grasses and other plants that use no water we could plant. They are also more friendly to pollinators. We insist on growing grass that takes massive amounts of water, yet it produces no food value in return. At least coffee is useful.

 

[WouldBe]

Oh so you're going for usual denial because you don't like the figures you see?

The source is the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Go look it up. And then feel suitably stupid.

And here's some more uncomfortable reading for you:

Meat’s large water footprint: why raising livestock and poultry for meat is so resource-intensive

Why revealing the virtual water hidden in meat and explaining its resource-intensity matters; acknowledging the potential problems and limits for ways forward.

foodtank.com

The John Hopkins report you quote above is mostly concerned with US cattle not UK cattle so those figures don't apply over here. The report also moans about the ratio of meat to unedible parts of the cow like skin and bone. While the skin isn't edible it does have other uses i.e. leather like wise with bone that can be used as fertilizer to grow crops. It also doesn't take into account the ratio of food to waste of corn and soy which are 2 of the crops he compares to meat where he doesn't take into account the water used by the whole plant. Also if the cows are eating the waste portion of these crops you can't count the water use to grow the crops twice.

 

[WouldBe]

In addition, many of the fields contained little to no organic matter, which hold water. Soil that has been properly maintained doesn't need as much water to grow the same amount of food as ones that have eroded soil.

The organic matter could come from manure.

 

[WouldBe]

Lawns are probably one of the worst offenders. There's all kinds of grasses and other plants that use no water we could plant. They are also more friendly to pollinators. We insist on growing grass that takes massive amounts of water, yet it produces no food value in return. At least coffee is useful.

Only time I've ever watered my lawn was when I spread some new seed and only then untill it got established.

No plant can survive with no water whatsoever.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

The organic matter could come from manure.

It could come from any number of sources, including processed sewage, green manures, or from Biochar:

Biochar is the lightweight black residue, made of carbon and ashes, remaining after the pyrolysis of biomass. Biochar is defined by the International Biochar Initiative as "the solid material obtained from the thermochemical conversion of biomass in an oxygen-limited environment".[1] Biochar is a stable solid that is rich in pyrogenic carbon and can endure in soil for thousands of years.[2]

The refractory stability of biochar leads to the concept of pyrogenic carbon capture and storage (PyCCS),[3] i.e. carbon sequestration in the form of biochar.[2] It may be a means to mitigate climate change.[4][5][6] Biochar may increase the soil fertility of acidic soils and increase agricultural productivity.[7]

Biochar - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[bcuster]

the skyrocketing cost of meat (including fish & shellfish) and my growing awareness of the cruelty involved in animal consumption is pushing me towards meatlessness.

take one half hour & watch the videos on https://twitter.com/dodo that feature cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, lambs and see howw much these animals want to live in peace and harmony with the human race...

 

[editor]

The John Hopkins report you quote above is mostly concerned with US cattle not UK cattle so those figures don't apply over here. The report also moans about the ratio of meat to unedible parts of the cow like skin and bone. While the skin isn't edible it does have other uses i.e. leather like wise with bone that can be used as fertilizer to grow crops. It also doesn't take into account the ratio of food to waste of corn and soy which are 2 of the crops he compares to meat where he doesn't take into account the water used by the whole plant. Also if the cows are eating the waste portion of these crops you can't count the water use to grow the crops twice.

Oh for fuck's sake. This is getting embarrassing now. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers who produced that report (that you suggested was 'pulled out of their arse) - are UK based.

And here's a UK expert:

One of a number of academic experts also interviewed in the documentary, Professor Tim Lang, of City, University of London’s Centre for Food Policy, was asked his view of the agricultural impact of the meat industry, and the potential effects of society moving toward a more plant-based diet.

Professor Lang said,

‘Water has been fed into the grain that’s been fed to the cattle, the cattle’s been made into beef. One Hamburger is 2,400 litres of embedded water. That’s a heck of a lot of water.’

The documentary also shared statistics suggesting that 27% of humanity’s freshwater consumption goes to produce animal food, and that the livestock sector is responsible for about 15% of all human made emissions globally, which is equivalent to the emissions from all the forms of transport in the world, including the cumulative emissions of planes, trains, cars and ships.

Professor Lang later concluded,

"The message is overwhelming both for public health and environmental reasons. The more plants you can eat, and the less meat and dairy you can consume, the better."

One hamburger takes 2,400 litres of 'hidden' water to make | City, University of London

The Game Changers, is a Netflix documentary investigating the health and global benefits of a plant-based diet. City's Professor Tim Lang, appears in the film providing expert comment.

www.city.ac.uk

 

[WouldBe]

It could come from any number of sources, including processed sewage, green manures, or from Biochar:

As long as the biochar isn't coming from chopped down trees.

 

[WouldBe]

Oh for fuck's sake. This is getting embarrassing now. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers who produced that report (that you suggested was 'pulled out of their arse) - are UK based.

And here's a UK expert:

One hamburger takes 2,400 litres of 'hidden' water to make | City, University of London

The Game Changers, is a Netflix documentary investigating the health and global benefits of a plant-based diet. City's Professor Tim Lang, appears in the film providing expert comment.

www.city.ac.uk

What fucking grain? Cows in the UK mostly eat grass that is watered by rain falling from the sky.

 

[editor]

What fucking grain? Cows in the UK mostly eat grass that is watered by rain falling from the sky.

They don't spend all year munching plentiful grass in idyllic meadows. 'Free range' (lol) cows can spend as little as 100 days outside. And some cows don't get out at all.

RSPCA: There is no officially agreed definition of ‘free range’ when it comes to dairy production. However, there are a number of anecdotal definitions being used by some in the dairy industry and others, which are based on the number of days that the animals must spend outside. Typically these periods range from 100 to 180 days. Others specify that cows should go out for as many days during the year as possible.

Putting cows out to pasture in poor weather conditions, onto bare pasture without supplementary food, or onto poorly managed land, e.g. water-logged (boggy) fields, is not good for their welfare.

For the great majority of British dairy farmers, cows graze outdoors during the summer and stay under cover during the winter. Some dairy cows stay indoors throughout the year.

Can you tell us about British dairy farming? - Let's Eat Balanced

Want to learn more about British dairy farming? Learn how British farmers care for their cows and how milk goes from farm to shop. Watch the video.

www.thisisdairyfarming.com

 

[souljacker]

Don't cows eat silage in the winter though? They certainly do on my families farm. And that silage is produced from their hay so it's all from the same place as the grass.

 

[DaphneM]

Must have some links and sources, seeing as you're "fairly sure"!

Nitrates in the rivers for a start. And that’s without even thinking

They've left off what I think it the worst offender. Coffee. Thankfully 1kg of coffee goes a lot further than 1kg of beef.

and 1kg of beef goes further than 1kg of potatoes

 

[Spymaster]

and 1kg of beef goes further than 1kg of potatoes

BurGerZ

 

[WouldBe]

They don't spend all year munching plentiful grass in idyllic meadows. 'Free range' (lol) cows can spend as little as 100 days outside. And some cows don't get out at all.

Can you tell us about British dairy farming? - Let's Eat Balanced

Want to learn more about British dairy farming? Learn how British farmers care for their cows and how milk goes from farm to shop. Watch the video.

www.thisisdairyfarming.com

The bit you've hilighted clearly starts off by saying "the great majority" do graze outside. Perhaps it's you that should educate yourself more.

Over 90% of a cows diet in the UK is grass based either from pasture, hay or silage. Corn ( or should that be grains) are given as a supplement and one of the main ones is malted barley left over from the brewing process. Do we need to count the water used to grow the barley against the beef / dairy production or against the production of the beer? You do realise that don't you rather than thinking cows live on stir fried rice, pasta and bread.

You can't count the rain that falls on pasture for grazing as being a lost resource as it would still be used to grow the grass wether it was eaten by cows or not and don't forget that most grazing land isn't suitable for growing food crops and even that that is will result in soil erosion and loss due to ploughing or the soil will be ruined by heavy machinery driving over it.

Perhaps you should read the info from the NFU but

1 you wouldn't be interested as it's against your 'beliefs'.

2 you would only complain it's biased even though the NFU represents both agricultural and livestock farmers.

3 it's a pdf which you have previously stated you can't be arsed reading.

 

[WouldBe]

Don't cows eat silage in the winter though? They certainly do on my families farm. And that silage is produced from their hay so it's all from the same place as the grass.

Exactly.

 

[ddraig]

Nitrates in the rivers for a start. And that’s without even thinking

and 1kg of beef goes further than 1kg of potatoes

You do thinking???

 

[Funky_monks]

You're making the standard mistake of not including the water usage of growing crops to be fed to animals in the production of meat.

I've been intending to make a lengthier post about water usage and types of water, and water usage, but that will have to wait for now. (Apologies if what I'm about to write is a bit simplistic for you, but others read the thread)

Potatoes is a classic example though, so I might as well pick up on it.
In the UK at least, spuds are grown for human consumption.
Therefore, how do we end up with feed potatoes?
Potatoes go through a grader at some point, either in the field or back at the silo. Some are not wanted (too big, too small or other size issues) In the field, they are just spat out on the field and left (and usually that is when I try to sneak on with a few sacks to gather some massive "unwanted" spuds to keep me through the winter), they will then be incorporated, usually with a power harrow (think - massive rotavator) and left, the field will then be sprayed in spring with a herbicide (roundup is popular) to stop any emerging potatoes before it is drilled with something else.

Those rejected at the silo, either through grading there or for whatever other reason (blistering, roughness etc) are perfectly edible but not saleable. So, they are sold as feed potatoes and usually end up in cattle (or pigs, but the TME (total metabolisable energy) isn't great for pigs unless cooked), so now the water used to grow those spuds is factored into that of cattle (or pig) production - when essentially they are turning our waste into an edible product.

This is also true of brewer's grains, which is spent barley after the brewing process. Utterly useless to us, and the brewing process has used a lot of water, but a nice source of energy for cattle, to which they are fed.

There's a reasonably new product on the bulk wet feed market for livestock - oat pulp.
Oat pulp comes from the production of oat milk. The more oat milk produced, the more of this feed will be available for cattle and to a lesser extent, pigs. This will mean that this stuff has a fucking massive water footprint, but it doesn't make burying the oat pulp afterwards any less wasteful.

Whole grain that has not seen some part of the human food chain is sometimes used in cattle, but would mostly be in the form of wholecrop maize, mostly in dairy where it is used as a ration, although more and more of this is being fed whole into anerobic digesters for fuel and thus the price is pushed up, and less ends up in cows.

Grains are, of course fed without entering the human foodchain mostly to pigs and poultry. I've given my thoughts before on the inefficiencies of doing this, however: Not all wheat is milling grade ( The UK produces approx - 15 million tonnes a year, of which about 5 is milling wheat), this will vary on weather throughout the growing season, soil type, moisture at harvest etc. Its not as simple as saying "just grow milling wheat", the price of milling wheat constantly tracks above feed wheat, so it would pay farmers to do so and therefore they would do it if they could (and indeed, plenty now are at harvest, hoping theirs makes that grade as prices continue to rise).

Grown grass (and anything else, crops etc) consumes a lot of water, and I'll do a more detailed post about that later.

Needless to say, its much more complex than looking at gross water footprint, especially average global ones, because geography differs worldwide.

 

[editor]

And in the real world...

The Wye is being killed by toxic industrial chicken factories along its banks. Such disasters are happening all over the UK

When a giant processing plant that could handle a million chickens a week was opened in Herefordshire, the council must have known that 90 new chicken factories would need to be built nearby to supply it. Chickens cannot be moved far, or they die in transit. Yet no planning guidance was issued, and chicken units weren’t mentioned in the county development plan. So when farmers applied to build them, the council had few legal means of stopping them. A paper in the journal Land Use Policy claimed that “delaying tactics from Conservative politicians” had allowed the new chicken units to get planning permission “before the policy void might be filled”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-legal-challenges-to-curbs-on-river-pollution
The manure from this vast flock is spread by the farmers on their fields, but the grass and soil cannot absorb the nutrients it contains. The surplus ends up in the river. The result is devastating: our mapping for the documentary Rivercide suggests it has killed 90% to 97% of the river’s water crowfoot (Ranunculus) beds. Crowfoot, like mangroves in tropical seas, anchors the entire ecosystem. Any remaining life is threatened by repeated blooms (population explosions) of single-celled algae, fed by the extra nutrients in the water.

Factory farming is turning this beautiful British river into an open sewer | George Monbiot

The Wye is being killed by toxic industrial chicken factories. Such disasters are happening all over the UK, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

www.theguardian.com

 

[Funky_monks]

And in the real world...

The Wye is being killed by toxic industrial chicken factories along its banks. Such disasters are happening all over the UK

Factory farming is turning this beautiful British river into an open sewer | George Monbiot

The Wye is being killed by toxic industrial chicken factories. Such disasters are happening all over the UK, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

www.theguardian.com

The problem is, that you can't differentiate which pollution is caused by farmers spreading poultry manure outside of the legal guidelines around waterways (lets be clear, this isn't from the units themselves but spreading manure) and that which is from sewage dumping - in 2020 storm drains lining the rivers and streams that flow into the Wye discharged sewage 40,000 times. This means raw sewage was dumped into rivers and streams for a total of 17 million minutes - the equivalent to 33 years.

Sewage dumping and dwindling fish stocks: What's happening to the Wye? | ITV News
I can't possibly disagree that legal requirements around muckspreading shouldn't be enforced to prevent runoff, they should, but shouldn't someone be trying to quantify how much of this is sewage and regulate those companies too?

Also; have you read Monbiot's new book "Regenesis"? He's now saying that we should stop all farming because farming is bad, and rewild everything (apart from his mate who grows veg, he's alright apparently). So no fresh fruit, veg or grains for you veges, we should all be consuming industrially produced, synthetic, highly processed foods for the good of the planet. He's a fucking loon.

Also, I don't actually see many people defending intensive broiler production on this thread.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Also; have you read Monbiot's new book "Regenesis"? He's now saying that we should stop all farming because farming is bad, and rewild everything (apart from his mate who grows veg, he's alright apparently). So no fresh fruit, veg or grains for you veges, we should all be consuming industrially produced, synthetic, highly processed foods for the good of the planet. He's a fucking loon.

Presumably you've got a quote where Monbiot suggests 'we should stop all farming' in his book? Or perhaps you're the fucking loon?