Beef; I'll miss you most of all....

[mspohr]

Don't get too snake-fascinated by beef cattle's contribution to global warming, when it hugely trails carbon dioxide, fossil fuel burning. Some studies show that as much as 40% of livestock contribution to global warming occurs from livestock feces (manure), which could easily be mitigated in a number of ways. Remember when we had to pay a huge premium for eggs in California when laws were passed to give egg-laying chickens more room to roam around their pens? A few years later and I'm paying $1.20/dozen for jumbo eggs. Livestock can be contained and moved, so methane produced by manure can be removed and neutralized, even if it costs consumers a bit more over several years (cost passed down to consumers from producers rather than greedy tax and spend revenuers). Independent producers have competition - the federal government has none! Taxes have a way of never, ever going away.

Agriculture and Livestock Remain Major Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions | Worldwatch Institute

For those that can't read but love pretty graphs, I leave you with this:

https://static.skepticalscience.com/pics/world-flowchart.jpg

CO2 is your worse enemy at the moment. Not CH4 and N2O.

CH4 comes from cattle gut, not feces. Can't control that.
(BTW, you shouldn't eat eggs. They're bad for you, the environment and chickens.)

 

[mspohr]

Thanks for the thread bump. My wife and I have cut back greatly on our beef consumption but still have plenty of chicken and pork. That was a good step, but we'd like to do better.

The problem for us is that we're not particularly talented cooks and we have two young kids. Not a ton of time for meal planning and prep. And doing so sans meat puts us further out of our element.

We currently subscribe to Blue Apron (sans beef!) and supplement that with slow-cooker meals (tacos, Mac and cheese, etc). Anyone have suggestions on vegetarian or vegan alternatives to Blue Apron? I took a look at Purple Carrot but am curious what else is out there, especially if someone here has had success with it. I did open up the Mrs. Plant blog and will check that out.

Purple Carrot is good but the recipes are complicated.
Check out Gobble. Easier recipes. You can set your preferences for vegan/vegetarian.

 

[Sharkbait]

Division of Budgets
Tell me where it's being siphoned off. No General Fund.

Ya, you didn't read the bill.

It siphons off hundreds of millions for "Moonbeam's" bullet trains and mass transit projects to nowhere. How do mass transit projects fix our roads that should have been fixed by the taxes we already pay? Nobody in California wants trains to nowhere. No problem, the virtual train is gaining steam to repeal the law AND the $200 extra Tesla Model S owners will need to pay annually regardless of how many miles they drive (car value over $60,000) and $150 dollars annual registration for electric cars valued up to $59,999. It's a money grab.

With an eMPG of 106 and driving 10,000 miles/year, I get to pay several times the effective rate in the bill above my annual registration? That's punishment for buying an electric car! Here's more about where the money goes:

• Provide for the repayment of $706 million in loans related to transportation.
• Deposit revenue from the gasoline tax, $0.10 of the diesel tax, TIF fees, and ZEV fees into a Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account (RMRA) to fund road maintenance and other projects.
• Deposit revenue from $0.10 of the diesel tax into the Trade Corridor Enhancement Account (TCEA) to fund freight projects.
• Allocate revenue from 3.5 percentage points of the diesel sales tax and $350 million in TIF fees for public transportation projects and expenses.
• Allocate revenue from $250 million in TIF fees for traffic congestion relief projects.
• Allocate revenue related to agriculture equipment that resulted from the gas tax increase to agriculture programs.
• Allocate revenue related to off-highway vehicles and boats that resulted from the gas tax increase to state parks and boating programs.

All pork! No worries, it will be repealed by California voters next November. I signed the petition four days ago. I think it already has enough signatures to go on the ballot.

 

[Sharkbait]

CH4 comes from cattle gut, not feces. Can't control that.

Mouse nuts compared to fossil fuels.

 

[Skotty]

I think I can replace the seasoned beef, but I don't see any viable substitute for the cheese, and no way I'm giving up tacos.

I try to use this as an excuse to eat pancakes on a regular basis, but I can't get that argument to fly either.

I guess I'm not a hardcore green. I'm all over going clean, sustainable energy for electricity and transport, and I'll invest in it as much as I can, but I think beef can wait until we see how much of a difference other stuff makes first. You can sell Texas Bob on clean energy, but throw in no beef and you lose him. I would guess we maybe just need to cut back a bit. And I totally don't care about concrete. If we can improve how concrete is made, great, but it's not like we are wastefully giving little Jimmy and Tyson too much concrete for Christmas.

 

[ohmman]

it's not like we are wastefully giving little Jimmy and Tyson too much concrete for Christmas.

You should see Christmas at my house. Twice the concrete my kids could ever use.

 

[Kbra]

In any respect it is healthy move. There's plenty of delicious meat that is not beef.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Ya, you didn't read the bill.

It siphons off hundreds of millions for "Moonbeam's" bullet trains and mass transit projects to nowhere. How do mass transit projects fix our roads that should have been fixed by the taxes we already pay? Nobody in California wants trains to nowhere. No problem, the virtual train is gaining steam to repeal the law AND the $200 extra Tesla Model S owners will need to pay annually regardless of how many miles they drive (car value over $60,000) and $150 dollars annual registration for electric cars valued up to $59,999. It's a money grab.

With an eMPG of 106 and driving 10,000 miles/year, I get to pay several times the effective rate in the bill above my annual registration? That's punishment for buying an electric car! Here's more about where the money goes:

• Provide for the repayment of $706 million in loans related to transportation.
• Deposit revenue from the gasoline tax, $0.10 of the diesel tax, TIF fees, and ZEV fees into a Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account (RMRA) to fund road maintenance and other projects.
• Deposit revenue from $0.10 of the diesel tax into the Trade Corridor Enhancement Account (TCEA) to fund freight projects.
• Allocate revenue from 3.5 percentage points of the diesel sales tax and $350 million in TIF fees for public transportation projects and expenses.
• Allocate revenue from $250 million in TIF fees for traffic congestion relief projects.
• Allocate revenue related to agriculture equipment that resulted from the gas tax increase to agriculture programs.
• Allocate revenue related to off-highway vehicles and boats that resulted from the gas tax increase to state parks and boating programs.

All pork! No worries, it will be repealed by California voters next November. I signed the petition four days ago. I think it already has enough signatures to go on the ballot.

I don't see much pork there.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

I don't see much pork there.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Don't get too snake-fascinated by beef cattle's contribution to global warming, when it hugely trails carbon dioxide, fossil fuel burning. Some studies show that as much as 40% of livestock contribution to global warming occurs from livestock feces (manure), which could easily be mitigated in a number of ways. Remember when we had to pay a huge premium for eggs in California when laws were passed to give egg-laying chickens more room to roam around their pens? A few years later and I'm paying $1.20/dozen for jumbo eggs. Livestock can be contained and moved, so methane produced by manure can be removed and neutralized, even if it costs consumers a bit more over several years (cost passed down to consumers from producers rather than greedy tax and spend revenuers). Independent producers have competition - the federal government has none! Taxes have a way of never, ever going away.

Agriculture and Livestock Remain Major Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions | Worldwatch Institute

For those that can't read but love pretty graphs, I leave you with this:

https://static.skepticalscience.com/pics/world-flowchart.jpg

CO2 is your worse enemy at the moment. Not CH4 and N2O.

I'm not sure that you really read what you posted.

The graph indicates agriculture matching transportation at 16.5%, with 5.1% being livestock and manure.
The article notes up to half of agricultural emissions being due to methane, coming largely from livestocks, and your note is that _up to_ 40% of livestock methane emissions are from feces.

So In other words: eliminating livestock would cut global total emissions by at least 3%, equivalent to cutting emissions from transportation by 1/3. Not fantastic, but still a good chunk.

But wait, look carefully at that "pretty graph" and you'll see that Land Use Change accounts for 18.3% of emissions through deforestation. Livestock production currently accounts for _80%_ of agricultural land use(1).

Even though North American beef and lamb production is relatively efficient in global terms, it's _far_ less efficient that production of pork, poultry, eggs and milk, let alone direct consumption of plants. (Sadly, lamb is even more intensive than beef.)

So, I think it's pretty obvious that a large chunk of agricultural emissions are being hidden in that graph.

The answer is clear for those who won't go vegan: eat more bacon omelets.

(1) http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/fsn/docs/Wirsenius_et_al_Agric_Syst__Land_use_in_2030.pdf

 

[mspohr]

Ya, you didn't read the bill.

It siphons off hundreds of millions for "Moonbeam's" bullet trains and mass transit projects to nowhere. How do mass transit projects fix our roads that should have been fixed by the taxes we already pay? Nobody in California wants trains to nowhere. No problem, the virtual train is gaining steam to repeal the law AND the $200 extra Tesla Model S owners will need to pay annually regardless of how many miles they drive (car value over $60,000) and $150 dollars annual registration for electric cars valued up to $59,999. It's a money grab.

With an eMPG of 106 and driving 10,000 miles/year, I get to pay several times the effective rate in the bill above my annual registration? That's punishment for buying an electric car! Here's more about where the money goes:

• Provide for the repayment of $706 million in loans related to transportation.
• Deposit revenue from the gasoline tax, $0.10 of the diesel tax, TIF fees, and ZEV fees into a Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account (RMRA) to fund road maintenance and other projects.
• Deposit revenue from $0.10 of the diesel tax into the Trade Corridor Enhancement Account (TCEA) to fund freight projects.
• Allocate revenue from 3.5 percentage points of the diesel sales tax and $350 million in TIF fees for public transportation projects and expenses.
• Allocate revenue from $250 million in TIF fees for traffic congestion relief projects.
• Allocate revenue related to agriculture equipment that resulted from the gas tax increase to agriculture programs.
• Allocate revenue related to off-highway vehicles and boats that resulted from the gas tax increase to state parks and boating programs.

All pork! No worries, it will be repealed by California voters next November. I signed the petition four days ago. I think it already has enough signatures to go on the ballot.

Not sure why you're upset. All of this money goes to transportation infrastructure.
You can't label something as "pork" just because it's not your priority.

 

[mspohr]

I think I can replace the seasoned beef, but I don't see any viable substitute for the cheese, and no way I'm giving up tacos.

I try to use this as an excuse to eat pancakes on a regular basis, but I can't get that argument to fly either.

I guess I'm not a hardcore green. I'm all over going clean, sustainable energy for electricity and transport, and I'll invest in it as much as I can, but I think beef can wait until we see how much of a difference other stuff makes first. You can sell Texas Bob on clean energy, but throw in no beef and you lose him. I would guess we maybe just need to cut back a bit. And I totally don't care about concrete. If we can improve how concrete is made, great, but it's not like we are wastefully giving little Jimmy and Tyson too much concrete for Christmas.

I have a great recipe for tofu tacos.
I don't eat cheese and generally don't try to emulate meat and dairy with vegan substitutes since this usually doesn't work well. However, I have had vegan cheese sauce made with cashews at a vegan Mexican restaurant in San Francisco's Mission district and it's good.
My consumption of concrete is very small. My next set of solar panels will be installed with ground mount anchors (screws) rather than concrete piers.

 

[SageBrush]

I really think it's ~90% cultural. Once it's normal to eat dinner without red meat few people would think twice about it....

My family anecdote of two children (fraternal twins) raised vegetarian: one has no desire to be anything else, and the other twin started eating meat the moment he left home.

I don't doubt the cultural aspect but all else being equal, there is some biology at play here too. My daughter and I are natural non-meat eaters and my son is not. My wife is biologically somewhere in the middle: she would not choose to be a vegetarian in a regular American family of meat eaters but she does not have red meat cravings. OTOH, for years she would eat chicken and fish outside the home since I ask her to not bring carcasses home.

 

[abasile]

I don't doubt the cultural aspect but all else being equal, there is some biology at play here too.

2-3 years ago, my wife and I tried eliminating the great majority of our meat and dairy consumption for several months. I enjoyed the food, as we had access to a number of great vegan recipes with good sources of protein. However, we were arguably not doing something right, because I found myself feeling physically weaker and less energetic (and I like to remain very active outdoors). The "cure" was to go back to eating meat more regularly, and it didn't take long for me to feel whole again.

That being said, I consume virtually no red meat, dairy products, or eggs. So I guess I'm "vegan plus chicken and turkey", or something like that. This seems to work quite well for me. And the environmental impact of this diet is still much lower than a "typical" American diet.

 

[SageBrush]

However, we were arguably not doing something right, because I found myself feeling physically weaker and less energetic (and I like to remain very active outdoors).

You were either suffering from a psychosomatic complaint or you were a victim of what you ate (as opposed to what you did not eat.)
Cravings may be genetic, but cravings do not a new physiology make.

The body does not distinguish where an amino acid came from any more than your toaster works better on a coal electron.

 

[nwdiver]

That being said, I consume virtually no red meat, dairy products, or eggs. So I guess I'm "vegan plus chicken and turkey", or something like that. This seems to work quite well for me. And the environmental impact of this diet is still much lower than a "typical" American diet.

Yeah... that's where I am. I do avoid dairy as much as possible for the same reason I avoid beef and pork.

I don't feel too bad about eating game (deer, elk, antelope etc). I do think factory farming of animals is atrocious but there's a fine line between accepting reality and living in denial. The reality is that we've kinda broken the natural balance. Prey species need predators to maintain a healthy population. Absent natural predators humans need to step up to keep things in balance. So that's the one time I get to 'indulge' in red meat without the eco-guilt that comes with beef. I've not had much success with hunting but I have friends that share.

 

[ohmman]

The thing that I think is best about the flexitarian diet is that a couple of slips doesn’t mean you’ve broken the entire thing and you should stop trying. It provides a psychological cushion that I think makes for a more sustainable habit.

 

[abasile]

During our months-long attempt at a vegan diet, I don't believe my issues were psychosomatic or a matter of cravings. I do truly enjoy eating good vegan dishes.

As I said, we may have been doing something wrong, meaning that some component was not present in my diet in sufficient quantities. With additional effort, I expect we could have identified whatever "vegan-compliant" item(s) needed to be added to my diet for optimal wellness. Honestly, at that point, I just wasn't inclined to expend the effort.

And there is the cultural angle - I'm already "weird enough" by trying to abstain from processed sugar, red meat, and dairy, and I don't need to make it even harder on myself when eating in social contexts as I do regularly. At one dinner function that we attended last year, there was absolutely nothing that I felt comfortable eating, so I just sat there and socialized with no plate in front of me. Now, if on a special occasion a close friend or family member has prepared a special dish with "forbidden" ingredients, I'll try to eat some out of respect, but I don't want to be making too many exceptions.

You were either suffering from a psychosomatic complaint or you were a victim of what you ate (as opposed to what you did not eat.)
Cravings may be genetic, but cravings do not a new physiology make.

The body does not distinguish where an amino acid came from any more than your toaster works better on a coal electron.

 

[Joel Weber]

I don't think I would support a tax on beef specifically but we do need the correct price signals to ensure the external costs are embedded in what people actually pay. If someone finds a way to genetically engineer the bacteria in cow guts to lower the GHG emissions there needs to be a price signal to make that effort economically viable.

It seems that no genetic engineering may be required, as Silent, less deadly: Methane nearly eliminated from cow farts by seaweed says certain seaweed can eliminate the methane from cows.

 

[mspohr]

It seems that no genetic engineering may be required, as Silent, less deadly: Methane nearly eliminated from cow farts by seaweed says certain seaweed can eliminate the methane from cows.

Good luck getting this to the cows in the midwest and getting them to switch from grass to seaweed... probably as hard as getting people to give us beef.