We must face facts - meat is the problem

[mspohr]

The Guardian: Livestock industry lobbying UN to support more meat production. Livestock industry lobbying UN to support more meat production

Livestock groups have been lobbying the UN to support more meat and dairy production before a high-profile summit on food sustainability, documents reveal. Most experts agree that livestock are responsible for at least 14% of global emissions, while a study published last week found the use of animals for meat causes twice the planet-heating gases that plant-based foods do.

 

[MontyFloyd]

The Guardian: Livestock industry lobbying UN to support more meat production. Livestock industry lobbying UN to support more meat production

Livestock groups have been lobbying the UN to support more meat and dairy production before a high-profile summit on food sustainability, documents reveal. Most experts agree that livestock are responsible for at least 14% of global emissions, while a study published last week found the use of animals for meat causes twice the planet-heating gases that plant-based foods do.

What I read: "Humans will eat their way into oblivion".

 

[Merrill]

What I read: "Humans will eat their way into oblivion".

I’m ok with that as long as there are cheeseburgers in oblivion.

 

[CyberGus]

Cheeseburger in paradise

 

[Merrill]

Cheeseburger in paradise

My favorite album from Jimmy Buffet.

 

[mspohr]

South Korean president suggests ban on eating dog meat

It's a start...

 

[CyberGus]

South Korean president suggests ban on eating dog meat

It's a start...

Much wow

 

[mspohr]

Kowbucha, seaweed, vaccines: the race to reduce cows’ methane emissions

The feed, called Bovaer, contained 3-NOP, an organic compound that inhibits cows’ methane production. Farmers ultimately fed the enriched fodder to 15,000 animals and collectively cut their methane emissions by 30% on average and up to 80%. In September, the ingredient was approved for use in Brazil, the world’s second-largest producer of beef. 3-NOP is one of several methods being developed to reduce cow methane. Methane is shorter-lived in the atmosphere compared with other greenhouse gases, but while it’s there it packs a punch, with a warming effect more than 30 times greater than carbon dioxide.

Agriculture is the largest anthropogenic source of this gas, accounting for about 40% – and livestock generate about 32% of that, attributed largely to the planet’s more than 1 billion cattle, who typically belch it out.

 

[mspohr]

Less meat is good for us and the planet – why are politicians shy to say so? | Felicity Lawrence

A Guardian investigation reveals exploitation is rife in the meat industry, while also being a major source of greenhouse gases. Yet we still subsidise it

www.theguardian.com

The case for cutting meat consumption is so compelling that you would think politicians would be less shy about making it. Yet while campaigners warn with increasing urgency that global livestock production is accelerating climate breakdown and causing devastating damage to nature and human health, governments remain reluctant to tackle meat-eating.

Industrial livestock systems designed to extract ever greater commercial value from farmed animals have repeatedly been shown to depend on cruelty to animals and the armies of workers processing them.

The reality is that if we eat meat at all, we need to eat less and better-reared produce. That sort of produce costs dramatically more. With food poverty such a huge problem in the UK and other developed economies, not just for those on welfare but for those in low-paid work, proposing anything that would make food more expensive has become politically impossible.

Fast-food companies are among the biggest spenders on advertisements. Beef and milk production are not only among the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, but also the biggest recipients of subsidies. Not much free market or free choice there. A new UN report estimates that almost 90% of the $540bn (£400bn) a year given by governments in subsidies to farmers are damaging for the climate, our health and ecosystems.

 

[MontyFloyd]

Portion of new video "VFX Artist Reveals how Many Solar Panels are Needed to Power the ENTIRE World" that visually reveals the area needed for livestock compared to other energy sources.

 

[mspohr]

Killing wildlife to produce meat.

Outcry after federal agents kill eight wolf cubs adopted by Idaho school

In May, the Idaho governor, Brad Little, signed a law that allows the killing of up to 90% of the state’s 1,500 wolves, a move backed by hunters and the ranching sector. The bill’s proponents argued that the Idaho wolf population is too large and poses a serious threat to livestock. The law expands the ways wolves can be hunted and killed. Methods include hunting, trapping and snaring an unlimited number of wolves on a single hunting tag; using night-vision equipment; chasing down wolves on ATVs and snowmobiles; and shooting them from helicopters.

 

[mspohr]

‘Toilet of Europe’: Spain’s pig farms blamed for mass fish die-offs

Pollution from hundreds of intensive pig farms may have played a bigger role than publicly acknowledged in the collapse of one of Europe’s largest saltwater lagoons, according to a new investigation. Residents in Spain’s south-eastern region of Murcia sounded the alarm in August after scores of dead fish began washing up on the shores of the Mar Menor lagoon. Within days, the toll had climbed to more than five tonnes of rotting carcasses littering beaches that were once a top tourist draw. Images of the lagoon’s cloudy waters and complaints over its foul stench dominated media coverage across Spain for days, as scientists blamed decades of nitrate-laden runoffs for triggering vast blooms of algae that had depleted the water of oxygen – essentially leaving the fish suffocating underwater.

 

[mspohr]

Factory farms of disease: how industrial chicken production is breeding the next pandemic

UN bodies, academics and epidemiologists recognise the link between the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses and increasingly intensive poultry farming.

 

[mspohr]

To fight the climate crisis, banks must stop financing factory farming | Kari Hamerschlag and Christopher D Cook

Development banks on every continent are directly undermining the UN SDGs and Paris goals by channeling billions of public dollars into multinational meat corporations. While undermining the livelihoods of small-scale producers, this heavily polluting industrial meat system is fueling the climate crisis, destroying precious ecosystems, promoting animal cruelty and increasing the risk of antibiotic resistance and future pandemics.

 

[mspohr]

Meat and dairy giants feed climate crisis by dragging their heels on methane

A failure to take action on methane emissions by the world’s biggest meat and dairy companies is fuelling the climate crisis, say campaigners who have compiled the first ranking of what the animal protein sector is doing about the short-lived but potent greenhouse gas.

Most [of the ranked] companies are investing in alternative proteins, but [they are not] looking at alternative proteins as a replacement for animal production,” said Urbancic, who added that meat and dairy corporations were being “given a free pass by governments”.

 

[mspohr]

The beef industry is in crisis mode. As a rapidly growing sector of conscious consumers are learning of the monstrous impact of beef production on our collapsing climate, and of the cruelties inherent in industrialized animal farming, Big Beef has had to pivot. This PR disaster relief comes by way of rebranding as a new type of beef, one that is more humane, wholesome, and not only environmentally sustainable but actually the answer to many of our climate woes. Today, Big Beef’s silver bullet is found in the alleged carbon-capturing and soil-enhancing benefits of grass-fed beef, regenerative grazing, and poetically enough—Small Beef.

Too bad it’s mostly a load of bull.

 

[mspohr]

Nine charts that show why the US needs to tackle food emissions

Of all the habitable land on Earth, half is used for agriculture – and nearly 80% of that land is for livestock.

Most of the emissions in this category (57%) come from the production of meat and dairy products. In fact, growing one kilogram of an animal-based product requires up to 50 times more emissions than growing one kilogram of a plant-based product.

That said, Biden has been unwilling to touch on some of the biggest sources of food emissions: the meat industry. Cutting down on the production and consumption of meat and dairy products would result in huge reductions of emissions and land use.

 

[mspohr]

Want to dine well and save a lot of money?

Take a fresh look at what a plant-based diet is really about: delicious, smart and cost-efficient eating, for now and tomorrow.

www.cnet.com

A recent survey of 1,072 Americans found that a plant-based diet was about $23 a week less expensive than one with meat (and that scales with household size) even though most of us assume the opposite. Much of that misperception might be due to the blurring of plant-based food vs. plant-based processed food.

Highly processed plant-based food like new alternative meats and cheeses, while very impressive, are often more expensive compared to animal products. That's where the savvy diner will discern between processed and whole foods. There's nothing radical here: The standard food pyramid has long been composed primarily of minimally-processed vegetables, fruits and grains, long before Beyond Sausage and Impossible Burgers existed.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Want to dine well and save a lot of money?

Take a fresh look at what a plant-based diet is really about: delicious, smart and cost-efficient eating, for now and tomorrow.

www.cnet.com

A recent survey of 1,072 Americans found that a plant-based diet was about $23 a week less expensive than one with meat (and that scales with household size) even though most of us assume the opposite. Much of that misperception might be due to the blurring of plant-based food vs. plant-based processed food.

Highly processed plant-based food like new alternative meats and cheeses, while very impressive, are often more expensive compared to animal products. That's where the savvy diner will discern between processed and whole foods. There's nothing radical here: The standard food pyramid has long been composed primarily of minimally-processed vegetables, fruits and grains, long before Beyond Sausage and Impossible Burgers existed.

You have an article about vegetarianism, and the first photo is a pasta dish, the second is deliberately unappetizing, and the third is another pasta dish. What is this, the 1990s?

 

[mspohr]

You have an article about vegetarianism, and the first photo is a pasta dish, the second is deliberately unappetizing, and the third is another pasta dish. What is this, the 1990s?

The point of TFA is that 1990s vegan beans, pasta, veges, etc is the best way to eat.
The unappetizing dish was an illustration of unappetizing food stereotypes.