We must face facts - meat is the problem

[mspohr]

But environmental advocates argue that the environmental benefits of biogas are exaggerated, and that the LCFS encourages the expansion of factory farms and could end up increasing emissions and pollution.

Manure, which emits the potent greenhouse gas methane, is a big problem for US farms, and is particularly stark in California, where the dairy industry accounts for nearly half the state’s methane emissions. Related article ‘An act of rebellion’: the young farmers revolutionizing Puerto Rico’s agriculture Read more Manure, which emits the potent greenhouse gas methane, is a big problem for US farms, and is particularly stark in California, where the dairy industry accounts for nearly half the state’s methane emissions.

The global biogas industry is projected to more than double by 2030 to over $126.2bn and this type of methane production could become more lucrative in the dairy industry than milk production. California has spent more than $600m since 2015 on subsidizing the construction of digesters, primarily at large factory farms with average herds of about 7,000 cows in 2017 and 2018.

 

[hatch]

Boston Startup Gets FDA Approval for Protein That Makes Vegan Meat Taste Even Meatier

Motif FoodWorks heme-binding protein is created using precision technology and used to give plant-based meats the flavor and aroma of traditional meat products.

vegnews.com

Though myoglobin is found in the muscle tissue of cows, Motif has found a way to express it in a genetically engineered yeast strain. Created using precision technology, Motif’s HEMAMI offers the same characteristics as the animal-derived protein and can be used to enhance the flavor and aroma in plant-based burgers, sausages, and other meats. The primary function of animal-derived myoglobin is flavor but it also imparts a red hue when exposed to oxygen. The Color Additive Petition to give HEMAMI its distinct red coloring is being considered by the FDA

I'm coming to this thread late. But the yeast thing caught my eye. My favorite sci-fi author Isaac Asimov was writing about yeast based synthetic meat in the 50's. It sounded weird at the time, but he turned out to be right on other things that sounded crazy at the time.

I like beef, but i believe in the benefits of it's elimination. I like Impossible Burger, and i could totally see it replacing beef for me. But these types of things are still too expensive. I hope we see the tech develop so that this stuff becomes cheaper than meat. Then i think we'll see some real change.

Kind of like EV's.. need to be better and cheaper for most people to adopt. That creates the tipping point.

 

[mspohr]

I'm coming to this thread late. But the yeast thing caught my eye. My favorite sci-fi author Isaac Asimov was writing about yeast based synthetic meat in the 50's. It sounded weird at the time, but he turned out to be right on other things that sounded crazy at the time.

I like beef, but i believe in the benefits of it's elimination. I like Impossible Burger, and i could totally see it replacing beef for me. But these types of things are still too expensive. I hope we see the tech develop so that this stuff becomes cheaper than meat. Then i think we'll see some real change.

Kind of like EV's.. need to be better and cheaper for most people to adopt. That creates the tipping point.

Apparently a lot of opportunity to put yeast to work making proteins.
I think things like Impossible Burger should be cheaper than beef but the market is young. People seem to be willing to pay a premium for vegan meat.

 

[mspohr]

I'm coming to this thread late. But the yeast thing caught my eye. My favorite sci-fi author Isaac Asimov was writing about yeast based synthetic meat in the 50's. It sounded weird at the time, but he turned out to be right on other things that sounded crazy at the time.

I like beef, but i believe in the benefits of it's elimination. I like Impossible Burger, and i could totally see it replacing beef for me. But these types of things are still too expensive. I hope we see the tech develop so that this stuff becomes cheaper than meat. Then i think we'll see some real change.

Kind of like EV's.. need to be better and cheaper for most people to adopt. That creates the tipping point.

VegNews: Plant-Based Meat Will Be Cheaper Than Animal Meat Sooner Than You Think. Plant-Based Meat Will Be Cheaper Than Animal Meat Sooner Than You Think
The cost of plant-based meat is projected to reach parity with conventional animal meat by 2023, according to new information from nonprofit organization Good Food Institute (GFI). Achieving price parity is vital for mainstream adoption because consumers are more likely to try a new plant-based option that is not much more expensive than its animal-based counterpart.

 

[mspohr]

US poultry giant Tyson using land ‘twice the size of New Jersey’ for animal feed, study says

Most consumers do not appreciate how much land is needed exclusively to support industrial animal farming and the wider environmental impacts of that, said Marcia DeLonge, a senior scientist in the food and environment program at the UCS and co-author of the report. “We are using this land in a way that creates a lot of pollution and a lot of problems that contribute to climate change,” DeLonge said.

There is a significant opportunity cost in growing feed crops, Eshel said. “If you produce 100lbs of corn and feed it to beef, you get 3lbs of edible beef. Because of this, using land to grow feed crops instead of food [for humans] is incredibly questionable – it’s wasteful,” he said.

 

[mspohr]

Cut meat and dairy production by a third to save climate, British farmers told

British farmers must reduce their production of meat and dairy by a third in the next 10 years if scientific advice on limiting greenhouse gas emissions is to be met, the conservation charity WWF has said. Even greater cuts may be needed to the UK’s pig herds and poultry flocks, because of the imported feed they eat, and people will need to eat much less meat than they do today, the charity warned. But the result would be lower greenhouse gas emissions, a countryside with more wildlife and flourishing nature, and better health, according to the report.

 

[mspohr]

‘Loophole’ allowing for deforestation on soya farms in Brazil’s Amazon

More than 400 sq miles (1,000 sq km) of Amazon rainforest has been felled to expand farms growing soya in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso in a 10-year period, despite an agreement to protect it, according to a new investigation.

Soya is a key commodity used by dairy, cattle, pig and poultry farmers in Europe and the rest of the world to feed their livestock.

 

[ElectricIAC]

‘Loophole’ allowing for deforestation on soya farms in Brazil’s Amazon

More than 400 sq miles (1,000 sq km) of Amazon rainforest has been felled to expand farms growing soya in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso in a 10-year period, despite an agreement to protect it, according to a new investigation.

Soya is a key commodity used by dairy, cattle, pig and poultry farmers in Europe and the rest of the world to feed their livestock.

But does Goya sell Soya?

 

[mspohr]

The Independent: US meat industry using 235m pounds of pesticides a year, threatening thousands of at-risk species, study finds.

US meat industry using 235m pounds of pesticides a year, study finds

Exclusive: Glyphosate can harm or kill 93 per cent of plants and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act, a new study reveals

www.independent.co.uk

 

[mspohr]

In low-income countries, meat isn’t the problem. U.S.-style animal agriculture is

Bringing Western industrial animal agriculture—and its disastrous environmental and health impacts—to low-income countries will do more harm than good.

www.fastcompany.com

 

[mspohr]

US beef industry emerges from Biden’s climate pledges ‘relatively unscathed’

“A good example is, during Cop26, the president led a global methane pledge, and that could have gone really badly for livestock production in the United States, could have gone badly for the cattle industry,” Hart told her audience. “But this administration seems to have recognized the positive value we bring. We were really excited to get out of that relatively unscathed.” Methane, expelled by cows and by their manure, is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Although methane dissipates after 10 to 20 years, it warms the planet at 80 times the rate of carbon dioxide and emissions are accelerating at an unprecedented rate, according to the UN.

 

[mspohr]

Canada’s wild pigs risk ‘absolute destruction’ if left unchecked

The Canadian city of Edmonton may soon be hogtied with a problem that it won’t be able to barbecue its way out of.

Wild pigs have been spreading across central Alberta’s prairies and if left unchecked, could soon find themselves in the river valley of Edmonton. According to Ryan Brook, a University of Saskatchewan professor studying the pigs, the creatures are an “ecological trainwreck” and would cause “absolute destruction” if they make their way to the river valley, which is abundant in water and forest cover. “They tear up the forest floor, native grasslands get destroyed, wetlands, water systems. They feed on anything where they can, and will kill any pets, for sure,” Brook told the Edmonton Journal. “Wild pigs are the worst invasive wild mammal on the planet – I don’t think there’s any debate about that.”

 

[mspohr]

Factory farms use a quarter-billion pounds of pesticide to feed animals: report

That amount of pesticide usage is likely to harm plant and animal ecosystems, advocates warn.

thehill.com

Around 235 million pounds of herbicides and insecticides were used on corn and soy crops in the United States in 2018, according to the report compiled by World Animal Protection and the Center for Biological Diversity.

The herbicide used the most frequently on feed crops in 2018 was glyphosate, which is the main ingredient in the common weedkiller Roundup. According to the report, about 100 million pounds of the herbicide were used on corn and soy plants that year.

Scientists have connected glyphosate to several human health problems including cancer.

One study from the University of Washington found that exposure to glyphosate increased a person’s risk of someday developing cancer by 40 percent.

Federal regulators estimate that glyphosate is likely to harm or kill 93 percent of the animals and plants protected under the Endangered Species Act, according to the report’s findings.

 

[mspohr]

‘They’re cooking them alive’: calls to ban ‘cruel’ killing methods on US farms

Vets and animal advocates in the US are calling for restrictions on “cruel” methods of culling birds, as farmers face killing millions of poultry due to a highly virulent avian flu tearing through the country. In 2020, millions of farm animals were killed across the US after the Covid-19 pandemic shut down slaughterhouses and left animals stranded on farms. Now, bird flu, which has already led to the slaughter of millions of birds in Europe, is likely to result in another mass depopulation.

However, two commonly used methods to cull animals on-farm are attracting increasing backlash. The use of firefighting foam to suffocate animals and ventilation shutdown, in which animals are killed with extremely high heat and steam, are still permitted in the US, despite being effectively banned in the EU and labelled “inhumane”.

Ventilation shutdown, which has been described as “death by heatstroke”, was used to kill potentially millions of pigs during the Covid-19 pandemic. They were packed into sealed barns and killed with extremely high heat and steam.

 

[Tiger]

The virus jump is more of a statistical certainly, given that viruses evolve (you know, natural evolution) to opportunistically find new hosts (like humans), and given that animal and human habitats are being more closely compressed by human expansion and natural habitat reduction, and given that piling animals and humans in close quarters in wet markets just increases the odds of the jump. Certainly animal abuse and cruelty is rampant in wet markets (having seen these close up in China and Thailand myself), but abuse per se is not the key ingredient in the virus jump.

The same goes for kindergartens, schools, and work places, which is why Isolation is a working solution.

 

[ElectricIAC]

US beef industry emerges from Biden’s climate pledges ‘relatively unscathed’

“A good example is, during Cop26, the president led a global methane pledge, and that could have gone really badly for livestock production in the United States, could have gone badly for the cattle industry,” Hart told her audience. “But this administration seems to have recognized the positive value we bring. We were really excited to get out of that relatively unscathed.” Methane, expelled by cows and by their manure, is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Although methane dissipates after 10 to 20 years, it warms the planet at 80 times the rate of carbon dioxide and emissions are accelerating at an unprecedented rate, according to the UN.

The same COP26 that had 116 private Jets fly into GLA and EDI in for attendance? Neat-o.

 

[mspohr]

Why is Biden boasting about drilling for oil? Our planet demands we stop now | Peter Kalmus

Global food systems present an interconnected dimension of concern. Russia and Ukraine together produce 30% of the world’s wheat; 50 countries, including many in the global south, depend critically on Russia and Ukraine for grain. Putin’s war leaves them especially vulnerable. We are entering a new epoch of energy and food price volatility and increases, which will hurt the global poor and working class most of all; shifting away from meat, especially beef, would act as a shock absorber. Beef requires 20 times the land area and creates 20 times the climate impact of plant-based protein. There is no place for industrial beef on a planet in a deepening food and climate crisis.

 

[roblab]

I'm coming to this thread late. But the yeast thing caught my eye. My favorite sci-fi author Isaac Asimov was writing about yeast based synthetic meat in the 50's. It sounded weird at the time, but he turned out to be right on other things that sounded crazy at the time.

I like beef, but i believe in the benefits of it's elimination. I like Impossible Burger, and i could totally see it replacing beef for me. But these types of things are still too expensive. I hope we see the tech develop so that this stuff becomes cheaper than meat. Then i think we'll see some real change.

Kind of like EV's.. need to be better and cheaper for most people to adopt. That creates the tipping point.

As soon as the meat industry realizes that meat substitutes are cheaper than meat, they will drop prices. As soon as gas cars feel the competition of EVs they will drop prices. I don't believe for a second that the price of meat or gas cars isn't flexible, but neither do I believe that people can't afford meat substitutes OR EVs. People buy what they want. How many folks have not one but several TV sets, with one being over 50 inches? How many people own a $60,000 pickup truck? I own a Tesla, not because it's cheap, but because it's better. When folks realize this, they are often able to find the extra money. Add to this that there is NO maintenance, no trips to the dealer for service several times a year, no oil changes, no filters, no trips to the gas station, no sitting for hours waiting for you car to get finished (Oh, right, you send your wife; she's not doing anything....)

 

[mspohr]

Collider: The End of Medicine Trailer: Documentary Blows the Whistle on Factory Farms. 'The End of Medicine' Trailer: Producer Joaquin Phoenix's Documentary Blows the Whistle on Factory Farms [Exclusive]

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Why is Biden boasting about drilling for oil? Our planet demands we stop now | Peter Kalmus

Global food systems present an interconnected dimension of concern. Russia and Ukraine together produce 30% of the world’s wheat; 50 countries, including many in the global south, depend critically on Russia and Ukraine for grain. Putin’s war leaves them especially vulnerable. We are entering a new epoch of energy and food price volatility and increases, which will hurt the global poor and working class most of all; shifting away from meat, especially beef, would act as a shock absorber. Beef requires 20 times the land area and creates 20 times the climate impact of plant-based protein. There is no place for industrial beef on a planet in a deepening food and climate crisis.

Ah, ivory towers.