We must face facts - meat is the problem

[mspohr]

Meat, monopolies, mega farms: how the US food system fuels climate crisis

We eat way too much meat and it’s destroying the environment. The average American eats about 57lb of beef in a year, nearly twice the average of other high-income countries. When you talk about the environmental problems with the US food system, meat – particularly beef – absolutely dominates the discussion, said Marion Nestle, former chair of NYU’s department of nutrition and food studies. “There are cattle grown in every state, so the meat industry is entrenched in the country. Beef has been the iconic American food for a long time. Nobody wants to give it up.” But beef is a climate disaster. It takes an enormous amount of land to raise cattle – land that would sequester more carbon as grass that doesn’t get grazed and forests that are not felled for pasture.

It also takes an enormous amount of food to feed cattle. About 55% of the grain grown in the US goes to fattening cows (and other animals). And as the ruminants chew, they burp out methane, a powerful planet-warming greenhouse gas. Meanwhile, animal waste and fertilizer runoff pollute rivers and poison drinking water supplies. Eating less meat – primarily beef but pork and chicken, too – would free pasture and cropland, eliminate the suffering of billions of animals and improve human health by restoring clean water and reducing Americans’ calorie and saturated fat intake. Yet it’s an excruciatingly hard sell.

 

[mspohr]

BYND Beyond Meat out of main

Interesting potential future BYND competitor, Meati, mushroom root based meat replacement, complete protein, few ingredients, slightly less sodium for those concerned about it...

teslamotorsclub.com

Plant-based meat by far the best climate investment, report finds

www.tech-paper.com

 

[mspohr]

Charcuterie’s link to colon cancer confirmed by French authorities

Blow for industry as government backs WHO data and vows to cut additives in ham and cured sausages

www.theguardian.com

French health authorities say they have confirmed a link between nitrates added to processed meat and colon cancer, dealing a blow to the country’s prized ham and cured sausage industry.

The national food safety body Anses said its study of data published on the subject supported similar conclusions in 2015 from the World Health Organization (WHO).

 

[CrazyRabbit]

I doubt that any government would dictate abolition of meat. Several religions have done this with varying degrees of success for their followers.

Agree. But they can cause the cost of meat to become unaffordable! Look at cost of gas!

 

[mspohr]

Agree. But they can cause the cost of meat to become unaffordable! Look at cost of gas!

A meat tax!
How about including the environmental cost of meat in its price?

 

[mspohr]

Eating less meat could help oceans and waterways by reducing nitrogen | The Optimist Daily

Researchers from UC Davis have found that reducing the excess meat that Americans consume could help our oceans and waterways by reducing nitrogen output.

www.optimistdaily.com

Take eating too much meat. When our bodies have more protein than they need, amino acids break the excess down into nitrogen, which we then pass into our sewage system, which makes it out to the ocean where all that nitrogen has negative consequences. These include toxic algal blooms, oxygen-starved “dead zones,” and polluted drinking water. Thankfully, for such a simple cause, there’s a simple solution: eat less meat.

It turns out that many of us don’t need as much protein as we eat, and that has repercussions for our health and aquatic ecosystems,” says lead author Maya Almaraz, a research affiliate with the Institute of the Environment at the University of California, Davis. “If we could reduce that to an amount appropriate to our health, we could better protect our environmental resources.”

 

[mspohr]

A million UK chickens ‘die needlessly each week to keep prices low’

Animal welfare campaigners say the mortality rates could be significantly reduced by better welfare standards. They are urging retailers to support the Better Chicken Commitment, an initiative to phase out fast-growing breeds and reduce stocking density. Welfare experts say the modern chicken is genetically bred to grow so quickly that it can put a strain on its body, increasing the risk of cardiac arrest. Research has shown that fast-growing chickens which reach their kill weight in just 35 days can have higher mortality, lameness and muscle disease than slower growing breeds. One of the most common causes of death in flocks is heart failure, or sudden death syndrome.

 

[CrazyRabbit]

Thank you for your life mr/ms chicken, cow, pig, sheep, goat, duck, rabbit, quail, deer, elk, salmon, halibut, cod, crab, lobster, clam, oyster, and so on…

 

[ThomasD]

Don't forget Buffalo, Alligator and Rattlesnake

 

[RSpanner]

America is addicted to eating meat and the worst kind, the red kind. I don't see it changing anytime...

 

[mspohr]

Don't forget Buffalo, Alligator and Rattlesnake

I'd let bison recover. We could do with fewer alligators and rattlesnakes.

 

[mspohr]

Want to save the planet? Eat protein from mushrooms and algae instead of red meat | Adrienne Matei

Replacing just one fifth of the red meat we eat with microbial proteins derived from fungi or algae could reduce annual deforestation by a massive 56% come 2050, according to a study published this spring. Climate scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research simulated four future scenarios in which humans replace either 0%, 20%, 50% or 80% of the red meat in our diets with microbial protein, which is a low-calorie, high-protein and high-fiber fermented product that’s already an ingredient in some commercial alt-meats, including Quorn and Nature’s Fynd. The researchers then looked at how this dietary change might affect global forests by 2050. Currently, the planet loses about 10m hectares of forest a year, an estimated 95% of which is tropical forest, and 75% of which is driven by agricultural expansion, namely cattle farming and soy plantations for livestock feed. Deforestation contributes to climate imbalances, desertification and water scarcity, greenhouse gas emissions, flooding and erosion, and the destruction of biodiversity, including crucial crop pollinators. Yet replacing only 20% of our meat with microbial protein could more than halve the rate of deforestation and reduce carbon emissions related to cattle farming by 2050, the study found.

 

[mspohr]

‘Emotion and pain’ as Dutch farmers fight back against huge cuts to livestock

Manure, when mixed with urine, releases ammonia, a nitrogen compound. If it enters lakes and streams via farm runoff, excessive nitrogen can damage sensitive natural habitats. The country has the seventh biggest livestock population in the EU but is comparatively small in size. This gives it Europe’s highest livestock density, with insufficient land to make good use of the waste from more than 100 million cattle, chickens and pigs.

We export 70%, keep all the rubbish, and the gains are all for private companies. It’s a system that’s not sustainable and can’t go on. We [the Netherlands] can be considered as a wake-up call for what happens with very intensive farming systems that don’t take into account the environmental conditions they have to operate in.”

 

[mspohr]

‘Like a giant sewage plant’: how Germany’s ‘pig belt’ got too big
This is the heartland of a €6bn (£5.1bn) pork industry that sends thousands of tonnes of German pigmeat across the world. But it has done so at a cost. Maps of the Schweinegürtel (pig belt) glow a toxic red if you show ammonia emissions from farm animals and nitrates in groundwater. Critics say local authorities in the region have allowed the industry to flourish while turning a blind eye to its environmental impact.

 

[mspohr]

Increased heart disease risk from red meat may stem from gut microbe response to digestion

Embargoed until 4 a.m. CT/5 a.m. ET Monday, August 1, 2022 Research Highlights: A new study found that chemicals produced in the digestive tract by gut microbes after eating red meat (such as beef, pork, bison, venison) explained a significant portion ...

newsroom.heart.org

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Research Highlights: A new study found that chemicals produced in the digestive tract by gut microbes after eating red meat (such as beef, pork, bison, venison) explained a significant portion of the higher risk of cardiovascular disease associated with higher red meat consumption. High blood sugar and inflammation may also contribute to higher cardiovascular risk associated with red meat consumption, however, blood pressure and cholesterol were not associated with the higher CVD risk associated with red meat consumption. General consumption of fish, poultry and eggs was not associated with increased cardiovascular risk.

 

[mspohr]

Burger King Austria makes plant-based their “new normal” | The Optimist Daily

Burger King in Austria is upsetting the idea of what a "normal" meal is by asking, "Do you want your burger to be normal, or with meat?"

www.optimistdaily.com

The dinner trial was hosted at a restaurant in Margaretengürtel, Vienna, and the goal was to make people think about whether consuming meat should be “routine.” The meat-free standard campaign was a great success and has sparked vigorous debate online about whether eating meat every day is really necessary.

 

[mspohr]

The most damaging farm products? Organic, pasture-fed beef and lamb

Perhaps the most important of all environmental issues is land use. Every hectare of land we use for extractive industries is a hectare that can’t support wild forests, savannahs, wetlands, natural grasslands and other crucial ecosystems. And farming swallows far more land than any other human activity. What are the world’s most damaging farm products? You might be amazed by the answer: organic, pasture-fed beef and lamb. I realise this is a shocking claim. Of all the statements in my new book, Regenesis, it has triggered the greatest rage. But I’m not trying to wind people up. I’m trying to represent the facts. Let me explain.

 

[mspohr]

The carbon opportunity cost of animal-sourced food production on land - Nature Sustainability

Shifting global food production to plant-based diets by 2050 can sequester 99–163% of the CO2 emissions budget towards limiting climate warming to 1.5 °C.

www.nature.com

Extensive land uses to meet dietary preferences incur a ‘carbon opportunity cost’ given the potential for carbon sequestration through ecosystem restoration. Here we map the magnitude of this opportunity, finding that shifts in global food production to plant-based diets by 2050 could lead to sequestration of 332–547 GtCO2, equivalent to 99–163% of the CO2 emissions budget consistent with a 66% chance of limiting warming to 1.5 °C.

 

[mspohr]

https://nyti.ms/3xrOAMl

The places where hogs are now raised are “farms” in name only. They’re essentially livestock factories, dedicated to uniformity and efficiency, that house thousands of hogs crammed together in windowless sheds. And like other factories, they produce a good deal of waste — in this case, about a gallon and a half of urine and excrement per hog every day. All of that waste has to go somewhere. And where it winds up has proved remarkably destructive to America’s rural landscape and the people who live in it.

I am neither a vegan nor a vegetarian. But I think the hog factories described in “Wastelands” and the similar CAFOs in other states are forms of systematic animal cruelty. They are crimes against nature. Hogs are intelligent and sensitive creatures capable of multistage reasoning like dolphins and apes, with a social structure similar to that of elephants. Hogs can recognize themselves in a mirror, differentiate one person from another, remember negative experiences. And they like to be clean. Their lives in hog factories scarcely resemble how they’ve been raised for millenniums. They arrive as small piglets, live crammed together amid one another’s filth and leave a few months later for the slaughterhouse — never having enjoyed a moment outdoors during their entire time at the shed. The foulness of these places, for the animals that live in them and the people who live near them, truly defies words.

 

[mspohr]

Cows ...

https://nyti.ms/3AAeY8x

Agriculture is responsible for the largest share of nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands, much of it from the waste produced by the estimated 1.6 million cows that provide the milk used to make the country’s famed cheeses, like Gouda and Edam.

The World Wide Fund for Nature and other environmental organizations wrote in a letter to the Dutch minister of agriculture this month that “the transition to a sustainable agricultural and food system is urgent and necessary.” The letter also said that consumers in the Netherlands needed to do their part to make sure emissions targets were reached. “Consumers also have to take responsibility,” it said. “Dutch people will have to consume more vegetables and fewer (-70%) animal proteins.”

But, said Mr. van der Putten from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, technical solutions are not enough to realize the level of cuts needed given the amount of nitrogen the country pumps out, much of it from the production of eggs, dairy and meat.