Eat meat, contribute to global warming..

[4dsc]

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/519622/

The food that people eat is just as important as what kind of cars they drive when it comes to creating the greenhouse-gas emissions that many scientists have linked to global warming, according to a report accepted for publication in the journal Earth Interactions.

Newswise — The food that people eat is just as important as what kind of cars they drive when it comes to creating the greenhouse-gas emissions that many scientists have linked to global warming, according to a report accepted for publication in the journal Earth Interactions.

Both the burning of fossil fuels during food production and non-carbon dioxide emissions associated with livestock and animal waste contribute to the problem, the University of Chicago’s Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin wrote in the report.

The average American diet requires the production of an extra ton and a half of carbon dioxide-equivalent, in the form of actual carbon dioxide as well as methane and other greenhouse gases compared to a strictly vegetarian diet, according to Eshel and Martin. And with Earth Day approaching on April 22, cutting down on just a few eggs or hamburgers each week is an easy way to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, they said.

[Deja Q]

1. Reducing the number of cows would be a better start.

The cows will still be bred and free to fart as long as the demand is there.

It's got to start on the supply side. Demand won't change until then. :(

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. I gave up driving, I will not give up my dead cow

but I do promise to buy local.

[Poppyseedman]

3. I read somewhere that eating meat actually reduces global warming

The reason why is to obtain the same level of proteins from plant matter we get from meat, we would have to increase production of farm land which would mean much improved crop yields from farming equipment and fertilizers.

I'd see if I can find the link.

[unpossibles]

17. it's pretty much the opposite

you need a lot more land, water, and oil/gasoline to create a pound of meat than you do to create several pounds of vegetable material. Our need for protein is vastly over-stated (by the people who sell us beef, coincidentally... :eyes: ).

[formercia]

19. One pound of Beef takes 21 pounds of grain

that's the conversion ratio. If you rid the World of beef production, the grain market would collapse from oversupply.

When I was in College, I used to eat a predominately grain diet that was balanced. I obtained my supplies from a local-co-op at very low cost. Not only was it healthy, I enjoyed it.

Beef, Pork and Chicken are luxuries in many countries.

We are a very wasteful society.

People in third-world countries have to pay world market prices for oils and grains, yet can still eat well on much less than we spend in the US.

[One_Life_To_Give]

22. What to do with 21lb bail of hay?

Last I checked the stuff we are feeding cattle, humans won't eat. And the same quality of soil and effort or lack of, to till the soil won't grow edible crops.

[formercia]

23. Try corn fed beef.

It's really good. Range cattle are a bit on the chuck roast/ hamburger menu side.

There's a place north of Salt Lake City that specializes in Black Angus Prime Rib. I can't remember the name but you didn't need a knife to cut the meat.

[One_Life_To_Give]

24. You can't eat Cattle corn either

I have heard of Corn Fed Beef. But I suspect the tenderness of the beef has more to do with the types of exercise the steer gets rather than just what it eats.

[formercia]

25. Agreed, cow corn is a bit starchy but i've eaten it

It's a bit chewey. The farmers will plant what sells. I have a friend who has a dairy herd and he feeds the cows exclusively on silage made from chopped up cow corn. he grinds up the whole plant, ears and all and makes this stinking fermented slop the cows love but it gags me.

I don't know the exact figures but a very substantial portion of grains go into animal feed.

If people in this country began asking for sources of unprocessed grain, someone would sell it. People are just used to going to the supermarket and buying the same old junk.
I had an email today from a friend who is a vegetarian. I had given her a bag of produce from my garden and she told me how much better it tasted that what she could buy, even better that much of the supposed 'organic' produce that she bought at farmers markets when she could afford it. I told her it tasted better because it's full of love.

Once people try really well grown produce, it's hard to go back to the slop in the store. Folks just have to learn a better way and get back to when everything was 'organic'.

To beat the system, you have to break free of the addiction.

[LeftyMom]

28. Most cattle in the US are fed corn and soy

With both more than 90% of production goes into animal feed. While often the (GMO) varieties used aren't for human consumption, those fields could be converted to grain production to feed humans in a single growing season.

[Chulanowa]

4. Something I've never been able to figure out...

The world grows billions of tons of grain. Corn, sorghum, barley, oats, etc.

The world then feeds this stuff to a million tons of cattle

Who then successfully feed a few hundred thousand people.

Far more economical to skip the cattle and pass the cornbread!

[One_Life_To_Give]

18. Humans find inedible the stuff we feed cows

The history of mans relationship with the cow. Is one where the cow is able to survive on foodstuffs that are not directly usable by man. All the silage is used to feed cattle when they can't get out on the open pasture/range lands. They spend most of there time feeding on untilled land. And that which comes from tilled land is typically of a lower quality and hence requires a lower quality soil to grow than crops for human consumption.

[Big Kahuna]

5. I voluntarily lived without a car for 5 years

after a while you realize that you're just one tree-hugger descending into self-imposed poverty, and the other 299,999,999 people in this country are driving around in hummers and couldn't give two shits about their carbon output. A few well-intentioned people eating vegetarian similarly are not going to make a difference in the world.

We live in an economic system that requires constant development, contstant economic and population growth. It requires us to buy more stuff, build bigger houses, spend more money, have more kids, and dig our own graves ever deeper. It is insane, unsustainable, and the longer we keep it up, the harder we'll fall. But actually doing anything to reverse this trend will cause a very long recession or depression, and that will not be very popular with the voters. It seems better to just wait for a huge war, famine, plague or lucky asteroid impact to straighten things out.

Sorry to be a bummer :(

[Porcupine]

6. It's not the beef but the feedlot that contributes to warming.........

http://www.polyfacefarms.com/">This guy proves that every day. The once and future Buffalo Commons was a huge, meat producing, carbon sequestering, organic, bio-system. You didn't even have to ship the meat to be slaughtered since the herds passed certain places on a regular calender.

Anybody who has ever kept a shallow pond (ideal for raising catfish, crawdads, and tilapia) knows that if you don't drain it every 7-10 years the bottom will muck up and fill in. Well a whole lot of that muck is carbon. Likewise peat bogs which provide food and housing for waterfowl are notorious sequesters of carbon and you get duck for dinner.

Mangrove swamps are nurseries for shrimp and fisheries, 'gators, fowl, snakes and crocodiles all of which are edible and can be sustainibly harvested. Possum too if you are REALLY hungry.

Pigs, deer, elk and turkeys thrive in oak forests as any Northern California hunter will tell you. They collect acorns in areas you would rather not walk through and happily turn them into meat.

Meat is carbon neutral if you raise it as part of a bio system. It's the feedlot system that contributes to greenhouse gas emissions; not the meat.

[Wickerman]

7. True enough, and here I am grilling my dead cow tonight

I was a vegetarian for 7 years. It was a good 7 years. I felt good about it, felt good physically. Don't know if I could do it again. Gotta run, those steaks aren't turning themselves.

[blueinchicago]

27. If you love red meat

try bison. It's red, delicious, enviro-friendly, and 95% fat free. Bison evolved to live off the land the way God made it. (You should read Grassland by Richard Manning). Factory-farmed cows totally wasting the water our children will need to sustain the future.

Stop global warming, end our dependence on foreign oil, get rid of antibiotics and e. coli in the red meat supply, and make the nation heart healthy: all this from switching to bison from your damn cow.

Besides, real men eat bison.

[terip64]

8. Again, grass fed, buy local...

[FREEWILL56]

10. It Doesn't Matter

that there's lots of cattle as they just replaced all of those millions of buffalo that are no longer roaming the northern hemisphere. There's also a catch 22 here as anything that lives, and this includes people, will die and in that death decay occurs through bacterium eating away at whatever died even if only a simple plant. When the bacteria eats it tends to give off methane. That means all plants and animals will do this and it would seem our cemetaries are also giving off methane though slowed down by embalming.

[smoogatz]

14. There you go.

We've got 100 lbs of local, organic grass-fed beef in the freezer right now. Tender and delicious--tastes like beef USED to taste, before they fucked it up with all those hormones and antibiotics. Come on over, I'll open a bottle of pinot and throw a couple of sirloins on the grill.

[FREEWILL56]

15. Sounds good

to me, but I'll have to put co2 into the air from burning petrol to get to your place. I'll tell you what, I'll buy an extra steak and say it's from you if you do that for me. We just saved the co2 from being put into the air in travelling to each others place.
Btw, even vegetarians when they eat get gas. You can't avoid this aspect of life even in death, but the co2 also occurs naturally. The unnatural part of it all is that we, in burning the vast amounts of fossil fuels in a relatively short period of time, in addition to natural sources of co2 with less plant and tree life to use it to produce oxygen has caused the heating of the earth due to a huge excess of co2 in our atmosphere.

[mopinko]

9. don't blame individuals for corporate decisions

burger eaters are not the decision makers here, corporate greedheads are. these animal COULD be raised in more sustainable ways. hell, we could be making oil out of manure and slaughterhouse waste, capturing methane, probably putting cows on treadmills to make electricity, if that was what served the corporations. but that is not how it is done. that is not how anything is done.
quit picking on the meat eaters. make the corporations accountable.

[gully]

11. I think we need balance

if no one ate meat, we'd have other issues to deal with.

[NMDemDist2]

12. meat eating takes a lot of water too

i have cut my driving by 90% and got a car with much better mileage

and now I have the luxury of eating local range feed beef. my only guilt is the alfalfa production they use to "finish" the beef before slaughter

I was vegetarian for many years but I do love my roasts and steaks

[smoogatz]

13. Breathe, contribute to global warming.

Also, farting will no longer be tolerated.

[FREEWILL56]

16. I've got a better idea.

Let's get rid of the gas coming from D.C..:toast:

[skids]

20. I'm not always great at avoiding meat...

...but I've found you can reduce your intake to more reasonable levels if you start to think of meat as more of a seasoning than a main course. E.g. a ham pizza doesn't really have all that much meat compared to say a ham dinner. You don't have to be an extreme "tea totaller" to drastically reduce your consumption, and you'll still get plenty of protein as far as your body's needs are concerned.

[4dsc]

26. Avoid pizza at all costs

DO you realize how much FAT is in a pizza per slice?? I would rather eat meat before I eat a pizza!!

[skids]

29. Uhoh -- FAT! -- run for the hills!

I have no problem with fat, as long as it isn't trans-fatty oils. Definitely not for those who need to watch their calorie bugdet, though.

[Dragonbreathp9d]

21. How about we just eat a whole lot? Then we'll cut down on emissions!