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Post by BNC Moderator on Apr 29, 2012 19:05:16 GMT 9.5
People have strong opinions about a vegetarian lifestyle but are we all prepared to cut our meat/dairy intake substantially to assist in the fight against climate change and would it actually also benefit our health and have an impact on cancer statistics.
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Post by anonposter on Apr 29, 2012 20:34:50 GMT 9.5
If you think getting electricity production switched from fossil fuels to nuclear (which would be an unnoticeable change for the majority) is hard just try convincing people to give up the foods they like (this probably isn't a battle we can win, at least not directly). If anything the trend has been that people shift over to eating more as they get rich enough to be able to afford to eat meat. Of course what it'll take to meet the demand for meat is another matter (meat prices are likely to go up). Though even then there are still improvement to be had, for example kangaroo meat appears to have potential to emit less methane than much of what is eaten and we might be able to genetically other livestock emit less methane and otherwise use resources more efficiently. Genetically modifying the grains the animals are feed could also reduce the impact of the animals. Capturing any methane emitted and burning it as biogas (similar to what is now done with landfill methane) could also help but probably won't be doable with free range (at least as the people who insist on only buying free range believe it means) but could be useful with factory farms. On a more far out note we'll probably eventually end up growing synthetic meat in a vat which should be significantly more efficient as well as solve any ethical concerns anyone has about eating meat, even PETA have given some support to the idea (though I'd use double blind testing if I were running that). It might also be possible with sufficient use of artificial flavours or genetically modification to make other non-meat foods taste like meat.
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Post by Greg Simpson on Apr 30, 2012 1:30:10 GMT 9.5
It might also be possible with sufficient use of artificial flavours or genetically modification to make other non-meat foods taste like meat. We can do that fine now for my tastes. The problem is that it is more expensive than real meat, so why bother?
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Post by anonposter on Apr 30, 2012 2:01:41 GMT 9.5
We can do that fine now for my tastes. The problem is that it is more expensive than real meat, so why bother? I was considering what could be done to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions in a world where people insist on eating meat (which probably is this world) without too much regard for cost (though suspect it could be done cheaper).
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Post by jimthegeordie on Jun 4, 2012 16:18:14 GMT 9.5
If we are all going to become vegetarians, what will happen to all of the animals that we currently farm for their flesh ? We may need the space they occupy to grow the replacement vegetables. For what it is worth, my main problem with meat-eating is the industrialisation of the meat-processing industry. I read somewhere that herbivores form herds because they expect to be hunted down and are looking to protect themselves as best they can, so there is no ethical constraint to eating meat. south American Indians thank the dying animal for giving up its life for them. As a small child evacuee during WW II, I regularly went to my uncle's farm for a meal (off-farm meat was rationed). I saw a pig or a sheep who had had a good life free-ranging round the farm killed almost instantaneously in the yard it had known since childhood and had no problem with it. However, industrial scale abbatoirs are horror movie sets, as far as I am concerned and are there mainly to service our inflated appetites for meat.
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Post by anonposter on Jun 4, 2012 17:16:44 GMT 9.5
If we are all going to become vegetarians, what will happen to all of the animals that we currently farm for their flesh ? Extinction, most of them have been selective bred for making meat for humans at the expense of everything else that they just couldn't survive in the wild (even if they could, whether we'd want to release them to eat all the other species is another matter). Maybe a small breeding population would be kept in zoos. We may need the space they occupy to grow the replacement vegetables. Meat eating does require significantly more land than vegetarianism so if we did all become herbivores we'd have plenty of extra land for growing crops (with meat eating you've got to crop the feed crops for the animals and you need to grow more to feed each person than if the people just ate the crops directly). For what it is worth, my main problem with meat-eating is the industrialisation of the meat-processing industry. I fail to see any problem there. Actually more use of factory farms will probably be part of the solution to the environmental problems of meat eating (at least until we grow meat in a vat), at the very least I can't see how you could capture methane from free range animals which is something you could do with factory farming. I read somewhere that herbivores form herds because they expect to be hunted down and are looking to protect themselves as best they can, so there is no ethical constraint to eating meat. Evolution tended to select those who stayed with the herd as they were more likely to survive long enough to reproduce. There was no intent or expectation involved.
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Post by davidm on Jun 4, 2012 20:14:56 GMT 9.5
What's wrong with field grazing animals for meat? They just eat the grasses that the local land provides. No added carbon and the natural fertilizer is directly returned to the earth, similar to a deer or any wild animal. Furthermore a lot of the grazing land would not be amenable to more cultivated vegetarian foods.
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Post by anonposter on Jun 4, 2012 20:40:19 GMT 9.5
What's wrong with field grazing animals for meat? They just eat the grasses that the local land provides. No added carbon and the natural fertilizer is directly returned to the earth, similar to a deer or any wild animal. Furthermore a lot of the grazing land would not be amenable to more cultivated vegetarian foods. Crop yields for local grasses (or indeed any grass) don't tend to be very good (they haven't been selective bred for that) so you'll need a lot of land compared to growing grains to feed the animals (though if the land couldn't otherwise be used…though even in that case giving it back to nature might be better).
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Post by davidm on Jun 4, 2012 22:07:29 GMT 9.5
So they don't fatten up as fast. Still you get decent growth, it's leaner and for the most part it is environmentally cost free. Let them breed and you have perpetual replacements.
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Post by anonposter on Jun 5, 2012 21:46:46 GMT 9.5
Grazing can cause environmental problems so I wouldn't say it's for the most part environmentally cost free (though it can be beneficial if done well).
Of course the damage is usually due to 'overgrazing' (and if you just produced less food…) but if you're trying to feed a lot of people you'll probably find the levels at which it won't damage the environment to be unacceptably unproductive.
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