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It's not clear to me that humans are going to think of a more efficient way to turn energy and matter into food in the next century. We could potentially alter

It's not clear to me that humans are going to think of a more efficient way to turn energy and matter into food in the next century. We could potentially alter the animals into something that would be hard to recognize, but that'll be an evolution of animal husbandry, not something that will leave us bewildered at animals. What do you see that indicates we're going to make massive leaps beyond what animal life has already provided in turning sunlight and air into useful lipids and proteins?

xsmasher 10y ago
There's already a more efficient way to turn energy and matter into food - plants. Running it through animals before we eat it is the inefficiency.
- tomjakubowski 10y ago
  Livestock can subsist on plants, like wild grasses, that are unpalatable or even inedible to humans. These plants often grow on "unarable" land that won't support human crops. For millennia, humans raised livestock on pasturing lands, seemingly without harming the environment too badly. What stops us from doing that now? I suspect the real problem is closer to wasting arable land, water, shipping (with all of those environmental externalities), etc. on growing crops that aren't used to directly feed humans, and government subsidies that hide the true cost of corn-fed livestock from consumers.
  - agitator 10y ago
    Yes, and the high demand for animal based proteins has been a large cause of deforestation. Also, beef and other livestock produce a large portion of green house gas emissions.
  - sanswork 10y ago
    We don't need to use that land though. If we're not feeding livestock then we don't need near as many crops to support ourselves so let the unusable land return to the wild. Also if you want to use scrub land to feed your livestock you're going to need a lot of it like in Australia. >For millennia, humans raised livestock on pasturing lands, seemingly without harming the environment too badly. For millennia most people wouldn't be getting access to 200lbs of meat a year. There was also a lot fewer of us to feed that much meat to.
- crowbahr 10y ago
  Problem is getting plants to taste as good as meat.
  - sanswork 10y ago
    People who don't have meat based diets tend to not agree that meats taste good(after some time if they were heavy meat eaters before). So the solution is to start kids on meat free diets and keep them on them then within a generation most people won't think meat tastes as good as plants. Problem solved.
    - crowbahr 10y ago
      I'd love to see studies on that. My personal anecdotal experience has not been that nor has it been that for friends and family who have tried vegetarianism/veganism, but it'd be heartening to see that there is documented proof that we can shift. I've switched the majority of my caloric intake over to Soylent but I still end up craving meat, for example.
  - pyre 10y ago
    The real problem is the thinking that "it tastes good" trumps all other concerns. Heaven forbid you develop a taste for "man flesh."
    - crowbahr 10y ago
      1. Soylent is the majority of my caloric intake, so cut out the passive aggressive bullshit I'm trying to make meaningful contributions here. 2. I'm stating the major hurdles that need to be crossed for mainstream adoption. We will not see major shift without an alternative that people want to embrace both ethically and in flavor. Bacon is obsessed over for a reason; people don't want to give that up. We simply won't see a major shift without meat substitutes tasting like meat.
warent 10y ago
plants have higher protein and less sodium than meat on avg. Although they do have a lower amino acid count and calorie count, that just means a more diverse plant based diet is in order. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/protein/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you...
- snicky 10y ago
  Less sodium, yes. More protein? Of course not. Lean meat contains around 20-25% of protein. Do you know of any plant that could compare?
  - sanswork 10y ago
    Hemp seeds are around 31%. Spirulina is 60% though not a plant.
agitator 10y ago
Animals are an extremely inefficient way of producing food: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-80...
- munin 10y ago
  Did you read that article? Do you understand the context it's coming from? This article is a call to grass-feed cows, not stop having cows. Humans can process grains just fine. Humans can't process grass, cows can. Cows have four stomachs. Do you? It's way more efficient (perhaps counter-intuitively) for livestock to eat the grass, then turn it into meat, then be killed and have us eat the meat, than it is for us to eat the grass directly. When you eat a salad, and you poop, you'll find a lot of the salad in your poop. That's because you don't have four stomachs. If you had four stomachs, you'd be better at eating grass.
  - agitator 10y ago
    I did read the article and it lists multiple inefficiencies. And I didn't claim that the article was about halting factory beef farming, so I'm not sure where you got that from. There is one line in there about Americans meeting their protein and fat intake requirements if cows were solely fed on grass. Great rant on humans eating grass, but what does that have to do with anything? No one is saying you need to eat grass. The article is about the direct human consumption of grain vs. production of grain, feeding and growing cows, slaughtering them, shipping them, then consuming them.

xsmasher 10y ago

There's already a more efficient way to turn energy and matter into food - plants. Running it through animals before we eat it is the inefficiency.

tomjakubowski 10y ago
Livestock can subsist on plants, like wild grasses, that are unpalatable or even inedible to humans. These plants often grow on "unarable" land that won't support human crops. For millennia, humans raised livestock on pasturing lands, seemingly without harming the environment too badly. What stops us from doing that now? I suspect the real problem is closer to wasting arable land, water, shipping (with all of those environmental externalities), etc. on growing crops that aren't used to directly feed humans, and government subsidies that hide the true cost of corn-fed livestock from consumers.
- agitator 10y ago
  Yes, and the high demand for animal based proteins has been a large cause of deforestation. Also, beef and other livestock produce a large portion of green house gas emissions.
- sanswork 10y ago
  We don't need to use that land though. If we're not feeding livestock then we don't need near as many crops to support ourselves so let the unusable land return to the wild. Also if you want to use scrub land to feed your livestock you're going to need a lot of it like in Australia. >For millennia, humans raised livestock on pasturing lands, seemingly without harming the environment too badly. For millennia most people wouldn't be getting access to 200lbs of meat a year. There was also a lot fewer of us to feed that much meat to.
crowbahr 10y ago
Problem is getting plants to taste as good as meat.
- sanswork 10y ago
  People who don't have meat based diets tend to not agree that meats taste good(after some time if they were heavy meat eaters before). So the solution is to start kids on meat free diets and keep them on them then within a generation most people won't think meat tastes as good as plants. Problem solved.
  - crowbahr 10y ago
    I'd love to see studies on that. My personal anecdotal experience has not been that nor has it been that for friends and family who have tried vegetarianism/veganism, but it'd be heartening to see that there is documented proof that we can shift. I've switched the majority of my caloric intake over to Soylent but I still end up craving meat, for example.
- pyre 10y ago
  The real problem is the thinking that "it tastes good" trumps all other concerns. Heaven forbid you develop a taste for "man flesh."
  - crowbahr 10y ago
    1. Soylent is the majority of my caloric intake, so cut out the passive aggressive bullshit I'm trying to make meaningful contributions here. 2. I'm stating the major hurdles that need to be crossed for mainstream adoption. We will not see major shift without an alternative that people want to embrace both ethically and in flavor. Bacon is obsessed over for a reason; people don't want to give that up. We simply won't see a major shift without meat substitutes tasting like meat.

warent 10y ago

plants have higher protein and less sodium than meat on avg. Although they do have a lower amino acid count and calorie count, that just means a more diverse plant based diet is in order. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/protein/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you...

snicky 10y ago
Less sodium, yes. More protein? Of course not. Lean meat contains around 20-25% of protein. Do you know of any plant that could compare?
- sanswork 10y ago
  Hemp seeds are around 31%. Spirulina is 60% though not a plant.

agitator 10y ago

Animals are an extremely inefficient way of producing food: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-80...

munin 10y ago
Did you read that article? Do you understand the context it's coming from? This article is a call to grass-feed cows, not stop having cows. Humans can process grains just fine. Humans can't process grass, cows can. Cows have four stomachs. Do you? It's way more efficient (perhaps counter-intuitively) for livestock to eat the grass, then turn it into meat, then be killed and have us eat the meat, than it is for us to eat the grass directly. When you eat a salad, and you poop, you'll find a lot of the salad in your poop. That's because you don't have four stomachs. If you had four stomachs, you'd be better at eating grass.
- agitator 10y ago
  I did read the article and it lists multiple inefficiencies. And I didn't claim that the article was about halting factory beef farming, so I'm not sure where you got that from. There is one line in there about Americans meeting their protein and fat intake requirements if cows were solely fed on grass. Great rant on humans eating grass, but what does that have to do with anything? No one is saying you need to eat grass. The article is about the direct human consumption of grain vs. production of grain, feeding and growing cows, slaughtering them, shipping them, then consuming them.