10 ms·

Environmental impacts of food consumption by dogs and cats

165 points by abpavel 9y ago

jaclaz 9y ago
Clickbaity title. Original: Environmental impacts of food consumption by dogs and cats Anyway,it's not like the article seems like being a particularly good one, while it cites the concept that meat fed to pets is (largely) not suitable for human consumption, doesn't take into account the actual related impact and vaguely talks of post-processing the non-suitable parts. The IMHO terrible part is this one: >And much pet food probably is already edible and serves as a potential source of protein as a food of last resort; there are reports, both official and unofficial, of impoverished Americans eating pet food as a necessary supplement to their diet [55–57, 58, 59]. At any rate, the trend toward premium pet food with more animal products that Americans would recognize as edible indicates that pets are eating animal products that could also be eaten by humans and that there is direct competition with the human food system for ingredients in some of these products [10]. TL;DR: Your cat and/or dog is probably too fat, and you should somehow feel bad about it.
- bluedino 9y ago
  >> Your cat and/or dog is probably too fat Slightly above 50% of US pet dogs and cats are overweight.
  - pebers 9y ago
    So, on average, they're in better shape than their owners. https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/overweight-obesity https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statisti...
    - a2tech 9y ago
      I know my dogs are. They get lean meat and veggies and very few empty sugars and carbohydrates. They're lean and in excellent health for their age. Me? Very much the opposite.
  - boyaka 9y ago
    Probably the ones that arent getting premium pet food
    - brianwawok 9y ago
      Nah pet weight is all quantity and table scraps. Limit scraps and measure well and your pet will be the correct weight. So much easier than my diet. Wish someone measured my portions.
    - jetrink 9y ago
      I take care of people's dogs for extra income. There are two primary reasons that my clients' dogs are overweight. The first group don't monitor their dog's weight or how much it eats. "Just keep some food in the bowl so he doesn't get hungry." The second group derive pleasure from feeding their dog, provide expensive meals for it and, in their enthusiasm, end up overfeeding.
    - kitsunesoba 9y ago
      For cats, the corn, grain, and otherwise carb-filled cat foods that dominate store shelves and are cheaply available are absolutely terrible. Cats are obligate carnivores and aren't built to deal with that kind of food composition at all. Some cats deal with it better than others, but generally feeding your cat these cheap foods will result in it becoming very obese and highly prone to several types of disease. I don't go as far as some pet owners, buying frozen pet food from Whole Foods and the like, but I do buy my cat high quality meat-based grain-free dry cat food. It's a little pricey but a 9lb cat eating proper amounts of protein doesn't eat much and a large bag lasts a long time. Just make sure to get a good airtight container to keep the food in.
      - adanto6840 9y ago
        +1 for airtight container. We had cheaped out on this and just purchased some cheaper plastic Rubbermaid-style containers -- to my wife's horror, she opened it one day to find maggots. She was sicker than the dog ever was (the dog didn't get sick and we threw that container out wholesale, food and all). We purchased an airtight "food container" with a screw-on lid -- from a major pet store chain, and for some absurd amount of money -- but haven't had an issue sense, and the peace of mind was well worth it for my wife's sake.
  - Stratoscope 9y ago
    One thing that can help a lot is to give dogs and cats more vegetables. In particular, they love brassicas, especially brussels sprouts and broccoli. Either mixed in with their regular food or as a treat, it helps fill them up with very few calories - and really good for them too. If you haven't tried this, I recommend it. Simply microwave some brussels sprouts or broccoli until tender, let cool, and either chop it up, add a little water, and mix into their food, or else take the sprouts and slice them in quarters as a treat. With broccoli, they like the stems more than the heads. Sweeter and less pungent. When I give them the sprouts as a treat, the dogs get the quartered sprouts, and the cats like to have me peel off a leaf and tear it into pieces for them. I sit down on the kitchen floor, the dogs line up, and the cats muscle in between them and sit on my legs to get their share. (That's why I sit down, so they don't climb my legs!) I've had a couple of people tell me, "You must be kidding. Dogs and cats don't like vegetables, they want meat!" They change their mind when they see how our dogs and cats respond to the brussels sprouts. BTW, if you are used to steaming brussels sprouts for yourself when you don't do something fancier with them, I highly recommend microwaving instead. It cooks them evenly, unlike steaming which ruins the outside by the time the inside is done. Rinse them first - the bit of water avoids burning - and undercook them a little because they continue to cook when you take them out. A microwaved brussels sprout dipped in hummus is a tasty treat. (For people, not for the pets! The garlic wouldn't be good for them.) Update: I didn't expect this to spark quite such a discussion, but thank you everyone for the replies - I learned some things here. Rest assured that I only give the cats a small amount of the brussels sprouts - the dogs get more.
    - adanto6840 9y ago
      Our dog absolutely loves carrots -- if you dare to eat a carrot near him, you won't hear the end of it until he's had one too. We stopped making homemade (meat) treats for him in favor of just keeping a baggie of small carrots in the fridge. It's still hilarious to me, but he just goes crazy for them, time and time again. I'm not sure if it's just the crunch, or maybe the 'social factor' of him watching my wife eat them, but he truly adores a healthy carrot snack/treat. =)
      - mikestew 9y ago
  - trhway 9y ago
    >Slightly above 50% of US pet dogs and cats are overweight. because they are spayed/neutered. We've never limited food consumption by our cats and by our dog and never neutered them, and they have never been overweight.
    - thanksgiving 9y ago
      Is vasectomy bad for health?
- randomThoughts9 9y ago
  > meat fed to pets is (largely) not suitable for human consumption 30% unsuitable for human consumption? This choosiness is a just one more sign of affluence and one of the habits we have to get rid of if we want to improve our ecological footprint. Go to a rural village in a developing country and you will see them using 95% easily. This is just
  - paulddraper 9y ago
    Yeah, more hot dogs.
  - jaclaz 9y ago
    >Go to a rural village in a developing country and you will see them using 95% easily. Using 95%? Sure. Eating 95%? Come on. We will have to define what is "meat", in pets food a lot of parts of the animal that wouldn't be considered "meat" are used. And there are some Laws/rules about some parts not being fit for human consumption (of course depending on the country).
    - xapata 9y ago
      If you boil meat to make broth and then throw out the chunks after some hours, you have pulled most of the nutrients into the broth. So, yeah, I would say they use most of the animal.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    The choosiness is also culture-dependent. I have eaten pig feet, pig stomach, shark fin, unidentifiable organs and very bony meat at somewhat upscale restaurants in China. I'm sure there are some foods that are seen as basically inedible in China, but those do not necessarily coincide with Western tastes. A lot of this is probably influenced by perceptions of "poor-people food" (like lobster) instead of being based in human nutritional needs. My Chinese friend was surprised when I remarked on the great taste of grilled pig liver, since it was the least expensive of the dishes he had me try out.
    - otp124 9y ago
- sctb 9y ago
  Thanks, we've updated it from “Pets consume 30% of all meat products”.
  - thanksgiving 9y ago
    Thank you much!
- retox 9y ago
  Philip K. Dick famously ate horse meat prepared as pet food at various times in his life. Whether this was out of necessity or because of preference is open for debate.
seiferteric 9y ago
Sounds like a perfect application for lab grown meat.
- freehunter 9y ago
  That's a great idea. Humans have refined tastes, we're going to criticize meat for not being marbled enough, or for tasting a bit "off", or for not being quite up to par. We will purposefully reject cuts like chuck when offered the option of a strip steak instead. Dogs wouldn't. They'd eat the strip steak and then eat the chuck and then chase down a mole, dig it out of the ground, and eat it whole. They don't have refined tastes and they are able to eat a much wider variety of meat than humans so their tastebuds didn't evolve to say "this tastes a little off, must be poison", so they'll eat almost anything. Housecats might be a bit pickier about fresh meant but if it's processed into food, again they're not going to care. And by the time the majority of pets are eating lab grown food, who knows? Maybe the science will have advanced enough that it's palatable to humans as well.
  - shados 9y ago
    That would be an interesting way to fund and scale production capacity for that lab grown meat too. Some stuff is just hard to figure out until you try doing it at scale.
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  I don't think it even needs to be meat...just synthesizing the raw amino acids would probably be much easier, and dogs probably won't care that much since their primary sensory pleasure in eating comes from the proteins themselves.
  - b5 9y ago
    I couldn't disagree more. Dogs definitely have tastebuds, can definitely taste foods, and definitely enjoy some foods more than others. Dogs can, and do, develop genuine, strong preferences for some foods over others. That's not because "their primary sensory pleasure in eating comes from the proteins themselves" -- that's because they derive pleasure from some foods. My dog loves blueberries and broccoli. These are pretty poor sources of protein, and her enjoyment comes from either the taste or the texture, or both. She also prefers chicken to other meats, and if presented with two otherwise similar bits of meat will choose the chicken first and foremost. She'll eat beef or lamb or pork, too, but will invariably choose chicken if presented with two options. "Just synthesise the required amino acids and feed them to a dog like that" will not make for a happy or healthy dog. It's basically the same rationale that led us to feeding animals dry food/kibble, and that's not good for them. On paper, though, it covers all of their essential needs.
bby 9y ago
I consume 100% of the shots you don't take.
devmunchies 9y ago
I'm sure most pets wouldn't be able to survive on their own, so its pretty obvious that we are putting an inflated strain on the food chain by providing meals for them. I wonder if there are a lot more carnivores than would otherwise naturally exist (with pets included), or if there is a similar number of carnivores but less diversity (e.g. an ecosystem that would have housed other carnivores is now hosting pigs and cows). I never would have thought I would see "pets" as environmental argument but its a no brainer.
- dtech 9y ago
  What a bollocks argument. Humans in their current numbers could not exist in a traditional food chain, that's why we made our own. Pets live off that same increased food supply.
  - Retric 9y ago
    While modern agriculture is significantly more efficient, the food surplus and over consumption is also massive. So, I am not sure the numbers are that different.
    - devmunchies 9y ago
      Plus its not like we have our own food chain in a vacuum. There is a lot of space required to house livestock and even more space required to grow their food.
- kharms 9y ago
  There were about 30 million bison in North America before we hunted them near extinction. Bison, especially young ones, are prey to wolves and bears. Bison weight about 1.5x cows. There are about 100 million cows, and if about 30% of those feed pets the numbers come out similar. There are also pigs and chickens, and depleted river fish/wild fowl populations. Wolves/bears are heavier so the same mass of prey supports a smaller population. Still, I think we'd be in the same order of magnitude. Edit: actually I might be an order of magnitude off, depending on the length of life. If cows live a year before slaughter, vs bison living 10 years. No idea what the real numbers are.
wavefunction 9y ago
My dogs eat a lot of animal protein, but from what I can tell it's not anything anyone might really want to eat. That or the products leverage old waste or by-products. For example, fish skin leftover from processing sea food. Cow esophagus. Pizzle. Or the little bits of meat and connective tissue left on a carcass after butchering ground up into a 'stew' along with vegetables that didn't pass muster for human consumption. I also give my dogs ribs and knuckles, though it's not always easy to find bones at the grocer any more. Most people just want boneless, bloodless shrink-wrapped steaks, whether that's beef, chicken or pork.
overcast 9y ago
Right. The 30% that humans don't want to eat.
jannotti 9y ago
The article says 30% of what humans consume, so I think that means 30/130 = 23% of "all" meat products. (Where "all" is human plus pets.)
analog31 9y ago
In my view, we produce enough food, that it would be considered toxic if we were forced to consume all of it. Any identifiable chemical in our food, that caused as much disease as the food itself causes, would be banned. To find consumers for the food that we do produce, it has to be formulated by scientists and psychologists to override our natural satiety responses. Some of the surplus has to be converted into fuel and burned, at an overall net energy cost. So, in this perspective, subsidizing corn farming and drilling for natural gas, to feed cattle, in order to maintain dogs, doesn't seem any more absurd than the food system in general.
pkulak 9y ago
This is a large part of the reason we went with rabbits for our house pets. That and the horrifying breeding situation going on with dogs right now.
- bamboozled 9y ago
  Another cool and more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional pets are worms. I purchased a worm farm recently for our garden and I've fell in love with the little things.
trhway 9y ago
the crap that is put into the most of the dog/cat food may be 30% by weight, yet it isn't a 30% of "all meat products" - because it isn't "meat product", it is "by product" like hoofs, beaks, bones, some internal organs nonconsumable by humans , etc... which at best would be processed into chicken/cattle food (and which doesn't make for good chicken/cattle food) or would be just thrown away.
thomasfl 9y ago
So the big question is, why do some many keep dogs? Is it mostly loneliness? If so, should we build towns that makes people less lonely?
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Dogs are great companions, they've been bred to be that way for thousands of years, they're not going to be engineered away.
  - umeshunni 9y ago
    That's a primarily Western concept. In India, dogs are usually raised mostly as guard dogs and pet dogs are a recent "western-imported" concept. In the Middle East, dogs are considered unclean and haraam.
a2tech 9y ago
My dogs get human grade food. None of this 'maybe good enough for people' stuff. They get real meat and vegetables that are in a recognizable form. They also don't get table scraps. This means my dogs aren't eating dodgy Chinese proteins, and also aren't fat (you may have noticed but most of the food we eat here in the US is terrible for us).
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- summer_steven 9y ago
  My dogs eat only raw meat. Cooked meat can remove important nutrients like vitamin C from the meat that dogs rely on. I also supplement my dogs with 150 mg/day of magnesium glycinate. I shudder when I see these prematurely aging dogs at the park, thanks to neglectful owners only feeding them scraps.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    Like most mammals, dogs are able to synthesize vitamin C. Humans and guinea pigs lost the ability to mutations. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3145266/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3145266/
robertlagrant 9y ago
"Americans are the largest pet owners in the world" -1 No need to bring Americans' weight into it!
b5 9y ago
There's a documentary on Netflix called Pet Fooled[1] which covers how dogs and cats, are fed now and the effects a modern, processed diet can have on them. I've watched it, enjoyed it, and felt I learned from it. I don't necessarily endorse its conclusions, but anyone reading this who has pets may enjoy it. [1]: https://www.netflix.com/title/80164393 https://www.netflix.com/title/80164393
ImaCake 9y ago
For the environmentally conscious couple, a dog or cat is an excellent replacement for the exceptionally wasteful human baby. From that perspective, re-directing your baby instincts into a dog instead of another human is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint.
- joaomacp 9y ago
  This line seems straight from a dystopian sci-fi novel. A world where humans preferred caring for other animal species instead of reproducing. Seriously though, I think middle-class white families are already too hesitant about raising children, even without thinking about the environment. They think it's too expensive, and would rather have other luxuries. The irony is that immigrants and people in developing countries, which already have low resources, don't care that much about status or 'living standards', and are happily generating a lot of offspring. My theory is that this is natural selection regulating for too much brain size / intelligence: If you believe in the several studies that mention IQ and brain size differences for races, right now the races with lowest brain size / IQ are having the most babies. I think mother nature is preferring - sorry for the language - 'dumb and strong' over 'smart and feeble'. Actually, many people have a reproduction strategy that involves lowering cognitive ability - getting drunk [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2778038/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2778038/ and others]
- frozenport 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Mov...
- bamboozled 9y ago
  One can also just enjoy the company of friends and relatives kids and once they "hit the wall", you can just go home and enjoy some peace and quiet :)
- freeloop2 9y ago
  The problem with this attitude is the next generation will then only have only have the offspring of non environmentally conscious people. You shouldn't trade the chance to shape the culture of the next generation to be more environmentally conscious for the short term quick fix of reducing your environmental impact right now.
jgbond 9y ago
Having worked in a meat processing plant, I can assure you that no humans would want to eat anything that goes into "rendering" for use in pet food. I'm not talking about offal, tripe, small goods, etc., all of which have markets for human consumption. Some of those items are high margin, too. There are markets somewhere in the world for just about every last bit of an animal. The only stuff that goes into pet food is stuff that has been contaminated or that has no higher margin use in other applications. Basically, pets get the waste. Fun fact -- The highest margin product in a beef house is fetal calf blood. It typically goes for about $400/liter and can sometimes spike up to $1000/liter.
- retox 9y ago
  Interesting fact, thank you. I didn't know anything about the use of animal blood in medicine. Good to know we can find uses for most things to reduce waste. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_bovine_serum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_bovine_serum
  - flour_power 9y ago
    it's not about reducing waste it's about reclaiming every possible revenue stream but the net effect is the same so...
- interfixus 9y ago
  No doubt. But there are huge qualitative differences between good and bad animal food, by and large reflected in the price, but higher price being negatable by buying in bulk. Everything sold in supermarkets - at least where I live - is junk with a clear and immediate negative impact on health and wellbeing. Why anyone would feed that stuff to anybody is beyond my comprehension.
- monort 9y ago
  I've read an anecdote about McDonalds in the Soviet Union. They were selling meat scraps to dog owners, but they did it covertly, because of concern that poor people would buy it for consumption (meat was in deficit at the time). What you consider as waste, someone would gladly eat. I realize transportation is a problem, these people live mostly in developing countries.
hncf 9y ago
Article makes many implausible assumptions and the conclusion is too radical for at least the amount of effort thats been put into bringing this article together. It's obvious that the author hates dogs and cats and thus wants to reduce their numbers. Ad hominem might have been your best friend right here - the conclusion is agenda-based and doesnt follow directly from the paper, so either ignore it or make it so that Osin never has access to any publishing facility ever again. And dont forget to wash your hands after reading his research.
SoMisanthrope 9y ago
All of these pets are contributing to climate change. Shame on you all.
benlorenzetti 9y ago
This is exactly the type of debate that makes conservatives question climate change alarmism and shuts down the economic debate. The question should always be: to what extent is it cheaper and easier for humanity to reduce carbon emissions? The motivation behind this research could be construed as: increasing your carbon footprint by owning a pet is immoral. This is crazy. It is not morally wrong to use the materials of the earth to improve human happiness. If you can afford pet food you should be able to have a pet. If your city can want a nature preserve, it should be able to have one. Is anyone surprised that having another mammal in your home increases your carbon footprint? Should we restrict babies to one per family? Should we not use more of the earth's resources than we used as of 2017 years after the death of Christ? Is this all a political satire?

165 points by abpavel 9y ago

Clickbaity title. Original: Environmental impacts of food consumption by dogs and cats Anyway,it's not like the article seems like being a particularly good one, while it cites the concept that meat fed to pets is (largely) not suitable for human consumption, doesn't take into account the actual related impact and vaguely talks of post-processing the non-suitable parts. The IMHO terrible part is this one: >And much pet food probably is already edible and serves as a potential source of protein as a food of last resort; there are reports, both official and unofficial, of impoverished Americans eating pet food as a necessary supplement to their diet [55–57, 58, 59]. At any rate, the trend toward premium pet food with more animal products that Americans would recognize as edible indicates that pets are eating animal products that could also be eaten by humans and that there is direct competition with the human food system for ingredients in some of these products [10]. TL;DR: Your cat and/or dog is probably too fat, and you should somehow feel bad about it.

bluedino 9y ago
>> Your cat and/or dog is probably too fat Slightly above 50% of US pet dogs and cats are overweight.
- pebers 9y ago
  So, on average, they're in better shape than their owners. https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/overweight-obesity https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statisti...
  - a2tech 9y ago
    I know my dogs are. They get lean meat and veggies and very few empty sugars and carbohydrates. They're lean and in excellent health for their age. Me? Very much the opposite.
- boyaka 9y ago
  Probably the ones that arent getting premium pet food
  - brianwawok 9y ago
    Nah pet weight is all quantity and table scraps. Limit scraps and measure well and your pet will be the correct weight. So much easier than my diet. Wish someone measured my portions.
  - jetrink 9y ago
    I take care of people's dogs for extra income. There are two primary reasons that my clients' dogs are overweight. The first group don't monitor their dog's weight or how much it eats. "Just keep some food in the bowl so he doesn't get hungry." The second group derive pleasure from feeding their dog, provide expensive meals for it and, in their enthusiasm, end up overfeeding.
  - kitsunesoba 9y ago
    For cats, the corn, grain, and otherwise carb-filled cat foods that dominate store shelves and are cheaply available are absolutely terrible. Cats are obligate carnivores and aren't built to deal with that kind of food composition at all. Some cats deal with it better than others, but generally feeding your cat these cheap foods will result in it becoming very obese and highly prone to several types of disease. I don't go as far as some pet owners, buying frozen pet food from Whole Foods and the like, but I do buy my cat high quality meat-based grain-free dry cat food. It's a little pricey but a 9lb cat eating proper amounts of protein doesn't eat much and a large bag lasts a long time. Just make sure to get a good airtight container to keep the food in.
    - adanto6840 9y ago
      +1 for airtight container. We had cheaped out on this and just purchased some cheaper plastic Rubbermaid-style containers -- to my wife's horror, she opened it one day to find maggots. She was sicker than the dog ever was (the dog didn't get sick and we threw that container out wholesale, food and all). We purchased an airtight "food container" with a screw-on lid -- from a major pet store chain, and for some absurd amount of money -- but haven't had an issue sense, and the peace of mind was well worth it for my wife's sake.
- Stratoscope 9y ago
  One thing that can help a lot is to give dogs and cats more vegetables. In particular, they love brassicas, especially brussels sprouts and broccoli. Either mixed in with their regular food or as a treat, it helps fill them up with very few calories - and really good for them too. If you haven't tried this, I recommend it. Simply microwave some brussels sprouts or broccoli until tender, let cool, and either chop it up, add a little water, and mix into their food, or else take the sprouts and slice them in quarters as a treat. With broccoli, they like the stems more than the heads. Sweeter and less pungent. When I give them the sprouts as a treat, the dogs get the quartered sprouts, and the cats like to have me peel off a leaf and tear it into pieces for them. I sit down on the kitchen floor, the dogs line up, and the cats muscle in between them and sit on my legs to get their share. (That's why I sit down, so they don't climb my legs!) I've had a couple of people tell me, "You must be kidding. Dogs and cats don't like vegetables, they want meat!" They change their mind when they see how our dogs and cats respond to the brussels sprouts. BTW, if you are used to steaming brussels sprouts for yourself when you don't do something fancier with them, I highly recommend microwaving instead. It cooks them evenly, unlike steaming which ruins the outside by the time the inside is done. Rinse them first - the bit of water avoids burning - and undercook them a little because they continue to cook when you take them out. A microwaved brussels sprout dipped in hummus is a tasty treat. (For people, not for the pets! The garlic wouldn't be good for them.) Update: I didn't expect this to spark quite such a discussion, but thank you everyone for the replies - I learned some things here. Rest assured that I only give the cats a small amount of the brussels sprouts - the dogs get more.
  - adanto6840 9y ago
    Our dog absolutely loves carrots -- if you dare to eat a carrot near him, you won't hear the end of it until he's had one too. We stopped making homemade (meat) treats for him in favor of just keeping a baggie of small carrots in the fridge. It's still hilarious to me, but he just goes crazy for them, time and time again. I'm not sure if it's just the crunch, or maybe the 'social factor' of him watching my wife eat them, but he truly adores a healthy carrot snack/treat. =)
    - mikestew 9y ago
- trhway 9y ago
  >Slightly above 50% of US pet dogs and cats are overweight. because they are spayed/neutered. We've never limited food consumption by our cats and by our dog and never neutered them, and they have never been overweight.
  - thanksgiving 9y ago
    Is vasectomy bad for health?
randomThoughts9 9y ago
> meat fed to pets is (largely) not suitable for human consumption 30% unsuitable for human consumption? This choosiness is a just one more sign of affluence and one of the habits we have to get rid of if we want to improve our ecological footprint. Go to a rural village in a developing country and you will see them using 95% easily. This is just
- paulddraper 9y ago
  Yeah, more hot dogs.
- jaclaz 9y ago
  >Go to a rural village in a developing country and you will see them using 95% easily. Using 95%? Sure. Eating 95%? Come on. We will have to define what is "meat", in pets food a lot of parts of the animal that wouldn't be considered "meat" are used. And there are some Laws/rules about some parts not being fit for human consumption (of course depending on the country).
  - xapata 9y ago
    If you boil meat to make broth and then throw out the chunks after some hours, you have pulled most of the nutrients into the broth. So, yeah, I would say they use most of the animal.
- yorwba 9y ago
  The choosiness is also culture-dependent. I have eaten pig feet, pig stomach, shark fin, unidentifiable organs and very bony meat at somewhat upscale restaurants in China. I'm sure there are some foods that are seen as basically inedible in China, but those do not necessarily coincide with Western tastes. A lot of this is probably influenced by perceptions of "poor-people food" (like lobster) instead of being based in human nutritional needs. My Chinese friend was surprised when I remarked on the great taste of grilled pig liver, since it was the least expensive of the dishes he had me try out.
  - otp124 9y ago
sctb 9y ago
Thanks, we've updated it from “Pets consume 30% of all meat products”.
- thanksgiving 9y ago
  Thank you much!
retox 9y ago
Philip K. Dick famously ate horse meat prepared as pet food at various times in his life. Whether this was out of necessity or because of preference is open for debate.

seiferteric 9y ago

Sounds like a perfect application for lab grown meat.

freehunter 9y ago
That's a great idea. Humans have refined tastes, we're going to criticize meat for not being marbled enough, or for tasting a bit "off", or for not being quite up to par. We will purposefully reject cuts like chuck when offered the option of a strip steak instead. Dogs wouldn't. They'd eat the strip steak and then eat the chuck and then chase down a mole, dig it out of the ground, and eat it whole. They don't have refined tastes and they are able to eat a much wider variety of meat than humans so their tastebuds didn't evolve to say "this tastes a little off, must be poison", so they'll eat almost anything. Housecats might be a bit pickier about fresh meant but if it's processed into food, again they're not going to care. And by the time the majority of pets are eating lab grown food, who knows? Maybe the science will have advanced enough that it's palatable to humans as well.
- shados 9y ago
  That would be an interesting way to fund and scale production capacity for that lab grown meat too. Some stuff is just hard to figure out until you try doing it at scale.
oh_sigh 9y ago
I don't think it even needs to be meat...just synthesizing the raw amino acids would probably be much easier, and dogs probably won't care that much since their primary sensory pleasure in eating comes from the proteins themselves.
- b5 9y ago
  I couldn't disagree more. Dogs definitely have tastebuds, can definitely taste foods, and definitely enjoy some foods more than others. Dogs can, and do, develop genuine, strong preferences for some foods over others. That's not because "their primary sensory pleasure in eating comes from the proteins themselves" -- that's because they derive pleasure from some foods. My dog loves blueberries and broccoli. These are pretty poor sources of protein, and her enjoyment comes from either the taste or the texture, or both. She also prefers chicken to other meats, and if presented with two otherwise similar bits of meat will choose the chicken first and foremost. She'll eat beef or lamb or pork, too, but will invariably choose chicken if presented with two options. "Just synthesise the required amino acids and feed them to a dog like that" will not make for a happy or healthy dog. It's basically the same rationale that led us to feeding animals dry food/kibble, and that's not good for them. On paper, though, it covers all of their essential needs.

bby 9y ago

I consume 100% of the shots you don't take.

devmunchies 9y ago

I'm sure most pets wouldn't be able to survive on their own, so its pretty obvious that we are putting an inflated strain on the food chain by providing meals for them. I wonder if there are a lot more carnivores than would otherwise naturally exist (with pets included), or if there is a similar number of carnivores but less diversity (e.g. an ecosystem that would have housed other carnivores is now hosting pigs and cows). I never would have thought I would see "pets" as environmental argument but its a no brainer.

dtech 9y ago
What a bollocks argument. Humans in their current numbers could not exist in a traditional food chain, that's why we made our own. Pets live off that same increased food supply.
- Retric 9y ago
  While modern agriculture is significantly more efficient, the food surplus and over consumption is also massive. So, I am not sure the numbers are that different.
  - devmunchies 9y ago
    Plus its not like we have our own food chain in a vacuum. There is a lot of space required to house livestock and even more space required to grow their food.
kharms 9y ago
There were about 30 million bison in North America before we hunted them near extinction. Bison, especially young ones, are prey to wolves and bears. Bison weight about 1.5x cows. There are about 100 million cows, and if about 30% of those feed pets the numbers come out similar. There are also pigs and chickens, and depleted river fish/wild fowl populations. Wolves/bears are heavier so the same mass of prey supports a smaller population. Still, I think we'd be in the same order of magnitude. Edit: actually I might be an order of magnitude off, depending on the length of life. If cows live a year before slaughter, vs bison living 10 years. No idea what the real numbers are.

wavefunction 9y ago

My dogs eat a lot of animal protein, but from what I can tell it's not anything anyone might really want to eat. That or the products leverage old waste or by-products. For example, fish skin leftover from processing sea food. Cow esophagus. Pizzle. Or the little bits of meat and connective tissue left on a carcass after butchering ground up into a 'stew' along with vegetables that didn't pass muster for human consumption. I also give my dogs ribs and knuckles, though it's not always easy to find bones at the grocer any more. Most people just want boneless, bloodless shrink-wrapped steaks, whether that's beef, chicken or pork.

overcast 9y ago

Right. The 30% that humans don't want to eat.

jannotti 9y ago

The article says 30% of what humans consume, so I think that means 30/130 = 23% of "all" meat products. (Where "all" is human plus pets.)

analog31 9y ago

In my view, we produce enough food, that it would be considered toxic if we were forced to consume all of it. Any identifiable chemical in our food, that caused as much disease as the food itself causes, would be banned. To find consumers for the food that we do produce, it has to be formulated by scientists and psychologists to override our natural satiety responses. Some of the surplus has to be converted into fuel and burned, at an overall net energy cost. So, in this perspective, subsidizing corn farming and drilling for natural gas, to feed cattle, in order to maintain dogs, doesn't seem any more absurd than the food system in general.

pkulak 9y ago

This is a large part of the reason we went with rabbits for our house pets. That and the horrifying breeding situation going on with dogs right now.

bamboozled 9y ago
Another cool and more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional pets are worms. I purchased a worm farm recently for our garden and I've fell in love with the little things.

trhway 9y ago

the crap that is put into the most of the dog/cat food may be 30% by weight, yet it isn't a 30% of "all meat products" - because it isn't "meat product", it is "by product" like hoofs, beaks, bones, some internal organs nonconsumable by humans , etc... which at best would be processed into chicken/cattle food (and which doesn't make for good chicken/cattle food) or would be just thrown away.

thomasfl 9y ago

So the big question is, why do some many keep dogs? Is it mostly loneliness? If so, should we build towns that makes people less lonely?

aaron-lebo 9y ago
Dogs are great companions, they've been bred to be that way for thousands of years, they're not going to be engineered away.
- umeshunni 9y ago
  That's a primarily Western concept. In India, dogs are usually raised mostly as guard dogs and pet dogs are a recent "western-imported" concept. In the Middle East, dogs are considered unclean and haraam.

a2tech 9y ago

My dogs get human grade food. None of this 'maybe good enough for people' stuff. They get real meat and vegetables that are in a recognizable form. They also don't get table scraps. This means my dogs aren't eating dodgy Chinese proteins, and also aren't fat (you may have noticed but most of the food we eat here in the US is terrible for us).

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summer_steven 9y ago
My dogs eat only raw meat. Cooked meat can remove important nutrients like vitamin C from the meat that dogs rely on. I also supplement my dogs with 150 mg/day of magnesium glycinate. I shudder when I see these prematurely aging dogs at the park, thanks to neglectful owners only feeding them scraps.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  Like most mammals, dogs are able to synthesize vitamin C. Humans and guinea pigs lost the ability to mutations. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3145266/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3145266/

robertlagrant 9y ago

"Americans are the largest pet owners in the world" -1 No need to bring Americans' weight into it!

b5 9y ago

There's a documentary on Netflix called Pet Fooled[1] which covers how dogs and cats, are fed now and the effects a modern, processed diet can have on them. I've watched it, enjoyed it, and felt I learned from it. I don't necessarily endorse its conclusions, but anyone reading this who has pets may enjoy it. [1]: https://www.netflix.com/title/80164393 https://www.netflix.com/title/80164393

ImaCake 9y ago

For the environmentally conscious couple, a dog or cat is an excellent replacement for the exceptionally wasteful human baby. From that perspective, re-directing your baby instincts into a dog instead of another human is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint.

joaomacp 9y ago
This line seems straight from a dystopian sci-fi novel. A world where humans preferred caring for other animal species instead of reproducing. Seriously though, I think middle-class white families are already too hesitant about raising children, even without thinking about the environment. They think it's too expensive, and would rather have other luxuries. The irony is that immigrants and people in developing countries, which already have low resources, don't care that much about status or 'living standards', and are happily generating a lot of offspring. My theory is that this is natural selection regulating for too much brain size / intelligence: If you believe in the several studies that mention IQ and brain size differences for races, right now the races with lowest brain size / IQ are having the most babies. I think mother nature is preferring - sorry for the language - 'dumb and strong' over 'smart and feeble'. Actually, many people have a reproduction strategy that involves lowering cognitive ability - getting drunk [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2778038/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2778038/ and others]
frozenport 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Mov...
bamboozled 9y ago
One can also just enjoy the company of friends and relatives kids and once they "hit the wall", you can just go home and enjoy some peace and quiet :)
freeloop2 9y ago
The problem with this attitude is the next generation will then only have only have the offspring of non environmentally conscious people. You shouldn't trade the chance to shape the culture of the next generation to be more environmentally conscious for the short term quick fix of reducing your environmental impact right now.

jgbond 9y ago

Having worked in a meat processing plant, I can assure you that no humans would want to eat anything that goes into "rendering" for use in pet food. I'm not talking about offal, tripe, small goods, etc., all of which have markets for human consumption. Some of those items are high margin, too. There are markets somewhere in the world for just about every last bit of an animal. The only stuff that goes into pet food is stuff that has been contaminated or that has no higher margin use in other applications. Basically, pets get the waste. Fun fact -- The highest margin product in a beef house is fetal calf blood. It typically goes for about $400/liter and can sometimes spike up to $1000/liter.

retox 9y ago
Interesting fact, thank you. I didn't know anything about the use of animal blood in medicine. Good to know we can find uses for most things to reduce waste. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_bovine_serum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_bovine_serum
- flour_power 9y ago
  it's not about reducing waste it's about reclaiming every possible revenue stream but the net effect is the same so...
interfixus 9y ago
No doubt. But there are huge qualitative differences between good and bad animal food, by and large reflected in the price, but higher price being negatable by buying in bulk. Everything sold in supermarkets - at least where I live - is junk with a clear and immediate negative impact on health and wellbeing. Why anyone would feed that stuff to anybody is beyond my comprehension.
monort 9y ago
I've read an anecdote about McDonalds in the Soviet Union. They were selling meat scraps to dog owners, but they did it covertly, because of concern that poor people would buy it for consumption (meat was in deficit at the time). What you consider as waste, someone would gladly eat. I realize transportation is a problem, these people live mostly in developing countries.

hncf 9y ago

Article makes many implausible assumptions and the conclusion is too radical for at least the amount of effort thats been put into bringing this article together. It's obvious that the author hates dogs and cats and thus wants to reduce their numbers. Ad hominem might have been your best friend right here - the conclusion is agenda-based and doesnt follow directly from the paper, so either ignore it or make it so that Osin never has access to any publishing facility ever again. And dont forget to wash your hands after reading his research.

SoMisanthrope 9y ago

All of these pets are contributing to climate change. Shame on you all.

benlorenzetti 9y ago

This is exactly the type of debate that makes conservatives question climate change alarmism and shuts down the economic debate. The question should always be: to what extent is it cheaper and easier for humanity to reduce carbon emissions? The motivation behind this research could be construed as: increasing your carbon footprint by owning a pet is immoral. This is crazy. It is not morally wrong to use the materials of the earth to improve human happiness. If you can afford pet food you should be able to have a pet. If your city can want a nature preserve, it should be able to have one. Is anyone surprised that having another mammal in your home increases your carbon footprint? Should we restrict babies to one per family? Should we not use more of the earth's resources than we used as of 2017 years after the death of Christ? Is this all a political satire?