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Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%
- darawk 7y agoI feel like I read this same story once a year or so for the past 5-6 years. Why hasn't this been commercialized yet?
- moultano 7y agoNo commercial incentive to do so. If we had any effective climate regulation, you'd see these things rapidly put into practice.
- lazyguy 7y agoregulation can't change reality. It's about as realistic as having congress declare the world flat.
- moultano 7y agoWe can measure methane emissions per farm from space. If there were fines for emissions, it would get fixed quickly. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/meet-the-satellites-that-can-pinpoint-methane-and-carbon-dioxide-leaks/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/meet-the-satellit...
- majinuub 7y agoI'm more of the opinion that rewarding the reduction of emissions would work better than punishing the production of emissions.
- orasis 7y agoI’m as anti-regulation as anyone but your comment is just silly. Regulation changes reality all the time.
- baroffoos 7y agoIn fact if regulation didn't change anything there would be no reason to be against regulation.
- ceejayoz 7y ago> regulation can't change reality Sure it can. Regulation changed the reality of passenger planes regularly falling out of the sky and being hijacked. Regulation made drastic reductions in road deaths via seat belts, crumple zones, air bags, and the like.
- briandear 7y agoAre cows really our biggest problem? The hysteria over cow farts is laughable. When everything is an “emergency” and, as a previous poster suggested, “genocide,” it’s hard to take any of this seriously. It’s not unlike religious nuts on street corners proclaiming “the end is nigh!”
- moultano 7y agoNo they aren't the biggest part of the problem, but the difficulty is that we have to solve the whole thing. Carbon emissions need to get to zero and then go negative. That means ideally we need solutions for every contributor, no matter how small.
- baroffoos 7y agoAnd this is one of the ideal solutions where we can make things much much better without giving up anything at all.
- maxdamantus 7y agoI agree that cows are an issue that should be looked into, but ultimately cows themselves aren't causing more carbon to be taken from the ground and left in the atmosphere indefinitely (the issue is that methane is a greater contributor to the greenhouse effect over carbon dioxide, per unit carbon), so presumably in this case it's a matter of keeping methane levels below a certain amount rather than reversing carbon emissions.
- abraae 7y agoCows are carbon to methane convertors. AFAIK, although methane dissipates more quickly (good in the longer term) it has a more powerful effect in the shorter term. So the rationale while we are stick deep in the shit is not too think so much of the long term, but just to survive the short term - i.e reduce the methane.
- maxdamantus 7y ago
- bagacrap 7y agoSurely there is a commerical incentive. Environment- or image-minded companies that want to buy carbon offsets can do so by paying cattle producers to use this tech.
- axaxs 7y agoThere's just not enough of it, nor an efficient way to get it to every animal.
- darawk 7y agoThat sounds like a realistic constraint...but how can that be true? Seaweed seems pretty abundant.
- sdinsn 7y agoHard to scale
- toomanybeersies 7y agoThere's an outfit in New Zealand that sells seaweed as cattle feed, not sure if it's the same stuff though.
- alphakappa 7y agoThere are many planet saving discoveries like these. There's also a catch, which is why the planet hasn't been saved yet. > “If we’re able to work out how to scale up the seaweed to such a level to that can feed all of the cows and the sheep and the goats around the world, then it’s going to have a huge impact on the climate; And there you go. That's the hard part that you cannot just hand-wave away. You also have to wonder what the impact of growing all this seaweed (or harvesting it) to feed the planet's bovine population will be. In the end, the problem is due to the massive scale of human consumption on this planet. The mitigation might be just as bad when you consider the scale at which you have to produce the 'better' solution.
- whatshisface 7y ago>In the end, the problem is due to the massive scale of human consumption on this planet. The technology required to alter human nature to consume less or alternatively the technology required to win the deadliest war ever fought is going to be a lot harder to develop than it would be to grow a lot of seaweed.
- briandear 7y ago> the deadliest genocidal war ever fought Really? How many people have died thus far? Seems like Stalin is still in the lead by a huge margin. This sort of hyperbole is not helpful. Climate change isn’t genocide.
- mc32 7y agoIt’s a big of cosmic irony that cows will be eating what so called sea-cows evolved to eat by way of their natural environment. The obviously this messes with cows’ gut bacteria. Wonder if it has any significant effects on cows or is it better all around?
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoFrom an environmental perspective, it's easier to directly consume fruits, vegetables and nuts yourself, rather than have an animal do the same, then eat the animal. That doesn't address the human appetite for animal proteins, but there is beyond meat.
- chrisbolt 7y agoPrevious posts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12998395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12998395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17036221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17036221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18385384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18385384
- rmason 7y agoResearch takes time. There are researchers trying to grow the stuff on both US coasts. This articled details some of what is being done. They hope to test some of seaweed on cows at UC Davis soon. https://phys.org/news/2019-05-cultivate-seaweed-slashes-greenhouse-emission.html https://phys.org/news/2019-05-cultivate-seaweed-slashes-gree...
- philipkglass 7y agoFor several months, Smith has been experimenting in her lab with cultivating the seaweed to, among other things, maximize concentrations of bromoform—the compound that blocks the production of methane in cows, sheep, goats and other ruminant animals. "This is the sporophyte," she said at her lab in La Jolla, holding one of a dozen flasks filled with the red algae, dancing in aerated seawater. "In this case, the bubbles are not as vigorous, allowing these puff balls to get bigger. "By just manipulating nitrogen and phosphorous, we have already seen that we can double the concentrations of bromoform in just a week," she added. As commenters have noted previously, it seems like using synthetic bromoform would be cheaper and more scalable. The rest of the seaweed appears to be incidental to the methane suppression. But maybe there are regulations about introducing new cattle feed additives that you can sidestep by mixing whole algae into the food. Or maybe they're already developing this with consumer branding/marketing in mind; "seaweed" sounds better than "bromoform."
- sak5sk 7y agoIs this even relevant anymore? I mean, with permafrost thawing and triggering sudden soil collapse - forming lakes and bubbling up even more methane... to what degree do cow methane emissions even matter when looking at the big picture? I tried googling for some numbers but didn't find any concrete credible sources other than "most methane comes from permafrost thawing"
- irjustin 7y agoSeriously? https://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-meat-methane-CO2 https://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-m... It wasn't even that hard to find one article. It might not be perfect, but you can clearly keep going. And yes, it's one facet. We won't solve our problems just by fixing this, but your attitude definitely won't.
- sak5sk 7y agoYou just quoted an article with no credibility and zero comparison to natural methane emissions. Mind reading before plugging links? That was the first thing that came up for me in Google too, and the reason why I said what I did. Edit: just looked up EPA website and found this: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases#methane https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases#m... - couple things to note: "50-65% of all methane emissions are caused by human activity" - I wonder how they define that though? Is feedback from human activities that flows into natural-seeming emissions such as permafrost melt considered natural? If it is, that's excluded from the 50-65% figure! - Other thing: "Natural gas and petroleum systems are the largest source of CH4 emissions in the United States." - 31% - Landfills - 16%, coal mining - 8% That right there is 55% of human-caused methane and has nothing to do with cows. I'm not saying the solution should not include all of the sources, but to what degree should we be worrying about cows vs. all that other crap? Shouldn't the focus be on natural gas and petroleum emissions? Edit 2: I don't appreciate your personal attack on my attitude. If questioning sources and solutions that make the biggest impact is considered an attitude, then forget all civil discussion. Why bother commenting?
- 7y ago
- lazyguy 7y agoThis sounds extremely unhealthy for the cows.
- irjustin 7y agowhere did you get this? i haven't read anything towards this end.
- neuronic 7y agoHe gets this from nowhere and just proceeds to nonchalantly throw in stupid remarks in a debate that he doesn't like. It's an attempt to derail the discussion about proper solutions.
- nkozyra 7y agoWhy? Do we assume seaweed lacks the cellulose and minerals various grass an land weed varieties do?
- triceratops 7y agoNothing about the industrial farming system is healthy for the cows. The feedlots, antibiotics, living in filth, eventual transportation to a slaughterhouse etc.
- tunesmith 7y agoI saw some math once... not sure how correct it is, but it was something like given the co2-equivalent emissions of methane, even if all cows simply disappeared tomorrow, it would still only take care of about 5% of our global GHG emissions. So if that's true it wouldn't really be a gamechanger. Still worth doing though (the seaweed, not the mass slaughtering)! And if everyone plants 350 trees then maybe we'll get somewhere.
- FeepingCreature 7y ago5% of a global problem is huge.
- darkerside 7y agoCows may account for a small amount of total emissions, but they are responsible for almost half the methane released on the planet. Methane is a potent but relatively shortlived GHG. So, removing all cows would be a sizable but short term fix.
- tunesmith 7y agoWell, that's what I meant by CO2-equivalents. They figure methane into the math that way. Removing that methane would account for 5% of the CO2-equivalent problem we have. As potent as Methane is, it's dwarfed by the amount of CO2 we've added.
- darkerside 7y ago> sizable but short term fix
- esotericn 7y agoSome variant of this same comment is on every single thread about this here. We need to tackle all of the "only 5%" issues.
- nightski 7y ago
- orasis 7y agoTransportation costs will make this a non-starter. Most of the cattle, in North America at least, are no where near the oceans.
- goodalgae 7y agoMy company is currently working to grow Asparagopsis Taxiformis, here in the US, for this purpose. I agree with comments that we have big issues to tackle in regards to methane sinks failing, such as permafrost, and there are things to be said about people moving en masse to plant based diets – but, the future will always be a mix of tomorrow and today. Many people will still eat beef, and we need to ensure we reduce the negative effects of raising cattle as much as possible. We need a giant, mixed bag of tricks working in unison to slow the warming we have caused over the last 100 years. Luckily, current research is showing that – not only does AT nearly eliminate methane from the bovine digestive process entirely when supplementing between half and two percent of daily diet – we are seeing early indications in research of some amazing additional benefits – improved milk production, increased immunity, improved food conversion ratio (meaning you can feed cattle less and have them pack on more protein). Studies are not finalized, but what I have heard of them sounds very, very good. My background is in tech (founded and exited a TechStars company and have had a career in software and hardware startups) and my colleagues are in marine biology and phycology (algae science). My hope is that by approaching this problem from the perspective of a fast-iterating startup, we can get this product to market faster than the traditional routes of academic timelines and federal funding sources this industry is used to. If you are an investor, beef serving restaurant owner, or in business related to cattle raising and finishing and would like to find out more, please email us at info+hackernews@goodalgae.com. And follow our newsletter for updates at https://goodalgae.com https://goodalgae.com. Cheers!
- m0zg 7y agoSeems like just growing seaweed won't be enough though. You'd have to grow it _in close proximity to the cows_, otherwise there are other greenhouse gases that will be emitted before the cows can eat it. It's also unclear to me what this means in terms of water consumption, and therefore sustainability. I'd be curious to hear how (if at all) these issues could be addressed.
- bacon_waffle 7y agoDoesn't this seaweed grow in the sea? As far as I understand, the main water concerns as relate to cows, are about freshwater for growing fodder.
- legohead 7y agobut can we address the water consumption?
- PopeDotNinja 7y agoMy inner child was disappointed to learn that cow farts are not the major source of bovine methane emissions. But saying cow burps is stilly pretty funny. https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/33/which-is-a-bigger-methane-source-cow-belching-or-cow-flatulence/ https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/33/which-is-a-bigger-methane-so...
- barking 7y agoI'm disappointed too! I was going to ask if this might work for us humans.
- danans 7y agoDoes it work for people burps too? Asking for a friend.
- madis 7y agoPretty sure the microbes will shortly figure out how to survive in the gut together with the red seaweed. This party won't last long
- sc4les 7y agoBut not water usage, land usage, suffering for sentient beings, transport of feed, waste of human food for feeding etc etc
- rimliu 7y agoI am pretty sure that growing rice requires land, water, and transport. And I do not think cows eat human food nor humans would be very pleased to eat what cows eat.
- sc4les 7y agoWhat cows eat? Ah you mean soy. Nah we can’t use that. Would be a shame if the cow used 10x the amount of calories to grow before we eat it when we could eat the crops instead and make your comment look uninformed
- eMSF 7y agoHow could I truthfully mean soy by "what cows eat", when around here, soy only makes up 1-2% of cattle feed. You're cutting all the corners available by adding up the fact that you've heard soy being fed to cattle to them only eating soy.
- aaron695 7y agoMethane is gone in 7 years time. Spending billions to reduce it is disappearing money. That said this changes the cows digestive system. It will either make them more efficient or less. Work that out first.
- kensai 7y agoDelicious news! Now we can have Wagyu everyday. :D
- SubiculumCode 7y agoI eat chicken mostly. Anyone know if chickend also contribute significant methane?
- cyborch 7y ago“if Australia could grow enough of the seaweed for every cow in the nation, the country could cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 10%” Still not making a significant dent in how much damage is done by the meat industry
- hannob 7y agoSkeptical science remark: This whole "if cows eat seaweed that'll vastly reduce their carbon footprint" is based on a single study with 12 cows. If you take into consideration that especially small, never replicated studies often don't hold up to scrunity the next thing to do is not to ask how to produce the seaweed. The next reasonable step would be to try to replicate this study in a larger sample (and probably also with a larger variety of cow breeds).
- sieabahlpark 7y agoBut the confirmation bias is so easy! It's also green! Why do you hate the environment? /s
- solveit 7y agoYou're absolutely right, but the effect size is pretty damn impressive and I expect this to at least partially replicate.
- Etheryte 7y agoHaving a small sample and a large effect doesn't mean you're guaranteed at least some effect on a large sample. If anything, a very large effect is more likely to indicate a flaw in your method.
- solveit 7y agoYes, but effect sizes are relatively harder to hack/screw up (knowingly or otherwise) than p-values. My totally anecdotal impression is that findings showing large effect sizes seem to replicate better than findings showing highly significant effects.
- haffi112 7y agoIt could be an example of publication bias, from the wiki article on effect size [1]: An example of this is publication bias, which occurs when scientists report results only when the estimated effect sizes are large or are statistically significant. As a result, if many researchers carry out studies with low statistical power, the reported effect sizes will tend to be larger than the true (population) effects, if any. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_size
- ptah 7y agowhere does the methane go? what is the tradeoff?
- benj111 7y agoWill this increase digestive efficiency also? Ie will you be able to feed the cattle less, or is this something that cows just wont be able to digest?
- blue_devil 7y agoMore of a philosophical perspective here: The eco-systems on Earth have evolved over a long time. Without bias against scientific progress, why do we think we can "solve" this without going down a slippery slope of creating another problem? When is comes to complex systems that we don't completely understand, maybe the simplest solution is to just restore the system, that is "give up" on cows as human feed.
- vallode 7y agoPersonally I think this is a pessimistic point of view. The reason we think we can "solve" these issues is because we have been doing a good job of using tools to help us along the way of human history. If we do as you propose, where do we stop? What makes us think we can "solve" anything? Computing, timber, fire, clean water. The truth is that humans are a part of the eco-system, and the system will evolve with us. I support slowing down certain things, so we do not hit a dead-end, since I am vegan myself. Giving up will not solve anything, especially since we have a hell of a lot of clean up to do.
- blue_devil 7y agoOr it might be a realistic point of view. My point was not give up on _solutions_. I am saying that there are real issues to be solved - for example, we do need some way to heat homes, we do need to transport ourselves - so find sustainable solutions to those. Provably (medically), we do not _need_ to be eating 60 kg of beef per person per year. The more we tinker with the system, the higher the risk we break something else. It's an inherent property of complex _systems_ that they are complex, and well, systems. Is it worth tinkering to try to solve a popular, but not essential issue like how can we continue to grow cows for human feed?
- rkul 7y agoYour argument implies that cows who did not eat seaweed survived and therefore we see cows not eating seaweed now. Since cows cannot live underwater and seaweed does not grow outside water, these "two worlds" could not meet and the outcome of their interaction is unknown. It might work, it might not, however, evolution was not here yet.
- Accacin 7y agoDisclaimer: I'm plant-based, and of course biased. What would it take people to realise that eating meat is just not good for the environment and rather than going through all these 'fixes', just stop eating meat? We're getting to the point where we're going to have to sacrifice some 'comforts' IMO.
- Avamander 7y ago> We're getting to the point where we're going to have to sacrifice some 'comforts' IMO. Why can't those comforts we "sacrifice" be cruises, gasoline/diesel cars and all advertising? My point being that saying "we're going to have to make some sacrifices" and pointing at someone else never works unless the person pointing has a lot of power to enforce it.
- Accacin 7y ago> Why can't those comforts we "sacrifice" be cruises, gasoline/diesel cars and all advertising? This is only my opinion, but cutting out meat is incredibly easy. If you're in an area with no public transport then it's hard to stop driving your car especially if your livelihood depends on it. It's just a lot of time and money trying to fix the meat industry when the solution is 'stop'.
- siempreb 7y ago> just stop eating meat? For most people that's simply not an option. But, if all people were eating just a little less meat, that would be an incredible improvement already. I believe we better fight down the meat problem with small steps, especially by creating more delicious plant based food for the mainstream, creating an alternative that is really hard to resist because it tastes so good.
- Accacin 7y ago> For most people that's simply not an option. But, if all people were eating just a little less meat, that would be an incredible improvement already. Completely agree!
- Hitton 7y agoThat's cool, but let's not forget that methane stays in atmosphere only for 12 years. That means that if methane production stays constant, it doesn't actually increase amount of methane in atmosphere. Therefore I think that reducing production of greenhouse gases with longer longevity should be preferred.
- danmaz74 7y agoYou don't need to prefer one or the other. We should do both.
- asteli 7y agoQuestion from the peanut gallery: The gut bacteria in a cow digest components of the animal's food preferentially and excrete methane. If you knock those bacteria out, does the stuff the bacteria would have eaten get excreted by the cow? If so, do the organisms that digest it external to the cow emit greenhouse gases?
- stinos 7y agoI also wonder what effect this whole thing has on the cow. IIRC in humans there are even links between (lack of/bad) gut bacteria and certain diseases. So it seems at least worth it figuring ouf how this affects cows, imo.
- mklarmann 7y agoActually by knocking out the bacteria, they can see a slight uptake (5%) in feed efficiency of the cows. So part of it is put into fat and muscle.
- chiefalchemist 7y agoLet's not forget: - Producing cows is resource-intensive. Water and feed could be used more effectively elsewhere. - Consumption of red meat and dairy is generally unhealthy. - Runoff from cow "pastures" is effectively pollution. Encouraging less use of cows because of their impact on climate change was a win on a number of levels. Not any more.
- toper-centage 7y agoNot any more? How come?
- stronglikedan 7y ago> Consumption of red meat and dairy is generally unhealthy. That could be said about anything. Everything is generally unhealthy if done in excess. Moderate amounts of red meat and dairy is fine (and delicious).
- chiefalchemist 7y agoPerhaps. The keyword is moderate. However, based on historic levels there are plenty of people well past moderate.
- stronglikedan 7y agoI'm just pointing out that your statement, as it stands, is false, and letting you know why that is so.
- whiddershins 7y agoI really think it is irresponsible to keep repeating dietary hypothesis as fact. The notion that red meat is bad for you does not have compelling evidence, based all my years of obsessively researching this ... and with the help of equally obsessive and more qualified friends. As far as I can tell, how a diet makes you feel and presents visually is the closest thing we have to a reliable indicator of the health effects of that diet. From that standpoint, many many people get amazing results from a diet high in red meat. I cannot urge people enough to maintain skepticism with regards to “scientific” dietary advice, and try to do what makes them feel healthier and more energetic.
- mklarmann 7y agoThere is a similar product made from garlic, that is encapsulated so it just doesn't wash out with the cows saliva, that has a similar effect. You need about 50kg of it per cow, and it kills the methane producing bacteria. Yet the issue (which they no not fully communicate publicly, but one of the lead scientists told me in private), I guess is the same as with the seaweed. It is not all about reducing methane. We need to do a CO2eq calculations, which includes nitrous oxide at a much higher factor. And there is much more of this GHG coming out of the treated cow. Which almost cancel the methan reduction effect.
- DennisP 7y agoDoes the garlic cause methane reduction by the same mechanism as the seaweed?
- mklarmann 7y agoThis study [1] does indeed not reference N2O. So this make me suspicious: The garlic study [2], states: "Garlic contains allicin, diallylsulide, dialyldisulfide and allyl mercaptan, which affect rumen methanogens, decreasing rumen CH4 and acetate production and increasing rumen propionate and butyrate production (Busquet et al., 2005)." Allicin is not referenced in the sea-weed study. One would have to study the exact mechanism [3], to be conclusive. [1]: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0085289 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... [2]: http://www.thecattlesite.com/articles/2858/effect-of-garlic-oil-on-methane-production-in-lactating-buffalo/ http://www.thecattlesite.com/articles/2858/effect-of-garlic-... [3]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4714447/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4714447/
- reportgunner 7y agoI'm missing an "of something" after the 99%. It might the case that 99% in the title is actually 0.0001% of all cows in the world. It does not make sense to use % without knowing what is the total, the number carries no information whatsoever.
- crayola 7y agoI interpret this as, 'for an individual cow given a diet of that seaweed'. I don't think there's an issue there.
- cmroanirgo 7y agoFrom the article: > Even a small amount of the seaweed in a cow’s diet was shown to reduce the animal’s gases by 99%. and > When added to cow feed at less than 2% of the dry matter, this particular seaweed completely knocks out methane production. It contains chemicals that reduce the microbes in the cows’ stomachs that cause them to burp when they eat grass The 99% is relating to the gases emitted by a cow eating this seaweed vs not eating the seaweed. > if Australia could grow enough of the seaweed for every cow in the nation, the country could cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 10%.
- reportgunner 7y ago> Even a small amount of the seaweed in a cow’s diet was shown to reduce the animal’s gases by 99%. So if the cow eats seaweed it will also reduce any other gases produced by said cow ? does this apply worldwide or to cows in a specific area ? How about other animals that produce methane, is this applicable to them too ? > When added to cow feed at less than 2% of the dry matter, this particular seaweed completely knocks out methane production. It contains chemicals that educe the microbes in the cows’ stomachs that cause them to burp when they eat grass Is reducing these microbes healthy for the cow ? Won't it lead to shortening life span of a cow and therefore leading to requiring more cows ? > if Australia could grow enough of the seaweed for every cow in the nation, the country could cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 10%. Does this mean methane gas from cows represent 10.1% of greenhouse gas emissions of the country ? (i.e. reduced by 99% from 10.1% to 0.1% ?) How does the seaweed get to the cows ? Wouldn't this mean more dependency on trucks to bring the seaweed to the cows ? And the million dollar question - how many % of the world's methane gas production does Australia represent ?
- dillonmckay 7y agoDo grass-fed cows produce less methane than corn-fed cows?
- whenanother 7y agohow about all that antibiotics they are being fed as well? this could be a man made problem.
- wysifnwyg 7y agoYes.
- cfv 7y agoYou'd think beefmonger states would be tripping over each other to finance a larger proper larger study if this made any sense. It completely nullifies the environmental need to nerf their business. Something about it is just fishy.
- JordanFarmer 7y agoPsst... It's the iodine...
- porky 7y agoand no other effects? only lower methane emissions?
- majinuub 7y agoWhile this is pretty cool, I have a couple reservations. How do you scale this up so that it can make a measurable impact? What incentive is there for ranchers to get the seaweed for their cattle? I imagine that getting the feed or the seaweed itself would result in more overhead costs. Is there a subsidy for lowering emissions that would make getting this worthwhile? Also I can't help but wonder how the seaweed affects the microbiome of the cows in the long term. It does kill the microbes that make methane. IIRC, microbes are pretty much essential for cow digestion. Are the microbes that this seaweed kills essential for digestion or some other purpose?
- xmichael999 7y agoOk so strange question, does this have an effect on humans as well? Do regular sushi eaters fart less? (;
- WhompingWindows 7y agoThe seaweed is a specific kind of red seaweed that isn't used in sushi. The seaweed contains compounds which tamp down specific microbe levels. I doubt the exact same effect is occurring in sushi eaters, though a similar one hypothetically could be.
- stevespang 7y agoIt's the bromine compounds in the seaweed that do the trick, but it is only temporary, because the microbes in the cows stomach develop resistance to it rapidly.
- hispanic 7y agoMan - cows eating seaweed is no more natural than cows eating corn. We need to stop bastardizing natural systems for our own comfort and convenience.
- coryfklein 7y agoCows allowed near the ocean will naturally graze on seaweed.
- hispanic 7y agoSeriously? It's hard for me to picture cows wandering on a sandy beach. But, if true, I stand corrected - to a certain degree. Thanks.
- coryfklein 7y ago> “Cows eat what’s available,” she says. In California, they eat almond hulls; in Georgia, they eat cottonseeds. Documented evidence attests to farmers in ancient Greece and 18th-century Iceland deliberately grazing their cows on beaches. > It was, in fact, an ordinary farmer who hit upon the idea of supplementing cows’ feed with seaweed — not for the climate, but simply for his animals’ overall health. On the shores of Prince Edward Island in Canada, Joe Dorgan observed that his beach-paddocked cows got pregnant faster and produced more milk than his inland pastured cows. From https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-eating-seaweed-can-help-cows-to-belch-less-methane https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-eating-seaweed-can-help-c...
- RosanaAnaDana 7y agoI mean, you know there are no 'cows' in the wild. We made cows from aurochs.
- hispanic 7y agoPoint taken. "Bastardization" isn't black and white. It's measured in shades of grey.
- m23khan 7y agoI always thought that part of problem with huge methane emission from livestock maybe due to what we feed them. Perhaps their stomachs are not meant to eat primarily grass and the types of plants we typically allow them to eat. Maybe other types of plants and crops should be fed instead.
- logfromblammo 7y agoCould we skip a step and just eat manatee steaks?~ Perhaps we could get the same benefit by feeding the whole herd seaweed for a month, then put everyone but the fistulated cow back on regular feed, and just mix her rumen contents into it?
- Jenz 7y agoWhere does the methane go?
- jjtheblunt 7y agoeating fewer cows also reduces collective cows' methane emissions
- teslaberry 7y agoAn economy investing in feeding pets premium chow and cows antifart food is one heading into an eventual ditch. Keep drinking the coolaid..... Either glibal warming ia bullshit or cleancowfarts are the equivalemt of clean coal. Take your pick....in either case youre looking at massive long term malinvestment from which there is no return.