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This is the comment made some days ago in the news about meat and CO2 emissions. This idea that animals just eat the produce of intensive farming (or that graz

by wtdata 7y ago

This is the comment made some days ago in the news about meat and CO2 emissions. This idea that animals just eat the produce of intensive farming (or that grazing pastures are planted by men specifically for that purpose) is wrong in many parts of the world. We have the obvious example of Argentina, where free grazing cattle uses the naturally available grass to get fed. In the case of Southern Europe, there are also goats that have been used to clean the forests for a long time in order to prevent fires, and that provides for most or even all of their feeding requirements (besides fulfilling the important role of fire prevention). The idea going around how animals are so inefficient per Kg of food/Kg CO2, fails to take into account (basically all the time) that part of those animals, only consume naturally occurring flora that is in no way planted by men. P.S.: As an interesting related side note, there are a lot of cooking recipes for old goat in Portugal (the meat needs to be cooked differently).

jacobush 7y ago
Unfortunately very little of produced meat is produced that way. And even in South America often forest is cleared to make room for grass, but in that soil the grass is not sustainable.
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  > Unfortunately very little of produced meat is produced that way. That is true. Question is why. In NZ our beef is still exclusively reared on pasture (with hay and winter crops like brassicas for winter feed), I've never understood why there's such a move to feeding grain to cattle overseas.
  - ctack 7y ago
    It's the farmers trying to raise too many cattle on too little land. Also feedlots.
    - EdwardDiego 7y ago
      I had to google feedlots. They seem a tad unsustainable.
  - rjf72 7y ago
    - In the US we have vast surpluses of corn, and it's heavily subsidized by the government. - Feed lots can fit a whole lot more cows per acre. - Corn tends to fatten up cows more (and more quickly) than grazing. - Increased fat content = meat that grades higher and tends to sell for more meaning you also earn more $/lb on top of the other reasons.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    US subsidy policy encourages huge over-production of grain, so ways have to be found to get rid of it such as feeding it to animals or making ethanol out of it, or making HFCS and putting it in drinks.
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    There was a policy decision made in the Nixon era. Basically, it was determined that corn was the cheapest way to generate certain caloric targets. This achieved that objective and also secondarily helped with certain political objectives. So there's a whole subsidy and trade system around corn growth that basically stifles everything else. The outcome for agriculture has overall been devastation for all but the largest operators. The "scale up" makes it impossible for all but the largest farms to compete. When my parents were kids in the 60s, a diversified, smallish farm was a sustainable thing. When I was a kid in the 80s/90s, they concentrated on bigger dairy or corn operations. Today, they're going out of business or make money selling doughnuts.
EdwardDiego 7y ago
> P.S.: As an interesting related side note, there are a lot of cooking recipes for old goat in Portugal (the meat needs to be cooked differently). I'd love to get hold of some, it'd be good for cooking chamois and tahr in my country. Fun fact, goat is the most widely eaten meat in the world.
- wtdata 7y ago
  I can help you, but, they are in Portuguese. This is the wikipedia page talking about the most famous dish: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanfana https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanfana This is one of the recipes: https://aldeiasdoxisto.pt/artigo/531 https://aldeiasdoxisto.pt/artigo/531
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mpranjic 7y ago
  > Fun fact, goat is the most widely eaten meat in the world. Do you have a trusted source for this? A quick search query using my favorite search engine tells otherwise. But that's just random internet information.
  - EdwardDiego 7y ago
    Aww damnit. :( https://www.huffpost.com/entry/most-consumed-meat-in-world_n_593562eae4b02478cb9d42dd https://www.huffpost.com/entry/most-consumed-meat-in-world_n... Although to be fair, pork makes way more sense.
    - mikorym 7y ago
      most widely eaten != most eaten by weight The article does not disprove the (somewhat vaguely) stated hypothesis.
- DoingIsLearning 7y ago
  'Chanfana de Cabra' or 'Chanfana de Borrego' is probably the most famous recipe as wdata pointed out. I am not sure there are a lot of recipes for this type of meat as it is claimed. Mostly it is either slow roasted in an oven or slow cooked in a stew with some variations on stew ingredients. The main difference is in the longer cooking time and in preparing the meat. Traditionally people remove the lymph nodes from certain areas under the legs and some of the nearby fat tissue. Otherwis this tissue will give a really unpleasant taste/smell to the cooked meat.
superpermutat0r 7y ago
https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_offices/argentina/environmental_problems_argentina/ https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_offices/argentina/environmental_pr... Naturally available grass that previously had rainforests over it? I mean, yes, livestock eats grass but there's still a lot of livestock that eats beans.
SocratesV 7y ago
This whole thread by Dr. Sarah Taber is quite interesting on how it's all about the context when it comes to growing meat vs. growing crops. https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/1006363775723888640 https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/100636377572388864... She summarises it in a single tweet at the end: In places where there's limited land and a surplus of water, it makes a lot of sense to optimize for land. So there, grow & eat crops. And in places where there's a lot of land and limited water, it makes sense to optimize for water. So there, grow & eat ruminants. P.S.: There are also other things to take into account, but think that already shows how we should balance our view and not advocate for a single form of subsistence everywhere.

by wtdata 7y ago

jacobush 7y ago

Unfortunately very little of produced meat is produced that way. And even in South America often forest is cleared to make room for grass, but in that soil the grass is not sustainable.

EdwardDiego 7y ago
> Unfortunately very little of produced meat is produced that way. That is true. Question is why. In NZ our beef is still exclusively reared on pasture (with hay and winter crops like brassicas for winter feed), I've never understood why there's such a move to feeding grain to cattle overseas.
- ctack 7y ago
  It's the farmers trying to raise too many cattle on too little land. Also feedlots.
  - EdwardDiego 7y ago
    I had to google feedlots. They seem a tad unsustainable.
- rjf72 7y ago
  - In the US we have vast surpluses of corn, and it's heavily subsidized by the government. - Feed lots can fit a whole lot more cows per acre. - Corn tends to fatten up cows more (and more quickly) than grazing. - Increased fat content = meat that grades higher and tends to sell for more meaning you also earn more $/lb on top of the other reasons.
- pjc50 7y ago
  US subsidy policy encourages huge over-production of grain, so ways have to be found to get rid of it such as feeding it to animals or making ethanol out of it, or making HFCS and putting it in drinks.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  There was a policy decision made in the Nixon era. Basically, it was determined that corn was the cheapest way to generate certain caloric targets. This achieved that objective and also secondarily helped with certain political objectives. So there's a whole subsidy and trade system around corn growth that basically stifles everything else. The outcome for agriculture has overall been devastation for all but the largest operators. The "scale up" makes it impossible for all but the largest farms to compete. When my parents were kids in the 60s, a diversified, smallish farm was a sustainable thing. When I was a kid in the 80s/90s, they concentrated on bigger dairy or corn operations. Today, they're going out of business or make money selling doughnuts.

EdwardDiego 7y ago

> P.S.: As an interesting related side note, there are a lot of cooking recipes for old goat in Portugal (the meat needs to be cooked differently). I'd love to get hold of some, it'd be good for cooking chamois and tahr in my country. Fun fact, goat is the most widely eaten meat in the world.

wtdata 7y ago
I can help you, but, they are in Portuguese. This is the wikipedia page talking about the most famous dish: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanfana https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanfana This is one of the recipes: https://aldeiasdoxisto.pt/artigo/531 https://aldeiasdoxisto.pt/artigo/531
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mpranjic 7y ago
> Fun fact, goat is the most widely eaten meat in the world. Do you have a trusted source for this? A quick search query using my favorite search engine tells otherwise. But that's just random internet information.
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  Aww damnit. :( https://www.huffpost.com/entry/most-consumed-meat-in-world_n_593562eae4b02478cb9d42dd https://www.huffpost.com/entry/most-consumed-meat-in-world_n... Although to be fair, pork makes way more sense.
  - mikorym 7y ago
    most widely eaten != most eaten by weight The article does not disprove the (somewhat vaguely) stated hypothesis.
DoingIsLearning 7y ago
'Chanfana de Cabra' or 'Chanfana de Borrego' is probably the most famous recipe as wdata pointed out. I am not sure there are a lot of recipes for this type of meat as it is claimed. Mostly it is either slow roasted in an oven or slow cooked in a stew with some variations on stew ingredients. The main difference is in the longer cooking time and in preparing the meat. Traditionally people remove the lymph nodes from certain areas under the legs and some of the nearby fat tissue. Otherwis this tissue will give a really unpleasant taste/smell to the cooked meat.

superpermutat0r 7y ago

https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_offices/argentina/environmental_problems_argentina/ https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_offices/argentina/environmental_pr... Naturally available grass that previously had rainforests over it? I mean, yes, livestock eats grass but there's still a lot of livestock that eats beans.

SocratesV 7y ago

This whole thread by Dr. Sarah Taber is quite interesting on how it's all about the context when it comes to growing meat vs. growing crops. https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/1006363775723888640 https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/100636377572388864... She summarises it in a single tweet at the end: In places where there's limited land and a surplus of water, it makes a lot of sense to optimize for land. So there, grow & eat crops. And in places where there's a lot of land and limited water, it makes sense to optimize for water. So there, grow & eat ruminants. P.S.: There are also other things to take into account, but think that already shows how we should balance our view and not advocate for a single form of subsistence everywhere.