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At scale, we can't necessarily just substitute things instantly like that. Do you think there's enough calorie-slack built into the rice & beans (& everything e

by jerf 7y ago

At scale, we can't necessarily just substitute things instantly like that. Do you think there's enough calorie-slack built into the rice & beans (& everything else) to supply the drop from animal sources? 'Cause I for one would be very, very surprised. Not to mention you're also assuming that rice and beans are unaffected... but very little if anything about these plant closures are specifically related to them being animal protein sources. Does no good to shrug and say "people should just be eating vegetarian anyhow" if the vegetarian supply line is also going to collapse.

throwaway894345 7y ago
To expand on your point, even if the vegetarian protien supply chains aren't directly affected by COVID the way that the meat supply chain is, if everyone who eats meat must abruptly switch to alternative protein sources, do we imagine that there is an overproduction of such protein sources such that it can absorb the demand without driving prices out of reach of the poor?
gruez 7y ago
>Do you think there's enough calorie-slack built into the rice & beans (& everything else) to supply the drop from animal sources? 'Cause I for one would be very, very surprised. Rice and beans is probably not the best example, it's just the stereotypical frugal food. What's more realistic would be corn and soybeans. Massive amounts of corn is used for ethanol production (which we probably don't need since oil is at an all time low), and massive amounts of soybeans is used for meat production (which we don't need because all the meat processing plants are shut down).
- ip26 7y ago
  FWIW the corn fed to livestock or used for ethanol is usually field corn, which is generally considered inedible for humans. We eat sweet corn, which is only a tiny fraction of the USA corn crop.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    I'm pretty sure that field corn is perfectly edible for humans. The problem is that it doesn't taste as good as sweet corn, but it's not poisonous or anything. In fact, if you're starving, it probably tastes pretty good.
    - trynewideas 7y ago
      Edible in the same sense as paper is technically edible, yes. Nutritionally valuable to humans? Only for a brief window — and with commercial processing, so we're back to "what if the food processing part of the chain fails due to the pandemic?"
      - gruez 7y ago
        >Edible in the same sense as paper is technically edible, yes. Nutritionally valuable to humans? Only for a brief window Can you elaborate on that? It's not like you're eating leaves. Aren't all types of corn mostly starch that humans can digest?
      - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
        From Wikipedia: > Although not grown primarily for human consumption, people do pick ears of field corn when its sugar content has peaked and cook it on the cob or eat it raw. Ears of field corn picked and consumed in this manner are commonly called "roasting ears" due to the most commonly used method of cooking them. So: Only in a brief window? Maybe, though I doubt it. (Unless you're trying to say that, in the form of corn on the cob, it won't keep for all that long, which is true.) With commercial processing? Hardly. (Unless you are trying to say that we can't, say, can it or freeze it in quantity without commercial processing, which is true.) All that said, people would happily eat field corn on the cob if it meant that they got to eat. It may not be the whole answer to a food shortage, but it's an answer that could help a significant amount.
        DuskStar 7y ago
        Unfortunately, I'm relatively sure that field corn isn't harvested the same way as sweet corn, and so there might not be a way to collect those cobs before they dry.
- SAI_Peregrinus 7y ago
  The corn used for ethanol production isn't the human-edible sweet corn though. Wrong plant.
  - war1025 7y ago
    Dent corn is still edible, it just needs to be nixtamalized first to unlock more of the nutrients. [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization
    - SAI_Peregrinus 7y ago
      True, but nixtamilization isn't used at the scales needed for this, we'd need to build new processing plants. That'd probably take about as long as just growing new sweet corn instead.

by jerf 7y ago

throwaway894345 7y ago

To expand on your point, even if the vegetarian protien supply chains aren't directly affected by COVID the way that the meat supply chain is, if everyone who eats meat must abruptly switch to alternative protein sources, do we imagine that there is an overproduction of such protein sources such that it can absorb the demand without driving prices out of reach of the poor?

gruez 7y ago

>Do you think there's enough calorie-slack built into the rice & beans (& everything else) to supply the drop from animal sources? 'Cause I for one would be very, very surprised. Rice and beans is probably not the best example, it's just the stereotypical frugal food. What's more realistic would be corn and soybeans. Massive amounts of corn is used for ethanol production (which we probably don't need since oil is at an all time low), and massive amounts of soybeans is used for meat production (which we don't need because all the meat processing plants are shut down).

ip26 7y ago
FWIW the corn fed to livestock or used for ethanol is usually field corn, which is generally considered inedible for humans. We eat sweet corn, which is only a tiny fraction of the USA corn crop.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure that field corn is perfectly edible for humans. The problem is that it doesn't taste as good as sweet corn, but it's not poisonous or anything. In fact, if you're starving, it probably tastes pretty good.
  - trynewideas 7y ago
    Edible in the same sense as paper is technically edible, yes. Nutritionally valuable to humans? Only for a brief window — and with commercial processing, so we're back to "what if the food processing part of the chain fails due to the pandemic?"
    - gruez 7y ago
      >Edible in the same sense as paper is technically edible, yes. Nutritionally valuable to humans? Only for a brief window Can you elaborate on that? It's not like you're eating leaves. Aren't all types of corn mostly starch that humans can digest?
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      From Wikipedia: > Although not grown primarily for human consumption, people do pick ears of field corn when its sugar content has peaked and cook it on the cob or eat it raw. Ears of field corn picked and consumed in this manner are commonly called "roasting ears" due to the most commonly used method of cooking them. So: Only in a brief window? Maybe, though I doubt it. (Unless you're trying to say that, in the form of corn on the cob, it won't keep for all that long, which is true.) With commercial processing? Hardly. (Unless you are trying to say that we can't, say, can it or freeze it in quantity without commercial processing, which is true.) All that said, people would happily eat field corn on the cob if it meant that they got to eat. It may not be the whole answer to a food shortage, but it's an answer that could help a significant amount.
      - DuskStar 7y ago
        Unfortunately, I'm relatively sure that field corn isn't harvested the same way as sweet corn, and so there might not be a way to collect those cobs before they dry.
SAI_Peregrinus 7y ago
The corn used for ethanol production isn't the human-edible sweet corn though. Wrong plant.
- war1025 7y ago
  Dent corn is still edible, it just needs to be nixtamalized first to unlock more of the nutrients. [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization
  - SAI_Peregrinus 7y ago
    True, but nixtamilization isn't used at the scales needed for this, we'd need to build new processing plants. That'd probably take about as long as just growing new sweet corn instead.