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Corn (not to be confused with sweet corn, which is a different crop) has pretty limited use for human consumption, though. The foods that humans enjoy eating on

Corn (not to be confused with sweet corn, which is a different crop) has pretty limited use for human consumption, though. The foods that humans enjoy eating on a regular basis, including sweet corn, are far less efficient to grow and are not necessarily always more efficient than eating animals. There is indeed a good reason why animal food costs considerably less than human food, and why humans don't resort to eating that cheaper animal food to save money.

bjo590 6y ago
> The foods that humans enjoy eating on a regular basis, including sweet corn, are far less efficient to grow and are not necessarily always more efficient than eating animals. To me this is a bold claim. My understanding is eating plants is significantly more efficient per calorie than eating animals on a wide range of scales -- amount of water used, amount of green house gases produced, amount of land consumed. Can you please provide one common example in which a plant humans like to consume is less efficient than a domesticated animal humans like to consume?
- randomdata 6y ago
  > Can you please provide one common example in which a plant humans like to consume is less efficient than a domesticated animal humans like to consume? It would be worthwhile to define efficiency here, as it can mean a lot of different things, but I'll go with the most readily available numbers that fit within the confines of your comment. Which means calories to the amount of land consumed. Pork provides 3.5 million calories per acre. Broccoli, only two million calories per acre. For comparison, corn (again, not sweet corn) provides 15 million calories per acre. If you actually ate a corn diet, it would be very efficient, but there is a good reason why you probably don't sustain yourself on a corn diet (those who live on Doritos and sugary drinks excepted). It is not exactly great human food. Now, that is not the greatest comparison as if you stopped eating pork, you probably wouldn't replace those calories with broccoli, but it does ultimately satisfy your question and illustrates that it is not simply a matter of all plant life always being more efficient. As you can see, corn is really efficient (and not just when it comes to land use), which provides a nice margin for the overall efficiency of animal production.
  - alex_young 6y ago
    How could that conversion work while respecting the second law? Here’s a good breakdown on the subject: https://stanfordmag.org/contents/can-vegetarianism-save-the-world-nitty-gritty https://stanfordmag.org/contents/can-vegetarianism-save-the-...
    - Nasrudith 6y ago
      Factory farms help with the numbers. You can keep pigs more dense even if they don't depend upon the area for the source of feed - just like humans and urban density. A high density in 1 acre ks perfectly plauisble but it ignores the feed crop acres. At that point efficency should be total crop calories * pig efficency margin (10% for standard trophic level to back of the envelope) / (acres of corn + acres of pig). If you took the density scale to something really absurd the pig acre efficiency would be the crop times the multiplier as that space converges eventually converges to becomes negligible and just "pig efficency * feed crop calorie/acre" effectively. Granted the effective convergence point may not be realistic without real world data but if factory farms are big enough it comes out to the same order of magnitude as brocoli about 1.5 vs 2. Of course there are a lot of other things to legitimagely object to about said arrangement but it surpringly lines up to be comparable to vegetable crops in caloric efficiency. A more in depth answer would look at the caloric share of diets in consumption - most people don't get their bulk calories from vegetables.
      - filoeleven 6y ago
        > If you took the density scale to something really absurd... > Of course there are a lot of other things to legitimagely object to about said arrangement... The sad reality is that the density scale at pig factory farms is already well past morally objectionable territory if you are concerned at all about animal welfare. I’ve linked resources on this before and can do so again if desired, it’s horrible stuff. Pigs are about the same as dogs in their sentience and even suitability as a pet. I don’t see how one can justify caring for a dog as a pet and also buying factory-farmed pork once they learn about it. Small farms with better living conditions are arguably more justifiable. I don’t eat animals any more, stopped for different reasons, but being aware plays a role in keeping me from going back.

bjo590 6y ago

> The foods that humans enjoy eating on a regular basis, including sweet corn, are far less efficient to grow and are not necessarily always more efficient than eating animals. To me this is a bold claim. My understanding is eating plants is significantly more efficient per calorie than eating animals on a wide range of scales -- amount of water used, amount of green house gases produced, amount of land consumed. Can you please provide one common example in which a plant humans like to consume is less efficient than a domesticated animal humans like to consume?

randomdata 6y ago
> Can you please provide one common example in which a plant humans like to consume is less efficient than a domesticated animal humans like to consume? It would be worthwhile to define efficiency here, as it can mean a lot of different things, but I'll go with the most readily available numbers that fit within the confines of your comment. Which means calories to the amount of land consumed. Pork provides 3.5 million calories per acre. Broccoli, only two million calories per acre. For comparison, corn (again, not sweet corn) provides 15 million calories per acre. If you actually ate a corn diet, it would be very efficient, but there is a good reason why you probably don't sustain yourself on a corn diet (those who live on Doritos and sugary drinks excepted). It is not exactly great human food. Now, that is not the greatest comparison as if you stopped eating pork, you probably wouldn't replace those calories with broccoli, but it does ultimately satisfy your question and illustrates that it is not simply a matter of all plant life always being more efficient. As you can see, corn is really efficient (and not just when it comes to land use), which provides a nice margin for the overall efficiency of animal production.
- alex_young 6y ago
  How could that conversion work while respecting the second law? Here’s a good breakdown on the subject: https://stanfordmag.org/contents/can-vegetarianism-save-the-world-nitty-gritty https://stanfordmag.org/contents/can-vegetarianism-save-the-...
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    Factory farms help with the numbers. You can keep pigs more dense even if they don't depend upon the area for the source of feed - just like humans and urban density. A high density in 1 acre ks perfectly plauisble but it ignores the feed crop acres. At that point efficency should be total crop calories * pig efficency margin (10% for standard trophic level to back of the envelope) / (acres of corn + acres of pig). If you took the density scale to something really absurd the pig acre efficiency would be the crop times the multiplier as that space converges eventually converges to becomes negligible and just "pig efficency * feed crop calorie/acre" effectively. Granted the effective convergence point may not be realistic without real world data but if factory farms are big enough it comes out to the same order of magnitude as brocoli about 1.5 vs 2. Of course there are a lot of other things to legitimagely object to about said arrangement but it surpringly lines up to be comparable to vegetable crops in caloric efficiency. A more in depth answer would look at the caloric share of diets in consumption - most people don't get their bulk calories from vegetables.
    - filoeleven 6y ago
      > If you took the density scale to something really absurd... > Of course there are a lot of other things to legitimagely object to about said arrangement... The sad reality is that the density scale at pig factory farms is already well past morally objectionable territory if you are concerned at all about animal welfare. I’ve linked resources on this before and can do so again if desired, it’s horrible stuff. Pigs are about the same as dogs in their sentience and even suitability as a pet. I don’t see how one can justify caring for a dog as a pet and also buying factory-farmed pork once they learn about it. Small farms with better living conditions are arguably more justifiable. I don’t eat animals any more, stopped for different reasons, but being aware plays a role in keeping me from going back.