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Changing culture in terms of food is a hard problem and one which would have a large range of benefits. Any country that has environmental issues from overpopul

by belorn 5y ago

Changing culture in terms of food is a hard problem and one which would have a large range of benefits. Any country that has environmental issues from overpopulated or invasive species could benefit greatly if people hunted an ate that animal, but since they aren't part of the culture people don't and allow overpopulated or invasive species to continue being a problem. People are addicted to the cultural food that is popular in their local area. We see the same issue in the cultivating of mono-culture plants. Instead of using a wide range of different plants and land usage we instead see a overuse of the same plants being force fed artificial fertilizers in order to keep production high, with much of it ending up in the water creating eutrophication. This is a primary reason why a whole ocean, the Baltic sea, is turning into an underwater desert with a lack of oxygen so great that not even many bacterials like to live there. Artificial fertilizers has destroyed more way more land than nuclear fission and nuclear bombs has together. If we could change peoples culture in terms in what they eat we could not only have a 100% reduction in methane, but also fix the water pollution, biodiversity, usage of fossil fuels in the food chain, decrease land usage, fix overpopulation and remove invasive species, and feed even more people than we do today. It would also likely taste quite well, especially since taste is heavily influenced by culture.

collegeburner 5y ago
Sure, in Texas a lot of us hunt and eat wild hogs as they're a nuisance. Javelina are native but can be a pest sometimes, so we eat them too (good in sausage).
- belorn 5y ago
  Wild hogs tend to be part of the culture in most areas that I know has them. A useful sign for this is that such meat is generally more expensive to buy than beef, which illustrate the value that the culture puts on it as food. In contrast one can look at areas which has an overpopulation of seals. People don't eat the meat and the most common use is to generate oil, which is also not very useful in modern days. As such hunters are not very interested to spend time on it and overpopulation is allowed to continue even if it has a known negative impact on bio diversity in an local area. If one goes into the area of eutrophication, over population of non-cultural acceptable fish is very common. When government create initiatives to address the issue, the caught fish (many many tons of fish) get either turned into bio fuel or animal feed if the cost of transportation allows it. Hard to find a bigger waste of food than that, and it is purely a matter of culture.

by belorn 5y ago

collegeburner 5y ago

Sure, in Texas a lot of us hunt and eat wild hogs as they're a nuisance. Javelina are native but can be a pest sometimes, so we eat them too (good in sausage).

belorn 5y ago
Wild hogs tend to be part of the culture in most areas that I know has them. A useful sign for this is that such meat is generally more expensive to buy than beef, which illustrate the value that the culture puts on it as food. In contrast one can look at areas which has an overpopulation of seals. People don't eat the meat and the most common use is to generate oil, which is also not very useful in modern days. As such hunters are not very interested to spend time on it and overpopulation is allowed to continue even if it has a known negative impact on bio diversity in an local area. If one goes into the area of eutrophication, over population of non-cultural acceptable fish is very common. When government create initiatives to address the issue, the caught fish (many many tons of fish) get either turned into bio fuel or animal feed if the cost of transportation allows it. Hard to find a bigger waste of food than that, and it is purely a matter of culture.