3 ms·

That's interesting, I feel like the opposite comes out ahead ethically. I'm on board with the idea that pigs are way more intelligent than most people realize,

That's interesting, I feel like the opposite comes out ahead ethically. I'm on board with the idea that pigs are way more intelligent than most people realize, but unless we get people to give up bacon, the pig brains will otherwise just be discarded, and it's unlikely that losing the market for pig brains would make pork significantly less profitable. On the other hand, fish oil seems to be a major reason for catching the fish it comes from: > The major sources of fish oil are small pelagic fishes, caught off the coast of Peru and Chile. Each catch is transported on a fishing vessel to shore, where it is then processed by fractionation into fish meal and crude fish oil. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4681158/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4681158/ Small fish may themselves not be as smart as pigs, but the ecosystem damage is worth considering too. (Algae-based oil seems the clear winner though.)

adrian_b 5y ago
You have a point there, but for example I am eating cod liver oil. Like a pig brain, a cod liver would have been otherwise discarded after making the cod fillet bought by other people. In the future the algae-based oil will indeed be the winner (even if that is a misnomer, because the unicellular living beings that make the oil are not algae; however for the general public, "algae" is much more intelligible than "thraustochytrids"). Nevertheless, that future is not here yet. The cost of cultivation and oil extraction must be reduced at least 8 times, to make that oil competitive with the fish oil.
- SamBam 5y ago
  The argument doesn't quite work, though, because if you start to extract additional value from an animal then it becomes more valuable to farm/fish, and more of those animals get killed. In the case of cod, cod is one of the most over-fished fishes on the planet. The extra money that the big fishing companies get from selling the liver separately certainly contributes some percentage to that over-fishing. (Some cod is sustainably farmed, but it's the minority.)
  - adrian_b 5y ago
    Your arguments are valid, so the truth is that none of the sources of omega-3 fatty acids that are the best choice now are good enough for the long term. Nevertheless, eating a small quantity of animal food for covering the requirement for omega-3 fatty acids is still a great improvement over eating a large quantity of animal food containing other kinds of fat, which is better obtained from vegetable sources. Therefore, except for a little fish oil, I do not eat any other kind of animal fat. I still hope to live enough to see improvements in the techniques of culturing unicellular organisms that can produce omega-3 acids, so that their oil will become cheap enough to replace the other sources, like oily fish, cod liver or pig brains. In my opinion, in the distant future, the final solution to the food problem will be to have some genetically-engineered organisms, either derived from some parasitic plants, or derived from some fungi, able to produce edible parts mimicking all the foods that exist now, from apples or bananas to pork or beef meat, when fed only with minerals and with a simple organic substance, such as sugar or glucose, or maybe one as simple as ethanol, as the energy source. Such genetically-engineered organisms would be grown indoors, possibly under ground, to save space. The fixing of carbon dioxide into a simple substance like sugar and of dinitrogen into ammonia, would be made separately, in some devices using the energy provided by solar cells, which would cover much of what is now agricultural land. Such artificial devices using solar energy to convert CO2, N2 and water into sugar, ammonia and free oxygen, could have much better efficiencies than the existing plants (though a lot of improvements over the existing technologies are needed to reach such a goal). On the other hand, for the synthesis of the complex organic substances that are needed for our complete food, no methods better than those used in living beings are known yet.

adrian_b 5y ago

You have a point there, but for example I am eating cod liver oil. Like a pig brain, a cod liver would have been otherwise discarded after making the cod fillet bought by other people. In the future the algae-based oil will indeed be the winner (even if that is a misnomer, because the unicellular living beings that make the oil are not algae; however for the general public, "algae" is much more intelligible than "thraustochytrids"). Nevertheless, that future is not here yet. The cost of cultivation and oil extraction must be reduced at least 8 times, to make that oil competitive with the fish oil.

SamBam 5y ago
The argument doesn't quite work, though, because if you start to extract additional value from an animal then it becomes more valuable to farm/fish, and more of those animals get killed. In the case of cod, cod is one of the most over-fished fishes on the planet. The extra money that the big fishing companies get from selling the liver separately certainly contributes some percentage to that over-fishing. (Some cod is sustainably farmed, but it's the minority.)
- adrian_b 5y ago
  Your arguments are valid, so the truth is that none of the sources of omega-3 fatty acids that are the best choice now are good enough for the long term. Nevertheless, eating a small quantity of animal food for covering the requirement for omega-3 fatty acids is still a great improvement over eating a large quantity of animal food containing other kinds of fat, which is better obtained from vegetable sources. Therefore, except for a little fish oil, I do not eat any other kind of animal fat. I still hope to live enough to see improvements in the techniques of culturing unicellular organisms that can produce omega-3 acids, so that their oil will become cheap enough to replace the other sources, like oily fish, cod liver or pig brains. In my opinion, in the distant future, the final solution to the food problem will be to have some genetically-engineered organisms, either derived from some parasitic plants, or derived from some fungi, able to produce edible parts mimicking all the foods that exist now, from apples or bananas to pork or beef meat, when fed only with minerals and with a simple organic substance, such as sugar or glucose, or maybe one as simple as ethanol, as the energy source. Such genetically-engineered organisms would be grown indoors, possibly under ground, to save space. The fixing of carbon dioxide into a simple substance like sugar and of dinitrogen into ammonia, would be made separately, in some devices using the energy provided by solar cells, which would cover much of what is now agricultural land. Such artificial devices using solar energy to convert CO2, N2 and water into sugar, ammonia and free oxygen, could have much better efficiencies than the existing plants (though a lot of improvements over the existing technologies are needed to reach such a goal). On the other hand, for the synthesis of the complex organic substances that are needed for our complete food, no methods better than those used in living beings are known yet.