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Or consuming terrifying amounts of energy and resources, when you can put a cow in a field until it's big enough to eat.
by Gordonjcp 4y ago
Or consuming terrifying amounts of energy and resources, when you can put a cow in a field until it's big enough to eat.
- jcutrell 4y agoOne cow is fine, it's when you try to put millions of cows out there and grow them as fast as possible that you get problems.
- chairhairair 4y agoImagine thinking modern factory farming is anything as simple as “putting a cow in a field”.
- newsclues 4y agoI don't think the expectation is the replicate the horrid factory farming system. Traditional farming and cattle ranching still exists!
- macinjosh 4y agoImagine thinking modern factory farming is the only way to go about things. It really can be as simple as putting a cow in a field with grass and water. My family has been doing it for 150 years.
- HDThoreaun 4y agoimagine thinking this is possible at the scale required to satiate humanities appetite for meat.
- chairhairair 4y agoIt can be, but the reality is that it largely isn’t. You can refine your own iron if you’d like, but most people do not.
- addisonl 4y agoAnd that scales for the 32 million cows consumed in America per year? https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/cattle-beef/statistics-information/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/cattle-beef/...
- Gordonjcp 4y agoAnd yet that's where all the meat I eat comes from, and indeed most of the meat eaten in this country.
- waboremo 4y agoYou are wildly mistaken if you believe traditional "cow does whatever it wants until slaughter" farming is where the majority[0] of meat comes from in this country (assuming USA). [0] https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estimates https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estima...
- Gordonjcp 4y agoI'm not in the USA. You haven't got any form of safe or ecologically sustainable farming in the US, and you need to fix that.
- mlindner 4y agoHuge portions of the midwest are used nigh exclusively for cattle grazing. Yes they spend the end of their lives in close quarters eating a lot, but they're not generally being birthed in those environments.
- aaroninsf 4y agoThis is a nonsensical comment. Culturing meat is entirely about minimizing resource and land usage, and curbing the serious environmental impacts of the beef industry, which is of course truly infamous for methane emissions and deforestation.
- rmah 4y agoPersonally, I doubt that. I strongly suspect that lab-grown meat is mostly about making lots of money selling it for high margins to vegetarians who still want to eat "meat".
- algoatecorn 4y agoBingo. I'm an agricultural researcher with a background that includes in vitro biology, now getting another degree focused on entire food systems. I have spent a lot of time looking into the economic realities of food innovation, land-use, energy, water, price-sensitivity, and consumer preferences. There's nothing wrong with getting excited about lab-grown meat, but we have a loooong way to go before considering it as a realistic food source in the future. One must consider the current price of food is grounded in the use of fossil fuels, ignoring negative externalities, and millennia of optimization. To consider lab-grown meat as a future replacement of conventional animal production, you have to go way back to primary energy sources and work your way back from there. Chances are, you'll find that a hypothetical future of lab-grown meat is cost-prohibitive for basically the entire world. I'm not here to argue the ethics, environmental damage, etc. Just pointing out the COST, and why consumer adoption should not be viewed through the lens of a six-figure salary programmer.
- roflyear 4y agoIt's some revelation that capitalism is driving this? Shocker.
- mmiyer 4y ago97%[0] of cows are finished on feedlots, i.e. get a substantial amount of calories from corn and other feed. Other animals like pigs are exclusively fed feed. Animal factory farming already consumes a terrifying amount of resources, using up a lot of the plant agriculture that we do. [0] https://littlecreekmontana.shop/blogs/ranch-blog/food-for-thought-are-cattle-born-on-feedlots https://littlecreekmontana.shop/blogs/ranch-blog/food-for-th...
- rdtwo 4y agoThe finishing process changes the tase quite a bit. Some folks like the grain taste some like it grassy.
- algoatecorn 4y agoBlind taste-testing overwhelmingly favors feedlot-finished beef.
- hollerith 4y agoPeople used to eating grain-fed beef prefer grain-fed beef, yes.
- algoatecorn 4y agoGo out and find an isolated tribe who only eats occasional wild game. Serve them grain-finished beef and grass-fed beef. Do you actually believe they will choose grass-fed over grain-fed?
- hollerith 4y agoI prefer meat that has been fed only grass and never buy grain-fed meat. (I eat mostly lamb, not beef.) I prefer the taste and believe it is better for my health; in particular, the omega 6 fatty acids in grains and in grain-fed meat promotes chronic inflammation. (I don't buy grains either.)