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What a lot of regenerative ag proponents focus on is the value it adds to the ecosystem and the soil. But it gets dismissed because regenerative farming is obje

What a lot of regenerative ag proponents focus on is the value it adds to the ecosystem and the soil. But it gets dismissed because regenerative farming is objectively not capable of maintaining ag output at the level it is right now at the current prices. We need to talk more about the need for the consumption habits to change if we want regenerative ag to take over. We won't be able to farm the amount of corn and soybean we farm today, but that would mean consumers will have to consume less stuff that is a corn derivative, or even better, consume less. There's no reason we should be selling a single bag of Doritos across the country, let alone for $2.

jkdufair 2y ago
Pretty sure most corn is grown for animal feed. We could help by eating less - or no - meat.
gruez 2y ago
>There's no reason we should be selling a single bag of Doritos across the country, let alone for $2. Most of that is markup. The raw materials are on the order of cents.
- jonathanlydall 2y ago
  Raw materials are very often not the biggest contributor to cost of manufacturing something. Look at CPUs, for a fabricator the cost of the silicon alone is a constant cost which is dwarfed by capital investment and yield cost. Then there are other costs like labour, administration and shipping.
crazygringo 2y ago
What's wrong with corn? I definitely appreciate having corn tortillas and corn chips and cornbread to diversify what is almost entirely otherwise wheat and potatoes and rice, in terms of my starches. I need to get my calories somewhere. Don't really see what's wrong with some corn chips when I need a quick snack on the go because my last meal was five hours ago. And heck, plenty (most?) of the fresh food I eat comes from across the country, if not from other countries entirely. But corn chips, having most of their water removed, are far more environmentally friendly to transport due to being so lightweight.
- fuzztester 2y ago
  >What's wrong with corn? it sucks as a cereal, nutritionally speaking, iirc, based on what I've read earlier. i could be wrong, but don't have time to check it now. may check out millets and other alternative cereals instead of, or in addition to corn, wheat and rice. some of them are nutritionally or agriculturally superior.
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    Nutritionally speaking, corn is an excellent source of energy. In many parts of the Earth, e.g. in Europe, maize a.k.a. corn and wheat are much cheaper energy sources than anything else and wheat and corn are about as cheap. Wheat may be preferable to corn only because it has a double amount of proteins, so it can also be used to provide a big part of the daily intake in proteins, if it is supplemented with at least another source of proteins that is rich in lysine. However, wheat is more suspicious from the point of view of its health effects, so when the absolute minimum cost for the daily food is not the target, corn might be the best energy source in food. The bulk of the food that is needed daily is required for providing energy and corn can do that at a minimal cost and it can be cooked into tasty food. The rest of the food must provide proteins, essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals, but much less amounts are needed for that. So corn is perfect nutritionally for its right purpose. Obviously it cannot be the only kind of food that is eaten. Except for energy (i.e. starch), most cereals do not contain anything in sufficient amounts to be an adequate source of it. Wheat is an exception by having a useful amount of protein, which is however harder to digest than most other proteins and the undigested fragments may have undesirable effects. Only oats has a higher protein content than wheat, but oats is much more expensive, so it is not really competitive from this point of view. Therefore it makes no sense to claim that corn is worse nutritionally than other cereals, because it is better than most (except possibly rice, which cannot be cultivated in the places where corn is grown) at the only thing for which cereals are really good: providing energy.
    - fuzztester 2y ago
      dang (pun intended), this sounds like the tone of an llm, including hallucinations, which are just an euphemism for factual errors, so I'll send it to another llm to verify, before I reply. :) did you see what I did there? :)
Scarblac 2y ago
The majority of the current output is used to feed lifestock. We're going to have to stop eating meat almost entirely to make room for human plant based food production.

jkdufair 2y ago

Pretty sure most corn is grown for animal feed. We could help by eating less - or no - meat.

gruez 2y ago

>There's no reason we should be selling a single bag of Doritos across the country, let alone for $2. Most of that is markup. The raw materials are on the order of cents.

jonathanlydall 2y ago
Raw materials are very often not the biggest contributor to cost of manufacturing something. Look at CPUs, for a fabricator the cost of the silicon alone is a constant cost which is dwarfed by capital investment and yield cost. Then there are other costs like labour, administration and shipping.

crazygringo 2y ago

What's wrong with corn? I definitely appreciate having corn tortillas and corn chips and cornbread to diversify what is almost entirely otherwise wheat and potatoes and rice, in terms of my starches. I need to get my calories somewhere. Don't really see what's wrong with some corn chips when I need a quick snack on the go because my last meal was five hours ago. And heck, plenty (most?) of the fresh food I eat comes from across the country, if not from other countries entirely. But corn chips, having most of their water removed, are far more environmentally friendly to transport due to being so lightweight.

fuzztester 2y ago
>What's wrong with corn? it sucks as a cereal, nutritionally speaking, iirc, based on what I've read earlier. i could be wrong, but don't have time to check it now. may check out millets and other alternative cereals instead of, or in addition to corn, wheat and rice. some of them are nutritionally or agriculturally superior.
- adrian_b 2y ago
  Nutritionally speaking, corn is an excellent source of energy. In many parts of the Earth, e.g. in Europe, maize a.k.a. corn and wheat are much cheaper energy sources than anything else and wheat and corn are about as cheap. Wheat may be preferable to corn only because it has a double amount of proteins, so it can also be used to provide a big part of the daily intake in proteins, if it is supplemented with at least another source of proteins that is rich in lysine. However, wheat is more suspicious from the point of view of its health effects, so when the absolute minimum cost for the daily food is not the target, corn might be the best energy source in food. The bulk of the food that is needed daily is required for providing energy and corn can do that at a minimal cost and it can be cooked into tasty food. The rest of the food must provide proteins, essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals, but much less amounts are needed for that. So corn is perfect nutritionally for its right purpose. Obviously it cannot be the only kind of food that is eaten. Except for energy (i.e. starch), most cereals do not contain anything in sufficient amounts to be an adequate source of it. Wheat is an exception by having a useful amount of protein, which is however harder to digest than most other proteins and the undigested fragments may have undesirable effects. Only oats has a higher protein content than wheat, but oats is much more expensive, so it is not really competitive from this point of view. Therefore it makes no sense to claim that corn is worse nutritionally than other cereals, because it is better than most (except possibly rice, which cannot be cultivated in the places where corn is grown) at the only thing for which cereals are really good: providing energy.
  - fuzztester 2y ago
    dang (pun intended), this sounds like the tone of an llm, including hallucinations, which are just an euphemism for factual errors, so I'll send it to another llm to verify, before I reply. :) did you see what I did there? :)

Scarblac 2y ago

The majority of the current output is used to feed lifestock. We're going to have to stop eating meat almost entirely to make room for human plant based food production.