5 ms·

The hamburger substitute sounds promising, but if the point of this is to create protein efficiently then this doesn't make any sense to me: "Mayonnaise made w

by jobu 12y ago

The hamburger substitute sounds promising, but if the point of this is to create protein efficiently then this doesn't make any sense to me: "Mayonnaise made without eggs that is creamy and smooth." Eggs are one of the most efficient sources of protein there is.

chaosphere2112 12y ago
Right, but (at least in theory) the total economic/environmental cost of growing the plants is lower than that of raising the chickens to produce the eggs.
- wavefunction 12y ago
  Do you have information on the environmental cost of growing the plants vs eggs? I would agree that factory farming of eggs has a terrible effect but it seems like on a small scale it wouldn't necessarily be true.
  - hamax 12y ago
    True, but making mayo for 300M Americans will never be small scale.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    It takes ~2.4 kg of feed to grow ~1 kg of (cooked) eggs. (this is called the feed conversion ratio) Eating vegetarian gives the baseline for comparison, a conversion ratio of ~1:1 (I think it is better to not claim exactly 1, animals eat different things than humans and maybe do better with extracting value from fiber). The details of a given process for making a lower compromise meat replacement would have to be considered to calculate the equivalent measure. I don't think it would even be 2:1, but that's just a guess.
hedning 12y ago
> Eggs are one of the most efficient sources of protein there is. Eggs aren't even one of the most efficient animal based sources of protein [1]. When comparing the energy input in terms of fossil fuels against the energy output in terms of protein broilers have a 4:1 ratio, while eggs have a ratio of 40:1. The same value for corn is 2.2:1. (which goes up to 3.1 when accounting for bioavailability). Looking at total caloric energy input against output isn't any better (worse for the broiler, better for the eggs). We here get a 6:1 conversion factor for eggs, and 9:1 for broilers [2]. [1] Sustainability of meat-based and plant-based diets and the environment: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/660S.full http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/660S.full [2] Land, irrigation water, greenhouse gas, and reactive nitrogen burdens of meat, eggs, and dairy production in the United States: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/33/11996/F4.expansion.html http://www.pnas.org/content/111/33/11996/F4.expansion.html

by jobu 12y ago

chaosphere2112 12y ago

Right, but (at least in theory) the total economic/environmental cost of growing the plants is lower than that of raising the chickens to produce the eggs.

wavefunction 12y ago
Do you have information on the environmental cost of growing the plants vs eggs? I would agree that factory farming of eggs has a terrible effect but it seems like on a small scale it wouldn't necessarily be true.
- hamax 12y ago
  True, but making mayo for 300M Americans will never be small scale.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  It takes ~2.4 kg of feed to grow ~1 kg of (cooked) eggs. (this is called the feed conversion ratio) Eating vegetarian gives the baseline for comparison, a conversion ratio of ~1:1 (I think it is better to not claim exactly 1, animals eat different things than humans and maybe do better with extracting value from fiber). The details of a given process for making a lower compromise meat replacement would have to be considered to calculate the equivalent measure. I don't think it would even be 2:1, but that's just a guess.

hedning 12y ago

> Eggs are one of the most efficient sources of protein there is. Eggs aren't even one of the most efficient animal based sources of protein [1]. When comparing the energy input in terms of fossil fuels against the energy output in terms of protein broilers have a 4:1 ratio, while eggs have a ratio of 40:1. The same value for corn is 2.2:1. (which goes up to 3.1 when accounting for bioavailability). Looking at total caloric energy input against output isn't any better (worse for the broiler, better for the eggs). We here get a 6:1 conversion factor for eggs, and 9:1 for broilers [2]. [1] Sustainability of meat-based and plant-based diets and the environment: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/660S.full http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/660S.full [2] Land, irrigation water, greenhouse gas, and reactive nitrogen burdens of meat, eggs, and dairy production in the United States: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/33/11996/F4.expansion.html http://www.pnas.org/content/111/33/11996/F4.expansion.html