Re: The True Cost Of Meat

From: pearl (tea_at_signguestbook.ie)
Date: 08/15/04 

Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2004 23:55:16 +0100

"Psalm 110" <MOONIES@SwiftVets.NK> wrote in message news:r2bvh0h65uovvj26ttfrs8lm8ssn14209u@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 15 Aug 2004 16:54:11 GMT, "George Conklin"
> <nilknoc@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> >
> >"pearl" <tea@signguestbook.ie> wrote in message
> >news:cfnhvp$35c$1@kermit.esat.net...
> >>
> >> I disagree with the author's stance on eating fish and chicken,
> >> but otherwise a very interesting and informative article;
> >>
> >> http://www.newscientist.com/opinion/opinterview.jsp?id=ns24601
> >>
> >>
> >
> > All this is very old, old news. If you feed an animal grain, you get back
> >9%-15% in food. Chickens are the worst. Pigs are 15%.
> >
> > And then of course is the water, since animals need a lot of it.
> >However, as Atkins points out, we evolved to eat meat, not pasta.
> >
> Conversion ratio of feed to live animal weight is about 2:1 for fish,
> 3.7:1 for chickens/rabbits small animals, 4:1 for pigs, up to 10:1 for
> cattle.
>
> Cattle however eat a large portion of their food as (indigestible to
> humans) range and pasteur grasses, hay and silage. They are loaded up
> in the last few months with grains.

. Worldwide, grasses of more than 10,000 species once
covered more than 1/4 of the land. They supported the
world's greatest masses of large animals. Of the major
ecotypes, grassland produces the deepest, most fertile
topsoil and has the most resistance to soil erosion.
Livestock production has damaged the Earth's grassland
more than has any other land use, and has transformed
roughly half of it to desertlike condition. Lester Brown
of the Worldwatch Institute reports that "Widespread
grassland degradation [from livestock grazing] can now
be seen on every continent."

In 1977, experts attending the United Nations Conference
on Desertification in Nairobi agreed that the greatest cause
of world desertification in modern times has been livestock
grazing (as did the US Council on Environmental Quality in
1981). They reported that grazing was desertifying most arid,
semi-arid, and sub-humid land where farming was not occurring.
Seven years later UNEP compiled, from questionnaires sent to
91 countries, the most complete data on world desertification
ever assembled. According to the resultant 1984 assessment,
more than 11 billion acres, or 35% of the Earth's land surface,
are threatened by new or continued desertification. UNEP
estimated that more than 3/4 of this land -- the vast majority
of it grazed rangeland -- had already been at least moderately
degraded. About 15 million acres (the size of West Virginia)
of semi-arid or subhumid land annually are reduced to
unreclaimable desert-like condition, while another 52 million
and acres annually are reduced to minimal cover or to
sweeping sands -- more due to livestock grazing than any
other influence. The world's "deserts" are expected to expand
about 20% in the next 20 years.'
http://www.apnm.org/waste_of_west/Chapter6.html

> Wet/moist manures are generated at rates of 1.5:1 ratio to dry feeds.
>
> Manure lose 50% mass in composting before becoming soil amendments.
> Primary losses are H20 and CO2, neither one in short supply. Residuals
> are then converted into next year's crops.

Restoring Soil Carbon Should Be Top Global Priority
Source: Ohio State University
6-10-4

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Newswise) - Restoring soil carbon levels
should be a top priority among the global community, according
to a viewpoint article in this week's issue of the journal Science.

The amount of carbon that can be restored in the world's
degraded agricultural soils will directly influence global food
security and climate change within our lifetime, said Rattan Lal,
author of the article and director of the carbon management
and sequestration center at Ohio State University.

Scientists estimate that, since the mechanization of agriculture
began a few hundred years ago, some 78 billion metric tons -
more than 171 trillion pounds - of carbon once trapped in the
soil have been lost to the atmosphere in the form of carbon
dioxide (CO2).

"Converting natural ecosystems to fields for crop production
and pastures depletes a soil's carbon content by as much as
75 percent," Lal said. "And the amount of carbon we emit into
the atmosphere each year from industrial activity is on the rise."

With too little carbon in the soil, crop production is inefficient.
Right now, the world's agricultural soils are alarmingly depleted
of carbon, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, south and central
Asia and the Caribbean and Andean regions, Lal said.

He calls for adopting "recommended management practices"
for increasing and keeping carbon in farmed soils. These
practices include no-till farming - leaving residue from the
previous year's crops on the field; agroforestry - planting trees
or shrubs on or around cropland to enhance the quality of the
soil; planting cover crops, which protect the soil from erosion
during normal growing seasons; and using nutrients such as
manure, compost or biosolids to fertilize crops.

Evidence shows that following such practices greatly increases
and sustains crop yields.

Lal cited an 18-year experiment in Kenya: Farm fields managed
by regular farming practices - tilling the land, using no fertilizer,
leaving fields bare in the non-growing season - produced about
1 ton of maize and beans per hectare (a hectare is about the size
of two football fields). But fields treated with manure, planted
with cover crops and covered with mulch yielded six times that
amount.

"This is the type of quantum jump in crop yield needed at the
continental scale to ensure food security in Sub-Saharan Africa,"
said Lal, who is also a professor of natural resources. "Soil needs
enough carbon in order to hold water and nutrients and to grow
crops efficiently.

"But completely removing crop residue for animal fodder and
fuel is the norm in many African and Asian countries," he
continued. "This drastically reduces soil carbon levels, and we
cannot achieve global food security without returning crop residues
and putting carbon back in soil. Both are necessary for improving
soil quality."
 ..
"Soil carbon sequestration is a natural, cost-effective and
environment-friendly process," he continued. "Once sequestered,
carbon remains in the soil as long as restorative land use, no-till
farming and other recommended management practices are
followed."
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/505448/

> There is ZERO WASTE when intelligent runoff controls keeps excess
> rains from carrying away nutrients.

Describe these 'intelligent runoff controls'.

> It is perpetual recycling that has gone on for over 500 million years
> since the Cambrian explosion.

Not CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations).

> Water has been recycled for at least 3.7 billion years. Over and over
> and over.

* U.S. fresh water reserves have declined precipitously as a result of
excess water use for cattle and other livestock. U.S. water shortages,
especially in the West, have now reached critical levels. Overdrafts
now exceed replenishments by 25 percent.

* The great Ogallala aquifer, one of the world's largest fresh water
reserves, is already half depleted in Kansas, Texas, and New Mexico.
In California, where 42 percent of irrigation water is used for feed or
livestock production, water tables have dropped so low that in some
areas the earth is sinking under the vacuum. Some U.S. reservoirs and
aquifers are now at their lowest levels since the end of the last Ice
Age.- Sandra Postel, _Water: Rethinking Management in an Age of
Scarcity_, Worldwatch Paper 62 (1984), 20.
http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/paper/62/

''We're (also) polluting our cheapest and most easily accessible supply
of water,'' says Payal Sampat, author of the report 'Deep Trouble,
The Hidden Threat of Groundwater Pollution'.

Nitrate pollution from livestock waste and common nitrogen fertiliser
has caused much damage to aquifers in high demand, says the 55-page
report.'
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~doetqp-p/courses/env440/env440_2/lectures/lec7/The%20Hidden%20Freshwater%20Crisis.ht
m

> There are areas here for better practices, better management. There is
> no room for falsehoods and frauds.

Livestock farming is unsustainable, full stop.

> ATKINS is not the authority. 20,000,000 years of teeth evolution has
> identified that the diet has changed many times on the road to modern
> human teeth, which include now both molars and incisors.

'Most "nutritionists" assert that we have definite carnivorous leanings,
and some have even termed our incisor teeth "fangs" in defense of
their erroneous position that humans are natural meat-eaters! If you
look at the various species in the animal kingdom, each is equipped
with teeth that are ideally suited to masticate a particular type of food.
Herbivores (like the cow) have 24 molars, eight jagged incisors in
the lower jaw and a horny palate in the upper jaw. Their jaws move
vertically, laterally, forward, and backward, enabling the herbivore
to tear and grind coarse grasses. Omnivores (like the hog) have
tusk-like canines allowing them to dig up roots. Frugivores (like the
chimpanzee) have 32 teeth: sixteen in each jaw including four incisors,
two cuspids, four bicuspids, and six molars. The cuspids are adapted
for cracking nuts, and the uniform articulation of the teeth enables the
frugivore to mash and grind fruits. On the contrary, carnivores (like
the cat family) have markedly developed canines that are long, sharp,
cylindrical, pointed, and set apart from the other teeth. Fangs and
sharp pointed teeth that penetrate and kill, that rip and tear flesh, are
a feature of all true carnivores (except certain birds). The powerful
jaws of the carnivore move only vertically, and are ideal for ripping
and tearing flesh that is swallowed virtually whole and then acted
upon by extremely potent gastric juices. Human teeth are not designed
for tearing flesh as in the lion, wolf or dog, but rather compare closely
with other fruit-eating animals. Human teeth correspond almost
identically to the chimpanzees and other frugivores. The complete
absence of spaces between human teeth characterizes us as the
archetype frugivore. The "canine" teeth of humans are short, stout,
and slightly triangular. They are less pronounced and developed
than the orangutan's, who rarely kills and eats raw flesh in its natural
environment. Human canines in no way resemble the long, round,
slender canines of the true carnivore. Human teeth are not curved
or sharp like the wolves or tigers, nor are they wide and flat like
the grass and grain-eating species. Human teeth are actually like
the fruit-eating monkeys, and the human mouth is best suited for
eating succulent fruits and vegetables. It would be extremely
difficult, if not impossible, for humans to eat raw flesh without the
aid of fork and knife. To term our incisor teeth "fangs" or even to
liken them as such is outrageous. '
http://www.iol.ie/~creature/BiologicalAdaptations.htm

> Humans are
> OMNIVORES, capable of eating a large assortment of foods including
> meats, vegetables, seeds, berries, fish, grubs, and ice cream.

'.. disease rates were significantly associated within a range of dietary
plant food composition that suggested an absence of a disease prevention
threshold. That is, the closer a diet is to an all-plant foods diet, the greater
will be the reduction in the rates of these diseases.'
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Nov98/thermogenesis_paper.html

> Not all food have equal beneficial or delitarious effects, and need to
> be considered by themselves, in combination with the total diet, and
> their ultimate environmental effects. Global vegetarianism is a recipe
> for global environmental collapse. The world can tolerate some portion
> of vegetarians but not a majority or totality.

False.

> Animals are vital to the global ecology. Their manures fertilize soils
> in ways nothing else does. This world is now adapted to, and requires
> carnivores.

Wild animals produce manure too. The world requires reforestation.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Why do we water plants?
    ... Dehydration kills most plants, as well as animals, by affecting all the organism's biochemistry. ... An plants get almost all of their nutrients by imbibing water from the soil that contains substances dissolved from the soil. ...
    (sci.chem)
  • Re: Cuban Provinces Still Waterless
    ... But he is responsible for the waste of water through and management of water ... serious problem, however, is soil salinization. ... afectando los rendimientos en cientos de hectáreas en los cinco ... desertification processes cause losses of $42 billion annually. ...
    (soc.culture.cuba)
  • Re: Class B cannabis
    ... Cover the soil around the plant with a thick layer of natural mulch to ... attract condensed water and to keep soil moisture from evaporating. ... Transplant seedlings or clones in spring and grow marijuana plants as you ... Vansterdan has been planting in the mountains for 12 years in secret gardens ...
    (uk.politics.drugs)
  • Growing cannabis outside (Was: Class B cannabis)
    ... soil and water them" then I'd like to see it. ... That doesn't mean that if you take some cannabis seeds or tomato seeds ... Dig in some organic matter and possibly something to hold water. ... Water the plants with some soluble fertiliser. ...
    (uk.politics.drugs)
  • Re: The True Cost Of Meat
    ... >> humans) range and pasteur grasses, ... > topsoil and has the most resistance to soil erosion. ... > Restoring Soil Carbon Should Be Top Global Priority ... > With too little carbon in the soil, crop production is inefficient. ...
    (sci.med.nutrition)