Re: The True Cost Of Meat

From: Wolfbrother (rangerhasten_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 08/16/04 

Date: 15 Aug 2004 19:17:00 -0700

"pearl" <tea@signguestbook.ie> wrote in message news:<cfoq7d$feu$1@kermit.esat.net>...
> "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.
>

> 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.

Ahaha you are so full of *** its amazing. On top of that ridiculous
statment do you realize how much more absurd it sounds coming right
after the previous post detailing the severe carnivorous aspects of
chimps.
 
> '.. 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.'

Again unbelievably full of ***. What a false statment that is. You
embody animal rights extremism at its worst. Total disregard for
reality. There are many population groups who have lived in perfect
health completely free of modern degenerative conditions on diets
based on up to 80% or more from animal source foods. At the same time
there are populations(not many howerver do to the fact humans prefer
and thrive off animal source foods) that live close to or completely
on all-plant diets and have extremely poor health AND short life
spans. How easily this fact is ignored by you people.

One does not go to a tobacco company for health information on
smoking, nor does one go to an animal rights extremist for health
information on food. That is common sense. Information from either
source can simply not be taken seriously. It is called conflict of
interest.

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