Comments on: Clones for food? http://www.bloggernews.net/13448 High-quality English language analysis and editorial writing on the news. Sat, 17 May 2008 01:06:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 By: Andrea Hatfield http://www.bloggernews.net/13448#comment-12990 Andrea Hatfield Fri, 13 Apr 2007 00:03:28 +0000 http://www.bloggernews.net/13448#comment-12990 This is a question more than a comment. I'm looking at protein sources from an energy/resource per pound perspective. One must also consider the cost per pound as the fastest incentive to get the average person to change their habits is often through the pocketbook. Does anyone know what the cost figures are to get the raw beef and raw soybeans processed, packaged, and shipped to the consumer in a consumer friendly form? Seems to me one would have to do a lot to the soybeans to convert it to a form consumers would find appealing. Does the cost gap shrink? How to other protein sources such as fish, canned tuna for example, compare. How about storage and preparation? When I compared beef, tuna, and Morning Star veggie crumbles on a cost and calorie per gram of protein basis, tuna came out way ahead. This is even before considering that tuna didn't have to be refrigerated. Any solid facts or reliable studies to share? Thanks very much. This is a question more than a comment. I’m looking at protein sources from an energy/resource per pound perspective. One must also consider the cost per pound as the fastest incentive to get the average person to change their habits is often through the pocketbook. Does anyone know what the cost figures are to get the raw beef and raw soybeans processed, packaged, and shipped to the consumer in a consumer friendly form? Seems to me one would have to do a lot to the soybeans to convert it to a form consumers would find appealing. Does the cost gap shrink? How to other protein sources such as fish, canned tuna for example, compare. How about storage and preparation?
When I compared beef, tuna, and Morning Star veggie crumbles on a cost and calorie per gram of protein basis, tuna came out way ahead. This is even before considering that tuna didn’t have to be refrigerated.

Any solid facts or reliable studies to share? Thanks very much.

]]> By: sillydog http://www.bloggernews.net/13448#comment-1026 sillydog Sat, 30 Dec 2006 18:29:48 +0000 http://www.bloggernews.net/13448#comment-1026 These are very good points. It is interesting to note that part of the problem here is the practice of feeding ruminants grains and legumes instead of grazing them on pasture. Not only are feedlots unsightly and hugely increase the cost to us and suffering of the animals (the unneccesary cruelty of confinement systems is a whole 'nother topic), but they are the source of much human disease. Consider that animals such as cows have lived on nothing but grass since there were cows. Their stomachs are designed for grass only with a few grains in the autumn. When force fed grains, the pH of their stomachs increases (becomes more alkalai) and allows ornaisms such as the ubiquitious e-coli to thrive. The great lakes of waste that such systems create must be disposed of, but even the best lined lagoons allow some contamniation into the ground water supply -- that's how you get e-coli on the neighboring spinach field. If these animals were grazed until even a week before grain fattening, this problem would cease to exist. Now, consider that many animals spend a majority of their lives eating grains and you begin to see where the problem creeps in. Not only does this diet radically change their digestive system, but every aspect of the animal's health is impacted. Hoof and skin infections skyrocket. Supplements and antibiotics must be given to keep them from becoming ill. Animals that are not grazed suffer illness and a generally depressed immune system at a rate far greater than their feed-lot bretheren. The USDA is continuing to take comment on whether at least 6 months of grazing should be required of beef labelled "organic," and many small producers are pushing for it. They've seen the difference themselves. It is sad that this type of ag has gone on long enough for an entire generation of ranchers to have forgotten how to pasture animals -- they actually need to be retaught. If the USDA hadn't pushed feed-lot type animal production on farmers since the 1960s, they wouldn't be facing a crisis -- the average age of a feed-lot rancher in the US is nearly 70! Not only do we need to make sure more animals are pastured for their health and ours, but it's past time USDA began funding re-education programs to bring new blood into ranching. The industrial-sized operations that have sprung up in the last 40 years are a real model in free-market fundamentalism, but fail to take into account the impossibility of anyone young entering that type of work. Feed-lot policies have actually placed American Agriculture in crisis, in an effort to sheer a few pennies off hamburger at the Safeway. To say that cheep meat is somehow a democratization of "high eating" is disingenious at best. The fallout of this 40 year experiment has been an explosion of disease and morbidity among a lower socio-economic class that eats meat products at a higher rate than their more affluent cohorts. That the so-called "diseases of affluence" are now killing the poor at higher rates can ultimately be traced back to feed-lot confinement systms and the quest for a $0.30 hamburger. These are very good points. It is interesting to note that part of the problem here is the practice of feeding ruminants grains and legumes instead of grazing them on pasture. Not only are feedlots unsightly and hugely increase the cost to us and suffering of the animals (the unneccesary cruelty of confinement systems is a whole ‘nother topic), but they are the source of much human disease.

Consider that animals such as cows have lived on nothing but grass since there were cows. Their stomachs are designed for grass only with a few grains in the autumn. When force fed grains, the pH of their stomachs increases (becomes more alkalai) and allows ornaisms such as the ubiquitious e-coli to thrive. The great lakes of waste that such systems create must be disposed of, but even the best lined lagoons allow some contamniation into the ground water supply — that’s how you get e-coli on the neighboring spinach field. If these animals were grazed until even a week before grain fattening, this problem would cease to exist.

Now, consider that many animals spend a majority of their lives eating grains and you begin to see where the problem creeps in. Not only does this diet radically change their digestive system, but every aspect of the animal’s health is impacted. Hoof and skin infections skyrocket. Supplements and antibiotics must be given to keep them from becoming ill. Animals that are not grazed suffer illness and a generally depressed immune system at a rate far greater than their feed-lot bretheren.

The USDA is continuing to take comment on whether at least 6 months of grazing should be required of beef labelled “organic,” and many small producers are pushing for it. They’ve seen the difference themselves. It is sad that this type of ag has gone on long enough for an entire generation of ranchers to have forgotten how to pasture animals — they actually need to be retaught.

If the USDA hadn’t pushed feed-lot type animal production on farmers since the 1960s, they wouldn’t be facing a crisis — the average age of a feed-lot rancher in the US is nearly 70! Not only do we need to make sure more animals are pastured for their health and ours, but it’s past time USDA began funding re-education programs to bring new blood into ranching. The industrial-sized operations that have sprung up in the last 40 years are a real model in free-market fundamentalism, but fail to take into account the impossibility of anyone young entering that type of work. Feed-lot policies have actually placed American Agriculture in crisis, in an effort to sheer a few pennies off hamburger at the Safeway.

To say that cheep meat is somehow a democratization of “high eating” is disingenious at best. The fallout of this 40 year experiment has been an explosion of disease and morbidity among a lower socio-economic class that eats meat products at a higher rate than their more affluent cohorts. That the so-called “diseases of affluence” are now killing the poor at higher rates can ultimately be traced back to feed-lot confinement systms and the quest for a $0.30 hamburger.

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