The war on meat

mikeecho

This week meat will be our downfall..
Last week palm oil was causing environment issues.
Before that there was something else, and
Before that it was Roundup, which is now being relicensed in Canada and Europe because it now is safe

Before that we were at peak oil, and it was going to be $200 a barrel , but now it's predicted to be $60 to $70 for 2019.

Tommorows news... coldest winter in 50yr, hottest summer in 100 yrs

So 50yrs ago it was colder and 100yrs ago it was hotter..

It'll be the same in another 50 or 100 yrs.

Every week something new will kill us.



Sensational tabloid headlines

s7ryf3925pivug

Ultimate Seduction wrote: »

How does farming cows have have a huge contribution to global warming?

Would it not be better to have hundreads of acres of farmland than factory's cooking up chemicals to make our syntethic meat?

The greenhouse emissions involved in beef farming are much greater than other meats or other foods generally, pro rata. Also anf more specifically it generates a lot of methane. Reducing methane emissions would have a more immediate impact than other greenhouse gases such as CO2.

It is worse than syntehtic meat production, but that is a non sequitur anyway. Synthetic meat is not the best replacement for meat. You're better off changing your diet to invclude lots of pulses, tempeh, nuts. This is also the approach used by the diet being discussed.

mikeecho

Thea Spicy Nag wrote: »

The greenhouse emissions involved in beef farming are much greater than other meats or other foods generally, pro rata. Also anf more specifically it generates a lot of methane. Reducing methane emissions would have a more immediate impact than other greenhouse gases such as CO2.

It is worse than syntehtic meat production, but that is a non sequitur anyway. Synthetic meat is not the best replacement for meat. You're better off changing your diet to invclude lots of pulses, tempeh, nuts. This is also the approach used by the diet being discussed.

You can't beat a good steak

DS86DS

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Ate meat 200 000 years ago, yes. Ate the levels of meat were consuming today in the western world? Definitely not. Even in the last 30 years, the advent of fast food outlets springing up in everything town village and suburb in Ireland is actually very sad to see as it cheapens the value of this precious commodity. Were eating a lot more meat because we can afford to and it’s judt a phone call away, day or night, all fully prepared and cooked and dirt cheap.

In large part thanks to technology and more efficient farming practices. Cattle and other lifestock today give more meat and dairy, and are a lot larger than even 60 years ago.

The same goes for crops, we get a lot more yields per acres of crops than we did mid-20th century, let alone hundreds of years ago.

I am sure we will find a solution through technology, just as we did in the past. After all, one modern tractor can do the work of a 100 or more Medieval farm labourers. I'm sure biotechnology and the like will be just as revolutionary when it comes to food production.

Dakotabigone

Lidl and Aldi dump two tome of meat that go out of date per week.

link

mikeecho

Dakotabigone wrote: »

Lidl and Aldi dump two tome of meat that go out of date per week.

link

Fail

DS86DS

Ultimate Seduction wrote: »

How does farming cows have have a huge contribution to global warming?

Something to do with the methane from cow farts.

Of course the trillions of animals in the wild never fart :rolleyes:

Dakotabigone

DS86DS wrote: »

Something to do with the methane from cow farts.

Of course the trillions of animals in the wild never fart :rolleyes:

Apparently my wife doesn’t either.

DS86DS

prinzeugen wrote: »

The environmental vegans theory that going vegan will save the planet is bollox.

How much of your vegan diet has to be flown in by plane from thousands of miles away because it cant be grown in our climate?

If everyone went vegan in Ireland you would need more planes to fly food in than the Berlin airlift!

All of them pumping out more Co2 than the cows.

And dont get me started on the meat is murder vegans. They should just be locked up on Shutter Island..

Sshh, we can't be ruining their sense of smug self-satisfaction like that

s7ryf3925pivug

DS86DS wrote: »

Sshh, we can't be ruining their sense of smug self-satisfaction like that

The only smug self satisfaction I see here is from people dismissing guidelines and spouting nonsense like what you replied to.

There's no need to fly food from thousands of miles away for vegans.
Lots of food is brought from thousands of miles away because it's produced more cheaply there. Lots is used to feed livestock.

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/where-does-ireland-import-an-average-3m-tonnes-of-animal-feed-from-every-year/

Much more soy and imported goods go into your locally produced meat than just eating the vegetables yourself.

Also why would you fly food in? Most of it arrives by boat. Most vegan type foods keep for ages so flying it would not make sense.

s7ryf3925pivug

We import 3.5 million tonnes of food and 3 million tonnes of animal feed. "Locally produced" is meaningless when it comes to animal food since lots of imported feed probably went into the animal.

katiek102010

The reasons I have heard, bearing in mind I have not had the opportunity to read the full study, are as follows

1) eating meat causes deforestation

2) causes climate change

3) causes changes to water

Now is it the increase in cattle population that causes all the above as in my opinion it would be the growing of crops.

It’s interesting the way the press is portraying the story as they are saying all the above but not backing up the claims with any logical explanation as to why.

The last time I checked the human body is designed to be carnivore. Completely changing our natural diet cannot be healthy

s7ryf3925pivug

katiek102010 wrote: »

The reasons I have heard, bearing in mind I have not had the opportunity to read the full study, are as follows

1) eating meat causes deforestation

2) causes climate change

3) causes changes to water

Now is it the increase in cattle population that causes all the above as in my opinion it would be the growing of crops.

It’s interesting the way the press is portraying the story as they are saying all the above but not backing up the claims with any logical explanation as to why.

The last time I checked the human body is designed to be carnivore. Completely changing our natural diet cannot be healthy

We’re not a very good carnivore if most raw meat makes us violently ill.
Genuine carnivores like cats get very unwell on a vegetable diet. Humans can thrive on one.

OldMrBrennan83

Thea Spicy Nag wrote: »

We’re not a very good carnivore if most raw meat makes us violently ill.
Genuine carnivores like cats get very unwell on a vegetable diet. Humans can thrive on one.

That's why we cook it. Animals would cook it too if they could, it's lovely.

jh79

Thea Spicy Nag wrote: »

We’re not a very good carnivore if most raw meat makes us violently ill.
Genuine carnivores like cats get very unwell on a vegetable diet. Humans can thrive on one.

We're omnivores. And it takes a lot more effort to achieve a balanced diet without meat and dairy . There are no health advantages to completely removing meat and dairy from your diet. It's only when we eat it to excess that its a problem.

boggerman1

Solomon Pleasant wrote: »

If we don’t stop eating meat at the current rate then preventing the worse effects of climate change will be impossible. This is fact.

You can sacrifice your taste buds love for meat or sacrifice the planet and your life. Your choice.

Whatever happened to acid rain that was going to kill us all 30 yrs ago?.u never hear it mentioned at all now.scaremongering nonsense published yesterday.

EPAndlee

I'm really enjoying this rasher sandwich

dudara

It’s no harm to cut back a bit on meat, eat less red meat, eat more fish etc. That’s only common sense, and we’ve all known this for years. And we are omnivores. We can do well on a vegetarian diet if we choose.

Intensive animal farming to produce cheap meat is horrible. It’s horrible for the environment and it’s horrible for the animals. When you’re in Tesco or Aldi or whereever and you see a chicken for €4 or a pack of pork chops for €3, you really have to wonder how that is achieved. I’ve stopped buying cheap meat. The cost is literally too high despite the cheap price tag.

I do like meat, so I’d much rather have a couple of good quality pieces of meat per week rather multiple meals made with cheap bland meat. I’m not going to stop eating meat but I can see the argument for cutting it back somewhat.

Cina

DS86DS wrote: »

Something to do with the methane from cow farts.

Of course the trillions of animals in the wild never fart :rolleyes:

You do realize that because of the demand for dairy and red meat, there are far, far, far, far more cows currently on the planet than there would be if we didn't farm them?

There are an estimated 1.2-1.5bn cows on earth at any one time, that's vastly more than any other animal apart from the other animals we farm. Cows also produce far more carbon emissions than those animals.

It's very disappointing to see the ignorance on Boards when it comes to climate change, the standard "well I want to keep having this so I will and I don't care" is what's going to leave the world in absolute tatters in 50-60 years.

Gael23

Cina wrote: »

You do realize that because of the demand for dairy and red meat, there are far, far, far, far more cows currently on the planet than there would be if we didn't farm them?

There are an estimated 1.2-1.5bn cows on earth at any one time, that's vastly more than any other animal apart from the other animals we farm. Cows also produce far more carbon emissions than those animals.

It's very disappointing to see the ignorance on Boards when it comes to climate change, the standard "well I want to keep having this so I will and I don't care" is what's going to leave the world in absolute tatters in 50-60 years.

What about the billions of humans? Do they never fart or dispose of their excrement in rivers?

Cockford Ollie

Cina wrote: »

It's very disappointing to see the ignorance on Boards when it comes to climate change, the standard "well I want to keep having this so I will and I don't care" is what's going to leave the world in absolute tatters in 50-60 years.

Hyperbole.

questionee

what a soyboys, real men eat meat raw! do you think our ancestors ate vegetables? they contain no energy at all, have many anti-nutrients.. useless ****e

EdgeCase

What annoys me about Irish agriculture is the waste that's going on.

We have great land and ability to produce top notch, largely grass fed milk and beef, yet we are still sending a significant % of our farm produce to low value markets.

For example : why are we producing so much milk powder? It's going into food ingredients and baby food but it's going out as an unbranded commodity mostly. We've never developed a big baby food brand.

Also why are we exporting beef to very cheap markets like Egypt? And not only that but things like live export?! We have animals raised in good conditions here and then possibly meeting a terrible death somewhere thousands of km from where they spent their life and for what exactly?! Just to use up some quota ?

Primary agriculture is something like 1.6% of GDP here and if it's responsible for a huge % if our CO2 emissions, then we are heavily subsiding it by buying carbon credits or by paying fines.

I think these kinds of reports are probably not helpful as you're not just going to turn the world vegan. Even if you did there's going to be a massive uptick in requirement for land for soy and pulse production and you're into another version of the same mess as demand for plant protein would be huge.

Yeah you'll make people think a bit and we should be eating less meat and much more balanced diets and be much more concerned about animal welfare but it's something I think that needs more general awareness. This kind of report tends to just get bad press and people's backs up. Effectively it's like mana from heaven to the Trumps and Brexiteer types who'll just point to a liberal conspiracy.

However, I do think Ireland needs to recognise our selling points : a source of very high quality agricultural products due to our climate and landscape.

We shouldn't be chasing the low end of the market and we certainly shouldn't be subsidising the chasing of that aspect of the market.

We could be producing less and being paid a lot more per unit product by simply pushing ourselves up the value chain with ownership of brands and a bigger push towards ultra high quality.

We already have Irish beef and lamb commanding serious premiums in markets like the Benelux and Germany. That's stuff we should be doing a lot more of.

We need to be getting bang for buck in terms of CO2 costs. Otherwise, you're basically going to be paying high carbon taxes and cutting down on your home heating and driving to facilitate a sector that seems to be bound up in driving production without any concept of marketing.

I've no issue supporting farming btw. I just think we should be a hell of a lot more clever about what we are doing as it could actually improve rural quality of life - more and better jobs and more income from branded food companies, better farm incomes, improved animal welfare (less intense farming) and even boost tourism by making the landscape nicer (and less smelly) fewer polluted rivers and lakes and so on.

We've had good government initiatives like Origin Green and so on but, I still don't think we are anywhere near where we could be. There's only so much that the state can do without buy in from the sector and the broader rural community.

Cina

Gael23 wrote: »

What about the billions of humans? Do they never fart or dispose of their excrement in rivers?

What the hell does that have to do with anything I've said there?

Whataboutism as it's finest. Take a point and then "yeah but whataboutt<completely irrelevant>"

Unearthly

There's quite a lot of similarities between how the meat industry is acting now to how the tobacco industry reacted in the 60's

EdgeCase

Unearthly wrote: »

There's quite a lot of similarities between how the meat industry is acting now to how the tobacco industry reacted in the 60's

Yes and no. I do think the agricultural community is reacting far too aggressively to the billboard advertising though. If anything, they've actually increased PR for vegan groups by getting so hot and bothered about them on various TV shows here.

There are a lot of issues in the food / drink sector though that mirror smoking - it's not just meat but the big one is refined sugar. There's something seriously wrong when you've a growing epidemic of diabetes and obesity and that's largely been driven by very sugar laden diets.

Irish meat consumption has actually dropped since its peak in the 1990s btw. Our diets have generally become a lot more diverse than the meat and potatoes approach and will likely continue to do so, as people make healthier choices.

In general societies seem to go through a phase of meat is a luxury. Then meat production spikes. Then people realise they're over consuming it and then it drops down again.

OldMrBrennan83

EdgeCase wrote: »

Yes and no. I do think the agricultural community is reacting far too aggressively to the billboard advertising though. If anything, they've actually increased PR for vegan groups by getting so hot and bothered about them on various TV shows here.

In fairness, fight fire with fire. Farmers and meat producers are getting enough death and property damage threats to just sit back.

EdgeCase

Patww79 wrote: »

In fairness, fight fire with fire. Farmers and meat producers are getting enough death and property damage threats to just sit back.

The problem is if you fight fire with fire you can just end up with an even bigger fire. You're better off fighting fire by pouring cold water on it.

weldoninhio

Gael23 wrote: »

Meat is murder

Tasty, tasty murder

gozunda

EdgeCase wrote: »

Yes and no. I do think the agricultural community is reacting far too aggressively to the billboard advertising though. If anything, they've actually increased PR for vegan groups by getting so hot and bothered about them on various TV shows here.

...

Even the vegan community here has admitted the attacking of non vegans with the puerile
"billboard" campaign has not worked and has got "people's backs up"

It's nothing more than a stupid in your face campaign funded by an 'anonymous donor". People (not just 'farmers' btw) pointing out the campaign is bs is what it is - is simply the truth.

That their own paid media campaign has backfired on them. Ho hum ....