Every type of food is unsustainable now

Ubbquittious

No matter what food you pick it is bound to have some sustainability skeletons in it's closet. Even a food that is in relative abundance now will falter and become less sustainable if it sees a surge in popularity. Such a surge could arise simply from a few journalists branding it as sustainable. Almost everything that is produced in Ireland and neighbouring countries is done with an unsustainable over-reliance on fertiliser.

Fairtrade organic food sold at exorbitant prices usually has too many food miles on it to be called sustainable and the definition of organic gets stretched in many cases. I can't see any way around this problem either without a massive decrease in population or vertical farming taking off. Vertical farming might not be a solution either due to the huge amount of materials required to build and run the vertical farm.

elperello

Home grown organic is achievable but it takes a lot of effort and probably won't fulfill all your dietary requirements.

Thelonious Monk

If you're concerned about sustainability try and eat less meat and dairy. They are leagues ahead of even the likes of avocadoes when it comes to all the metrics on land use and water and sustainability etc.

You want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food? Focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local.

The graph below shows how little impact transport has on overall emissions

Montage of Feck

This country supported 8 million and fed the mainland,🙃, in a time before artificial fertiliser.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120492956#Comment_120492956

My god the biggest pile of scutter I ever read.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493142#Comment_120493142

and they all lived happily ever after.

buried

Lets all kill ourselves lads. Seems we can't do any right for doing wrong. Now including the auld eating.

What will it be that's unsustainable next week? Breathing?

coolbeans

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493165#Comment_120493165

Why is it?

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493202#Comment_120493202

Breathing is already unsustainable, tis all CO2 generating.

buried

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493245#Comment_120493245

F**king hell. Nothing for it then but to appease the sustainable gods and go live in my vacuum cleaner for ever and ever and ever.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493241#Comment_120493241

Think about why he just said there.

Its not the animals that’s the problem, it’s our management practices that’s causing the problem’s.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493165#Comment_120493165

Funnily enough scutter aka slurry is highly prized in agriculture especially since artificial fertiliser got so expensive.

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493142#Comment_120493142

Yes, huge families lived off smaller and smaller plots of land thanks to potatoes. And then the luck ran out.

SuperBowserWorld

Lots of cats and dogs around gobbling up loads of meat and land resources required for that. But I guess families have gotten smaller and people have pets instead of kids now. Also thinking pets may be useful backup meat supply if things go really bad .... 😁

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493281#Comment_120493281

70 billion farmed animals reared each year worldwide seems like a problem to me given they all need to be fed and watered. Less farmed animals would have the planet in a better shape.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493292#Comment_120493292

Yep, we don’t even need artificial.

What do people mean by sustainable I often wonder. Are we talking 10 years, 100 or even 1000?

The only agricultural system going to get us out of trouble is holistic management

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120492956#Comment_120492956

There are more ways that food can be unsustainable than just green house gas emissions. Mostly soil erosion and depleting water sources for the plant based stuff. The transport costs for some types of food to certain destinations is insane but the average will be dragged down by the fact that most people consume it locally enough.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493316#Comment_120493316

It’s not the animal’s monk, It’s the management of those animal’s.

and I agree with you, that type of system is doing untold social, economical & environmental damage around the world.

buried

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493295#Comment_120493295

"Luck" had f**k all to do with it. It was the only crop the regime allowed our people to grow for their own nutrition. Every other crop was exported for huge profit.

SuperBowserWorld

I can't see people living sustainable lives, whatever that means. The wealthy will see it as their right to consume when and what they want and the poor will be left with whatever is left.

https://savory.global/

Anybody interested in this thread I urge you to look into the savoury institute.

These guy’s have it, it’s the management of our resource’s that’s causing the problem’s.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493322#Comment_120493322

oh i know, our river quality has gone thoroughly downhill in recent years due to farming and soil erosion is a huge problem worldwide

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493333#Comment_120493333

Yep, that bit is important. I meant luck as in the system at the time had a big flaw. It was not sustainable, or fair.

And ... It's exactly what's happening on a global scale today.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493336#Comment_120493336

so would you be in favour of a society where everyone has roughly the same amount of stuff and no rich people?

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493330#Comment_120493330

well if by management you mean intensive farming methods that have us producing and consuming more meat and dairy worldwide than ever now than yeah. obviously it's not the animals fault it's humanity's fault.

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493355#Comment_120493355

From a nutrition/food point of view, essentials such as clean food, air, soil, water should be evenly distributed. No rich person/organization should be allowed to take more than their fair share.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493373#Comment_120493373

so we can only buy X amount of land per person?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493362#Comment_120493362

Yes, the biggest problem we face today (humans) is desertification.

We need the animal’s back on the land ASAP especially in seasonal rainfall environment’s.

Larbre34

Now Ireland produces enough of the highest quality Beef and Dairy produce to feed 40 million people every year, with the most natural processes, the least amount of environmental impact of any comparable sector and no usage of antibiotics and hormones.

Food and diet is just another issue where the global political decision seems to have been to make people feel guilty and brow beat them. If you can think of a worse way to bring about change, I'd love to hear it.

Humanity is at it's most innovative right now, heading for the mid 21st Century. We have grown a civilisation lasting 50,000 years and overcome great adversity of famine and pestilence and war because we are creative and because we are resilient.

For every bit of human impact on our environment, there exists a practical solution to address the consequences. A mix of technology, movement, adjustment, realignment and yes, some sacrifice.

But we'll still be here in 2123, hopefully even in 3123, if fate spares us from a big comet or solar ejection or Yellowstone caldera blowing up. Different, maybe, but here.

Now I'm off to fry up a juicy tender sirloin and eat it with some delicious Kerrygold garlic butter on top.

Edit: I'm actually not going to bother as most of these arguments tend to be thinly veiled vegan propaganda.

The gave zero fu(ks about the environment until they realised that they could get traction there

Capt'n Midnight

Free range Soylent Green ?

patnor1011

Why there is so much of a talk about sustainability of food? Yet another currently favourite and woke agenda - lay off beef, lamb, pork and chicken. Eat bugs... All in the name of saving the planet.

moonage

Sustainability itself is becoming unsustainable due to sustainability's over-reliance on its own sustainability and the general reduction in sustainable-inducing factors that can sustain sustainability.

BoxcarWilliam99

Surely chips are sustainable. Grow potatoes out the back garden

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493496#Comment_120493496

You have to create your own cooking oil, electricity or gas as well. But tis pretty close to sustainable. It's comforting to think if we don't blow ourselves to bits in the next century or 2 that our successors in thousands of years will still be able to tuck into a bowl of chips.

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493380#Comment_120493380

Nah, people need to consume less stuff and especially stuff that destroys the essentials to life on the planet. Maybe virtual goods and services are a way forward for people who like to own stuff and keep the economies spinning without consuming huge amounts of physical resources 😁.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493496#Comment_120493496

I knew a man years ago who had a chip van and grew his own spuds in a small field.

He did very well for himself.

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493180#Comment_120493180

In fairness...if you are referring to the famine

Our colonisers exported grain and cattle out of the country while the "natives" starved...

Decisions made partly due to a malthusian influence on policy...can't have them breeding out of control, better to starve them now and avoid a bigger disaster down the line...only one variety of potato too if memory serves

If you mean existence was on the poverty line and miserable for a lot then yeah I suppose

But the point that up to 8 million people could eek out an existence with no artificial fertiliser has some merit...

One would imagine with with a bit of ingenuity it might be possible to go a long way towards providing food for 5/6 million without artificial fertiliser.....

There are other ways to do things if large supermarket chains are made relinquish a portion of their profits and some of that is passed back to the primary producer.

BoxcarWilliam99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493519#Comment_120493519

His name wasn't Ronald McDonald was it by any chance?

Allinall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493531#Comment_120493531

Think it was Colm Meanie

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493531#Comment_120493531

No but I knew a few other clowns in those days.

BoxcarWilliam99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493516#Comment_120493516

I forgot about the oil actually. You could just use the air fryer. Still need the electric though

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493402#Comment_120493402

Our farmers do allot right but a hell of a lot wrong also.

Our green field’s on a typical dairy farm are more or less all the same species of grass. It’s basically a mono crop. That’s terrible for biodiversity.

We cut our hedgerows every year in autumn/winter when birds need it most so no fruits or seed’s get the chance to establish or grow.

We spread huge amount’s of fertiliser that’s destroying soil & water’s.

We use a huge amount of medications on livestock

We spray chemical’s on almost everything.

The only thing keeping Irish agriculture afloat is our climate.

SuperBowserWorld

Rabbits ?

Huge high rise rabbit hutches between the 22nd century Megalopolis of Portlaoise, Athlone, Kilkenny, Longford, ...

The rabbit droppings are used to fertilize the vast potato fields in the rest of the country.

Rabbit and chips !

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493568#Comment_120493568

We have one of the strictest controls on animal medicine in the world.

Our fertilizer use is only a portion of what is used in most of the world. Understandable given we have a lot of great land and most land from Nigeria over to Central China is woeful. For a fraction of the fertilizer and sprays we get crop yields most of the world can't even achieve with fertilizer thrown in big fist fulls.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493541#Comment_120493541

You could grow your own rapeseed and make oil.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493402#Comment_120493402

Aye. The Irish tax payer does heavily subsidise the production of meat and dairy.

Then the farmers export it for top dollar. So the Irish tax payer gets screwed on that one.

Then the Irish tax payer eats imported meat. Getting screwed again.

The system only works for the heavily subsidised farmers. It certainly doesn’t work for the Irish tax payer.

I wonder do Irish people realise how much imported meat they are eating. Probably not.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120492874#Comment_120492874

I grow my own veg and have livestock.

It's all organic. I don't have to buy veg or eggs.

Won't meet all my requirements but will meet a lot of them

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493801#Comment_120493801

If you are buying the meat to cook yourself then it is easy enough to avoid imports.

However in the catering trade they use a lot of non Irish meat.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493817#Comment_120493817

Yes if you are prepared to put in the work and have the space it's surprising how much you can do.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493854#Comment_120493854

‘Catering trade’ = ?

Hotels ? Restaurants ? Takeaways ? Deli counters ?

All the above ?

When is the last time someone ate meat out that wasn’t imported ?

If Irish people should do one thing only, when eating out, it’s ask where is the meat from. It can be quite the experience. From staff not having a clue to business owners trying their best to avoid a straight answer and to the realisation that their (the customer) meat and chicken has been imported.

It seems to be the best kept secret in Irish hospitality.

So the Irish tax payer is getting screwed.

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/ireland-imported-54000t-of-beef-in-2022-up-by-56/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Central%20Statistics,to%202021%20beef%20import%20values.