Lives lost per unit of meat eaten

[nop169]

I am not a vegetarian & love my beef & mutton but I think the point here was supposed to be that our practices could be more thoughtful of the total damage produced by current farming tendencies. To which I agree. I am not against hunting - as long as it is responsible & utilized. I am not against eating farm raised meat - as long as the animal is given respect, a more natural lifestyle and a quick, merciful death. To choose your path after weighing the total consequences. And NO I do not like all insects... but personally I do not "spray" wasps & hornets or squish spiders or any other reptile or insect unless it is likely to cause harm (ie will knock down the wasp nest that build in the doorway but do not bother the ones in the eaves.) I try to let nature's cycles cycle without interference or with as little interference as possible. Same with "weeds" - I spray seldom but rotate my livestock to keep weeds manageable. For me it is a total life choice but for others it could simply be a thoughtfullness over one aspect of their life - to choose knowing the consequences and to choose the lesser harmful way.

 

[centrarchid]

Quote:
I suppose that free ranged or pastured poultry utilize feeds that would not be available to be directly consumed by humans but I figure about 99% of what penned birds eat could be consumed directly.

Talk about inefficiency of production; think about how many of our resources are used to produce garbage. I'm not talking about garbage as in "not good", I mean garbage, the kind that my wife and I manage to accumulate a big curbside container of every week. And then pay somebody to come by in a big truck and haul it away for us. Still can't really understate how two humans produce this much trash in a week.

We like packaging, preservatives and over sized servings so gotta have they wrapper and convenience.

My biggest waste is in fish I raise and process. Market wants fillets. Slightly over 1/3 of animal live weight is fillet. Balance is either sent to a land fill, fed back another animal or in best case scenario composted so nutrients can be used to drive more plant production. We used to not fillet fish and in other countries, smaller fish of same species are consumed whole with much less waste. Consuming younger / smaller fish would be much more efficient. Consuming non-predatory fish would be even better. Most fish we eat are predators that make wild chickens look like vegetarians.

 

[cassie]

Some comments.

Domestic animals would not be alive at all if they were not needed for food or some other purpose.

In nature, some animals must die so that others may live. That is just the way the world is set up. There is a dance between predator and prey, and they both benefit. How many lives are lost, do you suppose, after a whale fills up on krill?

In nature, animals seldom die quietly in their beds of old age. They end up feeding something.

I fail to see the difference between me eating a rabbit and a coyote eating one. When I had my goats, it was necessary for some (the excess males, unproductive females) to give up their lives so I could buy feed for the rest of the herd. Without this, none of them could live.

You cannot apply the same standards of morality and ethics to the raising of animals as the ones necessary for gettiing along in society as advocated by the animals rights (as opposed to animal welfare) groups. It's like communism (from each according to his ability, to each according to his need) Sounds great. Doesn't work.

 

[KenK]

Quote:
I've watched guys fileting grouper and snapper and throwing the heads and backbones back into the trash or into the drink for the crabs. Makes me want to cry. The backbone and attached meat off a thirty pound grouper makes a heck of a meal.

I've caught 100s of bream (centrarchid) out of my pond just to get them out of it and thrown them up onto the dam for the coons to eat. At the time it bothered me to kill the fish but they needed out of the pond.

My bottom line; we are all doomed. I'm old, have no children, can't get worked up about it. It is an interesting subject though.

 

[centrarchid]

cassie,

Points you made are accurate. Killing is obligate step to between many places in the food web. It is the waste associated with our conversion process that is the issue. Too much of what is killed either does not make it to the table or is not consumed after stting on our plates. Last time I checked, coyotes eat bones, entrails, eyes and hide while we discard more than half. Same problem although not as extreme with livestock by-products because many show up in candies (gelatin) and baked goods (lard). Our culture more than most, tends to consume only the tender meat, then throws balance away.

 

[magicpigeon]

Very interesting article! Thankfully I don't eat chicken and only my own eggs and am mostly vegetarian. I'm going to send it to a few family members though who still think I'M the crazy one for keeping chickens

 

[deerman]

Myself i can raise animals for my own meat, way i was raised. Yes can hunt wildlife for meat. Now no i would not eat dogs ,horse, cats, ,but if people were raise eating those its ok with me. Thing that upset me is when the goverment try to tell what type of meat we can eat.

I not ok with animals being mistreated, but if people want to raise a horse to eat, that should be up to them, not our goverment to tell us what type of animals we eat.

 

[centrarchid]

Quote:
I've watched guys fileting grouper and snapper and throwing the heads and backbones back into the trash or into the drink for the crabs. Makes me want to cry. The backbone and attached meat off a thirty pound grouper makes a heck of a meal.

I've caught 100s of bream (centrarchid) out of my pond just to get them out of it and thrown them up onto the dam for the coons to eat. At the time it bothered me to kill the fish but they needed out of the pond.

My bottom line; we are all doomed. I'm old, have no children, can't get worked up about it. It is an interesting subject though.

I am old as well. Most of who I invest my life into as if my children are tax payers to whom I am responsible to before my own self interest. And their children and children's children because most folks not keen on thinking about long-term management of resources. Humans, despite claims of being sentient are what I call temporally challenged-flatworlders. They consider only themselves in the here and now, not taking time to make calculations based on needs of generations to come or those they do not see. Now I am feeling crabby and will stop.

 

[KenK]

Quote:
Don't stop, interesting topic. Why does the "universe" give a crap if humans inhabit it or not? I've never been able to figure out why we matter.

Humans seem to me to have evolved (or been created) to destroy that which sustains them (us). Folks like me worry about the balance in their investment portfolio but in another hundred years our ancestors may be mostly concerned with where they can dig out a root to eat, or a leaf or an earthworm.

 

[wood&feathers]

I just hark back to an old grade school favorite, The Rats of NIMH. What was the big crisis that threatened the family? the farmer's combine. For most vegans soy is a staple, and the vast majority of that is farmed in the most modern way possible. Economies of scale and all that, but as commodity prices cycle and farmers seek efficiency, all the old shelter belts planted after the Dust Bowl are taking a beating. Fewer fence rows=more efficient production=lost habitat for wildlife and increased risk of soil blowing away.

I have no idea how to measure "lives lost" or "cute critters mangled" per acre of staple grains.