Grass-fed production doesn’t really scale, so there’s not much way around consumption changes here. It also comes with a side effect of raising methane emissions
We model a nationwide transition [in the US] from grain- to grass-finishing systems using demographics of present-day beef cattle. In order to produce the same quantity of beef as the present-day system, we find that a nationwide shift to exclusively grass-fed beef would require increasing the national cattle herd from 77 to 100 million cattle, an increase of 30%. We also find that the current pastureland grass resource can support only 27% of the current beef supply (27 million cattle), an amount 30% smaller than prior estimates
[…]
If beef consumption is not reduced and is instead satisfied by greater imports of grass-fed beef, a switch to purely grass-fed systems would likely result in higher environmental costs, including higher overall
methane emissions. Thus, only reductions in beef consumption can guarantee reductions in the environmental impact of US food systems.
Taken together, an exclusively grass-fed beef cattle herd would raise the United States’ total methane emissions by approximately 8%.
You say that, but it’s not really just about grass-feeding. Cows are already fed almost 90% inedible crop materials that would be getting disposed of anyway. We could be doing better, but cattle’s food source is sorta the wrong focus.
And as much methane is in manure, it’s better for the environment (including GHG) than synthetic fertilizers.
The real answer is changing our meat/vegetable balance AND improve the process AND continue to improve humane regulations (and those 3 goals often synergize with each other).
The % that’s edible is not as relevant as the fact that it still takes much more human-edible feed
Not really. Definitely not if you consider the nutritional quality of the meat. And that’s beef, the worst example. (Feed to meat conversion from 6x to 25x, the higher number generally for free-range). Chickens are only x2 in ideal situations (closer to 5x when free-range since their calorie intake is not as well-managed). And from a health viewpoint, 100kcal of chicken is a better-balanced calorie than 200kcal of feed
But that is before accounting for the fact that about 165 of those feed kcals are inedible, meaning you’re trading around 35 edible kcals of corn for 100 edible kcals of chicken. Would you agree from a purely health and efficiency point of view (leaving out ethics), that 35 edible calories of a “non-nutritional grain” for 100 edible calories of a protein superfood is a pretty fair trade?
Why is it ideal or even ethical to kill others “kosher or halal” when we don’t have to kill in any way? How does this relate to them living in cages before?
Both kosher and halal require you to kill the animal quickly and painlessly. I’d say the pasture raised is more important, since that’s every other day of the animal’s life, but I’d like the last day to also not suck.
I mean, if you’re coming at it from the point of “there is no ethical meat consumption,” then you’re right, none of this means anything. It’s a simple “don’t ever eat meat.”
In which case, kosher and halal are irrelevant. Pasture raised is still relevant because we need to discuss what ethical production of things like eggs and milk looks like.
Ideally, pasture-raised and kosher or halal meats would be more (at all) prevalent. That’s what ethical meat consumption looks like.
Alternately, lab grown.
Grass-fed production doesn’t really scale, so there’s not much way around consumption changes here. It also comes with a side effect of raising methane emissions
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aad401/pdf
To be fair, pasture raised is more expensive, so people would eat less beef. I don’t think it’s fair to talk about scaling current consumption.
You say that, but it’s not really just about grass-feeding. Cows are already fed almost 90% inedible crop materials that would be getting disposed of anyway. We could be doing better, but cattle’s food source is sorta the wrong focus.
And as much methane is in manure, it’s better for the environment (including GHG) than synthetic fertilizers.
The real answer is changing our meat/vegetable balance AND improve the process AND continue to improve humane regulations (and those 3 goals often synergize with each other).
The % that’s edible is not as relevant as the fact that it still takes much more human-edible feed
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211912416300013
Synthetic fertilizer usage is greatly reduced by eating plants directly even compared to the best-case use of animal manure
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921344922006528
Not really. Definitely not if you consider the nutritional quality of the meat. And that’s beef, the worst example. (Feed to meat conversion from 6x to 25x, the higher number generally for free-range). Chickens are only x2 in ideal situations (closer to 5x when free-range since their calorie intake is not as well-managed). And from a health viewpoint, 100kcal of chicken is a better-balanced calorie than 200kcal of feed
But that is before accounting for the fact that about 165 of those feed kcals are inedible, meaning you’re trading around 35 edible kcals of corn for 100 edible kcals of chicken. Would you agree from a purely health and efficiency point of view (leaving out ethics), that 35 edible calories of a “non-nutritional grain” for 100 edible calories of a protein superfood is a pretty fair trade?
Why is it ideal or even ethical to kill others “kosher or halal” when we don’t have to kill in any way? How does this relate to them living in cages before?
Both kosher and halal require you to kill the animal quickly and painlessly. I’d say the pasture raised is more important, since that’s every other day of the animal’s life, but I’d like the last day to also not suck.
Is the act of killing someone who does not want to die and does not need to die ethical if painless?
Have you seen non human animals that want to die for humans to be consumed by them? https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmIqdlomtuSsJEoFi_L_pfEAPIxDRo4DB
I mean, if you’re coming at it from the point of “there is no ethical meat consumption,” then you’re right, none of this means anything. It’s a simple “don’t ever eat meat.”
In which case, kosher and halal are irrelevant. Pasture raised is still relevant because we need to discuss what ethical production of things like eggs and milk looks like.