So it is basically like "mechanically separated chicken" which sounded far more horrible to me before I looked it up than it actually is. Basically, it just means recycling the scraps of chicken.
If anything, things like this reduce waste and increase the supply of meat without requiring more slaughter.
yes, but it sounds kinda gross, and I'm a terrible, illogical person who uses knee-jerk reactions to decide what to do, and support every flavor-of-the-month issue, even if it makes no sense.
How does pet food/animal feed fare into all of this? I'm no organic nut, but it seems like the "We're using every scrap" argument falls a little flat if we could be using it for customers who can tolerate slightly lower quality meat (I mean, it'd be terrible if Rover were getting better fixings than children in our public schools).
It was used in pet food before it was approved for human consumption because it had to be shown to be safe for humans. Dogs react differently to some pathogens than humans do, and plus the regulators don't really care if a few dogs get sick. Once it was demonstrated as safe for us to eat, there is absolutely no reason we shouldn't have used it for people food.
Plenty of dogs eat things that are fit for human consumption in their food. That doesn't make it wrong to feed it to them, and it doesn't make those things unfit for humans.
1.5 million heads of cattle, in fact. The annual US slaughter is around 34 million heads. So we're talking about roughly a 5% increase in the number of cattle that need to be raised and subsequently slaughtered.
And each of those cows increases the resource input required to maintain the same amount of food output.
This is why the "all-natural" and "eco-friendly" food movements are full of shit. I hate people so much.
Also, localizing agricultural production massively reduces the need to use resources for storage and transportation.
Except that not all areas of the US have the same potential agricultural output, especially relative to the population density in an area. You also have to consider that not all soils support the same kinds of crops very well. You like tomatoes? Good luck growing a significant crop of tomatoes in New York.
Convert all the land within 50 miles of the greater New York metropolitan area to farms. You still won't be able to feed that population - I guarantee it.
Organic milk production and livestock production is also very land-intensive, meaning that your overall production density is lower. You'd need more farmland to make up the difference - and more farmland translates into a greater need to transport the food from the field to a processing area.
With current agricultural technology, yes, but our tech and methods are all geared towards centralized industrial farming. There's no move towards rapidly developing commercial hydroponic technology, but theres massive govt subsidies thrown to industrial farms. Actual urban agriculture is also held back by zoning regulations.
On the livestock front, yeah that still requires lots of land (until we can grow meat dammit!!), but optimally American demand for meat would have to be more reasonable for sustainability anyhow. Tho I will say I agree the "organic" and "natural" thing is silly, but eco-friendly is crucial to the future.
I think localization is a big key part of sustainable US society, mostly on the energy and agriculture fronts. I dont think pink slime is really a problem or anything, like I get that its an efficient use of animals and that paranoia surrounding it is regressive, but I cant get behind thinking its even close to ideal and that we should just sit back and say "cool keep sliming it up!" And I dont get saying its silly to work towards sustainable agricultural models simply because the current method isnt dangerous. Lack of forward thinking is why scientists are predicting environmental disaster in the first place.
Again, the problem with a blanket statement that "local production is the key" is that you need to assess the locales in question, as not all places have the same capacity for agriculture. The Albany area has a frost-free growing season of around 150 days:
If you grow the same crops in the same acreage, New York will still produce less food than the UK per acre. Period. You can work with different crops to try to survive the cold season, but then you'll run into the issue of less varied diets - which is how we've lived for thousands of years. People were heavily tied to their geography, and it sucked for everyone but the rich.
Noooo. I think we need to rebrand this type of reclaimed protein as "recycling" and "technomeat!" Pink slime sounds gross. If you make it seem like it is totally fine for your health and is actually saving money and the environment at the same time, people will not worry. Actually, a lot of what we eat is gross when you think about it, but it is marketed well. Has anyone actually been to any sort of food factory? The "appleslurry" machine comes to mind.
This is why the "all-natural" and "eco-friendly" food movements are full of shit. I hate people so much.
Pete, What the fuck. You don't think our agriculture should be environmentally responsible? I know the whole thing about "organic" as a marketing buzzword, and the inefficiency of traditional farming methods. However, when everything is ONLY about profit margins and efficiency, and there is no regulation, we get all sorts of problems. We get water pollution and inhumane husbandry practices. We need a pragmatic balance between maintaining environmental standards and keeping the population fed a healthy diet year round at a reasonable price. "Ethically Sound Environmentally Sustainable Science-based Agriculture." This sounds good to me.
Wouldn't vat grown meat face the same PR problems as pink slime?
Yes. The real problem is that the population at large is advocating for regressive agriculture, taking us back to less effective food production models that will be incapable of feeding people.
But don't believe me. Check out this hippy bullshit study that demonstrates that organic farming techniques are not sustainable:
The most sustainable options they present involve some kind of ill-defined "hybrid" technique, involving heavy investment in agricultural technology development and a blend of "humane" and "natural" crop raising techniques coupled with modern agricultural practices. They don't specify what things would be mixed in what proportions.
The most viable solution that I see is some kind of modernized/mechanized farming technology, with other technologies to minimize the impact of acute pollution generated by centralized farming, coupled with more efficient transportation means, green energy initiatives, and responsible diet evolution.
The most sustainable options they present involve some kind of ill-defined "hybrid" technique, involving heavy investment in agricultural technology development and a blend of "humane" and "natural" crop raising techniques coupled with modern agricultural practices. They don't specify what things would be mixed in what proportions.
The most viable solution that I see is some kind of modernized/mechanized farming technology, with other technologies to minimize the impact of acute pollution generated by centralized farming, coupled with more efficient transportation means, green energy initiatives, and responsible diet evolution.
In other words, we need to do all of it.
Ahaha, you posted while I was posting. In the end, we both want the same thing! I just buy hippie dippy farmers market kale and rutabagas more often and get local eggs, and then you and Scott pick on me for buying organic local farm stuff.
I do like supporting local farming - it's just that local farming cannot support all local populations. I view it as supplemental food production. Semi-distributed agriculture could work.
EDIT: But as always, organic food production is ill-conceived, regressive, and destructive.
But my choices now are "efficient polluting feedlot that is horrible to cows" and "twice-as-expensive regressive inefficient grass farm which is pretty okay to cows." Can I have it both ways? Also, I want meat to be more expensive, because Americans eat way too much of it anyway. I want them to have better diets.
It's like how the stuff made in China is half the price of American made because of poor labor practices.
I never buy the organic produce in the grocery store on principle. I occasionally buy the organic milk cause it tastes a lot better, but I don't really buy much milk.
Your food would probably be prohibitively expensive with our current technology. So make better science, and then yes. Or, vat-grown meat. A huge chunk of crop production goes into feeding animals.
Food preservation technology would also help tremendously, as would improved food utilization technology. According to some smart people at the USDA, in 2006 the average availability of calories per capita per day was 3,900 - that is, on average, everyone in the US had 3900 calories available for consumption.
The USDA further attempted a much more complex estimation: loss-adjusted food availability in the US due to food spoilage, uneaten portions, cooking losses, inedible food portions, and a host of other factors.
The average available calories, adjusted for loss, was 2692 in 2006.
So while there was a total per capita availability of 3900 calories, we really only (on average) had access to 2700 calories per capita after waste was factored in.
Reduce food waste and you'll reduce the demand for food production.
I am scared of agro chemicals. Some of them are these weird synthetic estrogens. I look at these charts in the "state of the basin" reports that the scientists put together for the watershed committee and I wonder what the effects are of all these compounds that enter the waterways. I don't trust them to not give me cancer, but I understand that I do not have the correct knowledge to tell what is harmful to what is relatively benign. (Actually, it's dairy farming runoff that screws up the water most in my home town, not pesticides, but I digress.)
Edit: I want irradiated meat, because then fewer meats would go bad! We could save so much meat if we could keep it longer!
Comments
Meat processing is kinda gross. Gross doesn't mean "umwholesome" or "unsafe."
Plenty of dogs eat things that are fit for human consumption in their food. That doesn't make it wrong to feed it to them, and it doesn't make those things unfit for humans.
http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/blogs/less-pink-slime-may-mean-more-poorly-treated-cattle
Sigh...
And each of those cows increases the resource input required to maintain the same amount of food output.
This is why the "all-natural" and "eco-friendly" food movements are full of shit. I hate people so much.
Greater energy input, lower greenhouse gas output.
Convert all the land within 50 miles of the greater New York metropolitan area to farms. You still won't be able to feed that population - I guarantee it.
Organic milk production and livestock production is also very land-intensive, meaning that your overall production density is lower. You'd need more farmland to make up the difference - and more farmland translates into a greater need to transport the food from the field to a processing area.
On the livestock front, yeah that still requires lots of land (until we can grow meat dammit!!), but optimally American demand for meat would have to be more reasonable for sustainability anyhow. Tho I will say I agree the "organic" and "natural" thing is silly, but eco-friendly is crucial to the future.
I think localization is a big key part of sustainable US society, mostly on the energy and agriculture fronts. I dont think pink slime is really a problem or anything, like I get that its an efficient use of animals and that paranoia surrounding it is regressive, but I cant get behind thinking its even close to ideal and that we should just sit back and say "cool keep sliming it up!" And I dont get saying its silly to work towards sustainable agricultural models simply because the current method isnt dangerous. Lack of forward thinking is why scientists are predicting environmental disaster in the first place.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/freeze-frost-dates/index.php?q=12206&submit=Go
In the UK, the growing season in most places is over 250 days, and it's near 300 days in the most populated areas:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/averages/ukmapavge.html
If you grow the same crops in the same acreage, New York will still produce less food than the UK per acre. Period. You can work with different crops to try to survive the cold season, but then you'll run into the issue of less varied diets - which is how we've lived for thousands of years. People were heavily tied to their geography, and it sucked for everyone but the rich.
I think we need to rebrand this type of reclaimed protein as "recycling" and "technomeat!" Pink slime sounds gross. If you make it seem like it is totally fine for your health and is actually saving money and the environment at the same time, people will not worry. Actually, a lot of what we eat is gross when you think about it, but it is marketed well. Has anyone actually been to any sort of food factory? The "appleslurry" machine comes to mind. Pete, What the fuck. You don't think our agriculture should be environmentally responsible? I know the whole thing about "organic" as a marketing buzzword, and the inefficiency of traditional farming methods. However, when everything is ONLY about profit margins and efficiency, and there is no regulation, we get all sorts of problems. We get water pollution and inhumane husbandry practices. We need a pragmatic balance between maintaining environmental standards and keeping the population fed a healthy diet year round at a reasonable price.
"Ethically Sound Environmentally Sustainable Science-based Agriculture."
This sounds good to me.
But don't believe me. Check out this hippy bullshit study that demonstrates that organic farming techniques are not sustainable:
http://www.ciwf.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2009/e/eating_the_planet_press_briefing_nov_2009.pdf
The most sustainable options they present involve some kind of ill-defined "hybrid" technique, involving heavy investment in agricultural technology development and a blend of "humane" and "natural" crop raising techniques coupled with modern agricultural practices. They don't specify what things would be mixed in what proportions.
The most viable solution that I see is some kind of modernized/mechanized farming technology, with other technologies to minimize the impact of acute pollution generated by centralized farming, coupled with more efficient transportation means, green energy initiatives, and responsible diet evolution.
In other words, we need to do all of it.
EDIT: But as always, organic food production is ill-conceived, regressive, and destructive.
Also, I want meat to be more expensive, because Americans eat way too much of it anyway. I want them to have better diets.
It's like how the stuff made in China is half the price of American made because of poor labor practices.
Food preservation technology would also help tremendously, as would improved food utilization technology. According to some smart people at the USDA, in 2006 the average availability of calories per capita per day was 3,900 - that is, on average, everyone in the US had 3900 calories available for consumption.
Link: http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/FoodConsumption/NutrientAvailIndex.htm
This does not measure actual consumption, though.
The USDA further attempted a much more complex estimation: loss-adjusted food availability in the US due to food spoilage, uneaten portions, cooking losses, inedible food portions, and a host of other factors.
The average available calories, adjusted for loss, was 2692 in 2006.
Source(s): http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/FoodConsumption/FoodGuideSpreadsheets.htm
So while there was a total per capita availability of 3900 calories, we really only (on average) had access to 2700 calories per capita after waste was factored in.
Reduce food waste and you'll reduce the demand for food production.
Edit: I want irradiated meat, because then fewer meats would go bad! We could save so much meat if we could keep it longer!