"Expert" my curvacious backside!!!

[Marianne]

Wow, lots of stuff here to read and digest.

I do the moderation thing for the most part. We do eat meat, but now I'm trying to cut back on it, mostly because a more vegetarian lifestyle is considered healthier...'they' say. Also, because meat is expensive...and I'm trying to grow most of our food...and on...and on.

I first read about production costs of that beef roast at http://www.pbjcampaign.org/how
It was a no brainer for me, as we had eggs coming out the wazoo at the time, plenty of egg based meals with no meat, or very little.

BUT I saw an episode of 'How It's Made' on the tube one night...Eggland's Best. All that chicken poo is trucked to a neighboring cow place and fed (YES!!!!) FED to the cattle. Okay, I was slightly freaked out. I still think about it every once in a while when I'm in front of the meat counter at the store....

Makes it easier to come up with something else on the home menu.

 

[lupinfarm]

By no means is all "meat" beef. How much grass-fed poultry or pork is there on the market? Basically none.

Even with just talking at beef, yes, obviously cattle graze *before* they are put on grain but my impression is that that adds significantly to the weight of meat and if you didn't do it you wouldn't get as much meat offa them.

And even with the current system, there is by no means any way to feed all of 6 billion people, or whatever the current (let alone 40-years-hence!) world population is, on a WZ style high-meat diet.

WZ, most of the vegans I know don't eat all that much soy either -- other legumes, yes, and nuts, but not huge amounts of soy -- and they are mostly pretty particular about WHOSE soy they eat and HOW.

They are not all uneducated grain-and-soy-snorkin'-back nitwits.

I'm not agreeing with the study quoted in the article; I'm just not agreeing with YOU either LOL I think the sensible and realistic thing is an in-between path.

JMHO,

Pat

THIS, but also, just looking around my neighbourhood at the beef cattle farms and I can say probably half of them grass feed and the other half dry-lot and grain feed.

I totally agree with Pat on the vegan/vegetarian thing. I don't actually eat much meat, if any. I don't like the taste of beef and the closest I get to meat is a bit of chicken maybe MAYBE once every two weeks. I don't eat a lot if any soy, but try to keep to a mostly legumes and greens diet.

... and eggs, because you can't have enough eggs in your life

 

[smurfette79]

Given the rate of contamination of the food supply that is currently practiced in the US, increasing longevity isn't going to be a problem much longer...

Not to mention the connection between GMO soy and lack of fertility in lab animals. No, I think the problem will be pretty well solved.

I'm not saying this had anything to do with it, but our neighbor donated 5 bags of soy mix that he crushed. Told us to just mix it in to our winter grain mix we fed our cows whom were closed up in a barn all winter. 2 weeks after we started the mix 2 cows died. one of them acted as if something in its head just snapped it started making figure 8'S in the barn and just fell over.. they sent her to a lab but said that it was "natural causes" The other one died of a twisted stomach . Their digestive system can not handle the soy. Why does the government think that mass production of soy and mixing it in with the foods is the answer!

I told my father we need to figure out a way to allow the cows out to pasture all winter let them be able to have access to more fields. We need to harvest more grass in to bales for them for winter... Instead of allowing the Mennonites to farm all of my fathers land WE need to reclaim our land and use it for our own animals. - Cows are becoming dependent on that winter grain mix they are becoming savage like when its time to eat. Poor baby calf got knocked out of the way by two bigger cows running for the feed. Farming is exhausting. I nearly slept in the barn all night to keep them from breaking out the back door. Something has them acting crazy right now and I don't like it.. (BTW- We stopped feeding the soy mix last winter.. when we lost two cows. I took it back to the Mennonite farmer and explained what happened. )

 

[lwheelr]

Yeah, the whole "broiler litter" feed thing is pretty gross. It just seems to me one of those things that indicates how low certain industries will stoop to increase profits.