Choose Chicken Over Beef to Dramatically Cut Carbon Footprint, Article of the Day

[lolotsung]

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... 180972392/ my "occasional" article of the day! This is a short easy read.

[Killerbunny]

Don't show that to the girls! I have seen the feed lots in the US and they are pretty unpleasant. We eat some type of beef maybe once a week to 10 days. We get our beef from a neighbour who keeps a few grass fed cattle which also gives you a different fatty acid profile. He also hangs it for 28 dyas which makes it amazing! We eat some turkey and poultry along with lamb maybe once a month but have a mostly egg/cheese/veg based diet. Our own turkey and eggs and chickens from a couple of friends. This may come from growing up in the UK where beef was a luxury and very expensive. I thnk you appreciate it more then.

[Happy]

I grew up on a small beef farm. My dad worked 125 acres and grew what he fed the cows-usually 100 head-and sold whatever extra. Beef for us as kids was like bread. We ate it daily because it was inexpensive for us. Because of that I am not a big beef fan. Hubby drools over a nice steak. I'd rather eat just about anything else.

[Farrier1987]

Thanks for that one Lolotsung. I was lazy yesterday and didnt get one together. You saved me.

[Brebis]

Interesting article, but it focuses mainly on the nutrition and not on how the meat is produced and distracts consumers from other important reasons they should look at what they eat.

In the fall I took 2 courses on Sustainable Local Agriculture online from St. Lawrence College. For one of the final assignments I researched how production methods affect GHG emissions in ruminants. If managed on permanent marginal and grasslands in rotational systems they can actually sequester Carbon through carbon cycling and sequestering in soil as well as be produced on land unsuitable for cropping. The organisms in the rumen that digest cellulose (methanogens) are the ones that also produce methane. It’s what makes ruminants able to eat almost anything and convert it into meat, milk, fibre, fertilizer and transport but also an important part of agroecology. One of the key elements is stocking density, which means we need far fewer ruminants and we don’t waste good food on them as we do now by using valuable crop land for animal feed and keep them in poor conditions and manure runoff.

The solution is eating less meat in general and focusing on how it is produced, intensive chicken production may not produce as much GHGs as cattle but it’s still part of an industrial agricultural model that focuses on profit not environmental consequences or animal welfare. It also places a burden on those who depend on livestock for their survival in traditional pastoral grazing systems that are displaced by modern agriculture because it’s deemed as “better”.

Here’s an article about a vegetarian who marries a cattle rancher and now eats beef…
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/a ... t-champion

[Killerbunny]

@Brebis we became mostly vegetarian until we had our own chickens etc. and located locally grown meat. It was partly from the ethics but also because of the poor quality of the meat. The last commercial chicken I bought some 15 years ago went straight in the garbage because of the smell when I began to cook it! We just traded a turkey for some nice pork which is anothr useful arrangement!

[Bayvistafarm]

Makes me glad we have our own small herd of cows. I will never buy garbage from the grocery store. We have a customer that didn't buy meat anymore, but asked if we sold 1/2's or 1/4's. And she more or less made me PROMISE that it would be great. I did. And shes been a repeat customer for 2 years. Actually her and her hubby went thru a 1/4 before the year was out, and wanted another! I told her it depends on the time of year... like as in right now, we have barely one year olds. They won't be finished for another 7 months or so.....
I myself use more hamburger... and we turn a cow into all hamburger depending on her track record. We just put up 800 lbs of it!! But.... getting it to a decent butcher is a whole other story... people have booked up with them into 2023. Stupid.... but then cancel when they don't have an animal ready. And to be put on the cancellation list with the other 75 or so farmers wanting a space is kinda maddening..... oh well.
We like Louro Brother in Ayr... we took a hamburger cow into another butcher, wanting 1lb packages. Well... it was wrapped in plastic... and some of the packages were over 2lbs. Whoever was doing it that day, eye balled the weights... and how do you sell hamburger by the pound, when you had to weigh every package?? Some packages weren't even a pound. They were ALL different!