From: briand@trigraph.uucp (Brian Dickson)
Newsgroups: can.general,can.politics,talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: Eating killed animals (was Re: Gun Control Petition)
Date: 22 Dec 92 00:46:19 GMT
Distribution: can
Organization: Trigraph Inc.

In <1992Dec19.174355.20962@cdf.toronto.edu> g9rwaigh@cdf.toronto.edu (Rosemary Waigh) writes:
>In article <1992Dec16.090026.14864@ee.ubc.ca> jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec15.010922.17767@cdf.toronto.edu> g9rwaigh@cdf.toronto.edu (Rosemary Waigh) writes:
>>>We could eat the grain and soybeans which are fed to livestock.  Surely
>>>most people have heard by now the statistics:  n kgs of grain to produce
>>>1 kg of meat, where n is significantly greater than 1.

It is pointless, and quite specious, to base arguments regarding "efficiency"
on *mass*.
Several unrelated, but relevant and important issues here:
1) Livestock animals require continuous food input, yet produce a relatively
   constant mass upon slaughter. If you kill a cow after two years or ten,
   roughly the same amount of meat is present.
2) Herbivores, especially those currently domesticated, are capable of
   metabolising cellulose, and other such components humans normally pass
   through their systems. True, we can "eat" them, but we get no food energy
   from them.
3) Grains are useful for producing complex carbohydrates and some proteins.
   Grains alone are nowhere near sufficient to sustain human life. (see below)
4) Grazing land represents a significant percentage of arable land, but is
   unsuitable for cultivation. Factors include terrain, soil, and precipitation
   levels.

>>since there are MOUNTAINS of grain and soybeans, more bread than anyone could
>>eat, it makes sense to feed it to animals, otherwise it would rot.
(Sidebar re: overproduction of grain in international trade war on grain
omitted. This poster's argument irrelevant.)

>Actually there are many people who are dying of starvaton.  If we are going to
>grow more grain than we need, it seems to me that it would be better used to
>feed those who already exist rather than breeding animals to eat it.

Here is an important point: not that many people are dying of starvation.
Some are, to be sure -- many more are dying from *malnutrition*.

I want to emphasise this a great deal -- malnutrition is quite different
from starvation. Malnutrition frequently results from a grain-only or a
mostly-grain diet in developing countries. Malnutrition frequently leads to
mass starvation, since a malnourished individual soon becomes incapable of
normal tasks necessary in an agrarian society.

Case in point: change in diet, based on phisophical (actually religious)
reasons, has lead to widespread malnutrition and starvation, in developing
countries.

Specifically, Muslim law prohibits alcohol. Many of the tribes in Africa
relied on a beer-like substance, produced by fermenting grain, for their
sustenance. By producing a mildly (0.5% - 1.5%) alcoholic gruel, which
contained the yeast used for brewing, these villages were actually
providing their people with life-giving nutrients -- B complex, and
several other important vitamins, as well as some protein. (Intersting sidebar:
although they processed a significant quantity of their grain this way, the
losses in terms of food energy were insignificant -- about 0.4%)
As the muslim religion spread, so did malnutrition -- and in its wake,
the village systems broke down -- and thus starvation resulted. The high
death rate lead to high birth rates, causing the situation to spiral into
its current state.
(Source: the proceedings from an international symposium on alcohol and
its effects on health -- I can look up the actual reference, if you really,
really want me to... it had several surprising observations.)

>Think of all the wilderness that is destroyed - 
>"For each acre of American forest that is cleared to make room for parking
>lots, road, houses, shopping centers, etc., *seven acres* of forest are
>converted into land for grazing livestock and/or growing livestock feed."
> (_Diet_for_a_new_America_ by John Robbins).

Not quite relevant to the issues at hand.

(Also, an example of statistics being abused -- while the above quote
makes a nice "sound bite", it does not stand up to close scrutiny, and
is misleading. What are we comparing here -- the uses of converted
*American* forest land? Specific flaws with using this metric for the
basis of any significant analysis of anything other than itself:
a) Makes no reference to actual rates of conversion.
b) Makes no reference to other sources of urban/grazing&growing land.
c) Makes no reference to rates over time -- is this conversion increasing
   or decreasing?
d) Makes no reference to existing quantities of each -- for example, the
   grazing increase could represent a 0.1% growth, but the urban sprawl
   a 20% growth! Nor does it compare relative rates of conversion of
   different terrain -- urban growth onto cultivated land vs. forest could
   be 95% vs. 5%. What percentage of Americans currently live on a flood
   plain?
As you can see, anything less than the whole picture can be distorted to
tell any story. And remember, everybody has a pet theory that is wrong.)

>>>Very very few Canadians are in a position where they must eat meat.
>>probably true. Why should they make any sacrifices? They LIKE meat, it's
>>not bad for them (in moderation). 

It would be interesting to see some actual numbers on the following:
Livestock (grazed): broken down by species -- population and mass
Livestock (feed): ditto
Feed : broken down by species -- mass
Total product of grain cultivation -- mass
Area occupied by cultivation -- (km^2)
Area occupied by grazing -- (km^2)

Then, consider the net effects on the world food supply if:
a) We stop raising livestock on cultivated grains;
b) We stop eating meat altogether.

I think you'd see that some of us *must* eat meat, in order to sustain
current population.

Now consider this: how efficient is meat, as a way of providing food.
Specifically, how much plant matter must be harvested to replace 1kg of meat.
Currently, the transportation infrastructure is approaching its limits. Most of
the feed that livestock are raised on does not required transportation -- you
grow cows and pigs in the place that you grow their food, and transport just
the cows and pigs to market. If you take the n times that mass, and harvest
it and trasport it to the people (where, as you say, n is significantly larger
than 1), then things break down. Beef up the infrastructure, you say? (Bad
pun.) Can't be done easily, costs a great deal, and takes time. In the mean
time, your population has just doubled, and you've used up another x% of
your arable land in building these roads.

Seriously, any sudden alteration to global lifestyles would have disasterous
consequences. Perceived benefit is an illusion, and side effects cannot be
easily predicted.

My point is, any argument regarding use of global resources is necessarily
naive. It is impossible to model a universe, without actually building a
universe -- this argument was proved by Goedel. Any model less complex will
ultimately fail to correctly predict the behaviour of the universe. There are
underlying reasons, which we are only beginning to discover, such as chaos
theory. (Ask the Russians about planned economies.)

If you want to eat veggies, be my guest. But if you want me and the rest of
the world to do likewise, you'd better create an eggplant that goes "moo".

>And the poster who wrote an idyllic fantasy about the lives lead by beef
>cattle doesn't?  I think once more people find out what really is going on
>on farms and how unnecessary eating meat is, meat consumption will decline
>even further.

On the other hand, let us consider grain cultivation. In the last hundred years,
yield *per acre* has increased substantially. However, when viewed in terms of
energy used in producing this yield, the use of petrochemicals for tractor fuel
and fertilizer *per bushel* has increased by at least an order of magnitude --
that make the use *per acre* a hundred-fold that of a century ago, and growing.
In the process, the soil has been depleted to the point where traditional
farming methods can no longer be used -- cultivation is now dependent on
petrochemicals -- currently a non-renewable resource. When combined with the
transportation requirements for these bulky foodstuffs, and the amount of
processing required, the overall picture is quite bleak. When the oil runs
out, the bread basket of north america will become a desert, almost overnight.

As you can see, arguments for both side can be quite convincing. In the
meantime, we live in a free society. I choose to eat meat, you choose veggies.
(BTW, on Jeopardy! the other week, one of the contestants was a vegetable rights
activist -- he claimed to be living proof that it was possible to live on meat
and man-made substances alone! ;-)

>	"Looking at the Earth from afar you realize it is too small
>	for conflict and just big enough for co-operation."  Yuri Gagarin

	"I suggest we dust off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only
	way to be safe."  Ripley, _Aliens_
-- 
Brian Dickson				briand%trigraph.uucp@csri.toronto.edu
Trigraph, Inc.
Newsgroups: can.general,can.politics