Thousands of Animals Slaughtered?

[Rise]

But what I am talking about IS happening, and the same methods are taking root in other countries where populations are growing and they have the infrastructure and economic means to start into the mass-raising and slaughter business. Unfortunately, this is a case where the bar has been set, and others are actively trying to meet it.

Your statement falls under the logical fallacy of "Irrelevant conclusion".

What you said may be true, but it's not relevant to disproving any point I argued. So the truth or falseness of your conclusion is irrelevant in the context of what you're responding to.

The above paragraph is actually your admittance to there being a MASSIVE amount of food being grown that is being fed to animals.

Your statement again falls under the fallacy of "irrelevant conclusion".

The fact that food is being grown to be fed to animals doesn't disprove any of the points I made.

The main point I made, which you ignored, is the fact that you don't actually need to feed human food to raise livestock successfully - which is why most of the world isn't feeding human food to their livestock.

It's a complete fallacy to claim that the rest of the world is missing out on additional plant nutrition because they are raising livestock.

That belief comes out of an ignorance of how most livestock is raised around the world. Most of the world doesn't feed their livestock their own food unless they have a huge surplus of it. And if they have a huge surplus of it then it's not hurting them to feed it to their animals. But most of the world doesn't have that kind of surplus.

And one of your main objections is that you couldn't feed people on EXACTLY the crops grown to feed the animals

That was never a point I tried to argue.
You did not understand the points I was actually making.

I will re-iterate them for you:

1. That most of the world isn't raising livestock using their own food. So your argument is irrelevant. They aren't missing out on anything by raising livestock. They are only gaining something they otherwise wouldn't have by raising livestock on otherwise unused pasture.

2. That most of the world needs that animal protein to make a nutritionally complete diet. So efficiency isn't even a relevant concern because you still need that nutritional supplement to live, even if it's not efficient to get it. But your argument about efficiency isn't even true because most people around the world aren't feeding their animals with human food to begin with.

3. That those who are feeding human food to animals are producing such a ridiculous surplus of it that their citizens aren't losing out on anything. That's the definition of a surplus. No one in that country is being hurt by giving their surplus to their animals.

Without the animals, other crops could obviously be grown.

Your statement isn't relevant to disproving any of the points I made. Which I re-iterated above for you.

The truth is, that cropland in the USA would likely lay fallow if not given to our animals.

For a few reasons:

1. We already produce a huge surplus of grains for our domestic population. So there's no demand for more to be produced. Therefore, it wouldn't be profitable to cultivate that land with grain crops for human consumption.

2. There's limited international demand from countries that have the capability to pay us enough dollars to make it profitable for us to cultivate that land. Although there are some countries like China that have both the need and the cash because of their unique situation. But if countries like China don't put an increased demand on our farms to produce more then you won't see more land being cultivated to meet that demand.
The fact is that most of the countries around the world that could really use an import of Americans grains don't have enough cash to pay us to make it worth our time and resources to grow and transport those grains.

There are a staggering 9 BILLION chickens slaughtered per year in the U.S. 9 BILLION!!

This statement of yours also doesn't disprove or counter any point I made.

I basically noted this, by stating that B12 is an issue for vegans as it is a very novel nutrient only found where bacteria (mainly gut bacteria) have done the work of breaking down organic materials. And stated that if we were all working together, things like food items rich in B12 (like nutritional yeast, which I also specifically called out) could be traded for, and methods of production shared with everyone throughout the world.

....

I've said multiple times that it would take people working together, trade and sharing

This goes back to your pie in the sky nonsense I called you out for already:

Simply throwing out phrases like "we can all work together" is not an actionable plan about how to change the world.
That's like you trying to say your plan for ending hunger in the world is as simple as saying "let's feed everyone". Yeah that sounds great, but how exactly are you going to do that? Just saying let's do it doesn't make it happen or even mean it's feasible.

Simply saying "they can trade for it", ignores the cold hard realities of why that isn't an option for them.
It would be like you saying the solution to people's hunger around the world is "they should just grow more food". Wow, that's genius. Why didn't they think of that before? You should go be their minister of agriculture.


You're ignoring the economic and logistical realities of the world that not everyone produces an exportable product that would allow them to trade with an industrialized nation.

Just because you can grow bananas doesn't mean you can export it for profit.

Can you produce them cheaper than we can get them from another country? No? Then why should we import yours when we get them cheaper elsewhere?

Do you even have a road/rail/port network that can connect your farm to our coastline? No? Then why should we build it when we are already getting bananas from somewhere else that has that?

You can produce them at the same cost and you have infrastructure to get it to us? Well, you're further away, so it would cost us more to import it. No thanks.

You say you are the same distance away as our other source? Well, we already get enough from our other source, so there's no incentive for us to split our supply chain up across different locations. It's less efficient and more costly to do so. We'll pass on that.

Maybe you could sell your bananas to another poorly developed country for their currency? Ok, but then what's that currency going to get you? Only something that poor country can produce. Which may not be what you need.

And if that poor country does have something you need that a richer country wants? Chances are you aren't getting it. They have no reason to sell you a high value product like macadamia nuts when there's other buyers who are willing to pay a lot more than you can.

If you actually need something from a highly developed nation, you're going to need to produce something that said nation actually wants to import and has an incentive to import from you specifically over other alternatives.

And if you even want something from a poorly developed nation, you're going to have to be able to pay a price competitive with what richer nations are prepared to pay - which you won't be able to do unless you have something significant to export in order to acquire those types of money for yourself.

Which is why I specifically mentioned trade. You just seem to want to sweep everything under the rug. It's ridiculous.

Which is why I pointed out to you that trading for nutritional variety and sufficient quantity, like the west does, isn't a viable option for most of the world.

That's cold hard reality.

You're the one sweeping reality under the rug by trying to pretend the realities of logistics and economics doesn't matter.

People don't gain the ability to trade like western nations do just because you decree it should be so. That's magical thinking.

Just like they don't gain the ability to overproduce food the same way the USA does just because you decree it should be so.

 

[Rise]

- which would obviously mean that those "rich" in resources would be wouldn't be hoarding it all as is happening now. I made no excuses for richer countries hoarding resources - what the hell else could I possibly have meant when I stated that we could feed the world by redirecting the efforts of agricultural produce from animals to humans? Did I mean that the people who produce it would just hold on to it, or distribute it among their friends? Is that what I could have meant? Duh man.

You are misusing the term "hoarding".

Firstly, because the USA isn't just stockpiling the grain it produces. And if you aren't stockpiling something then by definition you can't be hoarding it. The USA is using the grain it produces. They might be using it in a way you don't agree with, but they are still using it. Which means they aren't hoarding it.

Second, because the USA isn't preventing other countries from buying their grain. It does not need to exclude other countries from the bidding table in order to "hoard" more grain to itself.
The fact is simply that other countries either aren't willing to pay that price for American grain, or aren't able to pay that price, or are only able to pay that price in a limited quantity.

You don't understand the economic reality that most of the world couldn't afford to buy American grain in greater quantities, or aren't interested in doing so. So even if Americans stopped buying as much of their own grain, it wouldn't necessarily put more grain into the hands of any other country.
American consumption of grain, therefore, isn't taking away from anyone else's ability to buy that grain and eat it.

Third, because there isn't a limited supply of American grain that has to be rationed out. The USA is not even operating at peak agriculture output. There's still land we could utilize if the demand was there to justify the capital to expand our farming operations further. If there was greater demand for grain at a good price then you'd see the USA producing more grain than it currently is.
Demand is what drives our current level of grain production. We produce as much as we currently do because the demand is there. If the demand wasn't there we'd reduce output. If the demand increased then we'd increase output.

Fourth: If there wasn't demand to buy the current amount of American grain at a price that makes expensive American agriculture profitable, then American farmers would simply stop producing the current level of supply they are.

You seem to operate under the false delusion that if Americans stopped buying their own grain, that farmers would still keep producing it, so it would then just end up being given away to other countries who can't afford to pay what it cost to grow those American grains.

That's not what would happen. They would simply stop producing the grain because otherwise they would go out of business trying to do so. There's a cost associated with producing grain. A cost that has to be recouped by someone paying them. And just paying their costs doesn't give them an incentive to go through all the risk and effort of growing it. There has to be some profit for them as a return on investment of their labor and resources.

So reducing American consumption of their own grains would not result in there being anymore food available for other nations because that excess grain would simply cease to be produced.

The only way you could make more food available to other nations by reducing American consumption of their own productivity is: if you forced Americans to work on farms, stole the end product from them without compensating them for it, and then gave it away for free to other nations.

They have a word for that: "slavery".

And it never has worked out well for any communist nation that tried enslaving their farmers to use their labor to produce food for others at no profit to themselves.

And if we all weren't so selfish, then (and only then) everyone could. That's it. That's the statement. Refute that.

I just did refute your claim.

Your claim is categorically untrue for the reasons I outlined above.

You cannot blame one people group's inability to eat a vegan diet without nutritional deficiency on the supposed selfishness of any other people group.

Because you cannot demonstrate logically how Americans consuming less of the grains that they produce for themselves would result in everyone else in the world eating a balanced vegan diet.

Not to mention, all I have been claiming is that a human being can, definitively, survive without eating animal products.

...
In the end, a human can live off of vegetation and bacterial sources of unique, key nutrients alone. Can. That is most of what I am saying.

Your statement is wrong for two reasons:

1. Because most people groups around the world don't have the ability to eat a nutritionally balanced and calorie sufficient diet without meat supplementation.

2. Because "survive" is a relative term. You can "survive" on a diet of only sugar... You just can't survive very long. You can "survive" on a diet without meat, but that doesn't mean you can survive as long as if you had meat.
The fact is we don't see any example of a vegetarian culture around the world that regularly lives to be over 100. So we don't have evidence that vegetarians can survive as long as meat eaters when all the examples of the most long surviving people ate at least some meat.

Granted, bacteria has to be in there somewhere, as noted with things like B12 - but that's the only concession that needs made.

No, it isn't.
You're ignoring the other factors people in other countries deal with such as:
a) Lack of access to sufficient calories without meat, dairy, and egg supplementation.
b) Lack of other essential nutrients that lead to malnourishment because their ecology or economics don't support having their diet made up of a wide range of fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Malnourishment that in many cases only animals can make up for them.

Talking as though B12 supplementation is the only issue to be concerned about betrays your grossly narrow and ignorant western perspective.

I said NOTHING about ALL off us being vegan, in all current localities, with the current climate of capitalism and hoarding in play, etc. I didn't say that. You are twisting things, and it is dumb.

Then you've admitted my point is true: That you can't claim these countries should have to give up slaughtering animals for food because you think they could meet their needs with plants alone.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

The main point I made, which you ignored, is the fact that you don't actually need to feed food to raise livestock and most of the world isn't doing that.

But the part that is, is producing one hell of a lot of crop to do just that. I don't "have a plan" on how to distribute all the wealth of crop to the entire planet - all I am stating is that there is one whopping load of food created, and work put into that food that, if instead were directed into provisions for human consumption, would take A LOT of the need for animal product out of the market.

It's a complete fallacy to claim that the rest of the world is missing out on additional plant nutrition because they are raising livestock.

What? When did I claim this? Who's the one arguing against points that the opposition never argued in the first place now? Please point to the EXACT place where I stated anything like this, champ. Please... I'll wait (I assume I will be waiting until the end of time).

That belief comes out of an ignorance of how most livestock is raised around the world. Most of the world doesn't feed their livestock their own food unless they have a huge surplus of it. And if they have a huge surplus of it then it's not hurting them to feed it to their animals. But most of the world doesn't have that kind of surplus.

But again, the places that DO mass-produce meat using methods like the ones the U.S. has undertaken en masse ARE producing huge amounts of crops that are being fed to animals - animals that wouldn't exist if humans hadn't bred them in the first place. I don't care what the rest of the world is doing. As far as I am concerned, they can keep on doing it! They can continue producing meat in the "most ethical" fashion and eating it. You seem to think I have something against people eating meat. I don't. I have only been stating (time and time again - which you STILL have not responded to) that an individual human subject can be sustained on vegetation alone. The ethical issues I take are with those mass-producing animals for slaughter.

1. That most of the world isn't raising livestock using their own food. So your argument is irrelevant. They aren't missing out on anything by raising livestock. They are only gaining something they otherwise wouldn't have by raising livestock on otherwise unused pasture.

What is this you keep going on about them "missing out" on something? I never said ANYTHING like this. Where did you learn to read? Or should I say when? Yesterday perhaps?

2. That most of the world needs that animal protein to make a nutritionally complete diet. So efficiency isn't even a relevant concern, even if your arguments about efficiency were true. Which they aren't in their case because they aren't feeding their animals the human's food to begin with.

Efficiency? Are you talking about feeding animals crops raised with labor, land and materials that could have otherwise been used to produce MORE vegetation-based food that could feed MORE people. That fact still stands. But you keep raising this idea of "most of the world isn't doing that." I don't care. I don't care a lick. As stated - fine. They need the animals for food under their current conditions in the location they live. Fine. I am not going to begrudge ANYONE their means of survival if it is the only one available to them. But places where animals are being fed agricultural product using works and resources that could otherwise be put toward raising food for humans EXIST, and so it stands to reason that in those places, where an abundance of vegetable resources COULD, indeed, exist, such that no one need go hungry in the ENTIRE locality - in THOSE places, requiring and expecting meat is a very, VERY selfish act indeed.

3. That those who are feeding human food to animals are producing such a ridiculous surplus of it that their citizens aren't losing out on anything. That's the definition of a surplus. No one in that country is being hurt by giving their surplus to their animals.

Yes they are. Plenty of people are hurt by this. The prices of vegetation in a place that stopped producing vegetables/grains/crops for animal consumption on a grand scale (remember - 9 BILLION chickens) would drop SO LOW were all of those resources to be pointed at raising only crop for human consumption that the poverty level would also drop to some ridiculous level - possibly even irradicate it altogether. Again - it is selfishness that drives all of it to be the mess that it is. I am not stating that they are producing a "ridiculous surplus" of human-consumable foods, I am saying that they could be producing a ridiculous surplus were they not spending their time raising crops for animals. A surplus that would, again, see prices dropping so low that there would be no one who could claim that they couldn't afford food.

The truth is, that cropland in the USA would likely lay fallow if not given to our animals.

And this speaks to the virtue of our producing animals for their meat? No. It speaks again to the amazing amounts of selfishness we in the U.S. act upon. We aren't willing to pay for vegetable crop what would be a living wage for a normal farmer, but instead expect the meat product we are informed that we simply "NEED" to survive. And so the farmer has no choice but to be involved in the animal side of the business if he wants to make that living wage. The cropland would lay fallow due to the selfishness and expectations of the greedy/picky/selfish populace not getting what they want - instead of taking the time to understand what the basest level of what they actually need.

This statement of yours also doesn't disprove or counter any point I made.

You're not exactly making counter-points. Several times you have raised "points" that I supposedly made, and then attacked them, when I said nothing of the sort. What you seem to be doing is producing such ridiculous walls of text that you hope to scare your opposition into feeling outdone. Good luck with that.

This goes back to your pie in the sky nonsense I called you out for already:

Simply throwing out phrases like "we can all work together" is not an actionable plan about how to change the world.
That's like you trying to say your plan for ending hunger in the world is as simple as saying "let's feed everyone". Yeah that sounds great, but how exactly are you going to do that? Just saying let's do it doesn't make it happen or even mean it's feasible.

Like I said - I don't have a plan. I just call things like I see them. People are greedy/selfish/picky/ignorant. YOU are helping to perpetuate this with all your talk about how fundamental a "need" it is to have meat... and basically arguing for status quo. Well there are problems with how some of the world raises their animals intended for slaughter. You keep saying "most of the world doesn't 'X'" - but that DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACT THAT SOME OF THE WORLD DOES. Get that into your skull.

You're ignoring the economic and logistical realities of the world that not everyone produces an exportable product that would allow them to trade with an industrialized nation.

I get that not everyone makes "enough" of whatever or anything to trade for goods from other places. And again - I don't begrudge those people their base means of survival - whatever that ends up being. You seem to think I do, and you're wrong.

That pretty much takes the sails out of the rest of what you posted, so I am not going to bother replying to it.

 

[Rise]

Well I inferred that we were talking about sustainably feeding humanity. If that was a wrong inference on my part, then there's probably nothing to discuss.

So, allow me to ask a more fundamental question: Are we talking about strategies to sustainably feed humanity?

It depends what you mean by "sustainably feed humanity".
This is again another case where your vague generalities and lack of specifics hinder any kind of effective discourse.

What I can tell you is this:
You can sustainably raise livestock in a way that doesn't destroy the environment but improves the environment.
Furthermore, you can raise livestock in a way that doesn't require taking away food production from the people of your country.

 

[Rise]

Hey @Rise
Veganism: You're debating me on the problems of veganism but I'm not proposing veganism.

You actually are, without realizing it.

Because when you make statements like this:

For the same environmental resources, the poor and hungry could get 10 times (or more), nutritionally complete plant based food.

It doesn't matter what your religious beliefs are or are not, the environment simply cannot support the behavior.

...what you are saying is that you don't want animals raised on pasture because you think that takes away land from edible crop production.

But that has to necessarily mean you advocate veganism because you cannot be a vegetarian who eats dairy and eggs without also allocating land to pasture for livestock.

But you are obviously not aware that dairy production would require just as much pasture to keep a cow alive on each year as a meat cow.

Nevermind that your entire premise is wrong to begin with, and pasture land doesn't have to be taken from crops in order to raise animals for dairy or meat.

Major UN study:

Plant-based diet can fight climate change - UN

You would also fall into the same trap of advocating veganism, rather than just vegetarianism, without realizing it if you are trying to advocate that pastureland be given up for cropland.

So eating animal products and eating animals are one and the same for you?

For the purposes of ecology, they are.
Because they both require significant land be allocated to them for pasture.

You don't get away from pasturing animals by moving to vegetarianism. Which defeats a lot of the claims people are trying to make about how going vegetarian would free up more land for farming.

That, assumes, of course, that you're even using agriculture land to run the animals on in the first place - instead of using non-arable land or excess land that you don't have the spare labor and resources to grow crops on anyway.

Sacrificed animals, perhaps, but with animals raised for slaughter, the reclaiming is not just of "land," but also of food directly grown to feed the animals. Food that could otherwise be fed to human beings - or that could stop being grown altogether in favor of other, more human-consumption-friendly crops.

As I pointed out, unless you're trying to advocate strait veganism, you're not really reclaiming significant amounts of land for agriculture by not eating the animals you also raise for dairy and eggs.

In fact, you're actually being wasteful of your resources by not eating them after they start getting too old to be productive.

If you're already allocating the land, resources, and labor to keeping them for dairy and eggs, then it costs you almost nothing to slaughter them for meat when they get older. As long as they are birthing enough replacements for the ones you slaughter to keep your livestock numbers at the level you need them to be for regular dairy and eggs.

It is very relevant that you conflate the two as if they were one and the same, because your entire argument hinges on the idea that everyone who argues against meat eating in this discussion demands a transition to pure veganism.

In the context of this thread, they do go together, because some of you are trying to advocate the false idea that by not eating meat you will feed more people by using that land for crops.

But that's not true if you would need to consume dairy and eggs for nutrition to make up for what your diet isn't otherwise getting without meat - which is what most of the world would need to do.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

As I pointed out, unless you're trying to advocate strait veganism, you're not really reclaiming significant amounts of land for agriculture by not eating the animals you also raise for dairy and eggs.
In fact, you're actually being wasteful of your resources by not eating them after they start getting too old to be productive.
If you're already allocating the land, resources, and labor to keeping them for dairy and eggs, then it costs you almost nothing to slaughter them for meat when they get older. As long as they are birthing enough replacements for the ones you slaughter to keep your livestock numbers at the level you need them to be for regular dairy and eggs.

Who was talking strictly about dairy and eggs? Me? I don't think so. What is it you're trying to do here anyway? I can't help but feel that you're not being successful.

 

[Secret Chief]

You would also fall into the same trap of advocating veganism, rather than just vegetarianism, without realizing it if you are trying to advocate that pastureland be given up for cropland.

I am, or the UN experts I was linking to?

 

[oldbadger]

I'm not judging the person, I'm having an opinion about the diet. Most people I associate with eat meat. Perhaps there's an issue over what the opinion is based on? When I ate meat I did so with an attitude it was just food on my plate, no ethical aspect to it. Some folk don't eat meat solely for health reasons (no ethical reason), some solely for welfare (no health reason) and some for both. Do meat eaters see, as I did, just food on a plate or do they see it as ethically OK? Feel free to generalise wildly.

I never look at my meals as just food on a plate.
I enjoy the whole meal, and long ago learned to eat almost everything with chop sticks to slow down this important event and to value the experience.

I can only choose for myself of course. But I have opinions about what other people do, as do we all. One of my opinions is indeed that, in principle, all things considered, meat eating is wrong*. But I can't see how I am choosing for others? If I go to a restaurant (remember them?) with meat eaters I would no more expect to have an input to their menu choices as I would expect them to affect mine. I only give my opinion on such a matter if asked, although it probably hardly ever comes up, given we all know what each others dietary preferences are.
*I suppose the wrong bit refers to the killing/welfare aspect. Health is just choice, globally it's a bad (rather than wrong) course of action.

I don't mind killing for food, although now I mostly leave such provision to others. I don't worry about health issues connected to an omnivore diet and I don't worry about global issues connected to the provision of meat foodstuffs.

There are fields of livestock around here and it's great to see them. In a vegetarian world they wouldn't exist at all. I get so much out of living in an omnivore society, it's a part of my life.

A Vegan acquaintance runs a Vegan shop in London with his girlfriend. They stock foodstuffs from all over the World..... a quite amazing variety of foods to enjoy, but if we follow Greta's advice and stop flying food around the World just for a taster then the table is going to get somewhat more bland for vegans in the future, I think.

Global considerations may well favour the omnivore in Western Countries. Who knows?

 

[icehorse]

It depends what you mean by "sustainably feed humanity".
This is again another case where your vague generalities and lack of specifics hinder any kind of effective discourse.

What I can tell you is this:
You can sustainably raise livestock in a way that doesn't destroy the environment but improves the environment.
Furthermore, you can raise livestock in a way that doesn't require taking away food production from the people of your country.

Pick whatever metric you like.

For example: "For high altitude land, you need X acres of grazing land / person."

This is just an example, pick whatever mathematic metric you think makes sense.

 

[Secret Chief]

I never look at my meals as just food on a plate.
I enjoy the whole meal, and long ago learned to eat almost everything with chop sticks to slow down this important event and to value the experience.


I don't mind killing for food, although now I mostly leave such provision to others. I don't worry about health issues connected to an omnivore diet and I don't worry about global issues connected to the provision of meat foodstuffs.

There are fields of livestock around here and it's great to see them. In a vegetarian world they wouldn't exist at all. I get so much out of living in an omnivore society, it's a part of my life.

A Vegan acquaintance runs a Vegan shop in London with his girlfriend. They stock foodstuffs from all over the World..... a quite amazing variety of foods to enjoy, but if we follow Greta's advice and stop flying food around the World just for a taster then the table is going to get somewhat more bland for vegans in the future, I think.

Global considerations may well favour the omnivore in Western Countries. Who knows?

It's good to talk. Certainly nothing stays the same.

 

[Tambourine]

Meat eating is actually on the rise globally, with a greater portion of humanity eating meat and animal products than ever before in the history of our species. For this reason, I find it hard to believe that people are suffering from malnourishment in significant numbers specifically because they can't get enough meat in their diets.

 

[Tambourine]

Any particular reason you cut this paragraph out of your reply?

Because it's wrong? There is no evidence to suggest that humans were ever carnivorous, so we haven't been eating meat for longer than plant based foods. It's also wrong to suggest that there is no useful information to be gained from nutritional science, or that all nutritional information is equal and there is no difference between right or wrong nutritional advice.

 

[Secret Chief]

Meat eating is actually on the rise globally, with a greater portion of humanity eating meat and animal products than ever before in the history of our species. For this reason, I find it hard to believe that people are suffering from malnourishment in significant numbers specifically because they can't get enough meat in their diets.

Globally living standards are rising overall. This is associated with increasing meat consumption. This picture obviously varies from country to country. Here in the UK, Public Health England’s National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) shows that the trend is decreasing meat consumption.

 

[Rise]

Pick whatever metric you like.

For example: "For high altitude land, you need X acres of grazing land / person."

This is just an example, pick whatever mathematic metric you think makes sense.

Your statement makes no sense.
Pick a metric to accomplish what exactly?

You haven't told me what you think I am suppose to prove.
You've only thrown out the word "sustainable", but when challenged you've failed to offer any specific definition of what you think that means.

You also still have not given any reason why it would be necessary for me to prove [whatever it is you expect me to prove] in order to support any of the points I made.

There is no claim I have made in this entire thread which depends on me being able to prove a certain number of people can be supported solely on a certain number of acres by livestock. Go try to find it. You won't. It doesn't exist. It's not relevant to any of the points I made.

So you have to achieve two things:
1. You have to identify specifically what it is you think I need to prove.
2. Then you need to explain why specifically that would matter to any of the points I made.

You can't tell me "why" I need to prove something if you can't even first tell me "what" I supposedly need to prove first.

You need to try pull out a specific quote of something I claimed and then explain specifically what you think is lacking to support my claim.

 

[Rise]

Who was talking strictly about dairy and eggs? Me?

Your question doesn't make any sense.

Are you saying you think I was talking about a diet consisting only of dairy and eggs?

I don't know why you would think that.

But regardless, I can correct that for you: We have been talking throughout this thread about the necessity for people around the world to lean on at least dairy and eggs to make up their nutritional deficiencies if they aren't going to eat meat.

So given that you can't realistically advocate a vegan diet for most of the world without malnourishing them, you still run into the issue of having to run livestock on pastureland to meet human food needs.
So it's a fallacy for others here to argue against meat consumption purely on the basis that you think you can grow more food per acre with crops. Because most people will need dairy and eggs without meat, and that will still require pasture.

You're just not raising them specifically to eat their meat.

But you're going to eat their meat anyway if you're taking the time and effort to raise them. For several reasons:

1. You don't need or even want to keep the male offspring around. The don't lay eggs or produce milk. You'll have to get rid of them if you want to conserve pasture or feed.
2. The poultry will stop laying eggs at some point. So you have to get rid of them if you want to conserve pasture or feed.
3. The dairy animals eventually get too old to be productive.

So the idea that you'd have a vegetarian culture which raises animals for dairy and eggs, but then doesn't partake of their meat when the opportunity presents itself, is a complete fantasy that doesn't mesh with the reality of how animals are raised and kept.

Any culture that raises dairy and eggs out of a dietary necessary will end up eating their animals at some point too because there's simply no reason not to.

You would never find any culture that doesn't partake of the meat of such livestock unless they have specific strict moral prohibitions against the consumption of meat. In which case they are accepting a less efficient use of their food resources for moral or religious reasons.

. What is it you're trying to do here anyway?

I wouldn't saying I'm trying to do it. I refuted the arguments you were trying to make.

I can't help but feel that you're not being successful.

Your feelings don't determine what is true from what is false.

If you can't logically refute my counter arguments then you have no basis for claiming my arguments weren't successful.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Your question doesn't make any sense.

Are you saying you think I was talking about a diet consisting only of dairy and eggs?

I don't know why you would think that.

But regardless, I can correct that for you: We have been talking throughout this thread about the necessity for people around the world to lean on at least dairy and eggs to make up their nutritional deficiencies if they aren't going to eat meat.

So given that you can't realistically advocate a vegan diet for most of the world without malnourishing them, you still run into the issue of having to run livestock on pastureland to meet human food needs.
So it's a fallacy for others here to argue meat consumption purely on the basis that you think you can grow more food per acre with crops. Because most people will need dairy and eggs without meat, and that will still require pasture.

You're just not raising them specifically to eat their meat.

But you're going to eat their meat anyway if you're taking the time and effort to raise them. For several reasons:

1. You don't need or even want to keep the male offspring around. The don't lay eggs or produce milk. You'll have to get rid of them if you want to conserve pasture or feed.
2. The poultry will stop laying eggs at some point. So you have to get rid of them if you want to conserve pasture or feed.
3. The dairy animals eventually get too old to be productive.

So the idea that you'd have a vegetarian culture which raises animals for dairy and eggs, but then doesn't partake of their meat when the opportunity presents itself, is a complete fantasy that doesn't mesh with the reality of how animals are raised and kept.

Any culture that raises dairy and eggs out of a dietary necessary will end up eating their animals at some point too because there's simply no reason not to.

You would never find any culture that doesn't partake of the meat of such livestock unless they have specific strict moral prohibitions against the consumption of meat. In which case they are accepting a less efficient use of their food resources for moral or religious reasons.



I wouldn't saying I'm trying to do it. I refuted the arguments you were trying to make.



Your feelings don't determine what is true from what is false.

If you can't logically refute my counter arguments then you have no basis for claiming my arguments weren't successful.

No point in addressing you further. You keep talking against points I didn't make, all while informing me that I am doing the same. Pointless. From my perspective, you're rather confused. I haven't had to say that often, because usually a person either directly or indirectly answers to a given point, or makes some related inference. You seem to go neither route and just start rambling to get whatever points out there that you want others to soak in, regardless whether the person you're "arguing" (if you can call it that) against even spoke on the topic you're rambling on about.

 

[icehorse]

Your statement makes no sense.
Pick a metric to accomplish what exactly?

You haven't told me what you think I am suppose to prove.
You've only thrown out the word "sustainable", but when challenged you've failed to offer any specific definition of what you think that means.

You also still have not given any reason why it would be necessary for me to prove [whatever it is you expect me to prove] in order to support any of the points I made.

There is no claim I have made in this entire thread which depends on me being able to prove a certain number of people can be supported solely on a certain number of acres by livestock. Go try to find it. You won't. It doesn't exist. It's not relevant to any of the points I made.

So you have to achieve two things:
1. You have to identify specifically what it is you think I need to prove.
2. Then you need to explain why specifically that would matter to any of the points I made.

You can't tell me "why" I need to prove something if you can't even first tell me "what" I supposedly need to prove first.

You need to try pull out a specific quote of something I claimed and then explain specifically what you think is lacking to support my claim.

This is just one example (of many), taken from your post much earlier in this thread:

Rise:

This is why Scandinavian peoples developed cultures based heavily around livestock, cheese, and smoked fish. It's a much easier and more reliable way to survive the winter than trying to not only grow large quantities of edible plants, but also trying to preserve them in sufficient quantity to sustain you during the long wet winters. Cheese and smoked meat were very efficient ways of storing high amounts of calories in a form that were not prone to spoil, and took up relatively little space for their calories.

Whether you choose to admit it or not, there are a host of implied claims in this paragraph:

- You're thinking of a certain slice of time in history when Scandinavian people had a certain sized population. For the sake of discussion, let's say that during the time you're referring to, there were 5 million people in Scandinavia. for the sake of this discussion, the actual number doesn't really matter.
- You're also (indirectly), claiming that this population was nutritionally sustained using this animal based approach. Makes sense!
- We know that Scandinavia is as big as it is. There are only so many acres in Scandinavia. We also know that we could do a decent job of describing the size of the fisheries they were using.
- Finally - and most importantly - you're suggesting that this historical Scandinavian approach should work today.

==

So there simply IS a lot of math that underlies your claims. For example we could determine that there were X number of well sustained Scandinavias per square mile during the period.

==

As a general rule I would say that you're making extraordinary claims, and that it's on you to provide evidence. So I'll ask again:

How many people per square mile (or per acre or hectare, whatever you want), can be sustained using the old Scandinavian model?

My guess is that we can feed only a tiny, tiny fraction of the world's people based on this model.

 

[Augustus]

Because it's wrong? There is no evidence to suggest that humans were ever carnivorous, so we haven't been eating meat for longer than plant based foods. It's also wrong to suggest that there is no useful information to be gained from nutritional science, or that all nutritional information is equal and there is no difference between right or wrong nutritional advice.

More that you cut out the part where I noted the differing scientific opinions then you added that there are differing scientific opinions as if I hadn't just said exactly that.

Anyway, I didn't say humans were purely carnivorous, just that they ate meat. I also didn't say there is no useful nutritional information, or that 'there is no difference between right or wrong nutritional advice' just that it has a terrible track record, and also that it is currently contradictory on the health benefits of eating meat.

Would be nice if I could write a reply to you that doesn't involve correcting multiple misrepresentations each time

 

[Rise]

But the part that is, is producing one hell of a lot of crop to do just that. I don't "have a plan" on how to distribute all the wealth of crop to the entire planet - all I am stating is that there is one whopping load of food created, and work put into that food that, if instead were directed into provisions for human consumption, would take A LOT of the need for animal product out of the market.

Your statement is irrelevant to the points I made.

You ignored the points I made which demonstrated why your belief that this is a problem is not true.

1. Because the food consumed by our animals represent an excess our country doesn't need.
2. Because if we weren't producing it to feed to our animals then we simply wouldn't produce that food to begin with. So no one is missing out on the food because it wouldn't exist if we weren't growing it specifically for our animals.
3. Even if we did try to continue producing it, it would end up proving unprofitable to do so because no there aren't many foreign markets we can dump it in where there exists both a need for imported food and the dollar reserves to buy said food in sufficient quantities to buy our entire grain supply of what use to go to animals.

What? When did I claim this? Who's the one arguing against points that the opposition never argued in the first place now? Please point to the EXACT place where I stated anything like this, champ. Please... I'll wait (I assume I will be waiting until the end of time).

...

What is this you keep going on about them "missing out" on something? I never said ANYTHING like this. Where did you learn to read? Or should I say when? Yesterday perhaps?

When you advocate that we should stop growing animals for meat, because you think it will make more plant food available for human consumption by doing so, then you defacto trying to argue that people are missing out on plant based nutrition by using that land for raising animals.

It is wrong to think that we would get closer to solving world hunger issues by telling people to stop eating meat.

That ignores the fact that you don't always need to take away arable land from people to raise meat.

It also ignores the fact that most people around the world don't have a choice, from a nutritional standpoint, to devote arable land to pasture if non-arable land doesn't exist for their livestock, because they need the supplementation that comes from meat, dairy, and/or eggs.

And in the case of non-pastured animals fed partly or all crops, you're ignoring the fact that those crops represent a surplus grown specifically for those animals. And thus, without the demand created by the animals, that surplus wouldn't even exist. Because the economic demand from people isn't there.

Efficiency? Are you talking about feeding animals crops raised with labor, land and materials that could have otherwise been used to produce MORE vegetation-based food that could feed MORE people. That fact still stands.

See. That's you trying to argue it again.

And I already disproved your claim with various points that you ignored.

I will repost a summary for you:

1. Because the food consumed by our animals represent an excess our country doesn't need.
2. Because if we weren't producing it to feed to our animals then we simply wouldn't produce that food to begin with. So no one is missing out on the food because it wouldn't exist if we weren't growing it specifically for our animals.
3. Even if we did try to continue producing it, it would end up proving unprofitable to do so because no there aren't many foreign markets we can dump it in where there exists both a need for imported food and the dollar reserves to buy said food in sufficient quantities to buy our entire grain supply of what use to go to animals.

But again, the places that DO mass-produce meat using methods like the ones the U.S. has undertaken en masse ARE producing huge amounts of crops that are being fed to animals

Your statement would fall under the fallacy of "irrelevant conclusion". Because the truth of falseness of your statement is irrelevant to disproving any argument or conclusion I presented.

I re-iterated for you above why your statement isn't relevant. Because you can't demonstrate that us feeding our crops to our animals is taking food away from anyone else.

If you can't demonstrate that people are in lack because of that, then you can't argue against it's practice on nutritional, economic, social, or political grounds.

Although you could argue on ecological grounds that it is bad for the environment to grow grain crops using the methods we do - that's not an issue with the meat industry. That's an issue you have with the grain and legume industry in our country. The meat industry is just taking advantage of the situation the grain industry and politicians have created.

Because you can't advocate we do away with growing crops for animals, because the practices are bad, unless you also advocate we do away with producing crops for humans using those methods too.

I personally advocate that we do both. For both our own body's health and the health of our ecology.

But if you were growing grain in a sustainable way then there would be no ecological argument you could make against feeding the surplus to animals.

Joel Salatin would probably be an example of someone who, although feeding grain to his [pastured pigs and chickens to supplement what they get on pasture, is sourcing his grain from a local Amish farm that is effectively non-gmo and organic in their practices.

- animals that wouldn't exist if humans hadn't bred them in the first place.

This would also fall under the fallacy of an irrelevant conclusion.

Whether or not the animals would exist without humans raising them is not relevant to any of the points I made.

It's also not entirely true for reasons I already outlined previously. Which is that prior to humans coming along to turn that land into pasture and crops for cows, it was naturally pasture and crops for bison. Both bovines so closely related they can be bred together.

So you're really not even correct when you try to insinuate that humans have increased the number of bovines on the earth by their activity. Truthfully, there no doubt less bovine on the earth today as a result of human activity than there were prior to humans taking away their habitat.
It's estimated that there were more bison in North America than there are cows in the same places today.

Now, it's true that the specific breed of bovine we have on our pasture is no doubt in greater numbers than it otherwise would have been otherwise - but that statement by itself doesn't prove anything about anything. Because from an ecological standpoint bovines have similar impacts on the environment. So it's not like having millions of cows is somehow a negative as compared with having millions of bison.
In fact, millions of cows are a good thing if managed right (as people like Savory and Salatin have proved). For the same reason that millions of bison were a good thing for building the prairie soil (because without humans mismanaging them, they did what they were suppose to do, which is build soil and increase water retention of the area rather than desertify soil).

I have only been stating (time and time again - which you STILL have not responded to) that an individual human subject can be sustained on vegetation alone.

I did respond to it.

Here it is:

Your statement is wrong for two reasons:

1. Because most people groups around the world don't have the ability to eat a nutritionally balanced and calorie sufficient diet without meat supplementation.

2. Because "survive" is a relative term. You can "survive" on a diet of only sugar... You just can't survive very long. You can "survive" on a diet without meat, but that doesn't mean you can survive as long as if you had meat.
The fact is we don't see any example of a vegetarian culture around the world that regularly lives to be over 100. So we don't have evidence that vegetarians can survive as long as meat eaters when all the examples of the most long surviving people ate at least some meat.

To that, I will add:
3. It's pointless to even talk about vegetarianism vs meat, if you aren't going to be talking about veganism, because from an ecology standpoint vegetarianism is no different than meat eating. Because both require pasture for livestock as a dietary supplement.

Furthermore, the other reason it's pointless to try to draw an ecological distinction between the two is because there is today and historically almost no such thing as a culture that only eats dairy and eggs without also eating meat without having some kind of moral objection to doing so. Because from an food production standpoint you cannot produce dairy and eggs without eating meat being a natural byproduct of that process. Because there is absolutely no reason not to eat the meat of your animals that you don't need. In many cases it would actually be a burden to keep the animals around you don't need, and not eating them would be wasteful of potential calories and nutrition available to you.

 

[Rise]

But you keep raising this idea of "most of the world isn't doing that." I don't care. I don't care a lick. As stated - fine. They need the animals for food under their current conditions in the location they live. Fine. I am not going to begrudge ANYONE their means of survival if it is the only one available to them. But places where animals are being fed agricultural product using works and resources that could otherwise be put toward raising food for humans EXIST, and so it stands to reason that in those places, where an abundance of vegetable resources COULD, indeed, exist, such that no one need go hungry in the ENTIRE locality - in THOSE places, requiring and expecting meat is a very, VERY selfish act indeed.

There's a few problems with your claim:

1. It's a fallacy to claim that in the context of countries like the USA that crops for human consumption would be being grown on that land if crops for animals weren't, for the reasons I already gave above.

2. You're ignoring the fact that in some places around the world, people might use arable land for pasture land instead of crops, because they need to. Because what if all the land they have access to is arable, but they still need animal products for full nutrition. Well, they have no choice but to use some of that arable land for pasture instead of crops. Are you going to complain about them not growing vegetables there instead?

3. I'm not sure if you said the word "vegetable" understanding agriculturally what that means. But most of the land where we grow grains for animals is not that very suitable for vegetable cultivation. That's why 50% of this country's fruits, nuts, and vegetables are grown in California. So it's wrong for you to claim that that land would result in more vegetable production in the USA. So that's another reason you'd be wrong to claim all those cornfields would turn into vegetable fields. Vegetable crops are not usually conducive to the kinds of scalability and automation that grain fields are (which is the only reason our grain farms can be so huge relative to the low number of people required to farm them). Its also harder to make a profit off land with harsher winters as a vegetable farmer because you might have to let it lay fallow for half the year. Being limited to greenhouse infrastructure over the fall and winter is a not very practical economically, which is why we end up importing our vegetables from Mexico and South America in a lot of cases to make up for what California isn't producing.
Vegetables also don't keep and store like grains do, so you can't really leverage the benefits of massive acreage to over-produce it unless you've got a market ready to eat it immediately. And if you aren't looking to leverage massive amounts of acreage to grow on, then why bother trying to grow in the middle of the country with all it's other disadvantages? That's why a lot of small scale vegetable farms exist around the country closer to population centers.

Yes they are. Plenty of people are hurt by this. The prices of vegetation in a place that stopped producing vegetables/grains/crops for animal consumption on a grand scale (remember - 9 BILLION chickens) would drop SO LOW were all of those resources to be pointed at raising only crop for human consumption that the poverty level would also drop to some ridiculous level - possibly even irradicate it altogether. Again - it is selfishness that drives all of it to be the mess that it is. I am not stating that they are producing a "ridiculous surplus" of human-consumable foods, I am saying that they could be producing a ridiculous surplus were they not spending their time raising crops for animals. A surplus that would, again, see prices dropping so low that there would be no one who could claim that they couldn't afford food.

I do find it puzzling that you go on to trying to articulate the exact kind of argument you just got done saying you weren't trying to make, all in the same post.

Anyway, your argument is still wrong for the reasons I already outlined:

1. That grain represents a surplus that was produced specifically for chickens. Feeding it to chickens isn't raising prices for human grain because we already have enough to meet human demand.
2. If you removed the demand chickens create for that grain, it would stop being over produced in it's current quantity. Because otherwise the price for grain would drop so low, because human demand for it hasn't changed, that it would no longer be profitable to farm that grain using expensive American farming methods.

It's asinine for you to accuse them of selfishness for not producing a product at a loss. Don't you realize that means they go out of business?

We talk a lot here about ecological sustainability, but the reality of economic sustainability is just as real and it's consequences are just as harsh a wake up call eventually if you don't follow it.

There is no way for them to do what you propose unless someone pays them to take the loss. Who is going to do that? The government? Using whose money? The taxpayer. And at what expense will that come? And what existing services and infrastructure are we going to axe in order to send boatloads of free grain around the world every month forever?

Making the whole world dependent on us for their weekly grain shipment is not the answer for those people even if were possible for us to do so (which I don't believe it is even remotely sustainable for us economically to try).

You should be looking for ways to build up the people of these areas with skills and infrastructure that will enable them to be more productive.

Do you realize you would actually kill all local agricultural production in these countries if you made them perpetually dependent on imported food aid? They will never be able to develop a grain industry that can support themselves if you have made it economically impossible for them to do so by dumping free grain into their lap every day.

That is exactly what has killed the garment industry in many African countries, where they have had so many boatloads of used clothes dumped into their economy that nobody has an incentive to buy locally made clothing. And they never will as long as the free clothes keep getting dumped in.