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Seven percent of all American adults believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows, according to a nationally representative online survey commissioned by the Innovation Center of U.S. Dairy.
If you do the math, that works out to 16.4 million misinformed, milk-drinking people. The equivalent of the population of Pennsylvania (and then some!) does not know that chocolate milk is milk, cocoa and sugar.
[...] For decades, observers in agriculture, nutrition and education have griped that many Americans are basically agriculturally illiterate. They don't know where food is grown, how it gets to stores — or even, in the case of chocolate milk, what's in it.
[...] Upton and other educators are quick to caution that these conclusions don't apply across the board. Studies have shown that people who live in agricultural communities tend to know a bit more about where their food comes from, as do people with higher education levels and household incomes.
[...] In some ways, this ignorance is perfectly logical. The writer and historian Ann Vileisis has argued that it developed in lockstep with the industrial food system.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17 2017, @05:10AM (3 children)
Calves could be grown before slaughter. That would make them normal beef, not veal.
Vegan farming is easy enough. Use a greenhouse. Use doors and air filters to keep out the pests. Done carefully, this also eliminates fungus and other pathogens. If you do the red/blue LED lighting, you can choose a harvest date that will bring a high price.
The duck eggs from chickens are more difficult. I don't know what counts. You could print "DUCK" on them and/or incorporate as a business called "Duck". You could create a breed of chicken called "duck", or perhaps a breed of duck called "chicken". A little GMO work might help. You could also just jam duck eggs into chicken butts, then soon afterward have duck eggs come from chickens.
It works for chocolate milk too. Some dairy cows are in fact brown. Use those. If you want it 1-step, try a cocoa IV. If cows won't tolerate a cocoa IV, maybe a bit of GMO work will get you chocolate milk.
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Saturday June 17 2017, @07:13AM (1 child)
A chicken butt is a multipurpose hole called a cloaca.
There will be a quiz.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17 2017, @07:29PM
My turtles have the same thing!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17 2017, @04:48PM
"Calves could be grown before slaughter. That would make them normal beef, not veal."
This is true. However, it depends upon a wide range of factors, such as how big is the beef raising market this year? It fluctuates like a whiplash.
"Vegan farming is easy enough. Use a greenhouse. Use doors and air filters to keep out the pests. Done carefully, this also eliminates fungus and other pathogens. If you do the red/blue LED lighting, you can choose a harvest date that will bring a high price."
Sure. You can do this. Just a few things to point out:
First is capital costs. I actually considered a greenhouse operation, and it is incredibly expensive. Bearing in mind that your truly hermetically sealed greenhouse (because you don't want soil-borne pathogens and pests in your vegan greenhouse) will need a good, load-bearing floor (probably a concrete pad), and double glazing (because otherwise the heating costs will kill you) with integrated ventilation systems and decontamination zones in airlock style doors, plus decontamination for the growth medium, the costs become stupidly high. The ROI is insane. And that's not even counting maintenance.
Next, pollen. If your plants are wind-pollinated, it's a bit easier (although either labour or energy intensive) but if they aren't self-pollinating (which many crops are not) you're going to have people running around with brushes manually pollinating flowers. The more valuable crops require cross-pollination, more often than not, especially for a good yield.
Next, labour. Do you have any idea what kind of labour is involved in managing that sort of crop? Unless you're running a gigantic Caterpillar or John Deere across a field, it's utterly back-breaking stoop labour of the worst kind. Never mind the insurance load for dozens of people wielding razor-sharp sickles, their wages will be incredibly high. You'll price yourself right out of the market trying to keep that up.
Next up, environmental load. Because let's not pretend, even if you got the greenhouses donated, volunteer labour on some kind of vegan CSA basis, and free NPK inputs because you have compromising pictures of important people, that any of this resembles a sustainable approach. You can't even handwave about fish ponds, because vegans don't do fish captivity, or mason bees because lots of vegans won't even eat honey (I know, that one's controversial, but you're basically halving your market there). But let's ignore all that. You're sucking down energy faster than Al Gore's jet, on land that is no longer available to wild growth or animals, and annihilating microorganisms in large batches, and even then you STILL have to transport inputs, crops and people back and forth to keep your thing going.
But yeah, sure. Vegan farming's totally a thing.