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Dr. Helen Harwatt, farmed animal law and policy fellow at Harvard Law School, advises that getting protein from plant sources instead of animal sources would drastically help in meeting climate targets and reduce the risk of overshooting temperature goals.
For the first time, Dr. Harwatt proposes a three-step strategy to gradually replace animal proteins with plant-sourced proteins, as part of the commitment to mitigate climate change. These are:
1) Acknowledging that current numbers of livestock are at their peak and will need to decline ('peak livestock').
2) Set targets to transition away from livestock products starting with foods linked with the highest greenhouse gas emissions such as beef, then cow's milk and pig meat ('worst-first' approach).
3) Assessing suitable replacement products against a range of criteria including greenhouse gas emission targets, land usage, and public health benefits ('best available food' approach).
Harwatt further elaborates that recent evidence shows, in comparison with the current food system, switching from animals to plants proteins, could potentially feed an additional 350 million people in the US alone.
You can eat plants or insects, but not meat.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday November 28 2018, @12:43AM (14 children)
I grew up in a neighborhood that was almost entirely Cantonese people. There is a saying, within and without China, that "the people of Guangdong will eat anything with 4 legs that is not a table, and anything with 2 wings that is not an airplane." I'vealso heard "they use everything but the oink, and if they could find a way to use the oink they'd eat that too."
This is apparently supposed to be insulting, but to me it's a compliment, and yes, I picked up on their habits. To me it says "we're thrifty, smart, have powerful digestive fire, and are able to think ahead." I know better than to consume nervous tissue, but can find something to do with just about any other part of the animal save for eyeballs and such.
Americans need to make better use of their livestock. Organ meats, especially the heart and stomach, need to make a comeback. Broth from bones (and carcasses of chickens, ducks, etc) needs to be a staple; I've felt amazing since starting the habit of eating some almost daily, and it's done wonders for my skin and nails and hair. In a time of cheaply-available crock pots, there is no excuse not to make some; it's bones, water, and a splash of vinegar if you have it.
Basically, we need to as a nation stop taking food, especially animal food, for granted. I have been poor enough to eat out of trash cans, and practice at minimum daily 16/8 intermittent fasting with occasional 24-hour fasts; this instills a kind of mental discipline, but also a type of self-confidence I think very few people have. And it makes you appreciate food all the more when you do have it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jelizondo on Wednesday November 28 2018, @01:21AM
You make "tacos de cabeza" [wikipedia.org], like they do down in Mexico, meaning a taco full of a cow's head parts: tongue, eyes, brain, ears, etc.
Seriously. Never tried them but my ex-wife loves them (or used to, IDK).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 28 2018, @01:34AM (1 child)
Americans need to make better use of their livestock. Organ meats, especially the heart and stomach, need to make a comeback
I take it you have never been to a slaughterhouse? You can trust me on this. They use every bit they can. To do otherwise is waste. Waste does not make you money. You think they are making hot dogs and sausages and hamburger from the best cuts? If you still think I am being silly. Look up 'meat glue'. You will see they strive to use it all. I mean *all*. About the only bit they do not use is the spine and some parts of the digestive tract that has too much fecal matter in it. They would use those too if they could figure out better uses for it.
I've felt amazing since starting the habit of eating some almost daily
I would not attribute that to eating soup cooked in bones. That is more than likely a total change of diet. Usually a sugar free one?.... and practice at minimum daily 16/8 intermittent fasting with occasional 24-hour fasts; TADA I guessed it.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday November 28 2018, @05:30PM
The broth is doing wonders for my nails, skin, and hair. My nails are nice and smooth now, no vertical ridges or white spots. My hair actually feels silky, not greasy. And my skin's somehow gotten softer and firmer. It's not all down to the bone broth, for sure, but I noticed these changes about 2 weeks after I started having some almost every day.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 28 2018, @01:44AM (1 child)
Animals are not wasted in the US.
All the animal parts we don't eat gets, the guts, the feathers, the feet, the heads, gets shipped to the rendering plant and gets cooked up into animal food like dog food, cat food, chicken pellets, or something similar else that is fed back the the animals.
Just don't tell the chickens,pigs, or cows they may be eating mom & dad.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Wednesday November 28 2018, @04:07AM
I've raised a lot of chickens. Believe me, they have no problems eating mom & dad. Or baby. Chicken, all birds imo, are really disgusting creatures.
Some will say all animals, but especially birds and especially especially chickens. They're just evolved dinosaurs.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Reziac on Wednesday November 28 2018, @02:50AM (2 children)
The animal parts that humans don't eat do NOT go to waste. Instead it goes into pet food, livestock rations, and fertilizer. (That last is also where stockyard manure winds up.) Check out the price of blood meal or bone meal and tell me if you don't think they process every bit they can.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday November 28 2018, @07:12PM (1 child)
The animal parts that humans don't eat do NOT go to waste.
I've always found it amusing that when other cultures utilize all parts of the animal it's romanticized.
When we do the same in the US it's derided. Hotdogs are made out of assholes and this stuff is named pink slime [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday November 29 2018, @03:28AM
Yeah, chicken feet as "ethnic food".
And 'pink slime' isn't made of assholes (tho one might apply that term to its marketers), it's mechanically stripped from the bones after a carcass is conventionally butchered. Considering all the processing involved, seems to me it might be more-profitably made into dog food, especially given today's specialty pet food market.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 28 2018, @03:16AM (4 children)
The trouble there is, it's weird. It tastes funny. All the movies say liver is gross. In popular culture the guy that eats pancreas and sweetbreads is definitely the serial killer cannibal.
More than that, Americans don't cook anymore, and the only fast food place I've ever seen offer organs is Harold's Chicken on the South Side of Chicago. Everything is homogenized and scaled to the bland end of the spectrum.
Even if Americans did cook, there aren't a whole lot of culinary practices that call for those ingredients, beyond the stuffing for the Thanksgiving turkey. The French eat pate, Scots eat haggis, and Italians eat tripe, and it's tasty that way. But if a person doesn't have a familial connection to those cuisines, it's unlikely he'd be exposed to its possibilities.
There would have to be a massive marketing push to change it. Oprah would have to try it and smile. Dr. Phil would have to extol the health benefits. The magazines in the checkout aisle would have to feature splashy, attractive covers of the latest offal dish. It would have to go on for years, too, or it will enjoy a brief fling with hipsters and then flame out.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday November 28 2018, @05:27PM (3 children)
All that is entirely correct, though in my experience beef heart is really not that different from steak (and I don't even like red meat much...). Getting the celebs on board would definitely be helpful, yes, since this idiot country worships them.
I keep trying to figure out how to spin this so it gets through the average idiot American's head, and am getting nowhere. Maybe angle it as "this is how Americans ate In The Beginning. You can help Make American Great Again by eating smart and hardy just like the colonials did!" or so. Personally I would be swayed on this by the science, but most won't; maybe mentioning that using the bones for broth is not only thrifty but also helps heal gut issues would do it? Or mentioning that beef hearts have lots of CoQ10 and are good for *your* heart?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 28 2018, @08:12PM
Bone broth is excellent. Koreans eat it in the winter with scallions and marrow. But I suspect for average Americans to take to it the emphasis would have to be on the soup as a whole rather than the bones as an ingredient.
Likewise other organs would need to be sold that way. Pate points the way; people know it's a delicacy enjoyed by the wealthy, so they don't recoil from it even though they know it's liver.
I don't know how heart, kidneys, and the rest would be sold though. Is there a recipe to use heart in where it's not a big deal?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 28 2018, @08:16PM (1 child)
What is there to spin? The "average idiot" doesn't like beef heart and thus, won't eat it. As for the bone broth, that requires cooking, which is fine when you have a kitchen, experience, and time. When you don't, then it's just another thing that doesn't happen.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 28 2018, @08:20PM
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Wednesday November 28 2018, @04:09AM
When i lived in a real state (Alaska) I would buy beef heart from the store on a regular basis and chicken liver and gizzards when they were cheap enough, beef liver as supply allowed. I would have liked to continue this in Oregon but beef heart is more expensive than other parts of the cow here. Organ meats are expensive and i dont really get why, my guess is that demand is so low that supply for the consumption by human market is too low to supply much for it, causing prices to be high. Have been finding some good ads on craigslist for $1/lb heart and liver, a little concerned about quality though.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam