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Research into the environmental impact of animal-based foods has concluded that beef has the greatest impact by a large margin (Full text [pdf]).
When the numbers were in, including those for the environmental costs of different kinds of feed (pasture, roughage such as hay, and concentrates such as corn), the team developed equations that yielded values for the environmental cost per calorie and then per unit of protein, for each food.
The calculations showed that the biggest culprit, by far, is beef. That was no surprise, say Milo and Shepon. The surprise was in the size of the gap: In total, eating beef is more costly to the environment by an order of magnitude about ten times on average than other animal-derived foods, including pork and poultry. Cattle require on average 28 times more land and 11 times more irrigation water, are responsible for releasing 5 times more greenhouse gases, and consume 6 times as much nitrogen, as eggs or poultry. Poultry, pork, eggs and dairy all came out fairly similar. That was also surprising, because dairy production is often thought to be relatively environmentally benign. But the research shows that the price of irrigating and fertilizing the crops fed to milk cows as well as the relative inefficiency of cows in comparison to other livestock jacks up the cost significantly.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by fliptop on Wednesday July 23 2014, @04:27PM
We're certainly not going back to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, are we?
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 23 2014, @04:34PM
How about reading the title, summary or article?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by fliptop on Wednesday July 23 2014, @04:50PM
I did, and what I see is death by a thousand slices. To me this is just a way for all the chicken-littles to cry the sky is falling, you must stop eating beef and drinking milk and eating cheese. If they were successful, and everyone started shunning beef and turned to chicken/pork/fish, don't you think the next study will be "producing pork is X times more harmful to the environment than chicken and fish?"
It's nothing more than a ploy by environmentalist wackos (and possibly vegetarians) to shame us knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers into submission.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 3, Funny) by hoochiecoochieman on Wednesday July 23 2014, @05:04PM
They can pry my pork from my cold, dead hands!
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Wednesday July 23 2014, @05:28PM
I like the diversity of beef, pork and chicken so...
You can pry my fork from my cold, dead hands!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday July 23 2014, @05:14PM
Agreed, its also the top item on the vegan agenda.
From TFS:
The point here is that we have no way to feed ourselves with pasture roughage and hay OTHER THAN by Cattle, sheep, or goats. We can't eat that stuff. So its not like we can just stop doing that and plant turnips or something.
Any alternative crops that we could grow on that pastureland would take much higher population densities to manage, and do much more environmental damage.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Sir Garlon on Wednesday July 23 2014, @05:28PM
Where are mod points when I need them?
This is an excellent point, that you can't compare a hectare of semi-arid pastureland with a hectare of fertile soil. Some of the land used for cattle production can't be put to more productive use.
On the other hand, a lot of cattle are grain-fed so the land and water used to provide their feed *could* be used to produce other food instead.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday July 24 2014, @02:15AM
I agree and would just like to say that being in the middle of BF AR, surrounded by fricking cows and pastures allow me to say this...the land them cows are grazed on? You aren't doing jack shit with it OTHER than grazing animals, its just not good enough land to be worth it. All the land that was good enough to plant crops on? they planted crops ages ago while the land the cows are on is hilly, often strewn with rocks and old stumps, and when you actually dig into the soil even AFTER having decades of cow shit umped on it the only thing you'll grow there is weeds, its just not good dirt. With most of the pastures its just junk land that if you didn't put cows on it the only things it would be producing is snake and weeds.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dry on Thursday July 24 2014, @06:08AM
Bison?
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday July 24 2014, @06:58AM
And what would you DO with them? They have the same footprint, same impact, only difference is not too many like the meat so you'll end up with a lot of rotting meat headed for the landfills.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday July 27 2014, @04:12AM
As I understand they are better at living on prairie type grasses and don't emit tons of methane. The few times I've eaten bison, I found it more similar to beef then anything and had no problem with the taste, I believe they were farm raised. Of course meat reflects the diet that grew the meat. I've had venison from sagebrush country and it was, well different.
There's also goats and even sheep as examples of more efficient producers of meat and pretty good producers of milk (perhaps healthier).
(funny enough playing on the radio is the blues song "goat meat ain't fit to eat")
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday July 30 2014, @12:14AM
TYhe problem is their ultra low fat content makes them worthless for many dishes as you need a certain amount of fat to get things to mix correcty, also they are kinda "gamey" for want of a better term and while I personally like deer and gator there are many that just do not like the taste.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Informative) by dry on Thursday July 24 2014, @05:22AM
The answer is in your comment, use the land for goats or sheep. The problem with cattle is that they use a lot of grain (including corn) to fatten up. It's rare to see grass fed beef for sale. Even goat milk is more digestible for many.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 23 2014, @04:38PM
I don't think you have to go to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle just in order to replace your beef with pork or chicken.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 23 2014, @05:03PM
Soylent!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday July 23 2014, @06:38PM
Other than buying more chicken, pork, turkey, etc., one potential alternative is "cultured meat". Aka the lab-grown burger.
World's first lab-grown burger to be cooked and eaten [bbc.com]
The biggest problem? No fat cells in version 1.0, so it didn't have that juicy burger taste.
Heck No Or Let's Go? Your Thoughts On Lab-Grown Meat [npr.org]
Wikipedia: In vitro meat [wikipedia.org]
Maastricht University: Cultured Beef [culturedbeef.net]
Burger tasting London Aug 2013 [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 23 2014, @06:56PM
Right now, manufactured meat is as real as a flying car.
It has not been shown to be up to quality, and the approaches used to get it there tend to be expensive and hard to scale.
It is quite distinguishable from live grown meat, which is why they're working in terms of nuggets and hamburger.
The capital investment and running costs currently are far higher than any regular ranch.
All of these problems need to be meaningfully solved before it turns commercially viable. Are there approaches to solutions? Yes. Are there commercially viable solutions? No. Not yet.
As for vertical farming, that can only work as much as your sunlight will penetrate. It's no accident that gardeners worry about the sunlight needs and shade tolerance of plants. There's only so much insolation you get. What's worse, if you pack your vertical farms close together they shade each other when the sun is low in the sky, instead of just shading their own lower layers.
Real, practical vertical farms are best approximated with some of the permaculture approaches, and even then your ground cover is impoverished compared to what you would get in an open field. The benefit is that with multiple crops over a single acre you get better net yields even though each individual yield is lower.
All these people are spinning their wheels desperately searching for free lunches.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday July 23 2014, @10:12PM
No, we could breed elephants. Or giant slugs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford