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posted by janrinok on Wednesday July 23 2014, @04:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the order-another-burger dept.

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.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday July 24 2014, @02:15AM

    by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Thursday July 24 2014, @02:15AM (#73081) Journal

    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.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by dry on Thursday July 24 2014, @06:08AM

    by dry (223) on Thursday July 24 2014, @06:08AM (#73145) Journal

    Bison?

    • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday July 24 2014, @06:58AM

      by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Thursday July 24 2014, @06:58AM (#73150) Journal

      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.

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      • (Score: 2) by dry on Sunday July 27 2014, @04:12AM

        by dry (223) on Sunday July 27 2014, @04:12AM (#74316) Journal

        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

          by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Wednesday July 30 2014, @12:14AM (#75319) Journal

          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.

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