BF2S Forums A Warming Planet Struggles to Feed Itself

It will be more and more common in the years to come unless we adjust what they eat and how the processing is being handled ...

This is why you shouldn't watch documentaries and regard them as truth because they're honestly scare mongering over nothing, complete with spoon-feeding you an (ill-informed) opinion. I don't like my steak well done either, but as long as you actually put it on a frying pan all the e coli bacteria inside will die (if there are any).

Common sense tells you not to eat raw hamburgers and other products that go through a similar production process.

We've been feeding our livestock a mix of all sorts of stuff including corn for the last 20 years (if not longer). Noone has died as a result.

Shocking wrote:

This is why you shouldn't watch documentaries and regard them as truth because they're honestly scare mongering over nothing, complete with spoon-feeding you an (ill-informed) opinion. I don't like my steak well done either, but as long as you actually put it on a frying pan all the e coli bacteria inside will die (if there are any).

Common sense tells you not to eat raw hamburgers and other products that go through a similar production process.

We've been feeding our livestock a mix of all sorts of stuff including corn for the last 20 years (if not longer). Noone has died as a result.

Oh yes ... people have died ...

And I never base my opinion on one documentary alone, but a documentary is often the gateway to finding out more about certain issues

And it is enough that a burger is pink inside for you to get sick IF the meat is infected ...

Jay wrote:

Varegg wrote:

Shocking wrote:

huh?

Is there an E. Coli variant I haven't heard of which lives in corn or is it common practice to soak corn in feces prior to feeding it to the cow?

Huh ... the E.Coli is not in the corn ... when the cow eats grass (which it's digestive system is used too) it reduces the risk of E.Coli in the meat by about 80%.

Corn is only used to beef up the animal faster ...

Have you read or seen Food Inc.? ... it's a good start to learn more about an issue like this ... and many other issues about food ...

You're an idiot.

Hm ... and why is that?

Kmar wrote:

For fat cows (and fat people) feed them grain, corn and soy. This is what farmers do to increase profits. The end product is meat that is nutritionally inferior. Cows were meant to eat grass. Studies show that grass-fed beef (compared to corn-fed) is higher in important vitamins, minerals and the heart-healthy, anti-inflammatory fats.

http://www.foodmatters.tv/_webapp_46086 … s_to_Avoid

lololololololololol

kmar, you're usually better than that. They call it nutritionally inferior because a purely grass fed cow is more lean. So what? If you don't want the fat (which, incidentally, provides the vast, vast majority of the flavor you want in meat) then cut it away.

And, as with all organic food, it's also about double the price and wouldn't sustain today's population levels. This is the cause du jour.

Kmar wrote:

http://www.foodmatters.tv/_webapp_460865/Top_7_Supermarket_Foods_to_Avoid

List is full of shit as far as I'm concerned (potato farmers don't eat their own potatoes, lol yeah right). All the products in a supermarket go through extensive health and safety checks, you're not going to contract all sorts of diseases if you eat the supermarket brand apples, potatoes or beef/fish (and it's strange to me that they only mention apples and potatoes while ALL the vegetables and many fruits in the supermarket <and local markets> undergo the same treatment with pesticides etc). Concerning canned tomatoes, popcorn and the cheapest brand of milk you can find, yeah, you're not supposed to eat/drink that daily.

If there is a true cause for concern regarding health risks, those risks are identified and kept under control.

It's also not without reason that we started using pesticides, fungicides and other such products on what we grow. Not only to increase profit but also to avoid health risks from eating food. Insects, fungi and other plants/animals that are attracted by all sorts of vegetables/fruits/crops can carry A LOT of harmful bacteria with them, it's really not all that much better to eat 'organic' or 'biological' food rather than the evil pesticide sprayed food.

Yet they make you pay double the price, it's a business like everything else. Just like the 'green' vs 'conventional' energy argument.

Varegg wrote:

Jay wrote:

Varegg wrote:

Huh ... the E.Coli is not in the corn ... when the cow eats grass (which it's digestive system is used too) it reduces the risk of E.Coli in the meat by about 80%.

Corn is only used to beef up the animal faster ...

Have you read or seen Food Inc.? ... it's a good start to learn more about an issue like this ... and many other issues about food ...

You're an idiot.

Hm ... and why is that?

Because you watched a movie and assumed you knew what was going on. Corn has nothing to do with e.coli transmission. Cows standing around in foot deep piles of shit in close quarters prior to being slaughtered is what leads to e.coli outbreaks.

Here at least, I've never heard of an e.coli outbreak associated with beef. It's always vegetables. Some fifty people died about 5-10 years ago after eating Taco Bell. Everyone blamed the mystery meat they serve there, and people staged boycott's until they changed their meat. Except it was the green onions that got people sick. e.coli doesn't just come from cows. It comes from humans too. This is why we wash our hands after we shit Some asshole in the food processing plant decided that the little piece of shit on his hands wasn't a big deal. Wrong.

Varegg wrote:

Yes I watched the movie ... and watching it made me more curious and since then I've read much about it that confirms the points raised in the movie ...

Amazing what you can learn reading books, you should try it before you call people that do idiots ...

Eating a diet of meat from corn-fed animals hasn't been linked to any specific health effects in humans.

One of your links, case closed. They stop there and rant on about environmental effects caused by the fertilizers.

Oh, and;

Jahren and her colleague Rebecca Kraft collected hamburgers, chicken sandwiches and fries from three separate Burger King, McDonald's and Wendy's locations in six U.S. cities

Well I reckon that it is, again, common sense that fastfood chains utilize the lowest quality meat/vegetables/food in general. If you make it a regular staple of your diet then ofcourse you're going to suffer from health issues....

Not a reason to henceforth avoid all the meat in supermarkets lol

FEOS wrote:

Varegg wrote:

FEOS wrote:

Yes. Domesticated animals. Huge agricultural problem.

That's right ... cows are not meant to eat corn but rather grass etc ... and grass eating cows are much less likely to transfer E.Coli bacteria over to humans, a significant difference ...

Cows are herbivores, and corn falls in that category. The problem lies when we start diverting corn from feed stock to ethanol production (then there's subsidies, which is a whole other issue)--it's massively inefficient as a fuel source. The bottomline is that corn is a grain, no different than any other that is used to feed domesticated animals.

Growing food to feed to animals so they become food is grotesquely inefficient, and a huge source of greenhouse gases and wasted fossil fuels.

The problem really is diverting corn from food to become animal food, not diverting it into ethanol....

Jay wrote:

You read propaganda and you think you're well informed? Please.

Why do you assume what you blindly swallow isn't propaganda?

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2011-06-14 06:02:43)

Dilbert_X wrote:

and wasted fossil fuels.

The fossil-fuels-used-as-fertilizer argument is a non-issue. Recently my brother tried to argue about the impending food crisis doom and gloom (he's really into his organic/biological/global warming thing) stating that we'd run out of fertilizer.

Unlike what the greenie movement would have you believe, we are not running out of phosphates. If you didn't know, every human being pisses phosphates as it's a component of urine. Up until the 80s or so the fertilizer was extracted from water purification systems (where your toilet water goes), we stopped doing that because there were heavy metals in the fertilizer that couldn't be (cheaply) separated from the phosphates, nitrogen, potassium etc - which did actually cause extensive environmental damage.

As we now live in 2011 research in separating phosphates (and the other substances useful for agriculture) from the harmful waste materials has come a long way and if I'm not mistaken several research institutes are trying to develop for example microbes or other methods that separate the heavy metals from the other waste. Some have already shown to be successful, which, if applied in water purification systems, will instantly solve our 'impending food crisis' and even cheapen fertilisation with many other added benefits. 

Not that it is impossible to extract them now, just not really cost-effective. Right now the leftover material of your urine and poop after it's been processed (bout 20 grams a day -per person-... your average purification system in a city produces many tonnes of this a day) gets loaded into trucks and burned, which is a massive waste really seeing as the harmful components only compose a minuscule amount of the leftover, which would otherwise be perfect for agriculture.

Thankfully due to science, that problem oughtta be solved within the next few decades, and we'll mass-produce food like never before. The green media and their almost religious following can rest at ease as chemical engineers around the world have been aware of and working on the problem for more than 30 years, long before the whole organic and biological movement started gaining momentum.

TL:DR, this constitutes as fear mongering;

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic … ing-crisis
http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/wealth-of … risis.html

Last edited by Shocking (2011-06-14 07:12:37)

Dilbert_X wrote:

Thats not the issue, its the fossil fuels used in farming itself.

Vast majority of which are in fertilizer unless you're bringing the machinery and the fuel used in it into the equation, which you can't do without if you want to mass produce.

Dilbert_X wrote:

As for phosphates, a high proportion of applied phosphates just get washed away, you think you're going to close that loop without an energy cost?

You're going to need to attach extra facilities to each water purification system, ofcourse there's going to be an energy cost involved, doesn't mean it's not feasible as it's actually a very viable solution economically.

Dilbert_X wrote:

And are nowhere near a solution yet? Wow.

What do you mean nowhere near? Precipitation of phosphor for struvite (recent development) already exists. Doing this also consumes less energy than the current methods of producing fertilizer.

Dilbert_X wrote:

'Night soil' has been in use around the world for a while now, AFAIK it hasn't solved world hunger and isn't going to, nor will it power tractors.

Uhh, collecting excrement of an entire city and processing it to then use it on the land is very different from the traditional "throwing poop on the fields" method.

cost-effectiveness was the major factor here. With phosphate prices going up the prospect of extracting phosphate through water purification systems has become increasingly attractive.

Jay wrote:

Kmar wrote:

For fat cows (and fat people) feed them grain, corn and soy. This is what farmers do to increase profits. The end product is meat that is nutritionally inferior. Cows were meant to eat grass. Studies show that grass-fed beef (compared to corn-fed) is higher in important vitamins, minerals and the heart-healthy, anti-inflammatory fats.

http://www.foodmatters.tv/_webapp_46086 … s_to_Avoid

lololololololololol

kmar, you're usually better than that. They call it nutritionally inferior because a purely grass fed cow is more lean. So what? If you don't want the fat (which, incidentally, provides the vast, vast majority of the flavor you want in meat) then cut it away.

And, as with all organic food, it's also about double the price and wouldn't sustain today's population levels. This is the cause du jour.

I think you missed this.. "Studies show that grass-fed beef (compared to corn-fed) is higher in important vitamins, minerals and the heart-healthy, anti-inflammatory fats."
http://www.nutritionj.com/
http://www.csuchico.edu/grassfedbeef/re … 202010.pdf

Growing consumer interest in grass-fed beef products has raised a number of questions with regard to the perceived
differences in nutritional quality between grass-fed and grain-fed cattle. Research spanning three decades
suggests that grass-based diets can significantly improve the fatty acid (FA) composition and antioxidant content
of beef, albeit with variable impacts on overall palatability. Grass-based diets have been shown to enhance total
conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) (C18:2) isomers, trans vaccenic acid (TVA) (C18:1 t11), a precursor to CLA, and
omega-3 (n-3) FAs on a g/g fat basis. While the overall concentration of total SFAs is not different between feeding
regimens, grass-finished beef tends toward a higher proportion of cholesterol neutral stearic FA (C18:0), and
less cholesterol-elevating SFAs such as myristic (C14:0) and palmitic (C16:0) FAs. Several studies suggest that grassbased diets elevate precursors for Vitamin A and E, as well as cancer fighting antioxidants such as glutathione (GT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity as compared to grain-fed contemporaries. Fat conscious consumers will also prefer the overall lower fat content of a grass-fed beef product. However, consumers should be aware that the differences in FA content will also give grass-fed beef a distinct grass flavor and unique cooking qualities that should be considered when making the transition from grain-fed beef. In addition, the fat from grass-finished beef may have a yellowish appearance from the elevated carotenoid content (precursor to Vitamin A). It is also noted that grain-fed beef consumers may achieve similar intakes of both n-3 and CLA through the consumption of higher fat grain-fed portions.