Any Vegetarians/Vegans here?

[The Grand Nudger]

If you're such a fan of efficiency, then why feed grain to animals?

Its an efficient way of processing nutrients that aren't available to us into nutrients that are. More efficient, than trying to chew and digest feedcorn yourself, that is. In my perfect world I wouldn't feed grain to cattle, but pigs and chickens (and fish) sure.

The animals must consume at least some of the calories in the grain in digesting, in moving around, in maintaining body temperature, etc. EVEN IF we are required to keep some areas clear for farming, as soon as you start feeding some of that produced food to cattle, you are setting yourself up for a double whammy. The only advantage of animals, in terms of calories, is that they can graze inedible foods, like grass, and produce edible foods, like T-bone steaks. So you are left arguing that the meat will provide such superior nutrition that it justifies the loss of efficiency.

Calories which would otherwise be lost anyway through a multitude of completely natural processes. Meat, I want to mention here, is a much more stable form of sequestration than plant tissue is. That's why it keeps better in the freezer.

There's also the possibility that grain crops are NOT very efficient converters of energy. I'd wager that seaweed, lichen, algae etc. do it better. Certainly, the oceans absorb very much of the sun's energy, and there is little maintenance required except to stop dumping waste (including waste from artificial crop fertilizers) into them.

Have you thought this through? Do you want to suggest, to a guy like me, that I might be better employed wreaking the sort of environmental havoc I've already wrought upon the land upon the seas and rivers as well? I'm highly susceptible to suggestion when it comes to food....lol.

Unfortunately for the oceans, they either do not store that energy in an available form, or when they do, that available form makes itself scarce in our presence. This is also why seaweed makes a great side-dressing on row crops, but can't be relied upon to form the basis of fertility. Their metabolism doesn't necessarily sequester the same substances that terrestrial plants might (or in the proper ratios). There are other important (practical) reasons why farming our oceans and waterways haven;t taken off, but I don;t want to wander too far afield.

re: non-natural environments
I'd say the human condition is non-natural, and that's the problem. We have a massive world population, only a very few percent of whom are required to work to provide themselves with sustenance. We are like bacteria that have filled up 90% of a petri dish-- we are beginning to choke on our own easy success.

If you think it's easy I invite you to spend a year working with me on any of the farms I've established or pimped. Look, I don;t agree with our current system anymore than you..but....we ought to at least make sure we've characterized a problem accurately if we hope to solve it?

If we stopped feeding grain to animals, and also reduced the "need" for animal calories consumed by people who are already overweight, we could save most cattle without increasing crop land. Yes, current crops are responsible for animal deaths, and I would prefer a solution to that. But unless you are suggesting REPLACING crop land with grazing land, this is moot to a discussion about vegetarian vs. non-vegetarian food production.

Save them for and from what? What would we do with all that excess grain? It's not fit for human consumption. I would suggest replacing some cropland with grazing land - and vv, yes. I would prefer a solution myself - but I'm suggesting that as far as we know, one doesn't exist (and further, that we understand why we may never find one).