The redneck strike again.

[bennyboy]

No, Ben, again, the problem is that we need nutrients and energy. It's that simple.

To get a little woo, we need earth, air and water. That's pretty much what plants are. Animals have the advantage of condensing some of the more important nutrients from the earth into meat, and meat has the additional advantage of being relatively easy to store and transport without spoiling. The cost of this, as I see it, is a loss of caloric efficiency. Certainly in terms of economy, meat can play an important role. HOWEVER, the amount of meat required to deliver nutrients including protein is much less than is consumed in America by orders of magnitude (I think). I accept what you said about a high-calorie, low-protein carb diet. For now, I'd like to see two things: 1) everyone eating only what they need; 2) a system which ensures that ALL people get what they need.

I'm not even going to touch your useless people bullshit with a tenfoot pole. What an animal lover we have on our hands, so long as that animal isn't human. Go fuck yourself and take your useless people bullshit with you. You always have the option of reducing the load by precisely 1. But no, you're not one of those useless people, I'm guessing. Not part of the problem. Not a drain.

Hmmmm. In the context of this argument, when I say "useless," I'm referring to food consumption with no benefit provided to the species' survival or efficiency. I'm not saying these people's lives are unimportant to themselves or to their communities-- only that they are unnecessary for the species. A LOT of good would be done if we could reduce population numbers by about 80%. As for me, I'm useless as well, by that definition, though as a teacher I hope to have some influence on attitudes that could affect future consumption, and as a vegetarian, I hope to minimize the impact of my uselessness.

The problem with ANY ideas about food efficiency and distribution are that they will just increase the number of people who are useless (in the food production/consumption balance), until no good solution is possible.

Anyway, I think if you are going to go artificial, there are other ways to do it. For example, brainless cow research. Or research with algae, lichen, mushrooms, etc. Massive GM research or the ability to lay down programmed DNA sequences could give viable systems in the future.

People are hungry now...and all of those options still require nutrients and energy. That's how it works. Organic chemistry 101.

We have neither a nutrient nor calorie problem right now. We have a situation where overproducing nations like the US overconsume, while those in impoverished countries are denied those nutrients and energy. There's the additional question about whether we SHOULD feed people in regions where this will cause a population explosion. Do we really want to enable the existence of another billion muslims, for example? I'd argue that each family should be guaranteed enough calories/nutrients to sustain a replacement population but not more-- but this is now a radically different kind of issue suitable for another thread maybe.

I'm more about reducing overconsumption, which is purely and explicitly wasteful, and about replacing at least some animal proteins with vegetable-sourced proteins, with the idea that this will reduce the net suffering caused by our food production.

But we are fundamentally dishonest. We eat meat thinking it's decent, natural food. But it's not. It's as artificial as all the things I mentioned, with the added bonus of causing a lot of suffering.

As artificial as the vegetables we eat. The vegetables which cause alot of suffering. Have you ever seen a wild tomato forest? Do you think that soybeans sprouted out of the primordial earth the way they look on your plate?

Nope. I've explicitly mentioned that industrial farming may well cause more suffering and death than natural-grazed cattle. It seems to me we either need to go more natural, with food production being more localized and less industrial (bringing back family farms or small commercial farms which do things more by hand), or to go all-artificial, with giant multi-tiered nutrient factories with compost and human waste treatment facilities, algae farms, greenhouses or even biodomes, etc.

To be frank, I'm also bothered by vegetarians who get preachy, but who do not accept that they have big footprints, too. It seems to me the non-existence of future humans is the best solution of all. 2 billion people eating lots of meat would be better than 8 billion people eating all soy protein and vegetables. But even then, there'd still be the moral arguments about inflicting suffering on underserving organisms, and I'd still prefer to develop non-animal food production that would have a smaller footprint and eliminate or minimize the suffering of food stock species.