Saturated Fat Controversy

[The Grand Nudger]

Then how come massive starvation only happens when economic freedom is greatly compromised, by a religion or by a government, usually both?

You might do well to wonder whether something is true, before you ask why it's true.  The economic freedom to export produce to a more profitable market is the driving force behind global hunger.  Hell, it's the thing that keeps the grain fed battery farms in operation. At any point, a people or government might decide they've had enough of that, and restrict trade. Ideally, though, we can work around this issue without any restrictions on who or what a producer is and isn't allowed to grow, and grow for.

And what is the difference? Only who is the victim has changed.

Seems like your opinion here has more to do with how you view human beings than slavery.  I'll never understand these comparisons, myself, with the vast differences between human beings and livestock...but also because it's not as if we have to go full blown nutter to criticize the current state of livestock operations.  

Because CO2 poisoning causes the nerves to fire pain signals, and the blood flow to brain in the case of CO2 poisoning continues for a few minutes. In the case of beheading, it does look gruesome, but beheading prevents the nerves from firing pain signals to the brain, and the blood flow to brain stops immediately. What is the less of the two evils? It seems like a no-brainer to me.

I have jokes for this........ Anyway, no, anesthetizing animals doesn't cause them pain.  Meanwhile, trying to jerk their head off...does.  You could go test that out for yourself.  

I am not sure what you mean. E-coli in food or water also causes cows to become ill.

You claimed that food safety and best practices are a corporate conspiracy, remember?  I'm pointing out that you can go test that out for yourself as well.  

Yes, they can process grass and parts of the corn plant that we can't. However, there is a reason why we've lost the ability to eat grass and other parts of the corn plant: the ability to do that doesn't significantly increase our chances survival, because they contain little to no nutrients and energy. They are mostly cellulose, and cellulose takes a lot of energy to digest, and it doesn't give much more energy in return. That's why it takes much more land to have grass-fed cows than to have grain-fed cows, and why the food for animals consists mostly of grains, rather than parts of the plant we can't eat.

Have you tried to eat any of the grain we produce for ruminants, lately?  As with most of these things I tell you, you don't have to take anyone's word for it.  

Look, the prices make it clear that it takes much more resources to have grass-fed cows than to have grain-fed cows, and that it is, in the vast majority of cases, more efficient to eat plants we can eat than to eat meat. All the assumptions you make to contradict that are obviously wrong.

Using resources that people can't eat...to make one that they can............sounds like a pretty efficient use of resources.  If the goal is feeding people rather than advocating for one's preferred diet, ofc.  I have my own reservations about grass fed beef or any reduction in the amount of meat available to us that might occur if we nixed the current model in a vacuum, but..just as with the slavery comparisons...theres no need to go full nutter to stick that landing.

OK, let's apply some critical thinking skills to determine whether Michael Pollans work is worth reading.
1. He is anti-GMO, and anybody who is anti-GMO immediately loses all his credibility when he talks about ecology, nutrition and agriculture.
2. He denies that saturated fat cause heart disease, and that immediately discredits him when he talks about nutritional science.
3. He claims that it's more efficient to have grass-fed cows than to have grain-fed cows, and that's, at best, a very dubious assertion.
All in all, I don't think he is worth reading, and requiring me to be familiar with his ideas is Gish-Gallop. If you think my reasoning is wrong, feel free to explain why.

You don't have to agree with every opinion a person holds for them to have greater expertise in a subject than you do. There is no universe in which the above was the application of critical thinking, lol. Your loss. He's a good writer, and he decided to look into these things himself, and wrote a book about it. He, like you, had some loopy opinions going in that were impossible to maintain after the fact. Now, he's an openly biased advocate for organics, and I probably wouldn't point to his opinions, broadly, if we were having some debate about GMOs (though he does offer a valid counterpoint here and there)...but we aren't..and, if we're going to apply a little critical thinking...being wrong about one thing wouldn't establish that you're wrong about another, or that none of your work has value. Part of his affinity for grass fed beef is informed by his opinion that we should eat less meat. In that context, the fact that we couldn't maintain production as we do with battery farms is moot. Now, I can't get on board with that, like I can't get on board with his stance on GMOs...but that doesn't mean he can't provide a useful explanation of how we produce (and other ways we could produce) to an audience unfamiliar with the process or reality. Additionally, if we -did- go grass fed...that would free up at least some productive land to grow trefoil or whatever the hell it is you think we should be eating. So, perhaps, more careful consideration of opinions you disagree with could be fruitful.