Saturated Fat Controversy

[FlatAssembler]

I was commenting on how good financial decisions made by producers are not equivalent to decisions that feed starving people, and, in fact, those good financial decisions made by producers actively starve people.

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

No, I don't think that owning animals is comparable to slavery, not even remotely.

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

No one...anywhere..thinks that grabbing an animal out of the yard and chopping it's head off is ethical. I don't know why you think that. It's fucking gruesome.

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.

Season your food with e-coli, or any number of other things that would be in your food if you ate fodder.

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

The simplest way to put this, is that livestock can process things that we can't, and that can be produced more economically and on more meager land than anything for human consumption can be - other than livestock.

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.
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.

I'd suggest some of Michael Pollans books and essays to you, as a primer, for a consumer interested in figuring out why (and how) we do what we do.

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.

[LastPoet]

So, as far as I know, the usual way of killing pigs today in slaughterhouse is to suffocate them with CO2. I want an honest answer, why?
First of all, why CO2? CO2 in blood directly activates the nociceptors, thus leading to extreme pain. Why not nitrogen? Nitrogen poisoning is at least known to be painless in humans. I don't know how certain we are that it's painless for pigs, since we know nitrogen poisoning isn't painless for moles (moles, unlike humans, can detect lack of oxygen in their blood), but we know for certain CO2 poisoning is painful.
Second, if people actually care about painlessly killing the farmed animals, why not simply behead them? Nearly all neuroscientists would agree beheading is, if properly done, a painless way to die. So why not do that?

First of all, nociceptors aren't a thing. CO2 is harmless, it doesn't poison the pigs like CO. In fact, if you take too long, they will wake up and go about doing pork things like it never happened. That is why its mandatory for the process of slaying to be under 120 seconds. Give me a peer reviwed paper that a pig slain under CO2 experience pain.

Second, the meat quality sector reports (its an ouside the company agent) that the meat presents the best quality. They also test for steroid grown pigs, an illegal move for the suppliers.

Third, beheading is an unnecessary measure that wreaks the produce. A good slayer will put a single stab on the jugular, the pig will drain fast, the blood is collected more efficiently. Any person knows that beheading is just more gorey, less efficient and more work. We don't have broad swords to behead a pig and I think very few people in the world have the strenght to behead a pig with one and in a swift blow. A simple stab blow with the appropriate knife is just as fast.

[FlatAssembler]

CO2 is harmless, it doesn't poison the pigs like CO.

What are you talking about? Very high concentrations of CO2 in blood cause bubbles of CO2 to appear in the vessels, thus slowly stopping the blood from getting to the brain. High-school biology.

Give me a peer reviwed paper that a pig slain under CO2 experience pain.

Don't switch the burden of proof. CO2 in blood does trigger nociceptors. It's the reason why naked mole rats don't have nociceptors and can't feel pain: they live in an environment where their blood is always relatively high in CO2, so, if they did have nociceptors, they would fire constantly. That's also high-school biology.

A good slayer will put a single stab on the jugular, the pig will drain fast, the blood is collected more efficiently.

It doesn't drain fast enough to guarantee that an animal doesn't feel pain. Besides, I think some farmed animals, such as sheep and cows, have another major artery on the back of their neck, so cutting the front and the side of their neck really doesn't stop the blood from getting to their brain.
Wait, you are talking about the jugular vein? Well, that certainly doesn't cause fast death.

Any person knows that beheading is just more gorey, less efficient and more work.

I don't think it's much more expensive than the machinery needed to poison the pigs with CO2.

[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.

[FlatAssembler]

This discussion is wasting too much of my time now. I need to prepare myself for the electrical engineering test tomorrow. I'll try to respond to the most important points.

You might do well to wonder whether something is true, before you ask why it's true

Of course it's true. There is much more starvation in socialist countries than in capitalist countries. Countries in Africa and South America, where most of the starvation occurs today, are mostly socialist, they don't respect economic freedoms. And countries with the least amount of starving people, such as Norway, respect the economic freedoms even more than the US does.

If the goal is feeding people rather than advocating for one's preferred diet, ofc.

If we are trying to feed people, producing something which is, for whatever reason, too expensive for poor people to buy, such as meat from grass-fed cows, isn't productive. And, if you are feeding those cows on a land that can support trefoils, and therefore can also support peas, it is very counter-productive.

There is no universe in which the above was the application of critical thinking, lol.

OK, he is writing about something I don't know much about, so I can't evaluate his statements that are relevant in this discussion. But, the things he says about things I know enough about to evaluate his statements are false. So, why should I trust him? Isn't it much more reasonable to assume he is probably also wrong about those statements, rather than assuming he somehow got those things right?

[The Grand Nudger]

As noted from the beginning, your view of this issue is tainted by other ideological commitments. If you could find a way to put socialism vs capitalism in it's own box, that would probably help. The US imports food from areas where people are starving. Let that sink in. The producers economic freedom to export to us, and our ability to pay more for an item than the locals, means that the locals...who work in the fields themselves and often do have at least some money to pay for food..get to watch food shipped out. Then, a huge portion of it ends up sitting at dock here, unsold, where it spoils.

It's Not What You Think
Ending hunger isn’t a question of supply. The world produces enough food to feed everyone on the planet. The problem is about access and availability, both of which are disrupted by things like extreme weather, food waste, one’s gender and – worst of all – conflict.

https://www.wfpusa.org/explore/wfps-work...of-hunger/

As to things too expensive to buy, again you miss the mark, but I understand this one. If you wanted to ease hunger and poverty...helping people to grow something expensive will do that. I suppose it might seem counterintuitive, but there it is. The guy selling grass fed beef can better compete with the american consumer for food, and that's why he's starving, ultimately. Not that I think grass fed beef is going to save the world or end poverty or something, it won't. There's a reason that I'm doing aquaculture in cattle country, instead of grass fed free range organic beef. Nevertheless, grass fed beef demonstrably is more efficient, from a resource use standpoint, than grain fed. I think that Pollan focuses in on this much like you focus in on your own personal attachments. What we have in that product is more environmentally friendly and more valuable...and it's something we should do more of, sure, but not something that we should look to replace other operations with. No more than we should look to replace cattle operations with bean farms.

As I said before, you don't have to assume that anyone got anything right, you can figure all of this out for yourself. That's what Pollan did, and wrote about. Doing so strengthened some of his convictions, disabused him of others, and created new ones he hadn't considered before. Same thing happened to me since I got into this. I came out of electronics manufacturing into ag with alot of strong ideas...the majority of which, utterly and completely wrong. It's at least possible that you might be in the same boat, yeah? Or, you can use them as planks to bitch about socialism and capitalism and conspiracies in production and whatever else you think it ties into.

It would be nice if we'd get our shit together and work on a better model of distribution..but it's not as if there aren't barriers to that. In the meantime, there simply doesn't seem to be a way to address the issue that doesn't involve making more food, and since the earths land wasn't exactly created equal, it will always be the case that some places will need to lean on livestock. Whether they eat it, or sell it. From an animal welfare point of view, though, I'd focus more on getting petrochem out of ag (but that would require even more livestock). Nothing kills, maims, and just generally shittifies more animals lives (including our own)..than our system of turning oil into food.

[FlatAssembler]

The producers economic freedom to export to us, and our ability to pay more for an item than the locals, means that the locals...who work in the fields themselves and often do have at least some money to pay for food..get to watch food shipped out.

So, do you think that when I, as a relatively rich Croatian, buy myself MacBook Air, I am hurting the poor Americans who can't afford to buy it? I am giving money to the rich people in America then, and that money hopefully then trickles down to the poor Americans. And the same is true when you buy food from the poor country where there are many starving people.

The guy selling grass fed beef can better compete with the american consumer for food, and that's why he's starving, ultimately.

Well, if you don't have money to buy yourself food, chances are, you also can't afford to get a cow. And even if you do get a cow, that cow will, in all likelihood, get ill from poor nutrition. Do you think you'll be able to afford veterinary care for it?

Doing so strengthened some of his convictions, disabused him of others, and created new ones he hadn't considered before.

Well, don't you think you may be doing it the wrong way? I mean, why do you trust those who tell you stuff that contradicts what you've been told in biology classes in high-school? That is, why do you trust those who tell you CO2 poisoning is painless and that beheading isn't painless?

[The Grand Nudger]

So, do you think that when I, as a relatively rich Croatian, buy myself MacBook Air, I am hurting the poor Americans who can't afford to buy it? I am giving money to the rich people in America then, and that money hopefully then trickles down to the poor Americans. And the same is true when you buy food from the poor country where there are many starving people.

Do you eat your Macbook?  Didn't that sound silly to you when it came out of your mouth?  Yes, though, those of us who are relatively well off and in the developed world are all complicit in global hunger.  That's part of what makes it a difficult problem.  It's not as if anyone is going to be able to convince us to stop eating, or buying food.

Well, if you don't have money to buy yourself food, chances are, you also can't afford to get a cow. And even if you do get a cow, that cow will, in all likelihood, get ill from poor nutrition. Do you think you'll be able to afford veterinary care for it?

That's precisely why programs like the one I'm part of exist.   To do practical research for alternative production methodologies and provide training, funding, and technical assistance to people who could use them to improve their circumstances. We don't actually have to go to the third world to find those people, though.  You can find them here in the US as well.  Conventional methods are low labor high cap investment, but that isn't a good fit for economically depressed areas anywhere.

Well, don't you think you may be doing it the wrong way? I mean, why do you trust those who tell you stuff that contradicts what you've been told in biology classes in high-school? That is, why do you trust those who tell you CO2 poisoning is painless and that beheading isn't painless?

No, I don't worry that the fish I've anesthetized feel pain.  Full disclosure, though....I'm not overly concerned about the pain fish feel.  I do it this way because commercial production has ethical standards, and because humane treatment has marketing value - but I've been catching and killing and cleaning fish my entire life. It cant be anything other than a painful, bloody, and protracted experience. You try to minimize it, with the right gear, and not horsing the fish around in the water..but it is what it is. By comparison, the dry ice bath is mercy.

It's easier, I think, not to concern yourself with things like that in a wild catch. When you're rearing fish in a tank, though, you get attached. Some of them end up with names, you spend alot of time with them. People forget that producers care for these animals. As Grandin put it, while there are cruel people who shouldn't be in this sort of industry, most people want to do it the right way and know the right way when they see it. It would be very strange to meet a producer who didn't get riled up if someone was fucking around with their livestock. If you so much as kicked somebody's animals, out here, you might get fuckin shot.

What would your grandfather have done if he caught you hurting his chickens? Mine would have beaten the living shit out of me, and the harm to his opinion of me would have lasted longer than any bruise, lol. Did it ever occur to you then, or now, that he was some sort of slaver? Honestly, I'm a little bit incredulous when it comes to some of these questions and opinions you have. You should already know better, without needing anyone else to provide you with any information on the subject.

[FlatAssembler]

Do you eat your Macbook?

Why would it make any difference whether it's food, medicine, or electronical products. It's a product America produces, which many Americans can't afford to buy, so it's sold to rich people elsewhere in the world. The same is true for food in Ethiopia. And it's not immoral to buy food from there, for the same reason it's not immoral to buy computers from America.

Conventional methods are low labor high cap investment, but that isn't a good fit for economically depressed areas anywhere.

And don't you think that raising chickens may be a slightly better idea than raising cows in the developed world? Or, even better, grasshoppers? Grasshoppers almost certainly don't feel pain, so there are no welfare concerns. And raising grasshoppers for food is even more efficient than growing demanding plants such as tomato and lettuce for food.
Anyway, done a little reasearch, and it still seems to me that it's true that most of the grain that can be consumed by humans is given to animals. Estimates vary, but if we take the estimate that 85% of grains worldwide is given to animals, and that 80% of that grain isn't edible by humans (and those appear to be the mean estimates), that means that ((100-80)/100*85)/((100-85)+(100-80)/100*85)=53% of human-edible grain is given to the farmed animals today.

I'm not overly concerned about the pain fish feel.

I don't think that's the right analogy here. For all we know, fish probably don't feel pain. C-type neurofibres are necessary for pain in humans (people with congenital insensitivity to pain have very little of them them), and they are absent or nearly absent in fish. And if they do feel pain, they don't feel it the way we do, so what works for reducing pain in humans and animals related to us may be counter-productive in fish.

As Grandin put it, while there are cruel people who shouldn't be in this sort of industry, most people want to do it the right way and know the right way when they see it.

Well, yes, most of the people here who have chickens and pigs don't slaughter them themselves, they pay for somebody else to slaughter them when they don't see it. That's, if you ask me, insane.

[The Grand Nudger]

Why would it make any difference whether it's food, medicine, or electronical products. It's a product America produces, which many Americans can't afford to buy, so it's sold to rich people elsewhere in the world. The same is true for food in Ethiopia. And it's not immoral to buy food from there, for the same reason it's not immoral to buy computers from America.

There's no need to defend the morality of your food purchases with me, lol.  

And don't you think that raising chickens may be a slightly better idea than raising cows in the developed world?

Depends on your market and your land.  It can be.  Out here, for the large part, no. We've got guys trying goats and sheep though. For awhile deer made a blip - but that turned out to be a bad idea.

Or, even better, grasshoppers? Grasshoppers almost certainly don't feel pain, so there are no welfare concerns. And raising grasshoppers for food is even more efficient than growing demanding plants such as tomato and lettuce for food.

If someone were buying grasshoppers, and they were fetching a better price than lettuce or tomatoes...then yeah.  If not, no.  

Anyway, done a little reasearch, and it still seems to me that it's true that most of the grain that can be consumed by humans is given to animals. Estimates vary, but if we take the estimate that 85% of grains worldwide is given to animals, and that 80% of that grain isn't edible by humans (and those appear to be the mean estimates), that means that ((100-80)/100*85)/((100-85)+(100-80)/100*85)=53% of human-edible grain is given to the farmed animals today.

No one gives the animals anything.  Producers purchase feed.   If their purchasing power is greater than some hungry persons, then it actually wouldn't matter whether or not a person could eat whatever they're feeding their livestock.  That's the free market for you.  

I don't think that's the right analogy here. For all we know, fish probably don't feel pain. C-type neurofibres are necessary for pain in humans (people with congenital insensitivity to pain have very little of them them), and they are absent or nearly absent in fish. And if they do feel pain, they don't feel it the way we do, so what works for reducing pain in humans and animals related to us may be counter-productive in fish.

Analogy?  What the fuck, lol?  I can tell you with certainty that fish feel pain. Anesthetizing them reduces that..but, more importantly, it makes them just that much easier to handle.  That saves you time, and time is money.  Something similar at play with reducing environmental stress...and here, fish are much more sensitive than cattle. Stressed fish are underweight and/or dead fish, and dead fish stress the remaining fish. That constrains our choices when it comes to what we're going to stock. That's one of the things we're working on. There's less room for error, and it takes a bit more knowledge and a closer eye to operate a recirculating aquacultural system than it does to manage pasture.

Well, yes, most of the people here who have chickens and pigs don't slaughter them themselves, they pay for somebody else to slaughter them when they don't see it. That's, if you ask me, insane.

You appear to be working off of a novel definition of insanity.  Much the same occurs here.  It's rare to find someone equipped to raise livestock and slaughter it within regs.  They're two very different businesses.  We use onsite processing so that we can market our products direct to consumer.   It's a better setup for small operations, if they can swing it.  There are also mobile units geared towards smaller producers, that will come out to the site.  If I weren't doing it, I would be paying someone else to do it - but that would be an additional labor cost for me.  We experimented with live sale, but most of the people who buy fish don't want to clean fish.  Ideally, we'd sell them whole on ice - but here again that just wasn't something that our market responded well to, for the same reason.  Additionally, processing opens you up to liability.

It's a fairly straightforward decision.  If the added risk and costs don't amount to offsetting margins, you don't do it. The majority of american consumers don't kill what they eat, and since they don't have to, you have to have a pretty good pitch to saddle them with the job. Honestly, even if you could, it would just add to waste, and..remember, waste is actually one of those main contributors to hunger. I like to think that people probably should give more thought to what they could and couldn't, in good conscience, kill and process. I understand paying someone to do something you don;t want to do, and aren't any good at - but maybe we shouldn't eat anything that we -wouldn't- kill or process. I'm entirely certain that no one should have anything on their plate that makes them uncomfortable, for any reason - and I remind people that the best way to know what goes into what you eat with confidence is to know the person who made it. Go local.