the great vegetarian debate

[gregkavarnos]

No only this but the amount of animal products used to grow vegetables, rice, etc. is in the millions of tons.

Animal by-products not animal products.

[Malcolm]

No only this but the amount of animal products used to grow vegetables, rice, etc. is in the millions of tons.

Animal by-products not animal products.

Blood, bones and feathers are not animal products?

[gregkavarnos]

No only this but the amount of animal products used to grow vegetables, rice, etc. is in the millions of tons.

Animal by-products not animal products.

Blood, bones and feathers are not animal products?

They are by-products of the industrial food process, yes they are produced by animals, but they are considered by-products of the process (as is the manure). The products of the process are: flesh/meat (and meat related products like liver, intestines for sausages, kidneys, etc...), skins, hides, wool, down and hair (if the animal is specifically raised for their skin, hide, wool, down and hair), eggs (in the case of some poultry breeds), fat (for dripping, cosmetic and soap production), etc...

[seeker242]

But yes, what they put in normal pet food in the supermarket is pure crap.

The other day I went to a Carrefour here in Taipei, which has a lot of imported foods. Aisle after aisle of packaged, processed and plastic foods that no human should consume. You look at the ingredients and more often than not sugar is one of the first three. "Spaghetti sauce" is as much sugar as it is tomato it seems. The pickles have peculiar sounding chemical additives. The pet food is edible waste, but then the human food is likewise of a similar type, albeit with better packaging and more presentable appearances.

Some years ago I became concerned with the amount of sugar in processed foods. Try finding plain biscuits without sugar. The bread often has loads of sugar in it (especially here in Asia where bread is candy with glucose being the second ingredient most of the time).

If you're vegetarian or vegan avoiding animal biproducts is almost impossible given than many ingredients in processed foods are derived from dead livestock in some form or another.

Most vegans I know, at least the "hardcore" ones, are very good at reading ingredient labels. Most know what all that mumbo jumbo means, like "FD & C Red #40", "glutamic acid" or "sodium stearoyl lactylate". I would not say it's impossible if you know what all that stuff is and are good at reading labels.

If you're vegetarian or vegan avoiding animal biproducts is almost impossible given than many ingredients in processed foods are derived from dead livestock in some form or another.

No only this but the amount of animal products used to grow vegetables, rice, etc. is in the millions of tons.

And the amount used to grow grain to feed to cows to raise for food, is in the trillions of tons. And at the end of that, you get to dine on a dead carcase.

[Malcolm]

And the amount used to grow grain to feed to cows to raise for food, is in the trillions of tons. And at the end of that, you get to dine on a dead carcase.

You are totally missing the point -- organic agriculture depends on animalby products. In order to eat rice, you need slaughtered chickens.

[gregkavarnos]

You are totally missing the point -- organic agriculture depends on animalby products. In order to eat rice, you need slaughtered chickens.

Not all organic fertilisers are made from the feathers of slaughtered chickens. There are also manure based organic fertilisers.

[Thrasymachus]

No only this but the amount of animal products used to grow vegetables, rice, etc. is in the millions of tons.

That is ridiculous. Since the whole legal system, state bureaucracy and agricultural subsidies of developed nations are biased to growing so much meat is why animal byproducts get dumped into industrial plant based agriculture. Every so often you will hear of an e-coli outbreak even in plant based foods. Why? Because of the copious amounts of raw feces that the meat industry has to get rid of. It is an unhealthy situation, but the government apparatus is so biased to increasing meat yield and keeping it low cost via the artificial means of externalization. So they allow these companies to dump their copious amounts into slush pools, into waterways, even to dump onto farms as "fertilizer" which the corrupt meat industry can thus sell.

The documentary: A River of Waste: The Hazardous Truth About Factory Farms (2009) cover this. They show how in one community many people have an unusually high rate of cancer because of the practice of dumping chicken waste onto local fields. It also exposes many other externalities of the criminals in the meat industry.

Alternet ran this article recently: Alternet: Factory Farms Produce 100 Times More Waste Than All People In the US Combined and It's Killing Our Drinking Water May 23, 2011
So no, once again this is another big twisting of facts by Malcolm to support meat eating with no firm evidence behind it. If governments were not biased to making meat eating so artificially cheap the industrial meat conglomerates would have to pay the significant cost of proper waste treatment, instead of actually being allowed to criminally do almost whatever they want and pass the problems onto certain sectors of the public near where the dumping and most pollution occurs.

[seeker242]

And the amount used to grow grain to feed to cows to raise for food, is in the trillions of tons. And at the end of that, you get to dine on a dead carcase.

You are totally missing the point -- organic agriculture depends on animalby products. In order to eat rice, you need slaughtered chickens.

People have been growing rice for thousands and thousands of years, without slaughtering chickens. Why do we all of a sudden need to kill animals to grow rice?

[Dave The Seeker]

You are totally missing the point -- organic agriculture depends on animalby products. In order to eat rice, you need slaughtered chickens.

Not all organic fertilisers are made from the feathers of slaughtered chickens. There are also manure based organic fertilisers.

You two are also missing the point that in an organic set up compost of only plant matter is more effective than any animal byproduct. The animal byproduct isn't necessary in plant production.


Kindest wishes, Dave

[Indrajala]

People have been growing rice for thousands and thousands of years, without slaughtering chickens. Why do we all of a sudden need to kill animals to grow rice?

The Chinese had a useful way of disposing of human waste from urban centers without using sewers.

[gregkavarnos]

You are totally missing the point -- organic agriculture depends on animalby products. In order to eat rice, you need slaughtered chickens.

Not all organic fertilisers are made from the feathers of slaughtered chickens. There are also manure based organic fertilisers.

You two are also missing the point that in an organic set up compost of only plant matter is more effective than any animal byproduct. The animal byproduct isn't necessary in plant production.


Kindest wishes, Dave

Humans have been putting manure on their crops since they domesticated animals. Animal manure need not be dangerous (eg ecoli infection) if "treated" properly. Cow dung and chicken droppings need to compost first so that any bacteria present die. Ecoli in cow dung is a relatively new phenomenon due to cows being grain fed (and industrial farming techniques). Pastured cow dung is 100% safe. Chicken droppings have always been prone to be more dangerous if accidentaly consumed. Decaying plant matter is very safe and effective but dung is a lot "stronger" as a fertiliser (and under normal circumstances) is composed of vegetable matter anyway. Blood and bone is an incredibly "strong" fertiliser, but a lot more dangerous in terms of bacterial and viral contagions.

[Dave The Seeker]

This is very true Greg.
As cow dung is already broken down not only by chewing but in the stomachs as well.
Chicken manure is very high in ammonia but also extremely high in nitrogen.
The problem is composting isn't done properly by many. And many of the harmful microbes and bacteria are still alive.
A properly working compost heap will actually decompose a full size cow, bones and all, in two weeks. But it has to be properly working.
I fertilize all our garden and plants with a compost tea (our own compost) that in my opinion out does any fertilizer out there.
All basic natural components. I like being able to just pick a vegetable from the garden and eat it without worrying about a chemical or anything else.

Kindest wishes, Dave

[dharmagoat]

A properly working compost heap will actually decompose a full size cow, bones and all, in two weeks. But it has to be properly working.

I agree that decomposition is accelerated in a damp, well ventilated, well insulated and correctly proportioned compost heap, but there is no way a cow's carcass can break down in this time. Even if the carcass was dissected and evenly distributed, the entire process would still take about a year. Bones take many years break down.

However, if you were to put a cow in an acid bath, that would be a completely different story...

[Malcolm]

You are totally missing the point -- organic agriculture depends on animalby products. In order to eat rice, you need slaughtered chickens.

Not all organic fertilisers are made from the feathers of slaughtered chickens. There are also manure based organic fertilisers.

Manure is fantastic, but it is not as nutrionally dense as feathers, bone meal or blood meal -- which is why it is used in large scale organic farming.

[Malcolm]

You are totally missing the point -- organic agriculture depends on animalby products. In order to eat rice, you need slaughtered chickens.

Not all organic fertilisers are made from the feathers of slaughtered chickens. There are also manure based organic fertilisers.

You two are also missing the point that in an organic set up compost of only plant matter is more effective than any animal byproduct. The animal byproduct isn't necessary in plant production.

In large scale operations, it is more then essential.

For example, Lundberg farms.

[Dave The Seeker]

dharmagoat, that was a from a book written by Malcolm Beck, The Secret Life of Compost.
Malcolm is known as the king of compost. He has studied and applied many concepts that are truly amazing.
I know he used to have a radio show as well.

Malcolm, that is a large scale operation, but there are many that are quite large that don't use manure of any type or any animal byproduct as well.


Kindest wishes, Dave

[kirtu]

Malcolm, that is a large scale operation, but there are many that are quite large that don't use manure of any type or any animal byproduct as well.

The majority of farm production in the US is from factory farms. Most small farms now would hvae been considered factory farms not that long ago. Farm production due to actual small farmers is minuscule and is not profitable. Probably the largest small farms around would be Amish or Hutterite or Old Order Mennonite. We could see what they are doing.

In Germany there used to be many small farms through the 80's. Agriculture in Germany was based on the small farmer. I have no idea how many have survived. Through the 80's they primarily used manure as fertilizer. So agriculture that can feed 80 million people can be based on small farms and not use environmentally hazardous techniques. Organic farmers are however a minority in Germany as elsewhere. Organic farming probably can't feed the world now.

Kirt

[Dave The Seeker]

I'm a commercial farmer, and the statement of factory farms is quite mistaken. I guess your definition of factory farm may be different than the farmer.
Small farms still produce a majority of the grain produced. In our community there are Amish, they do have small farms. Averaging about 100 acres. We farm 1000 acres of grain crop, 60 acres of hay and now only 130 head of cattle (down from 600 head 2 years ago). The acres we farm is in the average of most family farms in the area. There are a few farms here that are in the 4-5000 acre area, but they still struggle to stay afloat.
I also agree that organic farming couldn't feed the nation or the world. One primary reason is the nutrients in the soil have been depleted and there's no getting a lot of ground back into non chemical production. An example is selenium, in the last report I read they can not find anything but mere trace amounts in the US. Also the no-till type of crop production, yes this does help with soil erosion, but there is never organic material put back in the soil.
As to the amount of production needed to feed the population, the latest report is saying with the rapid loss of tillable land/population growth our production must increase by 35% in the next 5 years. That in reality is an insane amount to gain in any situation. They are working on more hybrids and trying to come up with more "energetic" fertilizers. Another major problem is Pot Ash, China holds the market on this and in the past few years between strikes and greed this mineral hasn't been applied at the rates needed. Because of cost and availability.
There are so many variables to the production of the worlds food that this topic could go on endlessly.

Kindest wishes, Dave

[Malcolm]

Malcolm, that is a large scale operation, but there are many that are quite large that don't use manure of any type or any animal byproduct as well.

Animal manure = sustainable soil fertility. That can be enhanced by carcasses of various kinds propely composted, etc.

However, in this day and age of soil depletion either one uses chemicals, or one uses the results of animal husbandry, manure, etc. The latter is, in my opinion, better for the earth. Of course organic fertilizers are not restricted to feather, blood and bone meal -- but they are used extensively and you will readily agree, they are an important component of present day organic agriculture.

M

[Dave The Seeker]

Yes I do agree with you, I didn't mean my statement as an argument, just pointing out another option.

Kindest wishes, Dave