PETA releases statement opposing Pokemon

[Asta Kask]

Originally Posted by Serpentine

They're poisonous...
Although the poison's on their backs, so I suppose cane toad legs might be a possible food source.

Hmmm... tastes like chicken

[Kelb_Panthera]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

Hmmm... tastes like chicken

If they taste like the frog-legs I had at that local resturaunt here in Alabama, then they taste like a blend of chicken and fish.

Why does this thread keep making me hungry.

[Asta Kask]

Now we only need to make cane toad legs a national dish and soon you'll be importing them from abroad.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Upon looking into it, it turns out that kangaroo meat is available here in the US. For me at least, it's prohibitively expensive. Ah well.

[Elemental]

It's also slightly tricky to cook.
At least, according to what my Mum said. I wouldn't know, all I can do is poison people.

[Serpentine]

Kangaroo? Sort of. It's easy to make it tough, so it's best cooked hot, fast and less than medium done. In any case, kangaroo mince is the best. I dislike any other minced meat nowadays, because in comparison it just looks all grey and flabby and fatty and gross.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Originally Posted by Elemental

It's also slightly tricky to cook.
At least, according to what my Mum said. I wouldn't know, all I can do is poison people.

That just makes me less likely to try it soon. I can work with tricky food; try doing home-made breads by hand; but it usually takes a few tries, and that stuff is way too expensive to waste. Seriously, 16-20ish dollars a pound, depending on cut, when beef is more like 3-5.

[dehro]

this is relevant

it's a game/sponsorship/fund set up by the world food programme.. you could call it a subsidiary of the UN
a friend of mine works with them and is now stationed in Afghanistan where she tries to bring food to them as need it.
the more you play it and answer correctly, the more rice/money is given to the WFP

[Serpentine]

Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera

That just makes me less likely to try it soon. I can work with tricky food; try doing home-made breads by hand; but it usually takes a few tries, and that stuff is way too expensive to waste. Seriously, 16-20ish dollars a pound, depending on cut, when beef is more like 3-5.

Like I said, you just have to cook it fast, hot and on the rare side. Minced 'roo you can use like normal. I find cumin goes with it particularly well.

[Tonal Architect]

Originally Posted by Eldan

Not in real-life, no. I mentioned it before, cannibalism leads to prion diseases. Kuru, mostly, in humans, but also Creutzfeld-Jakob.

Agreed. I actually considered that exchange when typing the former message, but were we to consider a serious overpopulation problem, such as, let's say... 20 billion mouths to feed, then perhaps technology for identifying humans contaminated and/or spontaneously developing prion mutations that'd lead to TSEs, would become a top R&D priority.

The taboo on cannibalism seems to stem from transmissible diseases associated with it, but I can't help but wonder how many humans on earth would be required to turn a fully-developed human body into a resource unfit for "mere" ritual disposal, rather than recycling. And yeah, this sounds awfully dystopic.

Fiction and speculation aside (which doesn't seem to imply we're dealing in the realm of the sane), I'm afraid this is PETA we're talking about. Those were the guys that sent a letter to an ice cream producer requesting them to consider using human breast milk rather than dairy products on their ice cream. It really wouldn't surprise me if they went as far as calling for the introduction of human meat in supermarkets.

Originally Posted by Serpentine

(...) They're grass-fed. We can't eat grass, and much of the land here can support grass but not much else. (...)

Really good point. This Will be put to good use in the future.

[bluewind95]

I think that something that has been only glanced-over that would do a lot more to help with the problem that livestock poses than going to a vegan diet... is that which Asta linked to.

There are many species that are invasive and are doing untold damage to the environment. Let's eat them. I'm sure someone wrote a book about it, even. Eating invasive species would solve the problems they're causing, as well as reduce our dependency on livestock. I even heard that pigeons (which are a VERY invasive species) are also edible. It could replace chicken. I don't think a vegan diet is the solution. As far as I know, vegan diets require the use of supplements. Any diet that requires the use of supplements doesn't strike me as a good idea.

[snoopy13a]

Originally Posted by sharp41

Carbohydrates (the macronutrient most plants provide) surely have a place in the food chain (carb reloading sounds like an interesting resource), but I don't buy it that they're that good... Suffice to say that while humans can live ok without eating plants (though that'll result in the need for the consumption of other animals' organs), they don't do good without essential amino acids or essential fatty acids.

Carbohydrates probably aren't the best choice for food from a health standpoint. We evolved as hunter/gatherers after all, not as farmers. But they are by far the best choice for food from an efficiency standpoint. Farming staple crops, such as rice, wheat, etc., feeds the most people with the fewest amount of resources. Our hunter/gatherer ancestors were probably more healthy, on average, than the peoples of the Middle Ages, but there were lots more people in the Middle Ages.

[Coidzor]

Originally Posted by Serpentine

This isn't a discussion I'm particularly interested in getting involved in (for all it's interesting to watch), but I'd like to point out one almost-always-missed flaw in the "we feed crops to food animals we could be eating ourselves" argument: Animals can eat stuff we don't, and also not all meat is fed on food crops. In Australia, for starters, our sheep and cattle aren't, or are rarely, grain-fed. They're grass-fed. We can't eat grass, and much of the land here can support grass but not much else. Basically, a lot of the time, animals are raised for food in areas that are just no good for raising crops.

There's a reason the pastoral peoples of the ancient world were pastoral rather than clustering together into farming communities and eventually cities, after all, and it wasn't just because people hadn't worked out how to farm places other than river valleys.

[dehro]

Originally Posted by bluewind95

I think that something that has been only glanced-over that would do a lot more to help with the problem that livestock poses than going to a vegan diet... is that which Asta linked to.

There are many species that are invasive and are doing untold damage to the environment. Let's eat them. I'm sure someone wrote a book about it, even. Eating invasive species would solve the problems they're causing, as well as reduce our dependency on livestock. I even heard that pigeons (which are a VERY invasive species) are also edible. It could replace chicken. I don't think a vegan diet is the solution. As far as I know, vegan diets require the use of supplements. Any diet that requires the use of supplements doesn't strike me as a good idea.

mmh pidgeons are edible..I've had it.. but I wouldn't want to touch one of the creatures that slum around in town..they're visibly in a terrible state.
likewise, mice and rats must be edible.. the trouble I see with that..as with every other "invasive species" is however that the ones that are edible are the ones that have been bred/monitored/checked upon medically.
not the ones that are doing the invading. yes, we can eat wild boar and even foxes, deer or other invasive creatures that harm our crops.. in fact we already do.
trouble is that they need to be hunted instead of farmed..which rises the costs and poses new moral conundrums.
when wild boar are hunted in Italy this is either following an effort in repopulation for the purpose of hunting (make of it what you will, I'm against hunting as a principle but love wild boar meat), or because they've bred in such numbers that they've become a pest, which happens every so many years..either way, it's not a viable sourcing manner, unless you're prepared to pay quite a bit more for your meat than you do now.

The only alternative would be to breed them..which both doesn't solve the "let's not bread cattle because it causes broblems" and the "let's get rid of the offending species" issues..
Same goes for the aforementioned pidgeons, rat and mice.. no store would ever be allowed, by law, to sell animals that had not been declared of good health..which can only be done (in big numbers, that is, which is what we need) by breeding and cattle-farming.
you can't catch them all, despite what Ash Ketchum thinks.. and if you don't you have a risk of cross-contamination, especially so with birds..
you don't solve the invasive nature of the problem (because the free ones will breed like..well... mice)..
and you will still end up with mass breeding of cattle, only cattle of smaller size.

just a figure: I have it on good authority (a very knowledgeable exterminator who helps authorities with surveys and figures and such) that there are 7-8 mice for every single human being, scurrying around on the planet...and the figure is growing.
in fact 10 years ago it was 4 for each of us, and 10 years furthe back it was a balanced 1 on 1.
no, this wasn't propaganda on his side..because I'm kind of in the same business line and he didn't need to sell me anything.

the poetic justice of eating what is vermin/invasive to you sounds good..and I bet that with the appropriate recipes it's even doable from a culinary point of view..but it wouldn't solve anyone's problem

[dehro]

Originally Posted by snoopy13a

Carbohydrates probably aren't the best choice for food from a health standpoint. We evolved as hunter/gatherers after all, not as farmers. But they are by far the best choice for food from an efficiency standpoint. Farming staple crops, such as rice, wheat, etc., feeds the most people with the fewest amount of resources. Our hunter/gatherer ancestors were probably more healthy, on average, than the peoples of the Middle Ages, but there were lots more people in the Middle Ages.

there's a bit of a misconception about people in the Middle Ages... they were in fact quite healthy..
it's only with urbanisation, that people started to develop illnessess and plagues and other such niceties..which drastically cut down the figures of population..and of general health.. in fact life expectancy was somewhat higher in the middle ages than it was in the decades/century following them.

[Karoht]

@Sustainability of meat
Warning, /rant is in effect.

Farming 101-Crop Rotation.
Lets say I have 4 plots of land. I use 4 crops.
1-X-Depletes Nitrates, replenishes Phosphorous
2-Y-Depletes Phosphorous, replenishes Potassium
3-Z-Depletes Potassium, replenishes Nitrates
4-"Fallow"-Replenishes all 3. Empty field, compost field, growing clover, growing grass, growing alphalfa, etc.

First thing I want to point out is that many farmers (specifically, industrial farms, "Big Agriculture", etc) stopped utilizing the natural balance of crop rotation years ago. Many farmers grow one crop exclusively, year after year, and replenish with fertilizers, natural or artificial. But, as a result, soil is depleted of nutrients, this also damages soil pH and actually gimps the production of whatever crop is in the ground. So ensuring that farmers actually utilize crop rotation would increase production of non-meat food products.

Second, see that 4th plot of land that says "Fallow" up there? Guess where your livestock is supposed to graze? The fallow land. In fact, having animals graze on that accelerates the replenishment of nutrients. AND, such fallow crops like clover, grass, and alphalfa are typically better for livestock to eat than grain.

So to sum up the two points, you're feeding the livestock essentially for free (so long as your livestock population doesn't exceed the amount that your fallow land can feed, and minus all the other concerns such as water and vet bills and the like), and replenishing the soil faster for your other three crops. This is how livestock can be sustainable, for sheep, goats, chicken, pigs and boar, and certain breeds of cattle.

Your logical question then is, why the heck are we feeding grain and corn to livestock instead of feeding them for free?
Money. Stuffing the livestock with grains and corn bulks them up faster. For example, Cattle used to take a minimum of 4-6 years to get to market, now it takes typically 2 years. This is great for the farmers, as they can make significantly more money. It's not so great for the land, for the price of grain or corn. I'm not saying the farmers are greedy, but in the current economic paradigm, this is what they have to do to survive.

There is a breed of cattle which are perfectly designed for feeding on fallow land, and living free range. Highland Hill Cattle, most breeds of Bison and Buffalo, some breeds of Ox. Problem? They take WAY too long to get to market for a farmer to make a reliable paycheck from.

Second issue with using fallow land to feed a sustainably sized group of livestock? Why do that when the farmer can put their land to full production of a crop that will net them more money, every year, thanks to current industrial farming methods? Again, money is the issue.

Last major issue is demand. We do eat considerable amounts of meat in a year. A reduction of a few servings per week (as in, cutting out 3 or more servings a week) as well as better portion control (some restaurants use 2 chicken breasts in a dish, cut back to 1) could bring demand into line where a more sustainable model could support it. The problem with curbing demand like this is the open hostility that even the most polite suggestion seems to be met with. See spoiler for more ranty rantness for this specific aspect of the topic:

Spoiler

"Hey man, you should eat more veggies"
Stereotype Response 1: "Why, you saying I'm fat?"
Stereotype Response 2: "Why, we don't have to be vegetarians or vegans."
Stereotype Response 3: "Why, don't I have the right to eat what I want?"
Stereotype Response 4: "Why, so we can all be hippies and join PETA and sing Kumbaya?"
The suggestion to eat less meat and more vegetable matter is treated as some horrible suggestion to quit meat eating altogether. The common public views vegetarians/vegans as horrible people (hipsters, hippies, protesters), which simply is not true. These connotations that eating veggies makes you somehow less of a person for some reason need to be addressed. At the same point I will also draw attention to the stereotype of the angry red meat eating alpha-douche-jock who drives an uber polluting SUV. That needs to be addressed for pretty much the same reasons. Both stereotypes create an us-or-them environment, which hamstrings rational discussions on both sides of the arguement. Eating meat doesn't make someone a monster or a caveman, eating veggies doesn't make someone a hippie or tree-hugger or a member of PETA or anything else.

Yeah, such attitudes don't help.

Originally Posted by Xondoure

TL;DR being a vegetarian is much better for the planet, and is a moral choice each of us has to make unlike other species. Now, not judging what choices you do make (as I said, I eat meat) but it's hard to argue that the world wouldn't be at the very least a more sustainable place if more people cut down on meat and other animal products.

Moral choices are not necessarily natural choices, but that's okay, it doesn't make them necessarily right or wrong.
That said, it would do the world at large a great deal of good to see a reduction of meat eating, even as little as reducing it by 1 serving per week. There is also a new trend I've seen called "weekend vegetarian" or "weekend vegan" which would be great if it caught on just a bit more.

[Aedilred]

Originally Posted by dehro

there's a bit of a misconception about people in the Middle Ages... they were in fact quite healthy..
it's only with urbanisation, that people started to develop illnessess and plagues and other such niceties..which drastically cut down the figures of population..and of general health.. in fact life expectancy was somewhat higher in the middle ages than it was in the decades/century following them.

Although, as with everything, that depends, on where and when. Parts of (greater) Europe prospered while others wallowed. There were periods of great prosperity, and periods of great hardship (often when increased density of population led to rapid spreading of a disease, or to war, which led to famine, etc.)

The Middle Ages are basically a fudge that sit comfortably in neither the "modern" box nor the "ancient" one, and generalising about them is extremely difficult.

[Xondoure]

Originally Posted by dehro

I agree with you on most things..except for the conclusion that some people (not you, I think) seem to draw from this statement:



which is that

a+b>b+c

where
a= energy and resources spent or depleted rearing livestock
b= energy and resources spent or depleted growing crops we eat
c= energy and resources spent or depleted growing crops to replace said lifestock

and that that's all there is to it.

Farming doesn't just mean plant a seed, water it and wait until it grows.. When you do that, you deplete salts and other minerals that are in the soil and that need time to be replaced by new ones.. so..farming more intensively because you need more crops means you deplete those resources faster..and need to tear down more forest in order to extend the fields.. that too causes greenhouse effect..
It means modifying the lay of the land drastically..we've done it forever, ever since the egyptians started trying to regulate the floods of the Nile to favour their crops.. ever since we dug the first irrigation channel...
Hell...even the bible tells us about resting on the seventh day and about how that translates in years when farming is involved..if I remember my studies well, according to scriptures, we're supposed to let a piece of land rest every 7th year, so that it can rebuild it's nutrients for when we go back to planting stuff on it.
Whoever did put the bible together knew this even back then, at a time when farming was difficult and uncertain at best..and still very much not as intensive as it is today...
There are too many unfathomable variables that come into play for us to reduce it to a mere thermodynamic equation.
The whole idea that stopping to eat meat would solve certain issues, which is what some of the preachy vegetarians or vegans try to push down our throats is just so full of bull that someone should tell them

P.S. I'm not quoting the bible to spread any word or talk about theology.. far from it..definitely not the right guy for that..
I'm just saying, hell..they knew this about farming even back then, several thousand years ago (we're talking old testament, if memory serves me well).

The whole point is that we would be growing less food than we are now. Not more. Because eating meat requires you to grow more crops than if you only grew food for people. So there would be less pressure put on farms.

As for Serpentine's point, I once again never said everyone everywhere should stop eating meat entirely, and fully recognize it can be a sustainable practice. That doesn't change the fact that the meat industry is one of the leading causes behind deforestation and has a huge impact on greenhouse gasses.

[Asta Kask]

No, what you are saying is that only the rich should eat meat. In the end, that's the result.

[dehro]

Originally Posted by Karoht

There is also a new trend I've seen called "weekend vegetarian" or "weekend vegan" which would be great if it caught on just a bit more.

that reminds me of a guy I know in Taiwan.. he and his wife eat and drink more or less what they want 11 months a year, and one month every year they go on a strict vegetarian, alcohol-free diet..to cleanse their bodies..or so he put it.

[Karoht]

Originally Posted by Xondoure

The whole point is that we would be growing less food than we are now. Not more. Because eating meat requires you to grow more crops than if you only grew food for people. So there would be less pressure put on farms.

Except that misses the point of grass-fed livestock, which effectively costs the farmer no crops, other than opportunity loss due to not growing crops on that land. Minor quibble though.
Also, according to the UN food reports, we produce enough non-meat to feed the world population twice over. If we took meat production out of the equasion (which I vaguely recall consumes some of that production, as does biofuel programs), I would imagine that we would be growing less crops overall due to a decrease in overall demand. Depends on how the transition (from using crops to feed livestock --> not using crops to feed livestock) played out.

As for Serpentine's point, I once again never said everyone everywhere should stop eating meat entirely, and fully recognize it can be a sustainable practice. That doesn't change the fact that the meat industry is one of the leading causes behind deforestation and has a huge impact on greenhouse gasses.

Methane gas from a cows bottom takes a rather long time for the atmosphere to process out, where carbon dioxide takes very little. There is also the highly inefficient transportation of livestock to slaugher, then from slaughter to packing (this step is typically necessary for hygine purposes but some slaughter plants also cut and pack), and packing to store. Veggies can go from farmers field (with pre-inspection) to farmers market or super market. In this case can does not necessarily mean should, but it is noteworthy. Or, personal garden to dinner table.
Then there is the runoff from high density feedlots and slaugher plants. It's been blamed on... well quite a few things. And it uses up copious amounts of water.


Environmental reasons are probably the most noteworthy arguement for reduction of meat servings in one's diet. The moral arguement is not really objective, the diet arguement is kind of a gray area, but the environmental arguement is pretty solid. The harm caused is noticeable, but it depends entirely on the source.

I'm a moderate sort of person, hence why I think that cutting back to sustainable-only would solve most but not all of the issue. At worst it gets rid of the environmental arguement, and leaves the moral and diet arguements which largely boil down to personal choices.

[Xondoure]

Originally Posted by Karoht

Except that misses the point of grass-fed livestock, which effectively costs the farmer no crops, other than opportunity loss due to not growing crops on that land. Minor quibble though.
Also, according to the UN food reports, we produce enough non-meat to feed the world population twice over. If we took meat production out of the equasion (which I vaguely recall consumes some of that production, as does biofuel programs), I would imagine that we would be growing less crops overall due to a decrease in overall demand. Depends on how the transition (from using crops to feed livestock --> not using crops to feed livestock) played out.


Methane gas from a cows bottom takes a rather long time for the atmosphere to process out, where carbon dioxide takes very little. There is also the highly inefficient transportation of livestock to slaugher, then from slaughter to packing (this step is typically necessary for hygine purposes but some slaughter plants also cut and pack), and packing to store. Veggies can go from farmers field (with pre-inspection) to farmers market or super market. In this case can does not necessarily mean should, but it is noteworthy. Or, personal garden to dinner table.
Then there is the runoff from high density feedlots and slaugher plants. It's been blamed on... well quite a few things. And it uses up copious amounts of water.


Environmental reasons are probably the most noteworthy arguement for reduction of meat servings in one's diet. The moral arguement is not really objective, the diet arguement is kind of a gray area, but the environmental arguement is pretty solid. The harm caused is noticeable, but it depends entirely on the source.

I'm a moderate sort of person, hence why I think that cutting back to sustainable-only would solve most but not all of the issue. At worst it gets rid of the environmental arguement, and leaves the moral and diet arguements which largely boil down to personal choices.

I actually agree with just about everything you posted. My post on less, not more crops grown is because quite a lot of meat isn't grass fed, and it is fact that cutting out that meat from the equation would in fact reduce the amount of crops grown per year.

@Asta Kask: The end result of the current system of food distribution is starvation all over the world when we produce more than enough to feed everyone. So... what's your point exactly?

[Asta Kask]

Originally Posted by Xondoure

@Asta Kask: The end result of the current system of food distribution is starvation all over the world when we produce more than enough to feed everyone. So... what's your point exactly?

That meat prices will rise, meaning that fewer people will be able to eat meat.

But this is straying perilously close to politics. Adieu.

[Karoht]

@Only the Rich can eat [insert product]
Sadly, economics are more of a barrier to solving world hunger than actual production. Parts of the world live on $1 per day or less, and producing food for that cost (or even cheaper, so that people can actually afford to eat AND the rest of the necessities of life) isn't viable for the people who produce food to pay for their cost of living.
Farm Subsidies in certain countries don't help the matter either, but that starts to delve into politics.

It doesn't matter if we are talking about meat or non-meat. Dollar figures are the problem for people trying to feed themselves.
There is a solution. Sustainable, local development, done right. Create local abundance, not global abundance gated behind globalized economics.
www.growingpower.org
www.omegagarden.com
www.earthship.net
And that is about as close as I dare to dance towards the politics line.

[dehro]

don't you just love it how much people know about and how much attention is paid to just what comes out of the bottom of a cow?

yes, it's important, yes, methane, yes, fertilizing dung etc etc..

but still.. it's funny.

[Eldan]

Originally Posted by sharp41

Agreed. I actually considered that exchange when typing the former message, but were we to consider a serious overpopulation problem, such as, let's say... 20 billion mouths to feed, then perhaps technology for identifying humans contaminated and/or spontaneously developing prion mutations that'd lead to TSEs, would become a top R&D priority.

The taboo on cannibalism seems to stem from transmissible diseases associated with it, but I can't help but wonder how many humans on earth would be required to turn a fully-developed human body into a resource unfit for "mere" ritual disposal, rather than recycling. And yeah, this sounds awfully dystopic.

Fiction and speculation aside (which doesn't seem to imply we're dealing in the realm of the sane), I'm afraid this is PETA we're talking about. Those were the guys that sent a letter to an ice cream producer requesting them to consider using human breast milk rather than dairy products on their ice cream. It really wouldn't surprise me if they went as far as calling for the introduction of human meat in supermarkets.
.

I'd suggest using humans as plant fertilizer instead, but whenever I ssay that, people seem to have problems with it.

Methane comes out of a cow's mouth, by the way.

[Coidzor]

Originally Posted by Eldan

I'd suggest using humans as plant fertilizer instead, but whenever I ssay that, people seem to have problems with it.

Methane comes out of a cow's mouth, by the way.

My understanding was always that people don't make very good fertilizer, either with their digestive tracts or their bodies.

[dehro]

there was a funny episode of Top Gear..when are they ever not funny?.. where they had 3 cars racing.. 1 fuelled with..well..fuel.. one with cow-poo and one with human-poo.. or ..well.. something in that direction.
regular fuel won, if I remember well.

[Ravens_cry]

We're all fertilizer in the end, though modern burials delay the process considerably and cremation burns most nutrients away.
I have heard alternatives, however.

[Tebryn]

Originally Posted by Eldan

I'd suggest using humans as plant fertilizer instead, but whenever I ssay that, people seem to have problems with it.

It's because we as a species attach sentimentality to the bodies of our dead and using them for other purposes seems like desecration.