Cowspiracy

This film was mentioned in the stove post, I watched it on Netflix last night as well. It’s not solely about emissions etc. But raises some very real questions about the sustainability of how we live in the world. I think because we don’t really see where most of our food comes from we carry on blissfully unaware of the full impact we are all having. Made me think..
cowspiracy

Hm.

Break that down by country, would you?

You do know cows are made of really tasty meat don’t you? 8)

Well for a start, ignoring the fact that water in = water out and that cows are, for the most part, arguably made of food,

The graph there is meaningless, it’s just numbers. Is that consumption in a day, a week, a year? Worldwide, in the US, in Africa? The bars aren’t proportional – if they were then the second blue bar should be representing closer to 100bn gallons. Oh, and there should be a fourth bar which is entirely missing.

It’s either very badly presented or intentionally misleading. Either way, I question the validity of their research.

The graph there is meaningless, it’s just numbers

What exactly were you expecting from a graph 😉

Its poor as you note but I suspect its broadly in the correct direction

Fair enough, I was just trying to illustrate some of the ‘facts’ in the film that caught my attention.
I don’t know where all the food I eat comes from and there are pretty staggering figures being consumed world wide.

Cow food != human food. Have you ever tried eating grass, hay or silage?

So what is the message, we should eat humans instead of cows?

cows are, for the most part, arguably made of food,

And shoes!

I think the message is that we need to eat the cows quicker than we are currently

So what is the message, we should eat humans instead of cows?

Nope – clearly cows should eat humans!

Don’t cows get a lot of their water from grass too?

The general message the film in perpetuating is that we should be looking to eat less meat and use the land more efficiently to grow vegetable based foods (for humans).
Land required to feed 1 person for 1 year:
Vegan: 1/6th acre

Vegetarian: 3x as much as a vegan

Meat Eater: 18x as much as a vegan [xvii]

Robbins, John. Diet for a New America, StillPoint Publishing, 1987, p. 352

On a more serious note I think that is probably about as biased a film as you can get, based on the “take the free 30 day Vegan challenge” and all the ‘give us money’ bits on the website. Maybe veganism will become the new christianity, and these people are the missionaries.

I’m pretty sure that the amount of water on the earth is fairly fixed? Cows don’t usually get to drink ‘tap water’ ether so the water has no energy cost to it – the water argument is largely a red herring.

The true cost of Beef is probably the amount of deforestation that goes on in central and south America to create pasture to feed the Beef industry.

Cow food != human food. Have you ever tried eating grass, hay or silage?

many of them are fed on things like corn and soy that can be eaten by yoomans

So basically meat tastes 18x better than vegan food? well i could have told you that…. 8)

The whole water thing isn’t that important, except where they’re consuming a lot of fresh water in places where there isn’t enough. Likewise grazing land. If you’re cutting down a rainforest to graze cattle, problem. Or if you’re draining aquifiers to water land. But in a soggy field in Scotland, frinstance, it’s less of a concern. Water scarcity is about location.

It gets more complicated with different flavours of animal. Pigs are a much more efficient way to turn fodder into meat, frinstance. But then they consume different feed. IIRC you get about 4 times more meat per lb of grass out of a sheep than a cow, and more out of a rabbit.

We need to start herding crickets tbh. MMM.

In a similar vein, I had no idea just how much water is required to produce beer, before I started making it. And that is just actually making it in my kitchen, never mind growing the crops, etc. I’m sure it might be possible to make the process super-efficient and reclaim a lot of the water, but how many breweries do that? To hell with it though, I like beer.

I hadn’t looked at the website much but your right, it is very slick and there’s a lot for sale !
I was looking at the facts page, if you scroll down the deforestation rates are incredible
FACTS ??[/url]

had no idea just how much water is required to produce beer

I’m sure it might be possible to make the process super-efficient and reclaim a lot of the water

can’t speak for the big ones, but certainly small ones might well use the chill water from chilling down post boil to fill the kettle ready for the next, so not only using some water twice, but also using some heat twice.

all infographics spread across the web like that are imho BS and often scaremongering. yes cows use a lot of water. yes barley uses quite a lot of water. where i live, this water quite often falls out of the sky. and farms catch it, store it, and re-use it. and both cows and barley grow using food that would probably not be very edible to me.

many of them are fed on things like corn and soy that can be eaten by yoomans

That’s the American feed lot system. Round here (West Wales) it’s all grass fed (I can see a neighbour’s herd eating grass from my window right now). So if you want to save the world, insist on Welsh beef 😀

I don’t get it. We can’t eat grass, cows and other ruminants can, we can eat them though.

Cows aren’t made of grass, last time I checked. Probably just as well, or the biggest threat to the food chain would be students trying to smoke them.

The point is, I think, that grassland could be reappropriated to grow other crops.

probably could, but the Welsh and Scottish moorland that’s presently grazed probably wouldn’t be a particularly convenient bit of land to grow cabbages and maize.

and if it was reappointed, in this day and age, it might just have to be biofuel to feed drax or your car.

The real problem is surely the fact that we’re eating oil calories, when that runs out no more artificial growth of crops or humans.

Don’t forget the Phosphates crisis.

Corporal Fraser was right, we really are all doomed.

So what is the message, we should eat humans instead of cows?

Well if we reduced the world population things would be more sustainable.

Land required to feed 1 person for 1 year:
Vegan: 1/6th acre

Vegetarian: 3x as much as a vegan

I don’t get this.

EDIT What I suppose I mean is that I don’t get the point of statements like this.

Never mind growing maize and cabbages on moorland; what about beans and lentils that vegans need to eat? Can you even grow lentils here? Don’t forget to include food miles in the comparison. Bear in mind that lamb can come from the hills behind my house, the cheese and eggs come from 5 miles up the road in some cases. And those lovely aubergines too, they definitely don’t grow here.

So if you want to save the world, insist on Welsh beef

Correction: British Beef, British Pork, British Chicken and British Lamb. Not cheap imported rubbish.

I am currently swaying on the fence of becoming vegetarian. I enjoy good vegetarian and vegan food and generally try to only eat meat at weekends, I would say 70% of my main meals (dinner and lunch) have no actual meat, but might have animal products such as dairy etc. Not sure how I am going to bring myself to eat my lambs when we kill them this winter, we’ve only had girls up to now so none to eat 🙁

I do think we should all pay more attention to the quality and sustainability of the meat we eat and most people should eat less, better quality meat and be prepared to pay a decent amount per kg for this decent meat.

Correction: British Beef, British Pork, British Chicken and British Lamb. Not cheap imported rubbish.

Definitely, and higher welfare meat at that. It’s a shame it is easier to buy lower welfare foreign meat than higher welfare British meat in many supermarkets.

I hadn’t looked at the website much but your right, it is very slick and there’s a lot for sale !
I was looking at the facts page, if you scroll down the deforestation rates are incredible
FACTS ??

Did it mention the huge areas of forest also being felled for soya bean and palm oil farming?

There are some very dubious data sources listed there, they have sources like newspaper articles (always a fountain of truth) and that well known peer-reviewed scientific resource, chestsculpting.com :

Dairy may “give guys man-boobs”

http://chestsculpting.com/milk-and-dairy-for-guys-with-man-boobs/

I suspect Google was the main resource used…

If you want a big number on water, we used to used 1000ltrs of water for every pcb manufacturing panel we made (24″x18″) you’d get maybe 30 phones out of a panel.. 😯

I do think we should all pay more attention to the quality and sustainability of the meat we eat and most people should eat less, better quality meat and be prepared to pay a decent amount per kg for this decent meat.

Can’t argue with that. Nothing winds me up quite as much as people who will moan on Facebook about animal welfare then buy a pack of cheap chicken from the supermarket that comes from Thailand or somewhere.

British Beef, British Pork, British Chicken and British Welsh Lamb.

I have to draw a line somewhere 🙂

1/6th of an acre doesn’t seem like an awful lot to me. but then I don’t know why I’m concentrating too much on BS statistics.

but then by the wonders of multiple use, in amongst those multiple 1/6th of acres joined end to end, we quite happily allowed another farmer to share our land and let sheep and pigs roam freely amongst the trees in the orchards.

wouldn’t be quite so possible to grow peas and beans in amongst the apple trees. not impossible, but a right pain.

i’ll keep quiet about the electric fences to stop them escaping and being a menace on the adjacent railway line and a-road. save that for the animal cruelty thread. and yes I have intentionally touched a leccy fence, and yes I would do so again.

Your man in the doco does a good job of coming across as your everyday concerned about the enviroment type and it easy to relate to, which I think is why the documentary is having such an effect.

Problem is, it’s like most other single issue documentaries in that it’s trying to change your mind on an issue and only presents the ‘facts’ that support his single minded argument – that we all need to become vegan.

His figures are all over the place, some very dubiously sourced, others misleading (using global averages, apples v orange type things), other just wrong (The figures for water use in the 1/4 burger are way off). He totally ignores other ways of farming and the research that’s going into making it more efficient. And his back yard hick farmer is only in there to shock and appeal to very base instincts. People should know where their meat comes from, but that guy is a very a-typical example.

It’s kinda a shame really, because there are important issues in there, like the amazon deforestation etc but it’s hard to take him seriously when he’s deliberately so misleading on other things.

If land is unsuitable for arable food production it could be used for wood or other bioenergy crops for fuel

I wonder how intensive cattle factory farming in somewhere hot and dry compares to Welsh lamb raised on hillside that can’t be used for anything else.

My father-in-law told me this, no idea if it’s true. He said that cattle farmers get subsidies in the US, which is fair enough. They wanted to subsidise cattle farming in less than optimal locations to encourage the development of the land. They did this by deciding that Eau Claire, Wisconsin was the perfect place to raise cattle, and paying a subsidy based on distance from there. So this makes it less desirable to farm beef in the best place, and more desirable to farm beef in the worst places. Which is pretty flippin bonkers.

Of course, what they should’ve done is bred buffalo out West instead of cows, what with buffalo being well adapted to that environment. But no, people wanted beef, dammit, despite buffalo being delicious.

Definitely, and higher welfare meat at that. It’s a shame it is easier to buy lower welfare foreign meat than higher welfare British meat in many supermarkets.

Hear hear. It’s disgraceful that while our farmers (quite rightly) comply with stringent animal welfare practices it is perfectly legal for imports to arrive which don’t have to comply.

All my meat comes from my local butcher who sources high quality produce from as near as possible.

hmmm, Cowspiracy, just finished watching it. Very thought provoking program, I would recommend it. To be honest the arguments against that it puts out are, while possibly overly generalistic are probably undeniable from a sustainability point of view in particular with regards to the effects on climate change. I don’t really think there is much debate there. It’s an unsustainable business that will contribute to a car crash in the not too distant future.

Now the solutions it put out, are actually fairly reasonable on the face of it, but, the reality is alot more complex.

Take the idea of poeple not eating meat and going to a vegan/vegetarian only diet, it’s just not going to happen. Best you can hope there is for a small percentage changing over. A small part of the solution.

Eating less meat, something I may well consider, is the initial natural reaction upon watching that. Then again I might forget about it by tomorrow, we’ll see how that plays out. Again a small part of a solution (well these 2 might be larger, depends on the answer to the question of consumer power below.)

The feed issue is massive, the idea of growing plants to make protein for animals rather than feeding them corn has legs I’d imagine, 1:2 v 1:38 land use ratio is a bit of a no brainer if that can be developed. So promise there. But that doesn’t really solve the problem of pollution by the animals. And I don’t know how much of an effect it would have on land use. If it would be enough considering meat consumption is rising and will rise further.

So I guess the really big question, how do put a cap on the amounts of diary and livestock being produced so that they curtail the amounts of pollution and land usage? Basically someone needs to put a number on this and say, right that’s the amount of meat we can produce and we it need to be kept to. Once past, productions stops. (promotion of a day when livestock production surpasses sustainability is one small gesture.)

Problems you have there are 2 fold I think. 1. How do you combat these massive companies with the massive amounts of legal power? 2. Can you convince enough consumers that stopping eating meat is really going to make a difference.

Guess the answer in 2. lies in why we eat so much meat, are we artificially compelled to eat more meat these days? If so, you need to look at combating that before you’ll really make a dent in it. Is consumer power enough to drive this issue?

The answer lie somewhere in, combating big business, world government driven quotas on meat and lastly consumer power.

That’s an almighty battle. I guess it starts with small steps.

I don’t think there’s any doubts that proper studies should be done on this.