Ask a silly question ........

[QuizMaster]

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Is this kind of technology necessary in order to feed the human race? No.

Now, I am not a vegetarian, nor do I have any desire to become one, but I am quite happy to acknowledge that human beings are not obligate meat-eaters and can pass very satisfactory lives on vegetable sourced protein and nutrients alone.

What is clear is that we in the West eat far more meat than is either necessary or desirable.

In the US (which I believe has the highest consumption of meat in the world) per capita consumption is around 90kg per year. Suppose this was cut by 10kg per head.

As a rough guide, 10kg of intensively farmed meat takes about 200kg of feed to produce. The actual quantity varies across species being reared (chicken, beef, pork) and in the feeding regime (ratio of concentrates to silage), but all of it has to be grown on land that could equally feed humans.

200kg spread over 300 million Americans amounts to 60 million tonnes of foodstuffs. Make that up as cereal grains and legumes plus a small amount of poultry, eggs, pork or diary and you’ve just freed up enough food to feed around 20-30 million people without the need to GM anything or grow strange substances masquerading as meat in glass tanks.

[DominicJ]

Unfortuantly, the population will increase to eat any gains.

I read a very interesting article once on how many people we could feed if we sterilised the sea and then stocked it with a plankton eco system, no idea how many, but it wouldnt surprise me if we tried it eventualy.

So, anyway, is this technology necesary to feed the human race.
Depends how many humans there are racing.

[ina]

Any of you read Lanark? Highly recommendable. They had food made from the dead...

[jim]

Baymair wrote
There are such a lot of rational, evidenced arguments for some really horrible practices in the world, that I nowadays doubt the value of such things.

Yes, there are plenty of rationalizations that are used, by the perpetrators, to justify apalling practices. But I don't think that is a reason to abandon rationality. The reason I asked for rational counter arguments to this particular apalling practice was that I would like to be able to refute the arguments of the biotech industry talking heads on their own terms.

To this end I'm just off to follow the link suggested elsewhere in the thread.

Keep talking everyone!

Love and Peace
Jim

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Unfortuantly, the population will increase to eat any gains.

Poor old Thomas Malthus. He turned out to be wrong. We in the West have far more to eat than we need and instead of breeding to meet the availability we just get fatter.

The mistake that Malthus' many fans make is that they can't tell the difference between rabbits and humans.

I read a very interesting article once on how many people we could feed if we sterilised the sea and then stocked it with a plankton eco system, no idea how many, but it wouldnt surprise me if we tried it eventualy.

Might not be the same article, but I know some work (a marine biologist by the name of John Martin led it) was done to add small amounts of iron to seawater defficient in that element (how that could be the case given that the sea moves around I cannot say) and within a year a complete ecosystem had been established with plankton, algea, fish and sea mammals right out in the Pacific in the middle of nowhere.

[Ellendra]

What is clear is that we in the West eat far more meat than is either necessary or desirable.

In the US (which I believe has the highest consumption of meat in the world)

Just an interesting trivia point: The Massai in Africa traditionally ate almost exclusively animal products (meat, milk, and blood), and had excellent health, no heart disease and their cholesterol levels were half that of their western counterparts. They only recently began including grains in their diet. It will be interesting to see what the long-term effects of this change will be.

[DominicJ]

I wouldn't be so sure, we ate more than we grew last year, will this year, and as oil prices go up, it'll only get worse.

The Economist did a very good piece on "The Noble Savage" a year or so back, the living appear so healthy because of the phenomenal attrition rates suffered. If the weakest 70% dies before 15 years, the adults in the populatron will seem pretty damn healthy.

[eccentric_emma]

What is clear is that we in the West eat far more meat than is either necessary or desirable.

In the US (which I believe has the highest consumption of meat in the world)

Just an interesting trivia point: The Massai in Africa traditionally ate almost exclusively animal products (meat, milk, and blood), and had excellent health, no heart disease and their cholesterol levels were half that of their western counterparts. They only recently began including grains in their diet. It will be interesting to see what the long-term effects of this change will be.

That is very interesting. Do you think it is possible that different groups of humans have evolved in different ways? So that different diets are suitable for different people, and some groups thrive on an animal based diet and others thrive on grain based diets?

[Milims]

DJ Re: Grok - I had a feeling it was something like that - and since that's the case I'm kinda glad I'm more of a troglodyte than a grok!

[Ellendra]

That is very interesting. Do you think it is possible that different groups of humans have evolved in different ways? So that different diets are suitable for different people, and some groups thrive on an animal based diet and others thrive on grain based diets?

I think more research needs to be done in that area, but instead there is a tendency to treat humans as interchangeable.

My ex-sister-in-law gets sick to her stomach if she doesn't get enough raw green leafy things at every meal, whereas I get sick if I do eat raw green leafy things. People are so different on the outside, why should they be exactly the same on the inside?

[DominicJ]

I believe your blood type has something to do with how well you eat certain foods.
Humans have a Genetic Eve a little over 100,000 years old and an Adam 90,000. The split between vegetarian and omnivourous apes goes back much further.

[jim]

Dear Contadino,

Thanks for the link, it was very useful. I had come across the idea of energy sinks before but in connection with nuclear power rather than food production. It does show that the same concept can be applied to other problems.

The other thing that struck me as I read was that the accounting of multiple inputs seemed a corollary to the permaculture notion of accounting for multiple outputs as part of the energy equation, something that conventional accounting does not include in calculations. The energy sink idea also runs contrary to the permaculture dictum that once set up, a system should require little or no continuing energy input, so, another point against the in-vitro meat abomination.

Once again, thanks for that .....
..... keep the ideas coming folks!

Love and Peace
Jim

[QuakerBear]

I'm sorry to be boring but from a practical position I like simple solutions. The fewer moving parts there are the less chance there is something could go wrong, and when it does go wrong it's all the easier to fix. So why create food like this?????

Anyway, we'll probably have Soilent Green before this works commercially.

[QuizMaster]

Unfortuantly, the population will increase to eat any gains.

Poor old Thomas Malthus. He turned out to be wrong. We in the West have far more to eat than we need and instead of breeding to meet the availability we just get fatter.

The mistake that Malthus' many fans make is that they can't tell the difference between rabbits and humans.

I read a very interesting article once on how many people we could feed if we sterilised the sea and then stocked it with a plankton eco system, no idea how many, but it wouldnt surprise me if we tried it eventualy.

Might not be the same article, but I know some work (a marine biologist by the name of John Martin led it) was done to add small amounts of iron to seawater defficient in that element (how that could be the case given that the sea moves around I cannot say) and within a year a complete ecosystem had been established with plankton, algea, fish and sea mammals right out in the Pacific in the middle of nowhere.

The problem with Malthus is not that he was wrong, but that he was very far ahead of his time.
He'll be right eventually.