OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

In my day to day life, I always hear people complaining about the cost of a nice, juicy T-bone steak, or hamburger or some other variety of tasty beef product. The next time you're in the grocery store, looking at the price of a steak and thinking it's outrageous, first off blame the middle-man (that's what I do http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif), and second, think about the producer. Someone like, say, me, who has to get up at 3:30 in the morning for an hour because some bloody stupid animal has given birth in -20°C (-4°F) weather and decides they don't want their calf, and has to be forced to decide it is hers after all so it doesn't freeze to death! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

I take it you must be a farmer/rancher?

I know most of the reasons that beef is expensive. I love beef as much as the next person, but honestly I'd love to see the cattle industry cut to 20% of what it currently is in the US.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

Indeed, I do work on a cattle ranch.
For what reason would you want that?

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

1) Beef isn't that healthy for you, for a number of reasons.

2) Like most foods now days it's becoming less natural and more "processed."

3) It takes more time and resources to raise an animal for food than it does to grow plants for food. It's one of the strongest points of the vegetarian philosophy.

Granted I'm not a vegetarian and I need my meat, but the point at which the food industry in general has just gotten ridiculous.

I'll give you a bit more of my perspective when I have time to sit down later this evening.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

2) Like most foods now days it's becoming less natural and more "processed."

In what way is meat "unnatural" today? The fact that they cut up the animals and package it, rather than selling you whole, live animals for your own personal butchery circa 1300 CE? A few growth hormones here and there that have no credible scientific studies indicating any potential side-effects to humans eating the meat? Growth hormones are perfectly natural. So what if the cows mature physically a bit faster than they normally would? It doesn't harm the meat in any way.

3) It takes more time and resources to raise an animal for food than it does to grow plants for food. It's one of the strongest points of the vegetarian philosophy.

Actually, it is one of the most asinine things espoused by some overly-political vegetarians that do not really understand food production and biology. While it is technically true that it "takes more time and resources to raise an animal for food," the claim is rather disingenuous because the food that is used to feed the animals is not suitable for feeding to humans, does not decrease the amount of human-quality grains grown, and in fact raising cattle and other livestock is an important part in the cycle of producing more demanding crops (most of the fruits and vegetables we eat).

The land used for cattle ranching is not suitable for growing human-grade crops (without a ton of fertilizer and nutrients added to it, which comes from the cattle...). Only tough, hardy crops can be grown on it; crops that are really bad to feed to humans, but are fine for herbivorous animals that can actually digest them somewhat well. Most of the grains grown to feed cattle et all are of really low caliber, not suitable for human consumption (think millet, long grasses), which is grown on other tracts of poor quality arable land. Of course, some excess wheat and corn and such is fed to livestock, but this is only done because too much was produced and it can't be sold, and would go to waste otherwise.

There is no particular lack of arable land in the country (or the world as a whole), so any argument related to wasted land usage is completely non-sensible. Pretty much all of the high-quality land that can be used to grow crops for humans either is used to do so, or is left fallow due to not enough demand for more.

We can grow quite a lot of poor-quality grains and such to feed to animals, but we can't really use the land they are grown on to feed humans, without ending up harming them due to malnourishment in the process. If you actually look at the energy efficiency of the food production overall, it is in reality better to have animals processing all of those hardy, malnutritous (in human terms) grains and grasses, than to try to feed them to humans. We can make much better use of it by eating the animals afterwards, and we get huge amounts of natural fertilizer as a by-product.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

I like meat.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

Meat is tasty.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

From what I gather since Australia is a cattle raising country we get beef cheaper than elsewhere. On side note my sisters father in law was here last week and he bought oysters for much cheaper than on the mainland as one of Tasmanias specialties is oysters. Same thing I guess, like going to France through the Chunnel to buy wine.

I sort of prefer Chicken myself. Can't stand beef that is overcooked, and incidentally I like meat blue so anything beyond killing off the germs is overcooked to me.

Meat is such a part of Australian life it is not rare (haha rare http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif) to see ads on tv espousing the merits of meat eating. Anyone know Sam Neill, the actor in Jurassic park, Red October, Piano etc. He has an ad where he shows how we came down from the trees and our brains grew because of the nutrients we get from Meat. Basically you need meat if you expect to have any intelligence.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

Those hormones given to animals end up both in meat and milk... and contribute to premature puberty, and probably a wide variety of health problems. Funny thing that steroids and drugs that are illegal are allowed in food. Why not 100% pure marijuana fed beef?

Livestock feed also commonly includes reclaimed protein... which comes from meat designated unsuitable for human consumption, and by law is treated with creosote at some point, as well as from fido and fluffy when they get euthanized. Say hello to the primary source of mad cow disease.

Of course, vegetarians don't fair much better, beyond the obvious pesticides and fertilizers. Much of the world's farmlands were formerly inland seas, and are piss poor in essential nutritious minerals.

Anyway, I suggest putting more research into organics production, as well as spreading out your population to multiple terraformed worlds.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

Alright while Physics might be your area, Biochemistry is one of mine. Starting from the top: Most food, beef is this instance is far from “natural.” Animals are consistently fed hormones, specially derived diets and antibiotics to keep them growing faster and bigger than ever. Those chemicals alter the animal on just about every level possible. The short version is that if it’s in the animals it makes it into us when we eat them. Even if I was being VERY conservative I’d could say we’re getting nanograms of various chemicals everytime we’re eating meat and it often takes less than that to affect a biological system. Then take into account how often people eat meat and how much they tend to eat. Do the math. If you’d like a few references for chemicals that have been PROVEN to show effects I can supply those for you. As for “no” evidence that comes from what it takes to conduct human studies. Again the short version is by the time it’s definitively “proven” in humans it’s 25+ years later and everyone has already been past dramaticaly affected. The FDA is about as good at regulating as the EPA {read WORTHLESS}.





Funny you should mention not fit for humans because guess who gets fed the old antibiotics were banned on humans for adverse side effects.


If you think no potential crop land has been altered to make way for livestock you’d be gravely mistaken. If you’re referring to manure being good fertilizer, cow manure is actually pretty low on the scale. Some of the best fertilizer actually comes from bats.

Funny you should mention there is no lack of arable land because at present the demand for ethanol based fuels on top of the already high demand for High Fructose Corn Syrup is driving the demand for Corn through the roof. If you think the world is at 100% efficiency in terms of farmland as well you’re dreaming. There are plenty of plants that can be eaten by humans that can grow in all types of climates. You forget people have been eating plants everywhere before the invention of refrigeration. The plants that are currently considered “core crops” are often the worst for soil and the best for the corporate farming pocketbooks. As I mentioned earlier cow manure isn’t the best fertilizer and as referenced if the cow is eating plenty of chemicals you don’t want, the manure is going to have them as well.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

The reclaimed protein process has been stopped in cattle because of mad cow disease, but that doesn't stop other animals from getting delicious animal bits.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

so we just weed the weak from our population so we dont have to worry about them suing hard working people because they ate somthing that was off.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

I would be more concerned about the large quantities of antibiotics that are fed to livestock, and the increasing number of resistant-strain bacteria that are emerging as a result. What guyofdoom already mentioned of the hormones fed to livestock is serious, but not the main problem. Even if the hormones are not the same as human hormones, and even if they are broken down by our metabolism, it still can (and probably does) cause some fluctuations in body chemistry. Which is minor compared to slowly losing the use of antibiotic drugs.

Also, it is not the case that the world is awash with more arable land than people know what to do with. The US has more than we need, but that is partially due to extensive use of irrigation; a topic you should be very familiar with, being in Riverside. If water from the Colorado River stops, agriculture in southern California stops. In South America, rather than using sustainable farming practices to make use of what arable land is there, people are using up the land and then razing more forests to make up for it.

As for land laying fallow, the only reason that happens in the US is because the Federal Government pays farmers to not grow food. Otherwise, everyone would be trying to grow something to cash in on all the money being thrown around for ethanol development.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

"If you’d like a few references for chemicals that have been PROVEN to show effects I can supply those for you."

References from credible sources would be appreciated.

"Again the short version is by the time it’s definitively “proven” in humans it’s 25+ years later and everyone has already been past dramaticaly affected."

Do you have credible evidence from studies showing that all sorts of "harmful chemicals" are present in efficacious quantities in meat brought to market (especially animal hormones that somehow turn into human hormones)?

"The FDA is about as good at regulating as the EPA {read WORTHLESS}."

Why? Because you said so? Because some pundit-blogger says so?

"If you think no potential crop land has been altered to make way for livestock you’d be gravely mistaken."

I didn't say that; certainly there are instances of land being misused, but most of the land used for livestock is not of the high-quality soil variety.

"If you’re referring to manure being good fertilizer, cow manure is actually pretty low on the scale."

But still on the scale, and still used... Even if it is mostly used on low-quality crops used to feed livestock, it is still useful in the overall cycle, no?

"If you think the world is at 100% efficiency in terms of farmland as well you’re dreaming."

I'm not sure what post you read that from; I specifically said we were way below "100% efficiency."

"There are plenty of plants that can be eaten by humans that can grow in all types of climates. You forget people have been eating plants everywhere before the invention of refrigeration."

No, I don't. I was talking specifically about livestock feed grains versus human feed grains.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

This nonsense always starts on forums when someone lightly mentions meat or animals as food(and other controversial subjects that can be argued over until we get bored).

I love animals. They're delicious.

I love animals in their natural habitats too.

I don't like them in small enclosures for most of their lives; aside from my aquarium where I did my best to create a natural habitat(Though I still have doubts about the practice of aquarium keeping sometimes). My cat regularly goes inside and outside; though cats are amongst the species that have been domesticated by humans over thousands of years.

Many of the pets and farm/domesticated animals and plants did not exist in their current forms until humans domesticated them and selectively breed(evolution) them over thousands of years. Many of them now would die off if left to the wild without civilization.

Plants are a life form too. I believe we should use plants and animals as food, materials, labor, and comfort as long as they're not tortured or endangered as a species.

As for chemicals, hormones, cloning, genetic alteration, etcetera; if this technology improves the quality of life for humans then use it. If this technology has irrefutable evidence harming quality of life for humans then improve it.

Quality of life is a balance between all advantages and disadvantages considered.

-Wade

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

Sausages are the best. But I always burn the outside before the inside is cooked.

Also, GuyofDoom, MasterChiToes and Will, consider yourselves all mightily smote.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

Do you live in a worker's paradise where "irrefutable evidence" is funded by mega-corporations that go out of their way to throw away easy profits?
I personally find myself living in a world where more often than not any research that might threaten profits will not only not be funded but will cost scientists their careers.

Note that recent news article about a scientist being offered a job if he guaranteed he'd come out against the existence of global warming.

Anyway, I consider myself largely indifferent to the extremes of the food debate, and don't really care about being mightily smote. But the whole call for proof thing is a tired refrain, because skepticism without a level playing field of inquiry is little different from the Inquisition dismissing Galileo. Skepticism is not blindly believing in something until someone else proves you wrong.

Eat what you want... we are all going to die anyway.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

Yeah guess who funds most of the research Fyron has apperantly read that tells you "not to worry."

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

I could easily just turn your ridiculous arguing tactic on you and say "provide evidence that the EPA has ever done anything." However, I have a family member that works directly with the EPA on a consistent basis and they are less than forceful about doing ANYTHING to chasten corporations in clear violation of environmental laws.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

Well thanks, except it seems you did not really read what I posted. I'm fine with eating meat. I eat at least some daily. What I'm not fine with is the so-called "industrial farming" practices, which I believe will someday come to bite us all in the arse harder than it already has. And I do mean all, not just those of us who do eat meat... like I said, the heavy usage of antibiotics in livestock is just asking for the development of resistant strains faster than would otherwise have happened.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

As for sources Fyron:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&DB=pubmed

Vom Saal is one of the primary world researchers on effects of estrogenic compounds. He focuses mostly on BPA, which doesn't translate directly to beef, but is important none the less. I'll see if I can narrow down one of his papers in particular that highlights the particular trend of industrial research versus NIH funded research.

Shockingly enough industry rarely finds anything wrong with their practices. If you want a "real-life" example just look at Merck.

Industry has the luxury of being able to withhold their research findings because it comes from private funding. I'm personally of the belief that all scientific research should be public domain regardless of the source of funding.

It's clear that you share the common American mindset that "it can't hurt me" or "why should I change?" I'm not going to argue with you anymore past this post. If you'd like to continue the conversation more, I'll give you a email address or we can send messages to each other.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

I could sure go for a cheesesteak after all this talk.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

Man, whoever came up with the melding of steak with cheese was a genius! And yet who gets the Nobel Prize? A bunch of bearded weenies who go on about things no one else understands. Where's the justice?

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

Oh man...I leave the forum for a day, and look at all the farming/ranching misconceptions that come up! Remember, I'm a cattle rancher, so I have intimate knowledge of what goes on on such ranches... And so, without further ado:
Beef most certainly is healthy for you, as my sister (who is a registered dietitian) will tell you. Beef, and meat in general, contains a load of compounds that are good for, and even essential to, a healthy human diet. Vegetarians often aren't as healthy as meat-eaters, unless they load up on the artificial supplements.
Completely bogus. The cattle we raise are naturally conceived, born (unless the cow's having trouble), grown, raised and butchered.
I think Fyron covered this quite well, so I'll leave this one alone.
On our end of the production pipeline, which lasts from conception, through birth, all the way up until the animal is around 600 pounds, absolutely zero hormones are given to the animals. Now, I can't say what happens after we sell them, because I don't have knowledge of that subject.
This is a load of (if you'll pardon the pun) complete bull ****e. Since 1997, when Britain had the massive outbreak of the so-called Mad Cow Disease (more properly, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or BSE), there was a ban placed on any source of animal protein from being fed to cattle. Note that the term "Mad Cow Disease" really pisses me off, because it was an invention of the media to freak people out, and is really a misnomer. BSE does not harm people, and does not lead to CJD (the human version of BSE) unless someone is eating part of the central nervous system of an infected animal. Also note that human involvement and the previous practice of feeding animal protein to animals (which I find totally gross by the way) is not the only way diseases such as BSE develop; for example, the wild deer in parts of Canada have their own version of BSE...and you can't tell me they were busy eating the corpses of infected cows... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif I'm sorry if I seem a little steamed about this statement, but it's misconceptions such as this that drive people to become vegetarians, when such facts no longer hold true.
Again, this misconception. We *do not* feed our animals any hormones, specially derived diets or antibiotics (unless the animal is sick, in which case we will use antibiotics in an attempt to make them well again). Our cattle are given x number of acres to wander around on and eat grass, leaves, whatever the hell they want to their heart's content. However, as a caveat to that statement, I again don't know what happens after we sell the animals, so I can't make a statement as to that.
In my personal experience, cow manure works beautifully as a fertilizer; just ask our vegetable garden http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif
Of course, the fact that ethanol has been proven to be just a pipe dream has nothing to do with the matter...no, of course not. If the entire arable landmass of the US was taken up with corn crops, and all that corn was converted to ethanol, it would still only supply a fraction of the US's demand for fuels...now which use of the land is more inefficient, ethanol or livestock?
See my pervious statement regarding antibiotics.
This is totally off-topic, but if I were you, I'd look at the political affiliation of whoever made the claim that this happened...But that's a discussion for another day.

The amount of misconceptions that people have is just staggering...I guess it just goes to show that we all may think we know a lot, but we all really just know what we've been lead to believe. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

Renegade it sounds as if you raise freerange cattle. I'd be curious as to the number of cattle you see in a year.

Although your farm/ranch may not participate in those practices it doesn't mean they don't happen.

I'd be also curious to know if your family owns your facility or if it's corporate.

As for processing, even if you yourself do nothing to the cattle while you raise it that doesn't mean nothing happens to the meat further down the chain.

Vegetarians miss out primarily on a few key amino acids and sometimes iron. Beef is gradually increasing in its content of saturated fat. Meat protein is good for you for a number of reasons, but that doesn't mean you should eat 5x your recommended servings in a day like most Americans do.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

We've recently had to scale back, for a variety of reasons, primarily due to the plummet in prices after the '03 BSE scare people had, with a few cases found in Canada and the US. Before scaling back, we had around ~320-350, after, we'll have around ~220 after calving.
Indeed, that is true.
We fully own our ranch (around 1700 acres), there is no corporate involvment whatsoever. All the ranches in our area aren't corporately owned.
I completely agree, as I mentioned in my previous post http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif
Hmmm, well I must say I know nothing of the saturated fat content (when we butcher our cattle, the meat is much more lean than meat you buy in the grocery store, despite the fact that our cattle are by no means malnourished http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif). And I agree that some people don't need as much meat as they eat, though vegetarianism I think is a very illogical extreme.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

MasterChiToes said:
"But the whole call for proof thing is a tired refrain..."

Seeing as he offered to provide proof before anyone asked, this sentiment is completely irrelevant in this case.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

Who did? Burn the witch! As Sarah Conner said, "There is no proof except that you snoof." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

I'll have to check with one of my co-workers, but I believe American farms are far more corporate than family owned. Difference in country I suppose.

You mentioned that you typically sell your cows at 600 lbs. I was under the impression that 600 lbs is fairly small for a beef cow.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

Right there actually.

I hope the link is helpful, but I've got a bit too much to do recently narrow the search down too much.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

600 lbs would be small, if it was a cow; these are calves that are being sold at around 6-7 months old. From when we sell them, they go on to the feedlot, where they are brought up to a slaughterable weight, which is well over 1000 lbs. A full grown cow that we sell can weigh upwards of 1500 lbs, a bull sometimes up to 2000 lbs.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

I was always under the impression that the feedlots raised the cattle as well. Hrm good to know.

I would imagine that the others as well as myself are refering to the feedlots for the various acts mentioned. I'd be curious to learn what you know about them.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

About feedlots I know next to nothing, except that they pay next to nothing for the cattle and turn around and charge an arm & leg for the finished product.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

That happens in a lot of areas. The unfortunate middle man syndrome.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

Indeed.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

Sounds like you need a cattle ranchers' union.

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Unfortunately that wouldn't help; the feedlots would then just buy cattle from the US and ship them up here to be readied for slaughter...we'd just end up with no where to sell them to.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

How about, a competitor to Feedlots? Or is it yet another case of monopoly?

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

Essentially a monopoly.

Re: OT: Never complain about the cost of meat
 

The cost of buying the equipment for slaughter, and getting licensed, would be pretty high. It's ironic, but the assorted attempts to regulate for the sake of protecting the public often make new entries into an industry impossible. The auto industry is like this. You have to spend so much to prove your cars are safe that no new automakers could start today unless Bill Gates or Warren Buffet wants to get into the business.