The New Republic

That is quite possibly the most horrifying image to come out of this site in quite a while. Oh no, wait. Harry Potter's still on the front page. Nevermind.

- Jed Gremmler

July 20, 2007 at 2:50pm

- literatehobo

July 20, 2007 at 2:16pm

The basic reality behind all these stats is this: it is a simple biological fact that ruminants are adapted to eating grasses, not corn. "Organic" means nothing; free-range does. Cattle fed a dominantly corn diet have major health issues because they are not adapted to that foodstuff, and the results include excessive gas production, which in ruminants tends to be the greenhouse gas methane. Cattle raised on range, as cattle were until the industrial food revolution in the mid-20th century, generate far less methane simply because they're eating a more healthy and balanced diet. Modern supermarket beef is generally raised and/or finished in confined lots (CAFOS), in which they are fed mostly corn (because it's easier and cheaper to produce and store), along with a steady dose of drugs to combat all the diseases which naturally arise in an animal population confined to an unnaturally small area and eating unnatural diets. Imagine a basketball arena crammed with 30,000 men eating nothing but bean burritos for much of their adult lives, and you get the idea. I'm not sure how many people give up meat-eating entirely, but increasing numbers are choosing free-range meat for environmental as well as food quality reasons (free-range meat, whether beef, pork, chicken, or whatever, tends to be tastier and healthier). This is not PETA rhetoric; this is basic scientific reality. Our mass-market industrial beef system generates an incredible amount of pollution, both gas emissions and solid/liquid waste. In addition, cattle are extremely inefficient converters of food energy; off the top of my head I believe it takes about 10 calories of input food to produce every 1 calorie of food energy in the beef. Thus, in a corn-fed beef system, we're wasting 90% of the food energy of that corn, which could otherwise have been used for human food or even ethanol. Regardless of global warming, a move away from CAFO, corn-fed beef and back toward grass/range-fed beef would lead toward a far more efficient use of food resources, save quite a bit of imported oil usage, dramatically ease pollution concerns beyond GW (ever lived within 10 miles of a CAFO?), and generate healthier and tastier food products for American consumers. And that's my diatribe; it's not every day that TNR posts something so close to my line of work...

- literatehobo

July 20, 2007 at 2:32pm

Now that Hastert's gone, Congress emits less... ah, fugeddaboutit.

- teplukhin

July 20, 2007 at 2:34pm

What about lamb? And why is it so hard to find good fresh US-produced lamb in US supermarkets?

- teplukhin

July 20, 2007 at 2:35pm

thank you.

- Wandreycer1

July 20, 2007 at 2:51pm

literatehobo -- Check this post out. It has more along those lines...

- Brad Plumer

July 20, 2007 at 2:59pm

Always appreciate your intelligent, learned stuff. Scientific, sensible reasoning. Thanks as always.

- boneill

July 20, 2007 at 3:39pm

As everything will for a while, this reminds me of a great Simpsons' quote, from the episode where Lisa becomes a vegetarian (one of the great episodes, though it is rarely mentioned) "All normal people love meat. If I went to a barbeque and there was no meat, I would say 'Yo Goober! Where's the meat!?'. I'm trying to impress people here Lisa. You don't win friends with salad." -- Homer Simpson

- boneill

July 20, 2007 at 4:13pm

Teplukhin - No ruminant is a particularly efficient converter of food energy, but everything I'm familiar with concludes that cows are by far the worst. I don't have any hard numbers on hand for sheep and it's actually pretty hard to find hard numbers online, at least quickly. I could do more thorough research and give you the numbers, but I'm not paid for this! I don't know off-hand what the general conditions are for lamb-raising at the large scale necessary for supermarket supply, though I suspect any food network supplying large-scale supermarkets is relying on some sketchy practices. Any spoilable product that needs to be produced in sufficient quantity to be readily available on supermarket shelves is going to be of lower quality. It's a simple question of the economics and physics of production. There's no such thing as "fresh" meat at a supermarket any more than there is "fresh" vegetables; those items were produced and distributed through a national network and are completely removed from their point of origin. Supermarkets feel the need to always have meat on hand; thus it must be meat that is somehow treated or preserved so that it can sit there waiting for the customer, and it had to have come from a large enough source to guarantee a year-round supply of the meat, thus implying a non-natural life cycle for the animal and thus lesser-quality meat. That may be a reality of modern American life that isn't going to change, but we should recognize that that's the price of efficiency and individual convenience. To get good quality lamb, you need to find a local sheep farm that slaughters fresh, or at least sells their stuff frozen (it'll still be better if it came from a small, free-range farm). Find out when they slaughter, it may only be once a year for lamb (sheep, like all animals, prefer to give birth in a certain season unless artifically influenced to do otherwise), so if you can buy it then you'll get peak quality. My guess would be June/July, though I don't raise sheep. Buy from the farm, not the distribution network, and you'll get better stuff. That's because (a) it'll have travelled and been processed less, and (b) the farmer has a much greater interest in making sure his product is good, when he's making face-to-face sales. It's basic capitalism 101. You're in the Silicon Valley, I guarantee there are a multitude of farmers markets around you, which are almost certain to have good lamb. Look around. Even if it's a couple hours away, take a Saturday and a couple coolers, go visit the place and load up with a few months' worth, stash it in your freezer and you're good to go. Plumer - Your link doesn't work. I think you copied the wrong piece of text? Wandrey & Boneill - No worries. Not everyday I get to ramble about my field, TNR's not exactly an agricultural journal! It's easy to get preachy in such topics, too, and I try to keep a balance. Thanks for apparently feeling that I do. Jed Gremmler - Personally, I too find Harry Potter on the front page more horrifying. I'm a snob, what can I say? It's horrifying, but it's the reality of American meat production. If you think that's bad, take the same analogy, cram each of those basketball fans into a coffin-sized cage, stack them on top one another, and you have commerical chicken production. No exaggeration.

- literatehobo

July 20, 2007 at 4:43pm

Oops. Try this.

- Brad Plumer

July 20, 2007 at 4:52pm

Thanks for all the info. I will definitely stick to free-range meat as much as possible in the future. Also, thanks to Boneill, I now have that scene going through my head where all the Simpsons (except Lisa, of course) form a conga line while singing "You don't win friends with salad! You don't win friends with salad!"

- Jed Gremmler

July 20, 2007 at 6:08pm

in China I had my fair share of free range, the same in Mexico. I am sorry hobo, but give me processed from now on.

- blackton

July 20, 2007 at 7:24pm