[HN Gopher] Pets consume 30% of all meat products (2016)
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       Pets consume 30% of all meat products (2016)
        
       Author : adrian_mrd
       Score  : 36 points
       Date   : 2021-03-10 22:35 UTC (24 minutes ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (journals.plos.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (journals.plos.org)
        
       | eric4smith wrote:
       | But what portion of the meat products?
       | 
       | Traditionally pet food was made from that part of the animals
       | that were not favored for consumption by humans.
       | 
       | The abstract did not really mention that.
        
         | eknkc wrote:
         | Yeah, at later stages they mention the increasing demand for
         | "premium" pet food, which likely contains better meat cuts.
         | 
         | I don't think it still would be a huge deal but my gut is known
         | to be an unreliable source and the article is too long.
        
           | mc32 wrote:
           | This I don't get. Why does a pet need 'premium' meat cuts?
           | They live <20 years. It's not like fat, sinew and gristle is
           | going to cut their lives short. And if they get the innards
           | and less tasty bits, I mean, isn't that what wild dogs eat?
           | 
           | Like the dogs give two licks about the cut of meat. I'm sure
           | they'd like some marrow.
           | 
           | What they probably don't enjoy is the filler stuff.
        
             | swirepe wrote:
             | > They live <20 years
             | 
             | Crazy thing about nutrition :)
        
         | AdmiralAsshat wrote:
         | Yeah, I'm not exactly concerned that I'm going to lose my
         | valuable supply of _pig snouts_ to the dogfood industry.
         | 
         | But I suppose the point to consider here is that some pets are
         | carnivores, and you won't be able to turn them vegetarian
         | without seriously affecting their health. So if we as the human
         | species decide to stop domesticating pigs for food, our pets
         | might run into trouble.
        
         | cgriswald wrote:
         | I agree. Even when feeding our dogs a raw diet, we fed them
         | meat not bound for human consumption or the occasional leftover
         | trimmings from our own meals. The things that were human
         | consumable were not meats and are generally not eaten by the
         | average American although they are more common in other diets.
        
       | centimeter wrote:
       | I assume pets are mostly getting the parts of the animal that
       | humans don't want to eat, so this doesn't necessarily imply that
       | pets increase the scale of animal agriculture.
        
         | whatever1 wrote:
         | But it does mean that you cannot reduce the meat production
         | without affecting the pet food.
        
           | coding123 wrote:
           | Most likely the human consumed meat amounts will change very
           | little. But let's say for some reason 50% of humans suddenly
           | started only eating Impossible Foods style meat - I would
           | imagine that along with that sea change would be pet food.
           | (And when I say suddenly I would say expect at least 25 years
           | - 50 years)
        
           | gsteinberg wrote:
           | That's interesting. I wonder if that is in fact the case.
           | There could also be a surplus of meat waste in the meat
           | industry, some of which could go to pet food if the overall
           | production decreased.
           | 
           | I admittedly know very little about the meat industry.
        
         | bewareandaware wrote:
         | It can increase, because by selling unwanted parts as animal
         | food we are getting a 30% price decrease in wanted parts.
         | 
         | We can't raise beef cattle with no limbs to shorten our
         | expenses.
        
       | cynoclast wrote:
       | Aren't a lot of them 'waste' products that humans wouldn't?
       | 
       | I mean, I know Labradors will eat fucking anything.
        
         | unethical_ban wrote:
         | Many of your comments seem to be dead, including this one (at
         | first). You might be the victim of a shadowban.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | m463 wrote:
       | Many pets also suffer from the shortcomings of the western diet.
       | 
       | Not that they don't have a long life living indoors and with the
       | benefits of medical (veterinary) advances and attention.
        
         | canadianfella wrote:
         | What do you mean?
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | tokai wrote:
       | The date should be (2017)
        
       | ademup wrote:
       | I'm curious how many animals are slaughtered strictly to feed
       | people's desire to feed carnivorous pets. And if "extra" animals
       | are raised, what is the climate cost?
        
       | adnzzzzZ wrote:
       | I think we should ban pets. The planet is dying.
        
         | EGreg wrote:
         | North Korea banned dogs
         | 
         | https://dnews.com/life/north-korea-s-kim-and-and-his-dog-ban...
        
         | HideousKojima wrote:
         | I present this post as reason #5,782 why policies to combat
         | climate change are horribly unpopular politically.
        
           | adnzzzzZ wrote:
           | You could make it popular if you package it up with a Bitcoin
           | banning proposal. Two birds with one stone.
        
           | majormajor wrote:
           | The morality-based "don't create technology to fight climate
           | change since it would allow us to continue current behaviors"
           | position is definitely one of the more infuriating ones.
           | 
           | The damage is the big problem here, not the behavioral
           | causes.
        
         | batch12 wrote:
         | While we're being extreme, banning humans would be a more
         | straightforward solution.
        
         | elliotec wrote:
         | By that logic, we should ban humans who have a far more
         | significant impact on the death of the planet.
        
       | CA0DA wrote:
       | Serve them Impossible burger?
        
         | qbasic_forever wrote:
         | Carnivores like cats can't survive on plants alone. There are
         | sad stories of folks who thought they could feed their cat a
         | vegan/vegetarian diet and ran into significant, debilitating
         | issues with lack of taurine. I'm not saying it's impossible to
         | feed pets a solely plant-based diet, but you need to do a lot
         | of research to make sure their nutrient requirements are being
         | met. I would definitely do this under the guidance and
         | consultation of your vet.
        
       | ravenstine wrote:
       | If people learned to love organ meats again, the proportion would
       | probably be very different. So many people, especially in the
       | west, will only eat muscle tissue, and even then they prefer it
       | to be very lean. Too bad for them... more tongue, liver, and
       | tripe for me!
        
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