[HN Gopher] Food waste responsible for 10% of global emissions?
___________________________________________________________________
Food waste responsible for 10% of global emissions?
Author : cwwc
Score : 109 points
Date : 2021-04-09 10:31 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| shafyy wrote:
| Food waste != food waste. Animal-based products have a
| significantly higher environmental footprint than plant-based
| ones. Therefore, the majority of this 10% is from animal-based
| products.
|
| Reducing livestock agriculture will automatically decimate this
| number, too.
|
| Edit: It's rather misleading that they put a carrot on the cover
| of their report, too.
| anonymouswacker wrote:
| Rather than conflating waste with animal products, how about
| tackle the reasons for waste, and perhaps the other 90% of
| emissions, before trying to take away my steak and eggs? Please
| and thank you.
|
| It would be nice to get rid of factory farming, and have
| community farms focused on regenerative agriculture and
| sustainability, but I will violently oppose anyone who tries to
| make me eat veggie burgers ever again.
|
| -Former vegetarian, who tried for years to eat that way for
| ecological & ethicalreasons, and who switched to a 80% meat-
| based diet and will never look back to what I view is naive in
| hindsight.
| [deleted]
| chanmad29 wrote:
| Don't want to be trolling but if there is anything naive
| about your stance, it is the diet switch.
| eggsmediumrare wrote:
| Why is it naive?
| anonymouswacker wrote:
| It's naive to think that my eating vegetarian made a
| difference in the grand scheme. Much of what I ate was
| still requiring needless death and destruction of the
| environment--it just was invisible to me. Now I accept it,
| and try to eat from local farms (less fossil fuel waste),
| and organic (less destruction of the soil). I'm not going
| to risk affecting my health so that I can call myself a
| vegetarian. I think the most ecologically sound way of
| eating is to make your own food (hunting & killing it for
| carnivores, or growing it for vegetarians) yourself.
| patates wrote:
| > 80% meat-based diet
|
| That can't be right, is that a typo or you mean the
| percentage of meals that have _some_ animal products?
| anonymouswacker wrote:
| Sorry, I should have said animal-based rather than meat, to
| include milk, eggs, brains, organs, etc. And yes, I eat
| basically nose-to-tail now, mostly pastured, and feel a
| hell of a lot better than I did before
| TollingSteady wrote:
| Setting aside any ecological/moral argument, this kind of
| diet is high in class-2 carcinogens implicated in heart
| disease, cancer, and diabetes.
|
| What did your vegetarian diet look like?
| shafyy wrote:
| Unfortunatly, they mean probably exactly what they said.
| Look up Carnivore Diet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monot
| rophic_diet#Carnivore_die...
| TollingSteady wrote:
| Animal agriculture produces more carbon waste than the entire
| transportation sector. "Regenerative" animal agriculture is a
| myth, as fields can only sequester a small percent of the
| carbon emissions produced by ruminants, and they eventually
| reach a saturation point where they stop sequestering any.
|
| Additionally, factory farms are pretty much the only option
| to make animal products available anywhere close to the
| quantity required. Community farms have significantly lower
| output at a higher cost, and therefore animal products prices
| would presumably skyrocket.
|
| There are plenty of delicious and easily available vegan
| recipes that require 0 veggie burgers, if you're interested
| in reducing your carbon footprint.
|
| Obviously your actions are up to you, but community farms
| like you suggest just aren't feasible at scale.
| msandford wrote:
| The great plains of 100 years ago would beg to differ. It
| was very common for black soil to be 4 plus feet deep. If
| that wasn't a lot of sequestered carbon I don't know what
| is. Ironically all that sequestered carbon was released
| back to the air by intensive cropping not by ruminant
| animals.
| TollingSteady wrote:
| I completely agree, natural habitats with native flora
| and fauna tend to settle into balanced ecosystems. As far
| as I can tell, that's not what you're arguing for,
| though, as that is not at all what modern animal
| agriculture is similar to.
|
| As far as crops, the majority of what we grow is fed to
| animals. For example, according to the USDA,
| approximately 70% of U.S. soy is used as animal feed. If
| you're interested in reducing crop farming, go vegan.
| (Source: https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documen
| ts/coexisten...)
|
| As far as the limited abilities of carbon sequestering,
| "Grazing management could potentially, and under very
| generous assumptions, offset between 20-60% of annual
| average emissions from the grass-fed only sector,"
| meaning that even all grass fed beef is still going to
| involve horrifying amounts of GHG emissions, completely
| ignoring the cost/land use that would make it otherwise
| unfeasible. (Source:
| https://phys.org/news/2017-10-grazing-livestock-climate-
| impa...)
|
| Bonus link for more info on ruminants and carbon
| sequestering: "https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/an
| imal/article/abs/m..."
| msandford wrote:
| Doing regenerative ranching can be net carbon
| sequestering provided that you model your operation on
| nature a certain amount. People are doing it
| successfully.
|
| Another way to be responsible re food is to only buy good
| grass fed beef. As a bonus cows can make use of grass on
| land that's too poor for traditional farming.
| TollingSteady wrote:
| The source I cite for only 20-60% of GHG emissions being
| sequestered includes grass-fed beef. It seems like buying
| grass-fed beef is still environmentally unsustainable.
|
| Your claims don't seem to match any of the evidence I've
| seen, but I'd be interested in discussing them further if
| you could provide sources.
|
| As far as poor soil, a) current animal agriculture is
| mostly making use of usable soil & farmed crops, so this
| currently seems like a moot point, and b) this gets back
| to the above issue of being completely unable to scale.
| Unless you're being careful to only eat meat about once a
| month, I don't understand how the use of only poor soil
| is supposed to produce enough meat to feed everyone who
| would want it.
| msandford wrote:
| There are several ways to approach the problem.
|
| One is to look from first principles and analyze how the
| great plains came to be. It should be obvious that the
| carbon didn't just sequester itself. Therefore if one
| were to mimic the roaming herds of bison closely enough
| (and how close is close enough is up for debate) then it
| should absolutely be possible to be net sequestering. I'm
| having trouble finding a good source for this.
|
| There's a guy named Gabe Brown from North Dakota who is
| consistently increasing the amount of organic matter (and
| thus carbon) in the soil of his farm. I don't know how
| you'd interpret his results as anything other than
| sequestering.
|
| https://www.sandyarrowranch.com/2019-fall-winter-update/
|
| Finally there are places that are trying to study this
| rigorously as there's huge money to be made if you can
| offer guilt-free beef. Might that taint their results?
| Yup, but they might also be right.
|
| https://www.fastcompany.com/90368127/is-it-possible-to-
| raise... https://www.greenbiz.com/article/how-
| regenerative-land-and-l...
| TollingSteady wrote:
| I'd imagine the Great Plains had a much higher
| plant:animal ratio than commercial animal agriculture
| will be able to achieve. Plus the animals involved were
| native species adapted to the environment, not imported
| animals bred to maximize meat/milk output. I doubt we'll
| be able to reach a conclusion about this without more
| data, though.
|
| Gabe Brown definitely does seem like he's achieving
| carbon sequestering, which is great! I have no doubt that
| carbon sequestering exists and is effective -- my problem
| is that it neither matches nor exceeds the carbon output
| of e.g. cattle. So even with maximally effective carbon
| sequestering practices, there's still on net large GHG
| emissions. (See 20-60% figure from above.)
|
| As far as the links you provide, here's the direct quote
| from the conclusion of the FastCompany site: "...better
| management techniques can be helpful but not as much as
| many think, and that the term 'regenerative' is so vague
| that it risks becoming greenwashing. Another study, from
| the Food Climate Research Network in the U.K., found that
| better management of livestock only sequesters carbon
| under some conditions and even then may be temporary and
| not necessarily large enough to offset the negative
| impact of raising the animals."
|
| The second link seems to be marketing copy from General
| Mills, which as you note I might tend toward being
| suspicious of. Their sponsored study seems to contradict
| both the FastCompany site and all the other studies I've
| read. Definitely something to look more into on my part,
| though: will update here after reading more thoroughly.
|
| Thank you for the interesting links, and for being
| willing to engage in good faith.
| msandford wrote:
| > my problem is that it neither matches nor exceeds the
| carbon output of e.g. cattle.
|
| I am having a hard time understanding this concern. If
| the cattle and grass combo are releasing more carbon than
| they're sequestering then shouldn't soil carbon be going
| down?
|
| Conversely if carbon is building up in the soil despite
| cattle eating grass and presumably incorporating some of
| the carbon from what they eat into their bodies, where
| did that carbon coming from besides the atmosphere?
|
| I really cant wrap my brain around the idea that carbon
| can be building up in the soil while simultaneously
| cattle grazing operations are a net carbon producer. What
| am I missing?
| TollingSteady wrote:
| Part of the problem when discussing greenhouse gas
| emissions is that we're not only talking about carbon
| dioxide, but also all carbon dioxide equivalents.
|
| For example, one molecule of methane (CH4) contains the
| same amount of carbon [the element] as carbon dioxide
| (CO2), but is >= 28x more potent as a greenhouse gas than
| carbon dioxide (https://clear.ucdavis.edu/explainers/why-
| methane-cattle-warm...).
|
| Therefore, when talking in carbon dioxide equivalents
| (i.e. making something carbon neutral), my understanding
| is that for 1kg of methane emitted by cattle, there would
| need to be ~28kg of carbon dioxide equivalent sequestered
| by the soil.
|
| Even if cattle produced only CO2, to create a closed
| carbon cycle, it seems like soil would still be
| insufficient for carbon sequestering, unless you have
| massive tracts of land for relatively few cattle. Cattle
| need a constant input of feed, but it takes time to
| remove GHGs from the atmosphere.
| TomatoDash wrote:
| Your sequestration suggestion should be compared to the
| most effective non-meat alternative, which is land area
| effective plant based protein production combined with
| reforestation of much current pasture
| https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-opportunity-costs-food
| jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote:
| But that seems fine. People would still have access to
| meat, it would just be at a much higher price. The price
| should reflect the ecological cost anyways.
| TollingSteady wrote:
| If we cut subsidies and internalized the externalities
| (i.e. heavy carbon tax on all meat used to offset the GHG
| emissions), it would be theoretically feasible to make
| meat carbon neutral.
|
| I'd imagine taking these minimum steps toward
| environmental sustainability would either a) greatly
| exacerbate food insecurity in America or b) make meat
| into a luxury that only the top 10% can afford to eat at
| all.
|
| Either way, I suppose it would be an effective way to let
| the market reduce animal agriculture.
|
| If you'd like to help this come about, please consider
| boycotting the current animal agriculture industry until
| it reforms, as this kind of carbon-neutral meat currently
| does not exist.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Traditional agriculture is garbage, and you holding it up
| as some sort of solution to the incoming environmental
| catastrophe is dangerous. Eliminating animals will provide
| a short term band-aid, but the problem will fester under
| the surface as we continue to destroy fertility and poison
| our water, until we get laid low by rolling famines.
|
| The solution is distributed permaculture, with animals
| integrated (referred to as silvopasture). Silvopasture
| produces much more food per acre than conventional row
| crops, and when permaculture principles are followed,
| requires minimal or no use of fertilizers and sprays. In
| addition, it builds soil fertility and retains water. The
| animals in the system naturally fertilize the plants while
| controlling pests and weeds.
|
| As long as the dominant mode of agriculture is thousand
| acre farms growing monoculture commodity crops, sprayed
| with gallons of chemicals, which are then trucked back and
| forth across the country from processing plant to factory
| to store, we're going to continue to erode our future food
| supply.
| TollingSteady wrote:
| I completely agree, crop farming as it currently exists
| trades a lot of long term sustainability and ecological
| responsibility in exchange for high output.
|
| However the problem is that _the large majority of these
| monoculture crops go to animals_. Reducing animal
| agriculture not only means less direct GHG emissions from
| animals, it _also_ means a huge reduction in the amount
| of crops required to feed the same number of people.
|
| In the US, 41% of land is used for animal agriculture,
| while only 19.8% is used for food humans eat. (Source:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/)
|
| "The 7 billion livestock animals in the United States
| consume five times as much grain as is consumed directly
| by the entire American population." + "For every kilogram
| of high-quality animal protein produced, livestock are
| fed nearly 6 kg of plant protein." (Source:
| https://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-
| feed-800-m...)
|
| If you're worried about greenhouse gas emissions, stop
| paying into animal agriculture.
|
| If you're interested in reducing the need for monocrops,
| reducing land use, and creating more sustainable plant
| farming, your best choice is still to go vegan.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| You're obviously arguing from a point of bias, with an
| agenda that ignores facts. Animals form an integral part
| of the optimal, zero input agricultural system (as
| demonstrated by natural environments). The problem isn't
| eating animals, the problem is a system of agriculture
| that is self destructive and stupid. You can't have a
| balanced ecosystem without animals, and eating them is
| the best method for population control.
|
| You can rail all you want on factory farmed meats, and
| I'm with you on there, but to go from "factory farmed
| meats are bad" to "people shouldn't eat meat" is
| fallacious as hell. That would be like going from
| "drinking too much water will kill you" to "people
| shouldn't drink water".
| TollingSteady wrote:
| I grew up eating 3 eggs every morning and drinking
| chocolate milk daily. My very favorite food (and the
| first thing I'd order at any restaurant) was steak. I
| apologize if I've made it seem like I have some personal
| stake in plants; I only stopped supporting animal
| agriculture because as an adult I realized that it seemed
| unethical and unsustainable.
|
| If you are able to provide sources showing that
| sustainable, ecologically-sound animal agriculture
| exists, please do link me, as I'd be very personally
| interested.
|
| And just to clarify: I am under the impression that all
| forms of animal agriculture that currently exist are
| environmentally and morally negative, in their current
| forms. My opinion would more be that the fact is "burning
| coal is bad", so my opinion is "let's switch to
| renewables." I am only trying to act in alignment with my
| conscience, even though it can be inconvenient.
|
| It seems we do have a lot of common ground, though; if
| you're already boycotting factory farmed meat, eggs, and
| dairy, we'll have way more in common than different.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Integrating animals into a food system correctly results
| in a net increase in carbon retention, even if they
| themselves produce greenhouse gasses. This is because
| they help provide soil fertility while controlling the
| growth of weeds so that trees and other larger, longer
| lived food plants aren't competing for resources. If the
| animals didn't do it, you'd need to use pesticides, or a
| mower, or something else that has more downsides and
| isn't edible.
|
| There are a lot of permaculture farms integrating
| animals, fruit/nut trees and crops, but the most famous
| one is polyface farm (https://www.polyfacefarms.com/).
|
| Ultimately, until agriculture is supplanted by ecosystem
| creation, and it becomes something that most of the
| population has some minor role in (if only to save
| compost for, and help harvest from your local food
| forest), we're going to be destroying the environment to
| feed people. Not eating factory farmed meat will slow it
| down a little bit, but the problem will still be there
| festering away, until we change our ways or population
| levels drop an order of magnitude.
| rhesa wrote:
| Another excellent example is Mark Shepard on his New
| Forest Farm.
|
| He successfully replicated the oak savannah that covered
| a lot of the US before the Europeans tore it up, but
| using species that are useful for humans.
|
| Like you're saying, the animals are an integral part of
| that system: reducing pests, mowing and pruning, cleaning
| up waste etc.
| TollingSteady wrote:
| Thanks for the link! This was definitely interesting to
| dig into. It looks like the farms' claim for carbon
| offset is sequestration. I don't doubt that they do this,
| but sequestration is only able to store a maximum of
| 20-60% of carbon emitted, with most studies placing it
| around 20% (see my source in the other comment thread,
| and also
| https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987).
| Given the inefficiency of animal protein and the lack of
| independent data pointing to this style of farming being
| eco-neutral, polyface's claims read more to me like
| marketing copy than evidence of being carbon-neutral.
|
| Polyface seems to have a few other issues, such as using
| the same breeds of meat (broiler) chickens as used in
| factory farms. I need to dig into more data on this
| particularly, but their chicken farming doesn't seem to
| meet sustainability standards.
|
| He also feeds his animals grain grown from outside the
| farm, meaning that this doesn't make sense as a "closed
| loop" sustainable system, even ignoring the other
| concerns.
|
| [Note: this is not intended to come off as overly
| negative, I'm just attempting to analyze what I see as
| shortcomings in this example. After looking more into it,
| I would still classify this as ecologically net negative,
| and less sustainable than a plant-based diet based on the
| GHG emissions of the animals. If you have further data to
| provide on this example though, I would definitely be
| willing to revise my position.]
|
| Your conclusion paragraph seems a bit pessimistic, given
| the reality of how much food we currently produce --
| "According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of
| the United Nations, the world produces more than 1 1/2
| times enough food to feed everyone on the planet. That's
| already enough to feed 10 billion people, the world's
| 2050 projected population peak... the bulk of
| industrially produced grain crops (most yield reduction
| in the study was found in grains) goes to biofuels and
| confined animal feedlots rather than food for the one
| billion hungry." from https://www.researchgate.net/public
| ation/241746569_We_Alread...
|
| So it seems to me as though reducing or eliminating
| animal solves the problems you bring up: to have the same
| amount of food available to humans, we'd need to farm
| _less_ crops, which means we could e.g. start switching
| to lower-yield organic farming without compromising human
| nutrition, and diversifying a lot of current corn
| /wheat/pasture land into more nutrient dense vegetables.
|
| Theoretically, a plant-based agricultural system taking
| compost and natural land replenishment from wild (native)
| animals & plants as inputs and producing a variety of
| plant foods as outputs would be lower GHG emissions,
| lower pesticide use, lower soil erosion, all while
| supplying a higher number of people food.
|
| What am I missing?
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Non heritage meat breeds are much more efficient at
| producing meat for a given amount of input. Supplemental
| feed is mostly used to bring chickens to weight more
| quickly. Assuming you work, I'm sure you understand doing
| things you would prefer not to for economic reasons.
|
| Talking about our abundance based on how much food we
| produce today in this context is like talking about how
| rich you are when you're spending above your means with a
| credit card. We're depleting topsoil, depleting aquifers,
| polluting our water, and breeding blights with our lack
| of diversity.
|
| You keep talking like it's somehow desirable to remove
| animals from these food producing systems, but it's not.
| They work better with animals, and those animals need to
| be herded and culled to maintain the health of the
| ecosystem. Everything needs to be in balance.
|
| Why do you think it would be better for the environment
| to take a bunch of trucks into a forest so you can haul
| stuff from it to a hundred miles away or more to feed
| conventional agriculture with all its problems than just
| have a balanced system initially?
| madsbuch wrote:
| The good ol' distraction by generalization.
|
| ... and then let the consumer concretize themselves and reach
| wrong conclusions.
| goatinaboat wrote:
| _Animal-based products have a significantly higher
| environmental footprint than plant-based ones._
|
| Almonds, for vegan milk substitute, are implicated in drought
| in California. Soy is responsible for massive tropical
| deforestation. Meanwhile you can easily farm sheep and goats on
| land that no crops can grow on.
| TollingSteady wrote:
| Implying that animal agriculture is more sustainable is
| false, unless you're able to back this up with actual data.
|
| 80% of Amazon rainforest deforestation has been driven by
| cattle farming
| (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/08/27/how-
| beef-...)
|
| According to USDA data, over 70% of soy grown in the U.S. is
| fed to animals (https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/docu
| ments/coexisten...)
|
| Dairy uses almost double the water of almond milk per glass,
| as well as ~4x the carbon footprint and more than 10x the
| land. See https://www.bbc.com/news/science-
| environment-46654042 for graphs that represent this wide gulf
|
| As far as farming ruminants, even in the best-case scenario
| where they're eating land otherwise unfarmable _plus_
| maximally effective carbon sequestering practices are in
| place, it still produces unsustainably massive quantities of
| GHG emissions
| (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987) [Most
| relevant subsection: "Producer mitigation limits and the role
| of consumers"]
| peterpostman wrote:
| 90% of that soy goes to feed lifestock, most of the soy eaten
| in the states or europe is grown there, since the soy grown
| in those country is generally not suitable for human
| consumption.
| FredPret wrote:
| That's the whole idea of livestock - feed them plants that
| we can't eat
| TomatoDash wrote:
| We can eat soy - I had a tasty tofu bowl for lunch. The
| land used for growing soy animal feed can be also used to
| grow other plants we can eat directly or after
| preparation. That requires less land and less resources
| per calorie which lets us reforest and prevent further
| rainforest destruction. The carbon opportunity cost of
| meat is huge, https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-
| opportunity-costs-food
| nightski wrote:
| TomatoDash is going to eat all of the soy folks,
| discussion over and problem solved.
|
| Seriously though the reason it is fed to animals is
| likely because of cost. Generally animal feed is chosen
| based on cost and effectiveness.
|
| Really though, humans can't eat grass, beet pulp shreds,
| beet molasses, and many other things we feed animals.
| kube-system wrote:
| They are not saying that humans cannot eat soybeans. They
| are saying that some soybeans are not of high enough
| quality to be suitable for humans to eat.
| Forbo wrote:
| 90% of the soy that is grown is not fit for human
| consumption? I'm having a hard time buying that. If they
| stopped feeding soy to cattle, I find it very unlikely
| that they would continue producing the same amount in
| order to get soy that is fit for human consumption. As
| though what we've been feeding cattle is simply the
| portion that was already going to be wasted.
| kube-system wrote:
| I am not the person who wrote that comment above, but
| they did not say "90% of soy" -- they said "90% of that
| soy", referring to soy grown in areas of tropical
| deforestation.
|
| I have no clue if the assertion is correct.
|
| Edit: FWIW, it appears that US soy is mostly used for
| livestock:
|
| > Just over 70 percent of the soybeans grown in the
| United States are used for animal feed
|
| https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexis
| ten...
|
| And globally, even a higher percentage:
|
| > About 85 percent of the world's soybean crop is
| processed into meal and vegetable oil, and virtually all
| of that meal is used in animal feed.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20170112075924/http://www.soy
| ate...
| FredPret wrote:
| I didn't say soy, I said "plants". This includes
| everything we can't eat - grass, and perhaps low quality
| soy.
|
| There's an immense amount of green things growing we
| can't digest that cows, sheep, goats, and chickens will
| happily chomp on or peck at. The idea is that we then eat
| the cows, etc. It's simple really.
|
| As an aside, I've been on a fat-loss diet all lockdown
| long, and if it wasn't for animal products, it simply
| wouldn't have worked as well as it did. I need high
| protein within a limited calorie budget. Hello, chicken
| breasts and whey powder.
|
| Anyway, if cows are not a good enough system to feed 7
| billion people, we should grow fake cow parts in vats,
| also neatly eliminating the need to kill the animals. I'd
| be the first to sign up for a fake steak, if it was
| chemically identical to a grass-fed one (the taste of
| which is fantastic, absolutely beyond description)
| TomatoDash wrote:
| Hence my sentences 2, 3 and 4.
| peterpost2 wrote:
| The reason why we have those plants is because we are
| destroying entire ecosystems and worsening climate
| change. Not a good idea.
| cute_boi wrote:
| and the sad thing is government subsidize animal industry
| heavily :(
| Shivetya wrote:
| government subsidizes everything to one level or another. to
| say it is subsidized higher than other sectors within
| agriculture is more meme than fact. some segments may be
| depending on your country. in the US we subsidize everything
| to include corn for ethanol to cotton which we ship to China
| and receive back as finished clothing.
|
| the issue has always been subsidies are politicians means to
| show their constituents they are doing their job, bringing
| home the bacon. however the rules and regulations are stacked
| such that only very large farms and organizations see real
| benefit.
|
| US wise, most subsidies are towards guarantees of rates.
| Dairy and Meat get picked on a lot because they are very
| noticeable but much of the numbers assigned to them are
| because corn is a feed product and the biggest crop in the US
| by far. Throw in that many who don't care for animal farming
| will then associate any other subsidy they can find, to
| include WIC payments shows just how much a stretch it becomes
| Outside of pandemic years the estimates for all of
| agriculture in the US ranges from the low twenties in
| billions to highs in fifties. Again, depends on what you
| count.
|
| The real issue isn't what we are subsidizing in this case but
| that we don't insure that the small farms are compensated as
| well as large private and commercial farms are because the
| regulatory burden puts obtaining such funds into the category
| of not worth the time and money
| shafyy wrote:
| Yes, meat and dairy are the new Big Oil. In fact, they spend
| a bigger relative portion of their income for lobyying than
| Big Oil: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02042021/meat-
| dairy-lobby...
| specialist wrote:
| I just watched The Poison Squad. The tortured history of
| banning poisons from food, aka the progressive era Pure
| Food movement. Big Food pioneered lobbying, alongside all
| the other robber barons.
| codebolt wrote:
| One thing I've been asking myself is how much fresh meat gets
| thrown out from western supermarkets because of expiration. It
| might be possible to reduce a lot of waste simply by requiring
| meat to always be sold as frozen.
| loceng wrote:
| Or aligning capitalism with society, so a grocery store who
| buys meat cheaper in order to sell it at a higher price than
| most of the the market is willing to pay get penalized via
| including externalized costs of them having to throw it out
| instead of sell it; just one possible option out of many that
| would improve the system and reduce waste near to zero.
| [deleted]
| bluGill wrote:
| yuck. Frozen meat has a different texture and is not a
| substitute except in emergencies. Though if you are not for
| cooking yourself you probably have enough other bad things
| happening in your food chain that you cannot tell the
| difference.
| em500 wrote:
| In Europe, supermarket meat was was probably frozen anyway,
| according to Dutch Consumer Reports: ("Fresh" meat from
| supermarket often older than 2 years and frozen several
| times [1], original Dutch [2]).
|
| [1] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&u=ht
| tp://...
|
| [2] http://neerlander.nl/2016/09/07/vers-vlees-supermarkt-
| vaak-o...
| aszantu wrote:
| local turk assured me the meat was fresh, but it aged
| weirdly when I let it sit for a few days, so I switched
| over to another butcher and e'voila, nice agey taste
| codebolt wrote:
| Frozen meat is perfectly fine, I use it all the time. And
| even if it wasn't, should we really sacrifice the
| environment for the sake of our tastebuds?
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Funny you should say that, it's one of the core reasons
| many vegans and environmentalists advocate for avoiding
| meat altogether, as it disproportionately contributes to
| environmental impact. Turns out growing plants to feed to
| animals, and then growing those animals to feed to humans
| is less efficient than growing plants to feed to humans.
| codebolt wrote:
| I can sympathize with that argument.
|
| But the way humans raised animals prior to the last
| century seems a lot less problematic. If we reverted to a
| more sustainable, regenerative practice of farming, that
| would surely reduce animal suffering and not damage the
| environment to anywhere near the same degree. It would
| also create a lot of jobs. But if you're trying to feed 8
| bln people then you will need to figure out ways to
| reduce waste in the supply chain. Like freezing meat.
| anjellow wrote:
| This depends on how the meat is frozen. Frozen meat can be
| more fresh in texture than chilled meat when flash frozen
| and dethawed immediately before use. The process of slowly
| freezing food alters the chemical structure, while flash
| freezing maintains this structure and subsequently the
| mouth feel and flavor of fresh meat/produce.
| djrogers wrote:
| > The process of slowly freezing food alters the chemical
| structure
|
| It's not the chemical structure, it's the physical
| structure. Slow freezing causes large (relatively) ice
| crystals, which are more likely to break cell walls than
| smaller ice crystals. Those broken cell walls result in
| more moisture loss when cooking, and a different texture
| when thawed.
| User23 wrote:
| And the difference is striking. I had some steaks from a
| freshly slaughtered cow not too long ago and despite
| being at best choice grade it tasted better than some
| prime steaks I've had.
| leetcrew wrote:
| it's noticeably different, but it's not that bad. I often
| freeze the other half of an NY strip. a 14-18oz piece of
| meat is a bit much for me to eat in one sitting. it doesn't
| make much difference with a whole foods tier steak, but I
| wouldn't do it with a really nice cut from my local
| butcher.
|
| agree that requiring _all_ meat to be sold frozen is a step
| too far though. adding a tax somewhere along the meat
| production chain to account for the externalities would be
| a better solution.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| Pets eat 20% of the world meat/fish production
| https://nowhereandeverywhere.co/learn/pets-consume-
| about-20-..., that's yet another way to act on this problem,
| replace your pets by plants or just nothing
| awillen wrote:
| This feels like it ends with a supervillain plotting to kill
| everyone on Earth in order to save the planet.
| TollingSteady wrote:
| You actually make a great point here, though I disagree with
| your exact conclusions.
|
| The good news is that there are plenty of plant-based dog
| diets that meet all AAFCO nutrition standards. A quick google
| search will bring these up. As dogs' most common allergens
| are all meat and they're considered omnivores, this is a
| great solution for dog owners.
|
| Cats are obligate carnivores, and require molecules that only
| occur naturally in meat (e.g. taurine). Technically, this
| does not translate to a requirement for meat itself --
| artificial taurine, etc. does exist. However, while the only
| research review says it can be done
| (https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/6/9/57/htm) I don't see
| enough longitudinal evidence that it can be done safely, as
| issues like urinary crystals are a major concern. I think the
| best hope for cats' diets is something like the lab-grown
| mouse meat kibble Wild Earth is developing, but sadly this
| product just doesn't exist yet.
|
| So those interested in reducing their carbon footprint should
| absolutely consult their vet about switching their dog onto a
| plant-based diet. For cats (and ferrets/foxes/etc), I think
| the best we can do right now is fund overpopulation control
| measures (i.e. spay/neuter programs) and continue research
| into sustainable nonanimal food.
|
| It goes without saying that all pets should be adopted (is
| anyone capable of coming up with some edge case where this is
| bad advice? if so please let me know) so as to not breed more
| animals into the world. As long as you adopt, I see no moral
| negative to having a plant-based dog.
|
| And for those unable/unwilling to do so, taking up gardening
| instead is a great option.
| shafyy wrote:
| It's true that cats and dogs have a non-negligeable impact on
| the environment. One study [1] estimates for the US, which
| has around 160m cats and dogs, the impact to be around 20-30%
| compared to humans.
|
| I think it's fair to assume that globally this number is
| much, much lower than 20%, since no country has as many pets
| as the US.
|
| 1: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journ
| al...
| Wohlf wrote:
| I understand where you're coming from but if you're going to
| make people choose between their pets and climate change, you
| may not like the answer. My initial reaction was a snarky
| "why stop there, let's get rid of zoos and maybe even wild
| animals too"
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| - "get rid of zoos" this one would really make sense,
| seriously it's so bad to retain wild animals in captivity
| for human entertainments, even if they are treated well
|
| - wild animals contribute to their local ecosystem, they
| are "useful" to the environment.
| TollingSteady wrote:
| How are you drawing this moral distinction? People find
| visiting zoos "useful" for education and promoting
| habitat conservation.
|
| I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your conclusion, I
| just don't see how you got there.
| [deleted]
| User23 wrote:
| People already advocate with seemingly straight faces that
| you shouldn't have children because of climate change.
| Glavnokoman wrote:
| There is a root of the problem - too many people. The rest is
| just side effects.
| rocknor wrote:
| That's a dangerous anti-science viewpoint. No, the problem is
| the exact opposite - we as a species are not scientifically
| advanced enough yet to satisfy our relentless hunger for energy
| with renewable resources.
| Glavnokoman wrote:
| Why exactly you believe it is "anti-science"? And how is
| being scientifically retarded is exact opposite?
| FredPret wrote:
| With hydroponics, aquaponics, lab-grown meat (the real factory
| farming), and nuclear energy, we can fit a hell of a lot more
| people on this planet.
| Glavnokoman wrote:
| Maybe it is possible, yes, but in my view that's pretty
| stupid goal.
| FredPret wrote:
| It's not a goal, it's a way to deal with the billions more
| who are yet to arrive on the scene
| Black101 wrote:
| Food waste could be reduced a lot by fixing "best buy" dates and
| perhaps packaging that could signal bad food.
| cassepipe wrote:
| I think the problem of food waste is a structural one and that it
| has to do with how capitalism operates as a mode of production. A
| lot of people like to think that capitalism is the most rational
| mode of production and a lot of the criticism of that viewpoint
| tend to base itself on moral grounds as a mode of production that
| is unethical, as the "era where money is king" or on some sort of
| "paradise lost" like we lost touch with "nature" or something. I
| don't agree with that and my problem with capitalism is that,
| although it is a system that is able to produce a massive amount
| of goods, it totally fails to adequately distribute them for the
| greater good. It leaves that to market forces and the problem
| with market forces is that you only know you have produced too
| much shit after you have already produced it. The consequence is
| quite a lot of instability and a massive source of waste. I guess
| if Karl Marx was alive today, the first sentence of Capital would
| be : "The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode
| of production prevails, presents itself as "an immense
| accumulation of WASTE"
| FredPret wrote:
| In the most capitalist country on Earth, the problem is that
| even the poor people are getting too fat.
|
| In Zimbabwe, the only country I know of that has recently
| implemented Marxist ideas about farming, the problem is that
| people are starving.
|
| And Zimbabwe is ridiculously fertile by the way.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > In the most capitalist country on Earth, the problem is
| that even the poor people are getting too fat.
|
| Did Singapore recently have a wave of obesity that I hadn't
| heard about?
|
| > In Zimbabwe, the only country I know of that has recently
| implemented Marxist ideas about farming
|
| If step one wasn't "first, develop proletarian class
| consciousness in an mature capitalist society", they probably
| implemented Leninist ideas, not Marxist ideas about anything.
| Marxism is, at its core and explicitly, path dependent.
| FredPret wrote:
| I think you just have known precisely what I meant
| dragonwriter wrote:
| If it was "ignore facts! Capitalism good! Marxism bad!",
| then, yes, you are correct.
| seoaeu wrote:
| What alternative are you proposing? A planned economy that
| tries to grow exactly the right amount of food, and results in
| widespread famine if crop yields are lower than expected?
| Millions of people would die. "Wasting" some amount of food
| every year is a far preferable option.
| cassepipe wrote:
| I don't believe in (centrally) planned economy as it it is
| impossible to get accurate feedback on the state of the whole
| production apparently, about which industry needs what
| especially (although new tech could help who knows? ). But
| you will have a hard time convincing me that throwing away
| half of the food (and so much other stuff) we produce while
| having people starving is the most rational solution. So,I
| don't have a solution but do you agree that there is a
| problem and are you interested in thinking about how to fix
| it?
|
| Maybe the solution is not a centrally planned economy but
| centrally gathered information available to all? Subscription
| based production? I don't know, just throwing ideas.
| seoaeu wrote:
| The human cost of having too little food is literally
| orders of magnitude worse than the cost of having too much.
| (Having too much necessarily implying having to waste/throw
| some of it away). To give a sense from past famines, take
| the fatality numbers from covid and add a zero or two.
|
| Add to this backdrop all the unpredictability that goes
| into producing food. Growing crops has months of lead time
| during which unpredictable events like droughts or floods
| or pests can obliterate a large fraction of your
| production. Even after harvesting, natural disasters or
| industrial accidents can destroy significant quantities of
| food (think of a grain elevator explosion).
|
| In short, growing surplus food is the _only_ rational
| approach. Of course, what you do with the surplus once you
| have it is another question. There I agree with you that it
| is shameful we don 't ensure more ends up in the hands of
| those going hungry.
| lucian1900 wrote:
| That is precisely the position we communists have today:
| production for profit mediated by markets is highly irrational
| and wasteful, even if you were to ignore the inevitable
| exploitation of the workers.
|
| Planned economies can instead more efficiently allocate
| resources, even when done within a capitalist economy and for
| profit. The book "People's Republic of Walmart" goes into a lot
| of detail on this topic. A democratically planned economy with
| society's overall welfare as a goal could be even more
| efficient.
| mantas wrote:
| Planned economies are so bad, people living in them couldn't
| afford anything go to waste.
|
| See: USSR.
| choeger wrote:
| Except that planned economies invariably fail to deliver the
| needed goods and services. There is a reason why
| overproduction is the foundation of capitalism's success.
|
| I even recall a paper that demonstrates that the market
| problem (balancing supply and demand perfectly) is NP-
| complete.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Balancing supply perfectly is certainly not worth doing,
| but how can you look at the world and say that at least
| some level of central planning isn't demonstrably superior
| to pure free market? The free market very often fails to
| deliver goods and services, for example electricity in
| Texas this winter. The point of central planning is to step
| in and prevent foreseeable market failures, where rational
| market participants will optimize the wrong thing (price,
| in the case of Texas electricity, where they should have
| optimized availability).
| leetcrew wrote:
| how many energy providers does your average texan have to
| choose from?
| jeffbee wrote:
| Is there a number I could throw out that will prevent you
| from continuing with this predictable "no true Scotsman"
| argument?
| ineedasername wrote:
| This has to be one of the most misleading reports I've seen in a
| while and especially damaging because it's now been cited by many
| news outlets. It is misleading for 3 very big reasons:
|
| 1) It counts the non-edible portion of food as "waste". Consider
| this just in terms of bananas: About 50 billion tons of bananas
| are produced each year. The banana peel, not edible, is about 30%
| of the banana weight, which means you're already ready starting
| with 15 billion tons of supposed waste on bananas alone.
|
| 2) A significant amount of waste not accounted for in the
| underlying UN report is actually not wasted: If not suitable for
| human consumption it is often used in animal feed (often pig
| slop) or composted back into productive material for further use
| on the farm.
|
| 3) Even food that is well & truly wasted isn't really
| contributing all of its carbon or the emissions released to grow
| it back into the atmosphere because carbon is actually
| sequestered in the food itself, the same way and for the same
| reasons that planting new trees sequesters carbon.
|
| I am by no means an anthropomorphic climate change denier, but
| sloppy studies like this do significant damage to the cause by
| giving such people ample ammunition by which to paint the entire
| body of science with the same "fake news" brush.
| learnstats2 wrote:
| The article here also appears to significantly contradict
| itself.
|
| The headline says "Food Got Wasted -- Mostly at Home" but the
| article seems to say that this applies to "food available to
| consumers", i.e. it is only really measuring the quantity of
| waste as household vs catering/restaurants.
|
| Since more food must surely be eaten at home than elsewhere,
| it's not surprising that food waste is produced at home is
| first out of two options.
|
| The article later admits that a higher quantity of food is
| 'wasted' before it reaches stores.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I definitely waste more at home than a commercial kitchen
| because of economies of scale, and that overbuying by 25% is
| something I can afford pretty easily, but commercial kitchens
| can't. That said, commercial kitchens also overfeed.
| stdbrouw wrote:
| (1) it's something they do to make comparisons between
| countries easier, as different countries have different
| thoughts on what is/isn't considered edible, and also because
| it's easier to measure (e.g. using a very simple "mass balance"
| method that looks at the weight of foodstuffs that go in vs.
| what comes out)
|
| (2) the report distinguishes food loss (harvest, initial
| processing, transport etc.) from food waste (at home, in
| restaurants and cafetarias) and explicitly discusses only the
| latter
|
| (3) the CO2 stat is just a spiel, there's many other reasons to
| dislike food waste
|
| The report and the development of the index is not misleading
| at all. On the other hand, the way it was pitched to the media
| is questionable, and I've got to think that some of the people
| who worked very hard on this must be rolling their eyes.
| ineedasername wrote:
| 1) That's a bad justification because right now, all I know
| is that whatever the amount of emissions that food waste
| contributes, it is _absolutely not 10%_
|
| They can't just ignore that because ignoring it makes things
| easy to measure. They don't get to do a bad job just because
| doing it right is _hard_. Even a tough estimate to give an
| upper & lower bound would have been fine.
|
| My job it to analyze data & write code in support of that
| analysis. I don't get to ignore categorical variations or a
| dozen different edge cases just because a general rule is
| easier: _" Hi boss, it would take 500 more lines of code to
| get you the correct answer so I skipped that to give you a
| wrong one instead"_ I would get fired.
|
| 2) I don't think their definition is perfectly clear on
| exactly where they draw the line between these categories,
| but either way there is still significant amounts of food
| that is "wasted" in these end-user locations that actually
| goes on to be useful in some ways: Many areas of the world
| routinely compost anything they can and feed it back into the
| farming ecosystem even after it gets to what this reports
| calls waste.
|
| 3) Sure, but that's not the topic. The fact that food waste
| is also bad in other ways is no reason to produce a
| misleading report like this that climate deniers will use as
| anti-science fodder because, as I said initially, I don't
| know what the real number is, but I absolutely know it's not
| what this UN report claims. Criticizing this report doesn't
| imply someone thinks wasting food is okay. Pointing to other
| reasons that waste is bad is a rhetorical diversion, nothing
| more.
| bratcomplex wrote:
| " Even food that is well & truly wasted isn't really
| contributing all of its carbon or the emissions released to
| grow it back into the atmosphere because carbon is actually
| sequestered in the food itself, the same way and for the same
| reasons that planting new trees sequesters carbon."
|
| other than the cost of transportation and storage. the the
| decomposition phase, which produces quite a lot of greenhouse
| gases.
| NoOneNew wrote:
| Define quite a lot when it comes to greenhouse gas
| production. We can make the argument for clearing out rain
| forests because decomposing foliage makes greenhouse gases
| based on the same principle of "food decomposition is bad".
| Its not like the food never decomposes. You eat it, you fart
| and shit the decomposition. If we nitpick every little
| greenhouse gas producer, we are going to end up with
| pathologizing ending humanity because we produce greenhouse
| gases. That and youre giving polluters/deniers extremely easy
| fodder to combat civilization's general need to rehab off of
| fossil fuels. Anyways, "greenhouse gases" are needed for
| planet Earth in general. It's the artificial over production
| of greenhouse gases that's harmful. Not their general
| existence.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I mentioned composting: Composting produces significantly
| lower amounts of greenhouse gasses compared to simply letting
| the food decompose in a trash heap:
| https://www.sanjoseca.gov/home/showpublisheddocument?id=198
| whaleblubber wrote:
| What do 8 billion people do with 50 billion tons of bananas?
| Seems like most sources in Google are citing ~115 million tons
| of bananas produced per year a few years ago.
|
| http://www.fao.org/economic/est/est-commodities/bananas/bana...
| ineedasername wrote:
| Take a look at the report you linked to, it's the one I used:
| _" Approximately 50 billion tonnes of Cavendish bananas are
| produced globally every year."_
|
| Yes, other sources are taking between 80 to 115 million, but
| if I have to choose the UN over National Geographic, I'm
| choosing the UN source. though I acknowledge that the UN
| could still have had a typo.
| [deleted]
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Another key weakness here, imo, is there isn't really anything
| actionable about this?
|
| People have to eat. How do we cut down emissions from food
| waste?
| korethr wrote:
| There is. The main thing is reducing one's food waste in
| general. That requires some mindfulness with regard to one's
| food purchasing, storage, preparation, and disposal habits.
| Unfortunately, IMO, not everyone seems able or willing to do
| so.
|
| For those who can and are willing, there are a number of
| things you can do as an individual. They mainly come down to
| the three Rs environmentalists would have us apply to our
| waste stream in general: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, ideally in
| that order.
|
| Reduce: Focus on right-sizing your purchasing of perishables,
| so to minimize the amount of spoilage you have to throw away.
| Also work on right-sizing the amount of food you prepare, to
| minimize the amount of leftovers you have to throw away.
| Taking the time to do some meal planning for the week can
| help with this.
|
| Deliberately purchase the ugly perishables in the grocery
| store. Often, meat near its sell-by date and misshapen
| vegetable produce are heavily discounted to incentivize its
| purchase so the store doesn't have to throw it away. Said
| discounted perishables are often perfectly functional. The
| lopsided apple still tastes like apple. You were going to
| marinate that flank steak anyway, which turns beef brownish
| in color, so who cares if a corner of it is turning from red
| to brown? Have means of preservation and storage can also
| help. Fruits can be dehydrated and turned from a perishable
| to a non-perishable that can be stored long term. Even a
| small chest freezer lets you keep the meat you know you won't
| get to this week.
|
| Reuse: Find ways to recook your leftovers. Still have a
| chicken breast from dinner a couple days ago? Shredded
| chicken enchiladas. Instant ramen is kind of boring. Instant
| ramen with the leftover porkchop chopped up and mixed in is
| not only less boring flavor-wise, but is also more
| nutritious. The ham from Easter dinner makes a fine addition
| to the morning omlet.
|
| Also the not-directly-edible portions of many foods can be
| put to use. Citrus rinds can be dried and used as a spice for
| appropriate recipes, or to add some extra flavor to your
| green tea. Meat bones can be boiled or simmered to make a
| broth or stock that can serve as the base for soups, gravies,
| and other foods. The pits of stone fruit can be roasted to
| destroy the cyanide-producing compounds and turn the kernels
| into a nutty snack. And so on.
|
| Recycle: Your spoilage and non-edibles can be composted. This
| is actually better than the landfill. The decomposition that
| happens in a landfill is largely anerobic, and produces
| methane and other gases that have higher global warming
| potential than CO2. The decomposition that happens in a
| compost pile is aerobic. Yes, aerobic decomposition _does_
| emit CO2, but not all of the carbon added to the pile becomes
| CO2. A good deal of it becomes sequestered in the produced
| compost.
|
| Even if you don't have the space to compost your food waste
| because you live in an apartment, you can still compost. Odds
| are, there's one or more compost collective in your city that
| will be happy to collect your food waste on the regular and
| provide a bin for you to use.
| bratcomplex wrote:
| -take what you need. Need more? get more.
|
| -eat within growing seasons. bananas in Greenland have a much
| larger distance to travel, loss of stock increases.
|
| -aesthetics, a wonky looking apple is less likely to make it
| into the grocery store(even if taste and nutritional value is
| no different)
| f6v wrote:
| > take what you need
|
| Considering how bad many people are at managing their
| finances(USA credit card debt, I'm looking at you), it's no
| wonder people buy groceries that end up in the waste bin.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| People in general aren't very good at two things:
|
| Distinguishing needs from wants
|
| and
|
| Estimating how much of something is necessary to fulfill
| a need.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| The stores sell things in goofy amounts to promote waste
| dehrmann wrote:
| > bananas in Greenland have a much larger distance to
| travel, loss of stock increases.
|
| Bananas everywhere not tropical have this issue, but
| they're also picked very green and ripened locally.
| Container shipping is very efficient, so I'm not sure if
| this is really a problem. It's even possible that if you
| live near a major port, bananas have fewer emissions than
| apples that were trucked 400 miles.
| teachrdan wrote:
| Container ships are more efficient than trucks when
| measuring CO2 emissions, not so much by other emissions.
| The problem is that they use high sulfur "bunker oil"
| fuel. At least with trucks there is a clear path to
| electrification via renewable means; I don't know that
| there's a similar path for electrifying container ships
| due to the logistics involved.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_shi
| ppi...
| shreyansj wrote:
| Sounds like removing trucks in the logistics chain as
| much as possible is the better option then? The trucks'
| parts and/or fuel (or crude) is also getting shipped
| using bunker oil fuel.
| scatters wrote:
| It's worth electrifying truck transport because truck
| engines have to be reasonably compact and trucks
| generally don't go far from the electrical grid so can
| recharge whenever necessary (and possibly in future while
| driving).
|
| For a container ship this is inverted, so I'd expect
| CO2-neutral shipping to use minimally-processed biofuel
| in a turbine power plant. Or nuclear, of course.
| slt2021 wrote:
| trucks do not replace container ships, bananas are
| boarded on ships at tropical countries and delivered to
| ports worldwide and then trucked to in-land warehouses.
| kritiko wrote:
| I've heard that the "wonky looking" stuff typically gets
| processed into other products - apple sauce, e.g. and that
| some of those defects can actually increase the likelihood
| of a whole container developing mold.
|
| https://twitter.com/sarahtaber_bww/status/10860550932444323
| 8...
| jeherr wrote:
| Baby carrots are cut from bigger ugly looking carrots is
| another example.
| HDMI_Cable wrote:
| Your argument is still valid, but I don't think 50 _Billion_
| tons are produced every year. That would be 50 /8 = ~6 tons of
| bananas per person per year.
|
| If one banana weighs 120 grammes [1], then 6 tons / 120 grammes
| = 5000 bananas per year. I'm not sure that the average person
| eats 13 bananas a day.
|
| --- [1]: https://whatthingsweigh.com/how-much-does-a-banana-
| weigh/
| ineedasername wrote:
| Yes, I can't edit it though. Unfortunately, I got my 50B
| number from another UN report
| (http://www.fao.org/economic/est/est-
| commodities/bananas/bana...) which in retrospect is maybe not
| the best source when the issue at hand is a different
| inaccurate UN report. Other sources place it somewhere around
| 80 to 150 million tons.
| missedthecue wrote:
| They don't. It's just that I eat 425,000 bananas a day so it
| pushes up the average.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Any negative side-effects from the chronic radiation
| exposure?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose
| akiselev wrote:
| Potassium toxicity would be a problem long before the
| radiation. You'd need to eat 400 bananas a day to
| eventually die from it which would be at most a ~50
| _micro_ Sievert/day exposure. Occupational exposure
| limits are in the range of 50 _milli_ Sieverts in one
| year or 100 mS cumulative total over five years. Four
| thousand bananas in one day would probably kill an adult
| due to potassium but only expose them to ~20 mS if they
| ate 4k bananas a day for a year.
|
| _> High, acute potassium intakes have been associated
| with symptoms related to neuromuscular dysfunction,
| including weakness, paralysis, nausea, vomiting, and
| diarrhea. These symptoms, however, do not consistently
| develop prior to life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias._
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK545424/
|
| That said, radioactive isotopes that make it into the
| digestive tract are far more dangerous than external
| exposure (and then again, the potassium isotopes aren't
| accumulated so it might be a wash)
| nikanj wrote:
| Every other week I see a headline about $thing being responsible
| for $percentage of global emissions. The total global emissions,
| based on these headlines, must be well over 500%.
| stephen_g wrote:
| I thought that too. But, thinking about it, a lot of things do
| overlap. For example, part of the CO2 associated with unused
| food would be transport (so fossil fuel for a lot of it),
| storage (refrigeration, so electricity) etc. so would show up
| in those stats too.
| hinkley wrote:
| Definitely.
|
| Don't forget lights for human workers, concrete for
| buildings, and fossil-fuel derived fertilizers.
| guerrilla wrote:
| That's because you're adding and not unioning. There are many
| intersections.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| A perk of rural life - you can throw every scrap of food to the
| pigs and they convert it to a tasty dish one year later.
| adrianN wrote:
| Yeah, meat in moderation can actually reduce emissions because
| animals can use resources that would otherwise just go to
| waste. It's unfortunate that our meat consumption is so
| drastically above that threshold that we use giant agricultural
| areas just to provide feed for our animals.
| shafyy wrote:
| No, there no possible scenario where any animal livestock
| reduces GHG emissions. It's basic physics.
| goda90 wrote:
| Which do you think affects GHG emission more? A rich
| grassland with multiple feet of biologically active, carbon
| rich soil, or a desert? Proper herd grazing is a part of
| healthy grasslands as the animals trample plants and poop
| everywhere before moving to a new area to graze, creating
| plenty of soil.
| adrianN wrote:
| Of course there is. Keeping a couple of goats that live off
| a natural pasture provides calories for humans that
| otherwise would have to be provided by something else.
| Keeping a pig that mostly lives off food waste has a
| similar effect.
| shafyy wrote:
| Planting something that you can eat directly for the
| calories on that land area would be better (or don't
| touch it and let it sequester carbon, and plant somewhere
| else that's more suited).
|
| If you feed the goat 100 calories, there is no way you
| get back 100 calories.
| shafyy wrote:
| @adrianN: You are talking about what is called marginal
| land in agriculture and environmental science. Recent
| research shows that even marginal land has a better GHG
| balance when left untouched and not grazed by livestock
|
| It's always better plant and eat the food directly than
| to feed it to an animal.
|
| Of course, if you're in a scenario where you live on a
| small island with no connection to the outside world, and
| you only have marginal land, yes, you need might need to
| have livestock to survive. But that's not what we're
| talking about here.
| adrianN wrote:
| That is interesting. Do you have a link to that research?
| shafyy wrote:
| Here's a good study on carbon opportunity cost of land: h
| ttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4.epdf?sh
| ar...
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Of course marginal land which is left untouched has no
| monetary or food value. What is the value of the
| difference between grazed and ungrazed? Is it enough to
| justify paying people to leave it fallow?
| adrianN wrote:
| Many areas can sustain goats but can't sustain
| agriculture. Goats can also eat stuff that is inedible to
| humans, for example the parts of wheat an corn that are
| not the grains. A lot of plant matter that has zero
| calories for humans has >0 calories for ruminants.
| imtringued wrote:
| Commercial grazing tends to overgraze which is worse in
| the long run.
| adrianN wrote:
| Sustainable meat production is probably extremely far
| from commercially viable.
| choeger wrote:
| That absolute statement is absolutely false. Say, I have a
| chicken that can be feed from left-over bread or wheat. I
| can store the wheat basically indefinitely, so there is no
| spoilage. Also, I cannot use wheat directly, so it is
| unusable calories for me. But I cannot store bread for very
| long, so there is spoilage. Now, using the chicken, I can
| convert the spoiled bread into eggs and meat, useful
| calories for me.
|
| Say 10% of the calories produced for me at a human go to
| waste. And I can convert them at 25% efficiency to usable
| calories via a chicken. Then I have just increased the
| yield of usable calories by 2.5%. In consequence, I need to
| buy less and thus emissions can be reduced.
| TollingSteady wrote:
| > In consequence, I need to buy less and thus emissions
| can be reduced.
|
| You're not taking into account that, by virtue of being
| an animal taking in oxygen and creating carbon dioxide /
| other pollutants, the chicken itself is contributing to
| greenhouse gas emissions.
|
| The question is, in real life, are the bonus calories we
| get from animal farming efficient enough so as to be
| worth those greenhouse gases? Given the massive GHG
| emissions of animal agriculture, it doesn't seem so.
|
| Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your example, though:
| feedback appreciated
| mrob wrote:
| Bread typically becomes "stale" (texture change due to
| internal moisture redistribution) before it spoils
| (usually by mold growth). Stale bread is still edible,
| and there are recipes that prefer it over fresh bread,
| e.g. bread pudding and bread sauce. It does not have to
| be fed to chickens to avoid wasting it.
|
| And wheat can be converted to pasta, which can be stored
| for years, and can be easily made edible by brief
| cooking. You can reduce wastage of wheat to negligible
| levels, and chicken farming has non-zero overhead, so it
| seems unlikely that the chickens are an efficiency win if
| you take reasonable care.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| It's pretty reductionist to look at this from a pure
| calorie input / output point of view. Keeping a few
| pastured chickens to feed food waste can provide pest
| control in a garden, an additional source of nutrition
| for people (which is a complete protein) and a rich
| fertilizer from their waste.
| kypro wrote:
| Why don't we tax meat more given it really should be
| considered a luxury and that it's so expensive when you
| consider the damage it inflicts in the form of global
| warming?
|
| Is it simply that politically it would be extremely
| controversial to raise taxes on meat? In Europe we have very
| high taxes on petrol and petrol is universally used. It could
| also be argued that its use is beneficial to economic
| productivity too, yet that seems to be accepted by most
| people. So why can't we do the same for meat?
| adrianN wrote:
| Imho we just need a carbon tax levied directly where the
| fuels are dug out of the soil that ramps up for a couple of
| years until we can make it equal to the price of carbon
| sequestration. That doesn't account for things like Methane
| from livestock, but it's a step in the right direction and
| politically much easier than taking away meat from people.
| elil17 wrote:
| It wouldn't even be that hard to account for methane from
| livestock. We've got really got GHG monitoring technology
| which could audit farms.
| seanwilson wrote:
| This isn't efficient at all though (and the reason why
| industrial farmed animals fed on crops aren't efficient
| either):
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_efficiency#Ten_perc...
|
| > When organisms are consumed, approximately 10% of the energy
| in the food is fixed into their flesh and is available for next
| trophic level (carnivores or omnivores). When a carnivore or an
| omnivore in turn consumes that animal, only about 10% of energy
| is fixed in its flesh for the higher level.
| supernova87a wrote:
| I'm sure it will be straightforward to get people to buy only
| exactly what they think they will consume. Or a little less.
| That's pretty easy.
|
| Oh, and also making sure that they eat absolutely everything they
| bring home or be charged penalties by the garbage man.
|
| Those with children know that the kids can help estimate and
| reduce waste with even higher accuracy.
|
| And given our experience with having to convince people to take a
| life-saving vaccine once, I anticipate no issues in regulating
| their activities having to do with the private hour by hour
| things they do multiple times per day.
| vlfig wrote:
| Aside from the click-baity article, the actual report puts
| emphasis on the quality of the existing data about food waste. A
| bit of an "let's measure this first" attitude, which is a bit of
| a let down to me.
|
| "Food waste means all of the environmental impacts of food
| production without any of the benefits of people being fed." --
| it reads, and I think it misses an important point: leaving food
| waste to rot with the rest of the rubbish is in itself
| environmentally damaging while using it for composting, feeding
| larvae or both, is immensely beneficial.
|
| I'd like to see more practical recommendations for what we
| already know we can do about food waste. And not just about
| reducing it, which is more easily said than done, but also about
| giving it a proper goodbye.
| aero-glide2 wrote:
| The fashion industry is responsible for 10 per cent of annual
| global carbon emissions. Which is 4 times that of all aviation.
| krageon wrote:
| And it's entirely unimportant, which aviation definitely is
| not.
| twic wrote:
| Does "fashion industry" mean just Gucci handbags, or all
| clothes? Because i think the latter is not entirely
| unimportant.
| FredPret wrote:
| Why are Gucci handbags unimportant? Because they don't
| matter _to you_?
|
| It takes all kinds to run a civilization, and fashion is
| critical to a large portion of the population.
| eggsmediumrare wrote:
| The fashion industry at this point is dominated by the fast
| fashion industry, which definitely doesn't need to exist.
| kube-system wrote:
| I don't need pants from H&M, but I need pants from
| _somewhere_. Maybe the emissions are higher than
| necessary, but people do need to buy clothes
| occasionally.
|
| I'm not so sure that fast-fashion is entirely bad,
| either. Lower clothing prices have also been very
| beneficial for clothing the poor. Fast fashion is more of
| a cultural side-effect of the fact that clothing is now
| affordable. Before that, people who could regularly
| afford new clothes were just called 'wealthy'.
| krageon wrote:
| While there is room for nuanced points to be made here, I
| was operating under the impression that we don't say
| someone in a basement fabbing a t-shirt is working in the
| "fashion industry". What's left is the parasites that
| design expensive handbags and dresses made of plastic,
| being sustained by FOMO and preying on institutionalised
| insecurity.
|
| That's leaving aside the fact that the way it treats it's
| models is plainly reprehensible, because the same case can
| be made for the sweatshop workers that end up crafting the
| clothes themselves.
| thanatos519 wrote:
| You can do something -- where I live, this app is amazing:
| https://toogoodtogo.org/
|
| My family has been saving piles of money with this, and getting
| all sorts of interesting food that would otherwise have gone to
| waste.
| leugim wrote:
| I have the feeling that you can criticize most of things from the
| point of emissions.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Another garbage paper that thinks "food waste" exists on that
| scale, and everything isn't recycled into further productive
| stages.
|
| How many times does this have to be debunked until it goes away?
| The plural of "bad science" isn't "good science".
| eggsmediumrare wrote:
| Can you elaborate? As far as I can tell, we're not really
| composting at any sort of scale. We're not feeding wasted
| produce to livestock. Not sure what you're talking about.
| gruez wrote:
| >We're not feeding wasted produce to livestock.
|
| They don't? A 5s google search reveals this document
|
| https://www.fda.gov/files/about%20fda/published/Recycled-
| Org...
|
| >Recently, State Veterinarians and State Feed Program
| Managers have been approached by waste management firms that
| intend to use recycled organic waste from large wholesalers,
| distributors, and retailers as animal feed
|
| ...and this: https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-
| food/reduce-waste...
| necrobrit wrote:
| I'm not convinced you read your own links.
|
| 1. Is a report on the need to evaluate how prevalent the
| practice of recycling food scraps from manufacturing as
| feed actually is, as apparently the FDA (or the author of
| the report anyway) doesn't have access to good data on the
| topic.
|
| 2. Is advice that appears to be targeted at large
| institutions that want to _start_ recycling... doesn't
| really say much about the prevalence except that it isn't a
| novel idea.
|
| Plus, the original article says: > Individual households
| were responsible for more than half of that, with the rest
| coming from retailers and the food service industry.
| gruez wrote:
| >1. Is a report on the need to evaluate how prevalent the
| practice of recycling food scraps from manufacturing as
| feed actually is, as apparently the FDA (or the author of
| the report anyway) doesn't have access to good data on
| the topic.
|
| limited information on safety, not limited information on
| whether the practice is being done.
|
| >2. Is advice that appears to be targeted at large
| institutions that want to _start_ recycling... doesn't
| really say much about the prevalence except that it isn't
| a novel idea.
|
| No, the bottom of the page lists examples of businesses
| doing it on a large scale.
|
| Moreover, the original comment claimed "We're not feeding
| wasted produce to livestock", which implies we weren't
| doing it at all, which the previous two links clearly
| disprove.
| harperlee wrote:
| As Bloomberg was too lazy to provide a link to the actual report,
| here it is: https://www.unep.org/resources/report/unep-food-
| waste-index-...
| tpmx wrote:
| "Estimates suggest that 8-10% of global greenhouse gas
| emissions are associated with food that is not consumed." (page
| 20, note that it's just a reference to another paper)
|
| "This suggests that 17 per cent of total global food production
| may be wasted" (page 8)
|
| That would imply food is responsible for 47-59% of global
| greenhouse gas emissions which seems unrealistic.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/food-ghg-emissions
|
| "Food is responsible for approximately 26% of global GHG
| emissions."
|
| Working backwards from that number: Food waste (17%) would be
| responsible for 4.4% of global GHG emissions.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I'm not claiming this as fact, but it seems sensible enough
| that those products which have the shortest shelf life (meat,
| dairy etc) also have the highest greenhouse gas emissions.
| harperlee wrote:
| Take into account that they are measuring how much food emits
| when it rots, but not how much food captures when it grows.
| The net effect might be smaller.
|
| Another thing that might be happening is that they take into
| account the emissions of its transportation via
| intercontinental ships, trucks, etc.
| the-dude wrote:
| They are not lazy, they'll do anything to keep you on their
| premises.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Never attribute to sloth that which is adequately explained
| by the profit incentive.
| cwwc wrote:
| Thanks!
| supermatt wrote:
| Why are there no integrated anaerobic digesters for home biogas
| production? I have a small home-made one and its truly surprising
| how much gas is generated that can be used for cooking and
| running a small generator
| boplicity wrote:
| Maybe there needs to be a startup that provides such a product
| ;)
| eptcyka wrote:
| Tell me more.
| New_California wrote:
| Ban food and Bitcoin.
| adolph wrote:
| The below is a wonderful podcast talking about food waste in the
| larger context:
|
| _Historian Rachel Laudan talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts
| about food waste. Laudan argues that there are tradeoffs in
| preventing food waste--in reduced time for example, or a
| reduction in food security, and that these tradeoffs need to be
| measured carefully when considering policy or giving advice to
| individuals or organizations. She also discusses the role of food
| taboos and moralizing about food._
|
| https://www.econtalk.org/rachel-laudan-on-food-waste/
|
| See also "Its a Wonderful Loaf":
|
| https://wonderfulloaf.org/
|
| _"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how
| little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
| To the naive mind that can conceive of order only as the product
| of deliberate arrangement, it may seem absurd that in complex
| conditions order, and adaptation to the unknown, can be achieved
| more effectively by decentralizing decisions and that a division
| of authority will actually extend the possibility of overall
| order. Yet that decentralization actually leads to more
| information being taken into account."_ --F. A. Hayek
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6867865-the-curious-task-of...
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| All my food, except rice, are fruit-legumes leftovers/damaged,
| free or 50%, collected at several groceries and producers. I also
| forage fruits in the "wild" (residential areas, road sides)
| Havoc wrote:
| I struggle to understand food waste numbers frankly.
|
| Not counting off-cuts & things that turn out to be bad on day of
| purchase mine is functionally zero. Buy it & eat it. Not that
| hard.
|
| The packaging situation on the other hand makes me hang my head
| in shame. So much plastic. Throw it in recycle sure but idk
| fastball wrote:
| I think it's mostly coming from the restaurant industry, where
| there is a lot more waste at both ends.
| kube-system wrote:
| Those are exactly the types of things that "food waste" refers
| to. Also, it includes anything that goes bad before you ever
| get it.
| stdbrouw wrote:
| It's important to note that (1) the report uses a very liberal
| definition of food waste, that is, it includes inedible portions
| of foods such as pits, rinds and bones and (2) it does not
| account for the destination, so if you compost the peels of an
| apple or feed them to your chickens, that too is food waste, as
| another commenter mentioned.
|
| FWIW, at a first glance, I think the report [1] looks well-
| executed and talks about a lot of quite subtle aspects of food
| waste, e.g. it breaks everything down by sector and by where in
| the supply chain waste occurs, and it acknowledges cultural
| aspects to food waste such as whether we consider bones or skins
| to be edible or inedible. It's just that its main goal is to
| provide indicators of how well different countries fare in
| reducing food waste and for that purpose the absolute numbers
| matter much less than how much the indicator changes over time.
|
| The absolute number could never be zero anyway, because you'd
| need a perfect just-in-time supply chain, refrigeration that
| never breaks down, predictable crop yields that don't vary too
| much from year to year, we'd have to eat at restaurants that have
| machines for zero-trim prep and high turnover so consumption is
| stable, and so on... all of which would be incredibly costly in
| other ways, so it doesn't make sense to focus on the raw stats,
| except as an intellectual exercise. It's similar to the numbers
| you sometimes see about the environmental impact of Portland
| cement production, which of course is huge, but that's simply
| because of the huge quantities that are produced given how
| important it is to modern construction.
|
| As a result, though, the report does not translate well to
| newspaper headlines that want to present just one (preferably
| shocking) number. Admittedly, the 8-10% comes straight from the
| executive summary itself, so there's that...
|
| [1] https://www.unep.org/resources/report/unep-food-waste-
| index-...
| [deleted]
| kfk wrote:
| I got really deep into black soldier flies at some point and I
| can't understand why we are not turning organic waste into fly
| larvae. Larvae are 80%+ fat which means biodiesel + expensive
| chemical compounds like chitin. On the other end if you are
| processing industrial organic waste (supermarket waste included)
| according to EU laws since 2017 you can use those larvae as
| fish/chicke/pig/etc. feed. Using insects as feed would help
| reduce CO2 and other negative of fish and soy beans. I am sure I
| am missing something?
| hinkley wrote:
| Furthermore, why are we feeding tiny dinosaurs all-grain diets
| when they should be getting vegetables and bugs?
|
| I won't eat BSF, but I've no problem eating chicken or pork
| that's been eating them.
| twic wrote:
| Black soldier flies are definitely cool. You put eggs or small
| larvae in a bin full of food waste, and when the larvae are
| fully grown, they crawl out of the bin and feed themselves to
| your chickens:
|
| https://www.hobbyfarms.com/black-soldier-flies-free-self-har...
| eric4smith wrote:
| As a side note...
|
| Here in Bangkok, the street dogs are so fat from all the wasted
| food, that they have become incredibly picky and really, don't
| give two f*cks.
|
| They're so fat and lazy that you have to literally walk over some
| of them on the streets.
|
| On the other hand, the dogs further away from restaurants and off
| the beaten path depend on people coming to feed them. So they are
| a bit more svelte.
|
| And by golly, people have daily feedings of the "Soi" dogs.
|
| So thats the one benefit of excess food, at least here.
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