The "Myth" of Sustainable Meat?

at the very least, Mr. Salatin talks a good game. I'm not personally fond of his alliteration shtick, but he's certainly an articulate guy.

Colin Fontaine wrote:There is no sustainable meat because not everyone can eat grass fed pasture meat or poultry, we have passed that point. We must either lower our consumption of meat or lower the population or both.

I don't think that has been proven sufficiently to make a statement like that as a fact. If permaculture and other natural farming techniques are more productive than industrial farming (which has been demonstrated) and regenerate the Earth rather than destroying it (which is evident) then there is no reason these techniques can't provide everyone with a healthy diet including meat. Meat itself is not the problem, in my opinion, but how it is produced. There is no proof, in my opinion, that not everyone can eat pastured meat or poultry.

He's saying that we eat too much meat and have too many people. There simply isn't enough space to raise enough sustainable meat for everyone in the country to continue to eat so much of it. I think that is a fair statement and that there is plenty of evidence to show this to be correct. Permaculture is more productive than industrial agriculture as a whole, which includes produce. There is no way to say a permaculture farm can produce more meat than that of a feed lot.

Tyler Ludens wrote:

Colin Fontaine wrote:There is no sustainable meat because not everyone can eat grass fed pasture meat or poultry, we have passed that point. We must either lower our consumption of meat or lower the population or both.

I don't think that has been proven sufficiently to make a statement like that as a fact. If permaculture and other natural farming techniques are more productive than industrial farming (which has been demonstrated) and regenerate the Earth rather than destroying it (which is evident) then there is no reason these techniques can't provide everyone with a healthy diet including meat. Meat itself is not the problem, in my opinion, but how it is produced. There is no proof, in my opinion, that not everyone can eat pastured meat or poultry.

agreed. I think there may be a quantity issue, though, too. that is to say, everyone who wants to could conceivably eat meat without causing a problem, but I don't believe everyone who wants to could eat as much meat as they want without causing problems. so I would say it isn't just how it's produced, but also how much is produced. I'm open to arguments to the contrary, though, and wouldn't be too surprised to find out that I'm wrong.

it is my belief, after years of growing both animal and plant food, that plant food is more efficient by land area than animal food. that's whether they're produced separately or together. that's also including all inputs. it's also my belief that they are both more efficient when grown in an integrated way than separately. this is heavily biased toward my own climate and dirt, which I make no apologies for. from my (fairly educated and experienced) point of view, combined animal and plant production with the balance leaning toward plant food is the way to go. maybe, or probably, this is not the case everywhere in the world. and I am, of course, still learning and improving both animal and plant production (and fungus). I may find out in the future that animals end up a better deal, but things aren't trending that way.

John Seay wrote:He's saying that we eat too much meat and have too many people. There simply isn't enough space to raise enough sustainable meat for everyone in the country to continue to eat so much of it. I think that is a fair statement and that there is plenty of evidence to show this to be correct. Permaculture is more productive than industrial agriculture as a whole, which includes produce. There is no way to say a permaculture farm can produce more meat than that of a feed lot.

I don't think there is "plenty of evidence." Feedlot cattle spend most of their lives on grass, they are not born and raised in a feedlot. Food for feedlot animals comes from the land. The land does not magically produce more food simply because it does not have animals on it, quite the contrary, such land used to produce grains requires many more inputs than grassfed. There is plenty of space to raise grassfed because it is a more efficient use of the land. We may eat too much BAD meat, but there's no reason we can't eat an appropriate quantity of good meat, in my opinion. "Too many people" is an esthetic judgment often made by people who don't like other people. There is strong evidence for too many people living and eating the way we do now*, but we do not know the carrying capacity of the land for people living a different way, including permacultural and other natural meat-raising practices.

* http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/world_footprint/

tel jetson wrote: I think there may be a quantity issue, though, too. that is to say, everyone who wants to could conceivably eat meat without causing a problem, but I don't believe everyone who wants to could eat as much meat as they want without causing problems.

I agree, there may be limits to how much meat each individual could eat. A smaller quantity of healthy meat would be more nutritionally and ecologically appropriate than the current enormous quantity of low-quality meat many people consume. Much of this low-quality meat is over-processed (fast-food, pre-cooked, etc) , further enlarging its ecological footprint and rendering it even less sustainable than a similar quantity of good quality meat.

Abe Connally wrote:
1/3 of all food that gets to the plates of Americans goes to the trash. And before it ever gets to those plates, half of it is thrown away en route. But, we can turn that trash into treasure through the incorporation of waste streams into our food systems.

I think about this stuff a lot. particularly on my trips around town to pick up coffee grounds and restaurant waste, or when I get a load of wood chips from a tree service. it clearly makes sense to make use of waste streams. there is, though, at least one negative consequence of doing so.

by collecting this waste, I'm making it easier for the folks producing the waste. the coffee shop no longer has to pay to dispose of their grounds. now importing and selling coffee from all over the world is a little bit cheaper, so probably happens just a tiny bit more. the restaurant no longer has to pay to dispose of their waste. they can charge a bit less for their food, or increase the size of the portions, and more waste is the result. if I don't take the wood chips, the tree service has to pay a tipping fee to dump them. now, it's cheaper for them to operate, it's cheaper for the local utility to hire them, so utilities are cheaper to deliver and consumption goes up. basically, I'm removing a disincentive to waste. it's not huge, and I think the benefits far outweigh the negative consequences, but it's a real issue. that's on the wasters side.

the other issue is on my side. if I'm living the good life taking advantage of other folks' waste, I now have a personal interest in those other folks continuing to be wasteful. I've heard this explicitly from a handful of dumpster divers who complained when groceries started composting programs or otherwise reduced the amount of good stuff going into a dumpster. certainly not a universal attitude, but a real one all the same.

I want to be clear that I'm not trying to discourage use of these waste streams. I think wherever waste can be usefully diverted from landfills, it should be. I do, however, think we should keep these things in mind so we don't fall into a potential trap. and I personally would not claim to be producing in a truly sustainable manner if I'm relying on other folks operating in a way that is not remotely sustainable. that is exactly the situation I'm in right now, and I've come to sort of uneasy terms with it. it's a bit of a challenge to navigate this stuff mentally and ethically, but I think it's worth giving it a shot.

Tyler Ludens wrote:

tel jetson wrote: I think there may be a quantity issue, though, too. that is to say, everyone who wants to could conceivably eat meat without causing a problem, but I don't believe everyone who wants to could eat as much meat as they want without causing problems.

I agree, there may be limits to how much meat each individual could eat. A smaller quantity of healthy meat would be more nutritionally and ecologically appropriate than the current enormous quantity of low-quality meat many people consume. Much of this low-quality meat is over-processed (fast-food, pre-cooked, etc) , further enlarging its ecological footprint and rendering it even less sustainable than a similar quantity of good quality meat.

In my opinion, the answer is not less meat, but rather a greater variety of meat produced by more people. If everyone had rabbits that mowed and fertilized thier lawn, and chickens eating table scraps and bugs. These two small steps easily taken in a city would make a huge impact. And both of these are waste streams that exist in almost every house. If we started stacking functions and living a permaculture life style I am convinced that the earth could easily support twice the people with plenty of room for wildlife still.

tel jetson wrote: the other issue is on my side. if I'm living the good life taking advantage of other folks' waste, I now have a personal interest in those other folks continuing to be wasteful. I've heard this explicitly from a handful of dumpster divers who complained when groceries started composting programs or otherwise reduced the amount of good stuff going into a dumpster. certainly not a universal attitude, but a real one all the same.

And I have heard the same from my veggie/bio diesel friends. "What do you mean you want me to PAY for your waste oil?!?" The entitlement mentality sets in FAST (guilty myself).

Tyler Ludens wrote:

John Seay wrote:He's saying that we eat too much meat and have too many people. There simply isn't enough space to raise enough sustainable meat for everyone in the country to continue to eat so much of it. I think that is a fair statement and that there is plenty of evidence to show this to be correct. Permaculture is more productive than industrial agriculture as a whole, which includes produce. There is no way to say a permaculture farm can produce more meat than that of a feed lot.

I don't think there is "plenty of evidence." Feedlot cattle spend most of their lives on grass, they are not born and raised in a feedlot. Food for feedlot animals comes from the land. The land does not magically produce more food simply because it does not have animals on it, quite the contrary, such land used to produce grains requires many more inputs than grassfed. There is plenty of space to raise grassfed because it is a more efficient use of the land. We may eat too much BAD meat, but there's no reason we can't eat an appropriate quantity of good meat, in my opinion. "Too many people" is an esthetic judgment often made by people who don't like other people. There is strong evidence for too many people living and eating the way we do now*, but we do not know the carrying capacity of the land for people living a different way, including permacultural and other natural meat-raising practices.

* http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/world_footprint/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_pLy7Gjlww

It's clear in this video here that feedlot cattle are fed waste products so it actually requires less land to feed them than if there were just given strictly grains.

Colin Fontaine wrote:I find the real problem here is trying to supply billions of people with sufficient meat for their diet.

Meat was originally hunted and that was the only source, population is limited by food. With the advent of industrial farming there came industrial meat. There is no sustainable meat because not everyone can eat grass fed pasture meat or poultry, we have passed that point. We must either lower our consumption of meat or lower the population or both.

we've already talked about that issue further up the thread, if you want to browse through things. Most folks aren't trying to grow food for billions of people, be it meat or plants, we're growing food for our families and communities. If more people took that approach, then the problem of feeding "billions of people with sufficient meat for their diet" would take care of itself. The question is not "can it be done?", it is "why aren't we doing it?"

I think it is completely possible to give everyone access to sustainable meat. Just from a practical point of view, there is enough grass, enough weeds, enough land to make it happen, we're just not using it in a sustainable, efficient way.

The US throws away more than half of the food/biomass it produces. So, right there, if we managed our waste streams in a better way, we could support 50% more people on the exact same land and inputs that we are currently using. There is a lot of room for improvement, especially in terms of optimizing waste streams and nutrient cycling. Further up the thread, I illustrate how we could produce meat from waste streams, and even if my figures are off significantly, we are still coming out with a whole lot more food without additional inputs.

As Boyd illustrated above, if one person in every neighborhood in the country raised rabbits in their backyards, then yes, we could all have access to grassfed, sustainable meat. There are plenty of lawns that are not growing food, we might as well put them into production.

tel jetson wrote:
by collecting this waste, I'm making it easier for the folks producing the waste. the coffee shop no longer has to pay to dispose of their grounds. now importing and selling coffee from all over the world is a little bit cheaper, so probably happens just a tiny bit more. the restaurant no longer has to pay to dispose of their waste. they can charge a bit less for their food, or increase the size of the portions, and more waste is the result. if I don't take the wood chips, the tree service has to pay a tipping fee to dump them. now, it's cheaper for them to operate, it's cheaper for the local utility to hire them, so utilities are cheaper to deliver and consumption goes up. basically, I'm removing a disincentive to waste. it's not huge, and I think the benefits far outweigh the negative consequences, but it's a real issue. that's on the wasters side.

the other issue is on my side. if I'm living the good life taking advantage of other folks' waste, I now have a personal interest in those other folks continuing to be wasteful. I've heard this explicitly from a handful of dumpster divers who complained when groceries started composting programs or otherwise reduced the amount of good stuff going into a dumpster. certainly not a universal attitude, but a real one all the same.

That is a very good point, and I'm glad you brought it up. I am often offered money to take advantage of people's waste streams. Maybe we shouldn't be doing this for free. Maybe it would be better if we were charging a tipping fee, though a bit less than the landfill. This would make most of my projects highly profitable, and I really don't know of many people that get paid to give their animals free food.

I know a lot of the big compost operations in the hip cities charge for dumping organic waste, though their fees are usually lower than the alternatives. So, maybe there is a happy medium somewhere where we don't let big wasters completely off the hook, yet we are still able to collect their waste streams without encouraging them to waste more. This would also prevent them from seeking out alternative methods for disposal, as you have provided a good service (publicity) for less money.

Ok, so I'm going to start a multi-national corporation called WasteStreamtm that buys waste from operations, then sells that waste to other operations. I'll be a garbage agent, and don't start laughing, cause I think it would be a very profitable business.

This does happen at certain scales, sometimes. I have seen brewers waste bought by middle men and then sold to grain/feed mills. The middle men are getting paid twice for the same product/service, and they do good when feed prices rise and when they fall, too.

Shawn Harper wrote:
In my opinion, the answer is not less meat, but rather a greater variety of meat produced by more people. If everyone had rabbits that mowed and fertilized thier lawn, and chickens eating table scraps and bugs. These two small steps easily taken in a city would make a huge impact. And both of these are waste streams that exist in almost every house. If we started stacking functions and living a permaculture life style I am convinced that the earth could easily support twice the people with plenty of room for wildlife still.

I don't think we have to go as far as saying that everyone could do it. We just need one family in every neighborhood producing some food. Even with my inefficient, backwards ways, I still grow enough meat for 5-6 families, and I spend less than 4 hours a week doing anything with the animals. That's decent return, and just think of how much food I could produce if I was paying attention!

So, that's where we should start. We're not here to get everyone raising rabbits and chickens, we're here to get that first family in each neighborhood. Once you meet that goal, everything else will fall into place.

Shawn Harper wrote: chickens eating table scraps and bugs.

I'd have to produce a heck of a lot more table scraps and bugs to produce much chicken for the table. I'm not saying it can't be done, just, I would like to see more examples (here on the board) of folks who are raising meat chickens on table scraps (their own, not from a restaurant, etc) and bugs. I'm interested in practical examples of this actually being accomplished.

John Seay wrote: There simply isn't enough space to raise enough sustainable meat for everyone in the country to continue to eat so much of it.

This point keeps coming up in discussions like this, so I think we need to test it with a little napkin math:

I raise 300 kgs (660lbs) of rabbit meat a year in an area smaller than most back yards. The area to grow their feed is somewhat larger, but less than 1/3 acre. So, just for the sake of argument, let's assume it is 1/2 of an acre for the space, food, everything. I think that's about 21,000 square feet or so for almost 700lbs of meat. That's about 30 square feet for each pound of meat per year.

We generally eat one rabbit carcass (2.5 lbs) every 2 days for a family of four. That's about a pound a day for my family. Assuming that's your only meat, and you want to eat meat every day, you'd need 365 lbs of meat a year for each family.

So, from my example above, that would require about 11,000 square feet, or around 1/4 of an acre for the meat supply of one family.

According to various sources, there are 21 million acres in the US that are grass lawns. That's enough room to raise sustainable meat for 84 million families, which is pretty close to the population of the ENTIRE UNITED STATES.

Notice I didn't take one acre out of other food production, just lawns. Now, we can't expect everyone to do this, but as you can see, from a space standpoint, there seems to be more than enough space and food for everyone to have sustainable meat.

Tyler Ludens wrote:

Shawn Harper wrote: chickens eating table scraps and bugs.

I'd have to produce a heck of a lot more table scraps and bugs to produce much chicken for the table. I'm not saying it can't be done, just, I would like to see more examples (here on the board) of folks who are raising meat chickens on table scraps (their own, not from a restaurant, etc) and bugs. I'm interested in practical examples of this actually being accomplished.

yeah, I don't produce enough scraps for chickens, either. BUT, if you take the chicken scraps, and then let them have access to my pig poop piles, and then maybe some earthworms and some BSF, and maybe some spilled feed from the pigs, you are pretty close to a full diet.

Here in Mexico, no one feeds chickens, or at least, I've never seen anyone ever feed them intentionally. They throw scraps out every day, and the chickens are free range through the whole village. They give great eggs all the time and produce lots of chicks (some losses to dogs/cats), but for the most part, they sustain themselves. In fact, most people don't do anything for their chickens here, no tractors, no nest boxes, no coops, nothing. I sometimes wonder if they even know which chickens are theirs, and in reality, it doesn't even matter. Everyone gets eggs.

I don't know what the chickens eat, but if I had to guess, I would imagine that it is a combination of manure piles, weeds, grass, table scraps, spilled feeds, and general bug collecting. Whatever they're doing, it works, and it has been working for a very long time.

Abe Connally wrote:

John Seay wrote: There simply isn't enough space to raise enough sustainable meat for everyone in the country to continue to eat so much of it.

I raise 300 kgs (660lbs) of rabbit meat a year in an area smaller than most back yards. The area to grow their feed is somewhat larger, but less than 1/3 acre. So, just for the sake of argument, let's assume it is 1/2 of an acre for the space, food, everything. I think that's about 21,000 square feet or so for almost 700lbs of meat. That's about 30 square feet for each pound of meat per year.

We generally eat one rabbit carcass (2.5 lbs) every 2 days for a family of four. That's about a pound a day for my family. Assuming that's your only meat, and you want to eat meat every day, you'd need 365 lbs of meat a year for each family.

So, from my example above, that would require about 11,000 square feet, or around 1/4 of an acre for the meat supply of one family.

According to various sources, there are 21 million acres in the US that are grass lawns. That's enough room to raise sustainable meat for 63 million families, which is pretty close to the size of the ENTIRE UNITED STATES.

Notice I didn't take one acre out of other food production, just lawns. Now, we can't expect everyone to do this, but as you can see, from a space standpoint, there seems to be more than enough space and food for everyone to have sustainable meat.

Ok. fair enough. It would take a huge change; but it can be done sustainably. I guess my biggest issue with that system would be based on my personal morals which don't play into the idea of sustainable meat and would best be discussed at another time and place.

I think if I ever got my place up to being as productive as I'd like, I'd be able to raise meat chickens on what we produce here, but, I'm a long long way from that point! Chickens don't seem to go feral here in my locale, I've never seen any around, just chukars, pheasants and sometimes peafowl, and it's hard to know if those are actually feral breeding populations or just recent escapees from nearby ranches. Herbivores seem to go feral more successfully than birds here.

I think if I ever got my place up to being as productive as I'd like, I'd be able to raise meat chickens on what we produce here, but, I'm a long long way from that point!

What I like in the Mexican model, is that no one actually planned it. It just happens. Everybody has chickens, and they just roam and do whatever. No one is sitting there planning all the possible integrations and connections. And for the most part, it is a very sustainable, robust system that doesn't require much in terms of individual input, but has a lot of output. So, maybe to get productive like that, it takes a certain amount of households/areas to make it work, and then everyone lets go of the control, and it happens. I don't know, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't work everywhere, but it is neat to see that kind of thing develop naturally.

Horses and burros roam like that, as well. They tend to graze along the river and road edges. I think most people know which is which, but I know there is a lot of sharing, especially with the burros. Burros are usually used for hauling or ploughing around here, so everyone borrows from everyone else when they need it.

As I was reading the original article (referred by a vegetarian friend), my inner monologue kept saying "Jackass" (no offense intended to Mexican burros). I don't have much attention to spare for anyone opining about food production that doesn't have any dirt under their fingernails. There is a fine point on how one defines "sustainability", but surely it comes down to measuring inputs and outputs on a given amount of land, like you just did here. If we really want a unit of measurement to use in judging agricultural sustainability, I would favor the calorie, but even then you are forgetting a lot of awesome nutrients and treating the entirety of mother nature as a factory, which I happen to find distasteful.

I love the discussion about real solutions, especially the "napkin math" regarding rabbits. Joe American sacrifices a lot for the homogeneity of neatly packaged chicken, beef, and pork. I think the writer of that article began with an intention to undermine sustainable meat, because his article was sloppily written and poorly supported with relevant information. Joel Salatin posted a response, for which I am very grateful. "That is all I have to say about that".

Abe Connally wrote:
I love the possibilities of mushrooms. I have just begun to integrate them with our homestead last year. They have so many functions to offer (food, medicine, building materials, waste integrations, animal food), and seem like there's a type of mushroom for just about every job. I currently grow several types of oyster mushrooms on paper, cardboard, orchard prunings, and corn stover. The leftover substrate is decent animal feed, as the shrooms digest the cellulose, opening up some nutrition for the animals. What was once basic biomass becomes a nutrient rich feed. They also produce a lot of CO2, and like high humidity, perfect for an aquaponics greenhouse.

Abe, I'm very interested in uses for spent mushroom substrate. just getting my first oysters from an experiment, and if I can use the substrate as feed, I could have a very large source of nutrition for my critters. care to start a thread about this in the fungus forum?

tel jetson wrote:
Abe, I'm very interested in uses for spent mushroom substrate. just getting my first oysters from an experiment, and if I can use the substrate as feed, I could have a very large source of nutrition for my critters. care to start a thread about this in the fungus forum?

Awesome on getting your mushrooms going! I've had to switch to another species to grow them in the summer here (P. djamor), as the temps are beyond what P. ostreatus can take.

I'll start a thread when I find the time, but in the meantime, starting doing some research. There has been a lot of work done in that field, and I've seen studies for cattle, poultry and pigs. Overall, the evidence suggests that spent substrate is an excellent feed, as the mushrooms break down cellulose, they increase the available nutrients for other species. Mushroom mycelium itself is also quite nutritious, being high in protein.

My pigs eat it well enough, but it's not their first choice (they prefer offal). I was interested in the possibilities of feeding it to rabbits. I did a little test with a buck that was destined for slaughter, and he never got sick, didn't seem to have any change in his growth compared to his litter mates. The substrate wasn't his whole diet, I just gave him a bit everyday to see what would happen. He ate it without a problem, and I didn't notice any strange growths or deformations when I butchered him. So, I assume it is ok for rabbits to eat it, though I have never seen in mentioned in any studies.

nice. I've read a little bit here and there over the last few years. found a few scholarly articles today to read later. at this point, the spent substrate would be food for poultry. next would probably be fish, though I can't say if that will be a few months or a few years away.

I can easily see ending up with more than all my critters would eat, at which point I'll toss some to the soldier flies and spread some in the garden. my main substrates right now are coffee grounds and wood chips. the coffee grounds seem to be working better, though I'm fruiting on wood chips at the moment.

I may also explore using it to filter water, as there are some agricultural pollutants in the river here.

yeah, technically speaking, the mycelium is still alive and viable, it's just old. I've seen old substrate blocks come back to life after a good rain or cooler weather, even some that were a few years old, and I thought they were completely dried out. So, for filtering water, I think that would work really well.

I use corn stover and woodchips/sawdust, but mine do better with the corn stover (kinda like straw).

I don't know if BSF would eat it (not really their "thing"), but earthworms would love it. It also makes decent compost.

Another thing is that if you have a big pile of woodchips/sawdust, like for mulching, put the substrate there. The mycelium will be tempted to spring back to life (if there's moisture) and take over the whole pile. It increases the rate in which the chips/sawdust break down.

for integrating in a garden, go with some different species, like Garden Giant and Elm Oyster. They do well as companions to plants and will significantly increase plant growth, because they are opening up nutrients for the plants.

Abe Connally wrote:for integrating in a garden, go with some different species, like Garden Giant and Elm Oyster. They do well as companions to plants and will significantly increase plant growth, because they are opening up nutrients for the plants.

I've got some wine caps (Garden Giant/King Stropharia/Stropharia rugosoannulata) going gangbusters right now. not fruiting, but spreading like crazy. really looking forward to those.

Tyler Ludens wrote:

John Seay wrote:He's saying that we eat too much meat and have too many people. There simply isn't enough space to raise enough sustainable meat for everyone in the country to continue to eat so much of it. I think that is a fair statement and that there is plenty of evidence to show this to be correct. Permaculture is more productive than industrial agriculture as a whole, which includes produce. There is no way to say a permaculture farm can produce more meat than that of a feed lot.

I don't think there is "plenty of evidence." Feedlot cattle spend most of their lives on grass, they are not born and raised in a feedlot. Food for feedlot animals comes from the land. The land does not magically produce more food simply because it does not have animals on it, quite the contrary, such land used to produce grains requires many more inputs than grassfed. There is plenty of space to raise grassfed because it is a more efficient use of the land. We may eat too much BAD meat, but there's no reason we can't eat an appropriate quantity of good meat, in my opinion. "Too many people" is an esthetic judgment often made by people who don't like other people. There is strong evidence for too many people living and eating the way we do now*, but we do not know the carrying capacity of the land for people living a different way, including permacultural and other natural meat-raising practices.

* http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/world_footprint/

As an anthropology student, I am quite fond of people. "Too many people" isn't an opinion, it's a fact of growth, don't you think there was a reason that up until 1800 the human population remained below 1 billion? Or that any other species on the planet does not overrun the place? Regardless of the population limit, 7 billion people is pushing what our habits can sustain as you have mentioned. But i have to disagree, we eat too much meat, it's cultural not necessary. We have managed fine for thousands of years with meat every few weeks, yet today claim meat to be the staple in a dinner meal. Permaculturalists and those who live off the land understand the availability of vegetables and seasonality, why should meat be any different.

I'm just saying that rather than trying to put permaculture into the cookie cutter shape that is 'sustainable meat' or competing with industrial meat yeilds (my vote goes for impossible). Altering habits of how much and how frequently meat is eaten and furthermore how much meat is really needed in the diet to remain healthy might be other important routes to venture into.

Whether or not we can actually achieve the goal of sustainable meat, it HAS to be (in my opinion, at least), a step forward to get away from caffeine-jacked chickens gobbling food, then chilling on a dessert of Prozac: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/412740/april-17-2012/thought-for-food---bug-food-coloring--hot-dog-stuffed-crust---poultry-on-prozac

How about the question of "responsible meat" as a stop-gap to the question of "sustainable meat"?

Cheers.

JD

Colin Fontaine wrote:

Tyler Ludens wrote:

John Seay wrote:He's saying that we eat too much meat and have too many people. There simply isn't enough space to raise enough sustainable meat for everyone in the country to continue to eat so much of it. I think that is a fair statement and that there is plenty of evidence to show this to be correct. Permaculture is more productive than industrial agriculture as a whole, which includes produce. There is no way to say a permaculture farm can produce more meat than that of a feed lot.

I don't think there is "plenty of evidence." Feedlot cattle spend most of their lives on grass, they are not born and raised in a feedlot. Food for feedlot animals comes from the land. The land does not magically produce more food simply because it does not have animals on it, quite the contrary, such land used to produce grains requires many more inputs than grassfed. There is plenty of space to raise grassfed because it is a more efficient use of the land. We may eat too much BAD meat, but there's no reason we can't eat an appropriate quantity of good meat, in my opinion. "Too many people" is an esthetic judgment often made by people who don't like other people. There is strong evidence for too many people living and eating the way we do now*, but we do not know the carrying capacity of the land for people living a different way, including permacultural and other natural meat-raising practices.

* http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/world_footprint/

As an anthropology student, I am quite fond of people. "Too many people" isn't an opinion, it's a fact of growth, don't you think there was a reason that up until 1800 the human population remained below 1 billion? Or that any other species on the planet does not overrun the place? Regardless of the population limit, 7 billion people is pushing what our habits can sustain as you have mentioned. But i have to disagree, we eat too much meat, it's cultural not necessary. We have managed fine for thousands of years with meat every few weeks, yet today claim meat to be the staple in a dinner meal. Permaculturalists and those who live off the land understand the availability of vegetables and seasonality, why should meat be any different.

I'm just saying that rather than trying to put permaculture into the cookie cutter shape that is 'sustainable meat' or competing with industrial meat yeilds (my vote goes for impossible). Altering habits of how much and how frequently meat is eaten and furthermore how much meat is really needed in the diet to remain healthy might be other important routes to venture into.

This sounds like militant vegan ism to me. As rabbit man, er Abe, has showed with his napkin math; we have enough room to feed the people we have. What is needed is not for people to eat less meat, but rather to be willing to eat different meats and veggies. While I will agree that our current culture will destroy the planet if left unchecked. A permaculture could easily support far more people than we have now on the same amount of land or less.

In my opinion, there's substantial anthropological evidence that Homo sapiens sapiens evolved eating meat as the main source of calories in the diet. It was only after the development of agriculture among some cultures that meat became a less important part of the diet in those cultures. Eating meat regularly (not "every few weeks") seems to have enabled us to develop our large brains.

I'm gonna post this again, just in case there is anyone with any doubt that sustainable meat is possible. Not only is it possible, it already exists in amounts large enough to feed everyone, without anyone actually farming or raising it intentionally.
http://velacreations.blogspot.com/2011/12/fired-grasshoppers.html

The permaculture approach to insect pests should be to eat them. Same with invasive species. There is enough of both to keep everyone eating meat for a while.

From the evidence I've seen, North American humans have always included meat in their diet. And not every few weeks, but regularly. No, they didn't hunt mammoths and buffalo every day, those were rare occasions (probably as a way for men to show off), but bugs, rabbits and eggs were on the menu all the time. Small meats were the daily choice because they were easy to harvest, and they existed in large enough quantity to feed everyone everyday.

Just think about those big giant grubs in your compost pile. That's some high-quality nutrition right there, and they're easy to catch.

So, when you think about it, the obstacles to sustainable meat are really not practical problems, but cultural ones.

John Seay wrote:He's saying that we eat too much meat and have too many people. There simply isn't enough space to raise enough sustainable meat for everyone in the country to continue to eat so much of it. I think that is a fair statement and that there is plenty of evidence to show this to be correct. Permaculture is more productive than industrial agriculture as a whole, which includes produce. There is no way to say a permaculture farm can produce more meat than that of a feed lot.

The next time you fly, look down. You will find space. If we were desperate we could build a rapid rail system directly from the
isolated food producing areas and directly into the cities and provide all the fresh food we could eat from areas not even being
used a present. The medians on our highway systems could all be growing edibles. The land underneath power lines could be
cropped. Cities could be growing edibles instead of ornamentals in public places and lands. We are using our private property
at present to find systems that work. Once they are proven to work very well and be superior they will be adopted.

I wonder how much Kudzu is in the US? That's a decent fodder for animals right there. I imagine you could greatly reduce the dependence of grains if you figured out a way to harvest and process kudzu. Doesn't it have 100-400 lb starchy tubers?

And how many asian carp are in the US? I think there's a lot. That's decent people food, and the waste is excellent food for pigs, poultry, BSF.

That's just 2 species, what else is invasive enough to feed the masses (or the masses of animals)?

Alex Ames wrote:

John Seay wrote:He's saying that we eat too much meat and have too many people. There simply isn't enough space to raise enough sustainable meat for everyone in the country to continue to eat so much of it. I think that is a fair statement and that there is plenty of evidence to show this to be correct. Permaculture is more productive than industrial agriculture as a whole, which includes produce. There is no way to say a permaculture farm can produce more meat than that of a feed lot.

The next time you fly, look down. You will find space. If we were desperate we could build a rapid rail system directly from the
isolated food producing areas and directly into the cities and provide all the fresh food we could eat from areas not even being
used a present. The medians on our highway systems could all be growing edibles. The land underneath power lines could be
cropped. Cities could be growing edibles instead of ornamentals in public places and lands. We are using our private property
at present to find systems that work. Once they are proven to work very well and be superior they will be adopted.

Yes finally someone gets it, if we replaced all the silly ornamentals we could easily feed the world. IMO

Abe Connally wrote:
That's just 2 species, what else is invasive enough to feed the masses (or the masses of animals)?

Our land is periodically infested with exotic Axis deer. This is a cultural obstacle for my household, we don't hunt. There are too many deer in this region due to most predators being exterminated. Feral hogs are also a problem in some areas.

Tyler Ludens wrote: Eating meat regularly (not "every few weeks") seems to have enabled us to develop our large brains.

Not disagreeing with you, as that is the conventional theory, but it's interesting to note that we don't see that in any other predators. Large cats, wolves, bears, and even other primates eat large amounts of meat and don't have the large brains that we do. I don't want to hijack this thread but if you have an extra minute check out this video:

Joe Rogan (yeah the fear factor dude) talks about Terrence McKenna's theory on brain development.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXTdo8rwLys

This is a rather out there theory, but non the less it raises some interesting questions. Oh and Joe Rogan swears rather casually if that bothers you, he is actually very intelligent and well read on many subjects as suprising as that is.

Edit:
Terrance McKenna explains his own theory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOtLJwK7kdk&feature=related

hmmm. seems like there's some talking past each other going on. seems like there are at least a couple of different conversations going on here, and they aren't overlapping much.

who of us thinks that current beef consumption could be maintained in a sustainable fashion? beef, along with poultry and pork, seems to be as far as the author of NYT OpEd was able to see.

there is little doubt in my mind that if the standard U.S. notion of meat was expanded to include the critters Abe, Ludi, and others have mentioned, there would be plenty of meat for everyone. but that doesn't seem to directly address the issues raised in the OpEd.

maybe I'll try to break it down into some discrete ideas. this is where I'm at, personally, and I think there will be a fair amount in common with others here:
- the overwhelming majority of modern meat production in the U.S. of A. is terrible for a great many reasons. in no way sustainable.
- the less overwhelming majority of alternative/organic/small scale/"sustainable" beef/poultry/pork production is terrible for far fewer reasons. likely not actually sustainable, but a hell of a lot closer than conventional practice.
- inflexible cultural attitudes about what animals are good food is a major barrier to getting everybody as much meat as they could want in a truly sustainable manner.
- real, good, actually sustainable meat is being produced by a lot of people on a small scale. this includes fishes, smaller mammals, smaller birds, insects, larvae, larger feral critters, as well as the usual meat suspects. the appropriate species (plural) depends largely on local climate, dirt, and readily available resources. this food is not reliably available to as many folks as would like to believe they are buying their way out of environmental damage.

I guess the crux of it for me is that the majority of folks who think they're buying meat produced sustainably are wrong. that doesn't make sustainable meat a myth, but it does make it a bit more difficult to come by than dropping by the meat department at your local WholeSeasonEcoGreen store. at least at present. that can change. and maybe it should*. get to it.



*not a fan of the grocery store idea in general, hence the "maybe."

As I understand it, there are several factors which appear to have developed large brains in humans, however there is substantial evidence that those large brains could not have developed without meat being a large part of the diet.

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/low-carb-library/are-we-meat-eaters-or-vegetarians-part-ii/

I'm going to ask a favor as a steward/moderator:

let's please avoid talking about whether humans are designed to eat meat, or can survive without eating meat, or have huge brains because of meat. I believe that the original topic of this thread is important, and I would like to see the conversation continue. talking about diet tends to derail things very quickly around here.

you're all great folks with huge brains. thanks a lot.