5 ms·

I wonder what the cost basis is of an Impossible Burger vs. a beef patty. The meat industry has built up some economies of scale but it's hard to believe that

• honkycat 7y ago
  I am not a vegan. But I do hold a lot of environmental values. There is a LOT of interesting writing on the economy of the meat industrial complex. In essence: It is totally propped up by with subsidies from the US Government. They LOSE money on every cow slaughtered. They destroy our planet. All of the profits go to the billionaire farm owners who lobby to keep the laws in place. It is so horribly corrupt. Personally, I find it disgusting that we give hand-outs so these billionaire ranchers can: - Feed us unhealthy food - Destroy the environment with greenhouse gasses and farm run-off - Take up MASSIVE amounts of space - Use massive amounts of water - Create drug-resistant bacteria by pumping the animals full of antibiotics - create horrible living conditions for animals and suppress anti-meat propaganda with ag-gag laws - Pay their workers in the factory farm a pittance to do depressing, disgusting work so the owners can hoover up all of the profit. Check out https://meatonomics.com/ https://meatonomics.com/ for more information.
  • everdev 7y ago
    Yes, it's sad on many levels. Never heard of a billionaire farmer though. Maybe Purdue (chicken)?
    • honkycat 7y ago
      Tyson, Cargill, JBS, National Beef are all multi-billion dollar companies whose owners are billionaires. Calling them "ranchers" is probably a stretch though, haha!
      • yellowapple 7y ago
        Yeah, definitely a stretch, and one that I feel distorts the picture. "Billionaire ranchers" conjures up an image of some guy with a cowboy hat and gold chains in a mansion overlooking endless expanses of pastures and barns. In reality most independent ranchers don't live so lavishly :)
  • mfatica 7y ago
    How do local farmers fall into the mix? I buy a cow every year from a local farm - they raise and slaughter the cow and deliver the whole thing butchered and packaged. I much prefer this to anything I could buy at the grocery store.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • honkycat 7y ago
      Personally, I don't have a problem with locally raised beef. Factory farms make up the majority of beef. Stats are here: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/its-time-to-end-factory-f_b_1018840 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/its-time-to-end-factory-f_b_1...
      • hkyeti 7y ago
        Oxford and CSIRO scientists already proved grass fed cattle is worse for greenhouse gases than CAFO beef farming. Carbon sequestration no where near makes up for the increases emissions.
        • yellowapple 7y ago
          Do you have a citation for this? Curious about how they figured that, given: * The emissions from the livestock themselves should be identical given the same number of cows and the same dietary input; CO₂ output might increase for pasture-raised cattle, given the higher physical activity, but methane output (IIRC the primary concern re: cattle and their environmental impact) shouldn't change all that much * Non-livestock emissions (from e.g. motorized equipment) seem much easier to minimize in a traditional ranch setting - especially considering that independent ranchers once upon a time ran their ranches without motorized equipment at all, and some still do - than for a modern factory farm
          • hkyeti 7y ago
            Sure: http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-10-03-grass-fed-beef-good-or-bad-climate http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-10-03-grass-fed-beef-good-or-b...
  • SilasX 7y ago
    >It is totally propped up by with subsidies from the US Government. They LOSE money on every cow slaughtered. I don't think the math works out on that one. This page [1] gives total meat consumption per person per year as 222.2 lb, which would be (x320 million) = 71 billion lb/year. This page [2] gives total farm subsidies (which is a high estimate since it include all subsidies not just those to meat) as $20 billion. So, that's $0.27/lb as an upper bound on the magnitude of the subsidy. [1] https://www.globalagriculture.org/whats-new/news/en/32921.html https://www.globalagriculture.org/whats-new/news/en/32921.ht... [2] https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/agriculture/subsidies https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/agriculture/subsidies
    • everdev 7y ago
      222.2 lb / year sounds high! I'm not sure if 7M vegetarians would move the needle much, but even ignoring them, that's about 0.6lbs of meat every day for every man, woman and child. Assuming toddlers and the elderly don't eat that much, that puts some adults closer to a pound of meat a day every day. That's a lot more meat consumption than I would have estimated.
      • yellowapple 7y ago
        > that's about 0.6lbs of meat every day for every man, woman and child. That doesn't sound all that high at all. I probably would've guessed slightly lower at less than 0.5lbs/person, but knowing the average American diet that seems well within reason. If I ate a 1/4 lb burger twice a day (i.e. for lunch and dinner) or a 1/2 lb burger once a day (i.e. just for lunch or dinner), that'd be pretty close on beef alone.
  • rhinoceraptor 7y ago
    I think more needs to be done to promote grass fed beef as well. If done well, it can have a negative carbon footprint, versus imitation meats which have many of the same problems that grain fed beef does (monocropping, destruction of local ecosystems, use of pesticides, etc.).
    • everdev 7y ago
      How would grass fed beef generate a negative carbon footprint?
      • rhinoceraptor 7y ago
        They eat grass, distress the soil and leave their fertilizer behind. The grass regrows, which captures carbon via photosynthesis. Obviously I have no idea what I'm talking about, so I don't know if the methane produced by cattle has a bigger impact. But it definitely seems better than both grain fed meat and monocrops, in terms of energy input and environmental/ecosystem impact. The major energy input in the system is the sun, not fossil fuels for fertilizer/pesticide production and farm equipment to plant and harvest crops.
        • everdev 7y ago
          Yeah I've never heard of carbon neutral cows. If you're saying that the grassland would be replaced with concrete, then there would be a reduction in carbon sequestration. But still, I don't think it's close. Cows produce a lot of methane: https://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/methane-cow.htm https://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/methane-cow.htm > Cows emit a massive amount of methane through belching, with a lesser amount through flatulence. Statistics vary regarding how much methane the average dairy cow expels. Some experts say 100 liters to 200 liters a day (or about 26 gallons to about 53 gallons), while others say it's up to 500 liters (about 132 gallons) a day. In any case, that's a lot of methane, an amount comparable to the pollution produced by a car in a day. > In New Zealand, where cattle and sheep farming are major industries, 34 percent of greenhouse gases come from livestock. > Initially, grazing areas were filled with a variety of grasses and flowers that grew naturally, offering a diverse diet for cows and other ruminants. However, in order to improve the efficiency of feeding livestock, many of these pastures became reseeded with perennial ryegrass. With the aid of artificial fertilizers, perennial ryegrass grows quickly and in huge quantities. The downside is that it lacks the nutritious content of other grasses and prevents more nutritious plants from growing. One commentator called it the "fast food" of grasses. > Believers in naturally grown, mixed-species pastures say that the use of them will reduce greenhouse gases, improve animal health and meat quality and reduce the use of artificial fertilizers. Sounds like it's still a carbon emitter, but if you're going to do it try to find cows that are eating on native, organic grass.
  • chrisco255 7y ago
    You're linking to a website with a clear agenda, hardly a reliable source. First off, who are the billionaire ranchers and secondly, why would it be wrong for them to exist (since they exist for every other major industry, too, including tech). - Farm land for vegetables takes up MASSIVE amounts of space, and it's not the same as leaving that land to nature and wildlife - Animals have to be killed in the production of veggie farms, from pesticides to rodents - Water doesn't get "used" up when you feed cattle with it. It goes through the same cycle it has for billions of years for all the other animal life on this planet. What gives? - Factory farms are more common for vegetables than they are for cattle, and it's not like the harvesters are getting paid any more than the ranchers. They're often paid less. 91% of cattle ranches are family owned (https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2015/Cattle_Highlights.pdf https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2015/Cattl...)
    • nabnob 7y ago
      Raising cattle also requires additional land use for growing feed.
      • yellowapple 7y ago
        And in turn more water used, and that water doesn't go back into the ground as urine. That said, actual ranching (i.e. giving livestock room to graze) would be far less of an environmental burden (so long as it's in places where one doesn't have to burn down forests to make that grazing land).
• mfatica 7y ago
  I can "buy" a cow from a local farmer and they will raise it and slaughter it and deliver all the meat butchered from the cow. It provides nearly a year's supply of meat, at much lower cost than buying similar amounts from the grocery store. If more people followed suit of buying local farm direct then the whole thing would be better off.
  • gitgreen 7y ago
    You're leaving out the cost of owning and powering a chest freezer which is not insignificant.
    • rootusrootus 7y ago
      A freezer costs about 50 bucks a year in electricity (depending on rates, obv). That's a lot less than a half a beef to fill it will cost.
    • MichaelApproved 7y ago
      They're leaving out a lot more than the freezer cost. Not everyone wants frozen meat. Fresh meat tastes better. There are a lot of other issues with their "buy a cow" idea.
      • mfatica 7y ago
        Frozen meat tastes orders of magnitudes better than any of the alternatives
        • 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
          How's that work when you want to use some? Do you have a giant chunk of frozen meat you have to get smaller, more usable pieces from? Do you thaw it enough to cut then put the rest back? I can't picture how this works.
          • beisner 7y ago
• DogOnTheWeb 7y ago
  Keep in mind that cattle ranchers and feed suppliers also receive subsidies that artificially lower the price of meat in America. Quantifying the exact impact of this is muddled by polarized articles on both sides, a complicated supply chain, and the fact that the alternatives industry also benefits in subsidies indirectly. Still, it seems to be the case that meat alternatives are facing an uphill battle on cost due to subsidies.
• criddell 7y ago
  The meat industry are placing some pretty big bets on meat substitutes. Tyson owns 5% of Beyond Meat.
  • vermarish 7y ago
    Tyson sold its stake in Beyond Meat last week and supposedly plans to make its own moves into this marketspace. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-24/tyson-foods-exits-beyond-meat-ahead-of-plant-protein-maker-s-ipo https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-24/tyson-foo...
• Animats 7y ago
  $7 more at The Counter. It's a "premium item" there.