If society crumbles I'm pretty much dead. I have unexplained health issues. I survived as a teenager when I was in better shape but I burned a ton of calories every day. I would eat ice cream by the gallon containers as snacks with 4 large meals a day and I was underweight. I don't think without meds that my body could survive that way again. I have about 100 more lbs now from all the meds so it would take a little while to burn it all off but my heart would take the brunt of it and possibly quit. Otherwise I would steadily starve to death despite food.
Feeding Animals Grain, vs hay, produce, morality?
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a lot of people do not put meds, and other health issues in the picture when preparing, for a lot of things, -- It is now more dificult to stockpile meds, and people who rely on frequent trips to the doc. are casualties. I have friends who have diabetes and they say --that if society crashed -- they would also.
I am fortunate, I am about 60 and still in fair shape. Everything just hurts more.
I am fortunate, I am about 60 and still in fair shape. Everything just hurts more.
skysthelimit
Well-known member
I am healthy so far, but I do worry about not aging well because of the physical labor. Then again, that might make me stronger. Still, using the pick axe as I do to clear the hard clay soil every spring, I can't imagine having to clear more than a small garden that way.
I have a moderate stockpile of meds. Nothing as useful as the stuff I'm using up every month. I wish my husband took filling my meds a little more seriously. Insurance let's you fill up to a week early so if they were filled every 3 weeks all the time a week's worth would add up every month. I used to have 5 or 6 bottles of the 2 major meds I take. Now I just have some I've quit for others. Half the time he doesn't get something filled until I'm out and then he has to run to the pharmacy in the middle of the night.
Step one if something major happens is to hit all nearby pharmacies. Then secure heat followed by more food animals.
Step one if something major happens is to hit all nearby pharmacies. Then secure heat followed by more food animals.
I agree that feeding grains to cows is a waste. morality is not an issue I just feel like taking the amount of grain that could have fed 1000 people, and instead giving it to a cow that will only feed 150 people, is totally backwards.
For many reasons too.
Grain must be farmed, harvested, and transported, all 3 phases use petrol/ produce pollution.
Cows are herbivores, grain is detrimental to the cows digestive system. Grass-fed cows are healthier animals.
Most beef cows here are raised in CAFOs. not the prarie. the only time I see cows out and about is a dairy herd.
feeding grain to cows is a way to get them bigger and heavier, faster.
Of course that farmers goal isn't to feed the world, just to make a profit.
This doesn't stop me from eating beef. But I wouldn't buy and raise a cow unless I knew I could do it on pasture start to finish.
Part of the reason I was so interested in rabbits is because they're herbivores also.
I primarily feed alfalfa pellets, which still uses multiple stages of petrol before it gets to me.....but humans don't eat alfalfa hay, so IMO I'm not going backwards as far as food production.
If anyone is interested in sustainable farming ideas, check out Joel Salatin on Youtube.
he's all about portable infrastructure, maximizing land use/potential thus maximizing profit.
Also geofflawton.com is full of fascinating permaculture videos (must give email for access, but that's it)
this guy is more about identifying land contours and utilizing them for water retention to build food forests and gardens through swales and deeper saturation. I live in a desert so these 2 always have my wheels turning
actually yesterday I moved my compost bin into the chicken coop to try and attract more bugs over there for free chicken food.
For many reasons too.
Grain must be farmed, harvested, and transported, all 3 phases use petrol/ produce pollution.
Cows are herbivores, grain is detrimental to the cows digestive system. Grass-fed cows are healthier animals.
Most beef cows here are raised in CAFOs. not the prarie. the only time I see cows out and about is a dairy herd.
feeding grain to cows is a way to get them bigger and heavier, faster.
Of course that farmers goal isn't to feed the world, just to make a profit.
This doesn't stop me from eating beef. But I wouldn't buy and raise a cow unless I knew I could do it on pasture start to finish.
Part of the reason I was so interested in rabbits is because they're herbivores also.
I primarily feed alfalfa pellets, which still uses multiple stages of petrol before it gets to me.....but humans don't eat alfalfa hay, so IMO I'm not going backwards as far as food production.
If anyone is interested in sustainable farming ideas, check out Joel Salatin on Youtube.
he's all about portable infrastructure, maximizing land use/potential thus maximizing profit.
Also geofflawton.com is full of fascinating permaculture videos (must give email for access, but that's it)
this guy is more about identifying land contours and utilizing them for water retention to build food forests and gardens through swales and deeper saturation. I live in a desert so these 2 always have my wheels turning
actually yesterday I moved my compost bin into the chicken coop to try and attract more bugs over there for free chicken food.
Those hay pastures could grow grains. Like I said previously though a lot of large animal feed is made up of things that can't be used in human food. When grains are processed there are hulls, middlings, and other byproducts that are left behind. Especially when something is milled in to flour. A good portion of the nutrient dense parts are separated out as leftovers. Read cattle feed and you'll see it's 90% byproducts and dent corn which is not easily digested by humans. Dent corn grows far better than human digestible sweet corn. Fields would not grow half as much sweet corn as dent corn. Part of that could be the lack of motivation to improve sweet corn varieties because there isn't enough market for it over animal feed quality corn.
A lot of "dent corn" goes to feed me, as well as other people, -- my yellow grits are made from "truckers Favorite Yellow" [a dent variety]-as is most traditional southern families grits and cornmeal. I also like some "flint types" for corn meal, and grits, but for grits it is a long time cooking and has a stronger flavor.
You can eat dent corn if you process/cook it well enough but that doesn't mean you can digest much of it. Most prepackaged products using corn besides sweet corn is heavily processed to only use certain parts of corn and are fortified so you can eat it without getting a vitamin/mineral deficiency. Most of us would be in horrible health if they didn't fortify grain based foods.
akane":10d5i9by said:
This response is not aimed at anyone specifically. I spend a lot of time researching and learning about "proper farming techniques" and I can get a little touchy, sorry. It's a passionate subject to me. I can rant and get off subject in debates also, again sorry.
If the grains were for human consumption, then it would be worth it.
(Even if the edible portion went to humans, and the rest for animals, it'd still be worth it. But not many Americans eat corn, wheat, and barley. Almost all of it goes to cows to fuel the McDonald's or Jack in the Box that's on every corner.)It's not my job or yours to try and feed the world, but I just can't find good logic in turning more food into less food.
why would a person remove a pasture to grow grain, just to turn around and give it to animals that are supposed to be eating hay? that's a lot of extra work and money to fill the same belly.
To follow the same argument, if a hay field could grow grain, then all these corn fields should get enough rain to support veggies too. wouldn't that land be more valuable growing veggies to feed us instead of animals? Then we could feed the animals the inedible parts of THOSE plants. Personally, I feel like some of those farmers grow grain because they don't have to get out of that John Deere and actually work the dirt.
It only takes 14 days of feeding grain to chase the good bacteria out of the rumen, causing acidosis. Once the naturally occurring E. coli becomes acclimated to this new acidic environment, it can survive in our acidic bodies, and becomes dangerous.
Imo corn has no nutrient value anyway. If a dogs eats corn, the dog often poops corn, it goes right through them. When a cow is fed high calorie/ low nutrient food its whole life, it makes less nutritious, inferior beef.
Also, all GMO corn is of the dent variety. Is it possible that dent corn out-performs due to modifications made by Monsanto?
Or that more farmers grow dent varieties out of fear of being sued into submission for patent infringement?
(because once your neighbors grow it and that GMO pollen travels to your crops, you'll have to grow it also, or they send black SUV's to follow you everywhere like in FOOD Inc. The market you refer to has a large and powerful bully controlling it.)
I understand that grain has it's place and may be necessary to some people. Not everyone has access to a pasture they can graze. (me included) But I feel like Americans rely too heavily on grain, either because they don't know of/don't want to learn a better way, or because many hand-me-down farms come with hand-me-down practices, and an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude. (Farmers used to feed dead cows to live cows until mad cow disease "broke" that system)
skysthelimit
Well-known member
Redbird":1i2xw689 said:
I believe so too. Or the alternative is a bit more expensive or labor intensive.
Not to jump in, but I don't really think every hay pasture could be farmed for grain.
But that aside I noticed the measurement being used was LBS of food.
It's really a matter of DIGESTIBLE CALORIES and TOTAL NUTRITION. Even if the same pasture can grow hay, grain, veggies or meat, what is the total amount of usable-by-human calories being produced? Lbs of food isn't a good measure. For example, we simply could not eat enough LBS of lettuce to survive on. AND TOO large a dietary portion of most grains could cause nutrient deficiencies and mass disease in humans. For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellagra
"Between 1906 and 1940 more than 3 million Americans were affected by pellagra with more than 100,000 deaths, yet the epidemic resolved itself right after dietary niacin fortification" that # is just for AMERICANS, I've read the situation in Italy as much worse. Sure when we have factories dusting our food with vitamins it helps balance that out that particular issue, only 100,000 people had to die in horrible ways before they figured it out.
Erm, my belief if that there is no easy one size-fits-all answer and a huge variety of methods and foods is really the best thing for us and our world.
But that aside I noticed the measurement being used was LBS of food.
It's really a matter of DIGESTIBLE CALORIES and TOTAL NUTRITION. Even if the same pasture can grow hay, grain, veggies or meat, what is the total amount of usable-by-human calories being produced? Lbs of food isn't a good measure. For example, we simply could not eat enough LBS of lettuce to survive on. AND TOO large a dietary portion of most grains could cause nutrient deficiencies and mass disease in humans. For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellagra
"Between 1906 and 1940 more than 3 million Americans were affected by pellagra with more than 100,000 deaths, yet the epidemic resolved itself right after dietary niacin fortification" that # is just for AMERICANS, I've read the situation in Italy as much worse. Sure when we have factories dusting our food with vitamins it helps balance that out that particular issue, only 100,000 people had to die in horrible ways before they figured it out.
Erm, my belief if that there is no easy one size-fits-all answer and a huge variety of methods and foods is really the best thing for us and our world.
skysthelimit
Well-known member
Is there was a way to calculate the nutrition in an animals meat that is pasture fed vs grain fed.
Pasture may be healthier for them, but how does it translate to us?
Pasture may be healthier for them, but how does it translate to us?
akane":1zazl7q2 said:
I agree that natural diets are best, and also agree not every farmer can feed naturally. While some farmers might say it's not feasible to feed x many cows naturally on this land, I would argue it's not feasible to put that many cows on that land. That farmer is pushing the lands ability to extremes and has to supplement feed. If there's not enough forage for x amount of cows to eat, then there's probably not enough grasses and weeds to absorb all that poo either. (50lbs waste per cow per day)
Hills too steep for crops (what kind of crops?) are probably too steep for cattle also. I suppose it only takes 1 brave cow to hike a bit and the rest would follow. hills and permaculture love each other! Just take the hill, find its valley and dam it up = temporary water for animals, gravity fed water for fields,and deeper soil saturation to protect against drought and expand crop diversity. soil can easily be rebuilt through cover crops and controlled grazing in just a few years
Akane - thank you for the last sentence/clarification. I'm just talking about corn when I get hung up on that stuff. Growing corn on the scale that we do here is just beyond foolish to me, and a waste of farm-able land to boot. I want to be a farmer with a REAL farm someday so it's hard to see so much land dedicated to a (IMO)useless crop/ cow food. makes me feel like Charlie Brown "AAAAARRRG!! LOL
While it's true b12 is stored a long time in the body and some can be gotten from using animal manure on plants it is not enough for childhood development. History has proven vegan societies don't work. The adults who start the society are fine but the children do not get enough b12 from breast milk of women not eating animal products or the plants being grown. They soon suffer health problems and many died before health care professionals started turning people attempting these things in for neglect. Even a diet with fortified foods is not considered safe long term without taking a b vitamin supplement. There was an 80 page study on vegan health and b vitamins that I used to have a link to when researching my own b12 deficiency. There's a reason most diets in the world are based around some meat source even if that's something small like rodents and insects.
I think, -The pasture vs grain thing is not about farmers feeding their own animals, [usually] -it is about farmers marketing their grain to feed suppliers for cattle feed lots, chicken broiler/fryer operations, Hog farms, etc. and profit/ acre and labor ratios. The days of the family farm that raised their own livestock feed and fed out their own animals, ended a long time ago. The US Farm laws, and programs favor large agri-business, and are hard on "family Farms" The IRS even told me they were trying to put small family farms out of business, because people who live and work as a family farm, have low taxable incomes, and don't make them any money.
DogCatMom
Well-known member
skysthelimit":2ffit8r5 said:
This article discusses the differences between grain-finished beef and grass-fed beef, esp. in terms of Omega-3 fatty acids, CLA, vitamin content, and other nutrients. There's a wealth of information available about the nutritional differences between conventionally raised (i.e., grain-finished) beef and grass-fed beef. I found the article by entering the phrase "grain-finished beef vs. grass" in my browser's search bar.
I have no idea why on earth the author of the linked article found it necessary to mention a specific food market in the article; I've found grass-fed beef in many places, including Local Harvest.
Yes, it's more expen$ive, but as the market expands and the availability increases, I'm hoping the price will come down a bit. OTOH, the expectation of a large steak on one's plate isn't sustainable or really necessary; DH (a "meat" guy) and I just made two full dinners out of maybe 1 # of chopped-up (with a knife) grass-fed lamb neck stew meat. So that worked out to approx. 4 oz. for each of us. I probably won't want to eat meat again for days....
Calories/ acre = 6 tons of rice, has a lot more calories then 150 lbs of beef.
that is how much is produced / year ,on an acre "good soil" farm land.
that is how much is produced / year ,on an acre "good soil" farm land.
False. They are FINISHED in CAFO's but they are born on pasture and live on it for at least the first 8 months of their lives. Then they become "stockers" and are sold, the smaller ones usually stay on pasture until they reach a normal frame size (farmers are penalized if their cows won't fit properly on the assembly line at the slaughterhouse) others go to feedlots and are on concentrates for 4-6 months. A few are bought by farmers like me who finish on pasture.
It would only live to 6 months old. Breeding cows and their calves are NOT fed a high concentrate diet, or even a medium concentrate diet since it would kill them or at least make them very sick and less fertile. Finishing beef on concentrated a is called "finishing" for a reason - it's the end of the line for them
Your opinion is scientifically incorrect. Corn is very nutrient dense which is why it is such a great livestock feed and has more digestible calories than the other common grains.
Actually it is fed to get a AAA Prime rating and get the most money for their product. If people stopped paying a premium for AAA beef then maybe the pasture finished beef would have a chance but I don't see that happening anytime soon.
this doesn't make sense . Instead of growing alfalfa for your bunnies, that field could be growing vegetables for people. Do you see the hypocrisy?
You do know wheat is turned into flour that is turned into bread and pasta - inarguably the MOST consumed foods in North America. Barley is the main ingredient in beer and Americans drank 6.3 BILLION gallons last year and I couldn't find the statistics for the hard liquors that also use barley.
Good Grief! Where do you get your information from?
True but 85% of that is water. On a dry mater basis cows only produce 7.5 pounds of waste, not bad for a 1000 pound animal on a high fibre diet
How much does the garbage at the curb, or flushed down the toilet, weight each week for the average American? But why spend hundreds of hours to grow human edibles here when you can grow weeds that your livestock can browse on ?
If you want to grow people food on every possible spot of your lot then go for it but your missing a big part of crop science - fertilizer!
Crop rotation and cover crops can only do so much, for example ; I re- seed my land every 3-5 years with legumes like white clover, trefoil and vetch and even with all my free manure to spread, my pastures are still nitrogen deficient. If these poorer nations don't have livestock manure they will be forced to purchase chemical fertilizers or even use human wastes to feed their plants.
The North American system is messed up but we are rich and can afford to feed our beef grains. We spend more on our dogs than the entire Gross National Product of some nations !
In the original comment the authors Buddhists friends
- I don't think for a minute we should convert all livestock pastures to crops, especially in 2nd and 3rd world countries where it is a much more symbiotic relationship and one that should be supported and not criticized.
Dood --I agree with most of what you had to say-- however-- it is my understanding that wheat has 105% the animal feed value of corn. [maybe only for hogs ,as that was my business]
Corn edibility/ digestability/ nutrient value- for Humans. -it is comon misconseption that corn is not digestable by humans, it is in fact very digestable by humans, and native peoples of the Americas used it as the "main staple" of their diet in many southern latatudes and some north american tribes, -the problems associated with eating corn as a staple [ in other parts of the world, and other cultures]was due to having no understanding of the cultures they got it from. Corn was always consumed with some beans, and some animal products. the corn grain was always processed before consumption by boiling in a water /wood ash solution [or some other high p h substance]-a process we call "nixtamalization" This is the process that frees up amino acids, and Niacin - and removes the problem called Pellagra.
Corn edibility/ digestability/ nutrient value- for Humans. -it is comon misconseption that corn is not digestable by humans, it is in fact very digestable by humans, and native peoples of the Americas used it as the "main staple" of their diet in many southern latatudes and some north american tribes, -the problems associated with eating corn as a staple [ in other parts of the world, and other cultures]was due to having no understanding of the cultures they got it from. Corn was always consumed with some beans, and some animal products. the corn grain was always processed before consumption by boiling in a water /wood ash solution [or some other high p h substance]-a process we call "nixtamalization" This is the process that frees up amino acids, and Niacin - and removes the problem called Pellagra.
michaels4gardens":2a4e6zau said:
I'm aware of all that, it's easy info to find now...but all those people suffering and dying for so long didn't know it.
Think of all the digestive/food related problems people we know personally suffer from in the US? How many are currently suffering from food related issues that will be "common knowledge" sometime in the future?
(as a celiac this is kind of a big deal to me, who would have guessed wheat was what was causing all the digestive problems, and incredibly painful rashes I've dealt with for the past 30 years?) I mean seriously, wheat was the main food fed to me as a child,(also the main component of children's menus and school lunches) and the main food available everywhere in the US throughout my lifetime. Eating in restaurants is still an impossible dream, even places that have gluten free menus still manage to contaminate the food, simply because so much wheat is served. In general, I'm to have a shorter expected lifespan over it, no big deal since there isn't anything I can do about it, but it does make me want to advocate not trying to feed a population on one main food)
My point was just that...relying on too high a percentage of any one food type isn't at all good for humans. (except maybe rice, that stuff seems to be fairly well tolerated, but will it grow everywhere?)
It's inevitable that some amount of total calories produced will have to be sacrificed for complete human nutrition. All farmland could never be used for whatever provides the "most food" because humans require variety.
