A Man's Gotta Eat - Agroecology and Food Security

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > A Man's Gotta Eat - Agroecology and Food Security

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

GhostofJohnMuir posted:

I know it gets jokingly broached from time to time, but I'm honestly interested in exploring insects as a general animal protein source. Aquaculture can give you similar superior yields compared to traditional land based animals in terms of efficiency due to the buoyancy of water alleviating the need to spend energy fighting gravity, but there are very large water quality issues associated with aquaculture. Seems to me that in terms of energy and land footprint, insects really are a superior choice.

Chickens only have slightly more environmental impact than soy, and there's no cultural prohibitions against eating them.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2014 00:26

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 06:12

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

GhostofJohnMuir posted:

I guess it depends on how desperate of measures are called for. Chicken definitely beats pork and beef by a mile, but a quick look found the figure of 2.5 kg of feed per kg of chicken, while crickets are at 1.7 kg of feed per kg. A one third reduction in feed isn't exactly a minor savings. They both seem to have around the same land footprint though, and environmentally that's probably a bigger deal. Neither chickens nor crickets are going to drive deforestation in the way that beef does.

It's not a 1/3 reduction if you're switching from red meat to a substitute, it would be like 85% versus 80% (made up numbers).

# ¿ Dec 20, 2014 02:38

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ToxicSlurpee posted:

And how many Americans would lose their minds of they found out their bread had bugs in it? The other big issue is in the protein side of things. Yeah we need a certain amount of protein to not die but Americans consume way, way more protein than we actually need. It's actually surprising how little meat you actually need to get your protein. Yes I know technically the answer is "none" and we don't need to eat meat at all but a standard human diet actually has a very low need for protein.

Though from what I've heard there's not a *downside* to consuming excessive amounts of protein, at least from a health perspective.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2014 02:54

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ToxicSlurpee posted:

Actually if you look at human history we very well may do that. There are pretty huge swathes of land on Earth that are now completely and totally unproductive thanks to human activity.

I don't think the Fertile Crescent counts.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2014 18:50

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Job Truniht posted:

What about fresh water supplies? The story I hear from climatologists is that any rise in sea levels could salivate the gently caress out of our water supplies, and the majority of which is used for agriculture and irrigation.

I mean maybe in areas where you're literally right on the coast but in general agriculture doesn't depend on water sources near the oceans.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2014 00:45

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whitey delenda est posted:

Yes in la la land where anybody anywhere wants nuclear power infrastructure constructed.

Theoretical energy isn't a problem. Actual energy sure as gently caress is, because we won't be actually using nuclear power to generate it. In fact we've gone backwards in that regard.

This is more appropriate for the energy generation thread but the issues are so closely intertwined it's impossible to address one outside the context of the other.

This seems to be under the assumption that we will stop before (at least some) people are meaningfully hurt, whereas history has shown that any major project will probably gently caress a lot of people over as it's being deliberated and implemented.

In other words, if you take it as a given that not everyone will be saved, the likelihood of implementing nuclear energy grows by a significant margin.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2014 00:54

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Reiterpallasch posted:

I've had fried scorpion on a stick off of a gross-rear end street food stand in Xi'an and it was delicious. Locust, too, in Beijing. Giant ant eggs (escamol, I believe) make a better taco filling than 95% of the poo poo that Americans will happily dump into theirs. Never had cricket but I'd chow down on one in a heartbeat. All y'all white bread & white picket fence kids need to get over yourselves.

(More to the point, I don't think you'd have a problem getting like 80% of the world to routinely eat insects if you could nail the production and transportation down, since 80% of the world is still quite comfortable with the idea of eating them at least some of the time.)

This just reminds me of the Caves of Steel when they say that privacy has become outdated on Earth and everyone showers in an open room.

# ¿ Dec 24, 2014 01:26

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whitey delenda est posted:

Won't need to generalize, the beef industry will project tastes onto people for us.

Pork is a big deal in China because it's a big place. and for decades pork was basically and traditionally the only meat available cuz of lack of space to graze ruminants, but as it continues to westernize and import feed grains you'll see others take off.

There are still other options. I mean there's a reason why KFC is more popular than McDonalds in China.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2015 11:16

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Peven Stan posted:

A lot of old school Han people like my mom hate the taste of ruminants. You can work up a slick marketing campaign but that doesn't change long seated cultural attitudes towards beef and lamb as ethnic meats for the Halal market.

One of my girlfriends' friends told me once how they only ever got their beef and lamb from Muslims (I think Hui?) and how that was a still a thing even today.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2015 20:19

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Xipe Totec posted:

reading the last few pages, the only solutions put forward are PR campaigns within The Free Market.

do you guys really think this is the best we can do to achieve food security?

Obviously to achieve food security we need to ban GMOs and nuclear power.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2015 23:48

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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

As for steady state economies? No. Optimism. Anyone who wants the world to stop growing is pretty drat selfish and evil. We've got mouths to feed, technology to expand, and factories to build. We can decouple the modernization of the third world from our environmental impact.

That and the world itself is not steady state in the slightest.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2015 00:28

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 06:12

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Guy DeBorgore posted:

Where exactly do you think the genes in GMOs come from? Biologists aren't stringing nucleic acids together by hand, they copy them from extant species. The fewer the extant species, the smaller the genetic library we have to draw on for engineering. Wild species of potatoes, corn, and other staple crops are still out there, and they're hugely useful sources of potential new modifications to make to domesticated varieties.

Genes also don't have to come from similar species though.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2015 03:08

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