News article: "Can a low-carb, high-fat diet help fight diabetes?"
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I read an article yesterday claiming that cattle are one of the biggest human-caused greenhouse gas emission problems in the world (I think it was from CNN, I'll have to try to find it). Apparently, they exhale a lot of methane as part of their digestion process. The article claimed that, on average, a 20oz serving of beef (huge serving, but still) is roughly equivalent to driving an SUV 70 miles, in terms of emissions. It also claimed that grass-fed beef was the worst in terms of emissions/methane--with feed lot/grain fed being the best (if cruelest, in my opinion).
I have a hard time believing that cows are so "unsustainable," given that I grew up on a cattle farm, where the air was nice and clean and everything around was green and beautiful... I'd love to see the actual research behind those claims. Will have to do some digging when I have more time.0 -
Dragonwolf wrote: »(Philip Morris owns Kraft, think about that one for a minute).
That's no longer true. Lots of spin-offs in the last few years, and that was one of them. PM/Altria spun Kraft, then Berkshire bought Heinz, and finally Heinz merged with Kraft.
Non-sequitur, I know, but there's only one thing I love more than science: investing.
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Dragonwolf wrote: »(Philip Morris owns Kraft, think about that one for a minute).
That's no longer true. Lots of spin-offs in the last few years, and that was one of them. PM/Altria spun Kraft, then Berkshire bought Heinz, and finally Heinz merged with Kraft.
Non-sequitur, I know, but there's only one thing I love more than science: investing.
Huh, so they did. Thanks for that correction. That merger just happened this past July, too. Looks like the spin-off of Kraft completed in 2007. (On a side note, it's really weird reading about a company such as Kraft in the past tense, as on its Wiki page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_Foods_Inc - since it technically no longer exists.)
At least it's not present tense anymore, though 20 years of being owned by Philip Morris is enough of a legacy to keep my original point (ie - the influence of the tobacco companies -- who were exposed in the 90s for their bald-faced lies about the safety of tobacco -- on the way the food companies manage their own lobby and PR campaigns).0 -
ceciliaslater wrote: »I read an article yesterday claiming that cattle are one of the biggest human-caused greenhouse gas emission problems in the world (I think it was from CNN, I'll have to try to find it). Apparently, they exhale a lot of methane as part of their digestion process. The article claimed that, on average, a 20oz serving of beef (huge serving, but still) is roughly equivalent to driving an SUV 70 miles, in terms of emissions. It also claimed that grass-fed beef was the worst in terms of emissions/methane--with feed lot/grain fed being the best (if cruelest, in my opinion).
I have a hard time believing that cows are so "unsustainable," given that I grew up on a cattle farm, where the air was nice and clean and everything around was green and beautiful... I'd love to see the actual research behind those claims. Will have to do some digging when I have more time.
Eh...kind of....
According to the EPA, it is the second largest single source of methane in the US -- http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html
However, natural gas and oil exceed it, and non-farm activity as a whole take the lion's share by far. That's also 25% of a greenhouse gas that is only itself 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions (though methane is more efficient at heat trapping, so changes to methane emissions could theoretically provide more immediate impact regarding climate change).
Considering all ruminants emit methane, there's also the fact that North America has a ton of them (and always has). This study - http://extension.psu.edu/animals/dairy/news/2011/wild-ruminants-burp-methane-too - actually goes into that, and estimates put historical methane emission no less than about 70% of modern (assuming a "medium" bison population of 50 million and not the "high" estimate of 70 million, the latter of which would make the historical methane emission far exceed modern emission). So there's that, too.0 -
Dragonwolf wrote: »I don't think there is a big conspiracy by big Arga/big Pharma/ Government to get/keep people fat, so much as there seems to be more profit in people being sugar addicted/fat/sick/unable to make clear-headed decisions. I also don't think the single-payer health insurance system will solve things - look at Great Britain. I think that human beings should be responsible for their own health, do the research, look for alternatives and treat their bodies the way they treat their cars - take care of them, fuel them right, keep them running, keep them clean, and take them for tune-ups when needed. Once we, the regular people, change, the system will change with us. If crappy carbage doesn't sell, no one will sell it anymore. There is no need to outlaw the 20 oz soda if no one wants it to begin with. It is up to us to be informed customers and human beings and vote with our wallets and brains. *Gets off the soap box.*
My original statement was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but whether it's profit or control, I don't believe where we are now is an accident or entirely unintended. Frankly, at least the population control thing has an altruistic argument aspect ("the world's overpopulated!"). The more likely alternative (corporate greed) is far more sinister when you actually think about it.
If you follow the money, you find that government, when it comes to food policy (and several other sectors), is a puppet, and the large food producers are the puppetmasters via large sums of money thrown around in lobbying. You see it in telecomm, too. In both situations, you can find dozens of cases where the companies have thrown billions upon billions of dollars at the government, in lawsuits, lobbies, or both, in order to block any meaningful reform.
Even worse? The people running the marketing for the biggest food companies are the same people that ran the marketing for the tobacco companies back in the 90s. I kid you not, the exact same people. And that's if the tobacco company doesn't straight-up own the brand (Philip Morris owns Kraft, think about that one for a minute). They know damn well what they're doing (they've had a few decades of practice) and that they're denying the consequences they know for a fact are happening because of their stuff, and they don't care. (How much crap has "heart healthy whole grains!" or "5g fiber!" on it that's just glorified brownies or other dessert food, or sugary food that's even worse?)
They also spend untold amounts of money on finding that "holy grail" of super-palatability -- the just-right combination of fat, sugar, and salt, that keeps you hopelessly hooked, health consequences be damned. Then, they spend millions upon million promoting their stuff on every platform available to them to get you to buy that first package.One issue that worries me, unless we've been completely lied to about that, too, is that there simply aren't enough natural resources to support a low carb nation and world. So now what do we do?
Actually, a lot of the LCHF staples are more sustainable in the US ecosystem than the current agricultural staples. Bison are native to most of the country, and cows can be raised in a similar manner to bison, as well as on otherwise inariable land, allowing us to grow far more of them than we do currently, without destroying the natural habitat. The same goes for deer. The mountain regions are actually home to many native berries, and can support similar plants that aren't native (strawberries grow really well around here). Corn, wheat, and soy are actually insanely water-hungry, and don't grow well in most of the big "bread basket" areas, which are actually too dry for most of it during growing seasons (corn is a Central and South American grass, native to regions that got more rainfall during the growing season than the modern areas). The midwest isn't technically "dry," but most of our precipitation is in early spring and later fall (with dry-ish summers through most of the areas). When left to nature, the climate is more likely to drown the seeds and first sprouts, then dry out the more mature plants in a number of places (Nebraska tops the list for irrigation demand for corn, an area which would be better suited to growing its native plants and animals).
The problem with the numbers people like to throw around that claim meat-raising is inefficient ("it takes X amount of water/resources to make 1lb of beef") is that they're getting their numbers from conventional, grain-raised cattle. That number changes drastically when using sustainable practices and letting the animals live in native environments. The only reason corn-raising is cheaper in the US is because corn is so heavily subsidized that it's actually more expensive to not grow corn than it is to grow it. I kid you not, we have so much corn in this country that in some areas, burning it straight is one of the cheapest fuels with which to heat your house.
This all does assume, of course, that the human population hasn't already reached the point that any method of growing food is not sustainable. It could be easily argued that we are well, well beyond the planet's population limit, regardless of food-production method and now, it's more a debate between a large, sick population or a smaller, healthy population (and mass amounts of die-off in the transition if we switch from the former, which is what we have, to the latter), unless we manage to master space travel and extraterrestrial colonization of some form or another in the near future (which then starts up issues such as what Elysium addresses, where the rich get to go off-planet, and the poor suffer on a destroyed Earth). It's bleak just about any way you look at it, though, that's for sure.
I'll eat bison all day any day. I'm sure I could grow to love it if the price came down. It's a luxury item for now, at least around here.
I was raised on science fiction from the pre-and very early-exploration days, but we don't seem anywhere near escaping this planet and establishing a self-sufficient colony, so I'm not counting on that. Maybe some breakthroughs on Earth will save our bacon (tee hee) but yes, it's bleak. Really bleak.0 -
Dragon--It could be easily argued that we are well, well beyond the planet's population limit,
OK…go ahead and argue it, some facts would be nice.0 -
When I had gestational diabetes with my daughter in 2012, LOW FAT was drummed into me from every direction. They told me that fat effects blood sugar levels very badly, which puzzled me. My glucose meter said otherwise.
Edited to add that my HbA1C was very poor/high until this year but my doctor credited weight loss for the change and not low carb
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When I had gestational diabetes with my daughter in 2012, LOW FAT was drummed into me from every direction. They told me that fat effects blood sugar levels very badly, which puzzled me. My glucose meter said otherwise.
Edited to add that my HbA1C was very poor/high until this year but my doctor credited weight loss for the change and not low carb
Because low carb couldn't possibly have had anything to do with your weight loss! (Read with a lot of sarcasm). I don't have a doc right now (just moved a few months ago, no job, no health insurance) but when I do look for one, I'm going to try to find one that is not opposed to the low carb WOE. 2 places I've found to look are primaldocs.com and lowcarbdoctors.blogspot.com.
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KETOGENICGURL wrote: »Dragon--It could be easily argued that we are well, well beyond the planet's population limit,
OK…go ahead and argue it, some facts would be nice.
This is not the place for such discussion, however, I recommend checking out the resources here, as well as in Lierre Keith's The Vegetarian Myth. Even the most optimistic calculations put it at about 10 billion people, which we're slated to reach in about 35 years, the more pessimistic ones put the sustainable limit at about a third of the current global population.0
