'We've bred them to their limit': death rates surge for female pigs in the US

I watched this a while back. Great stuff. 40,000 elephants killed though... that must have been a heartbreaking mistake.

Check out George Monbiot's TED talk on rewilding. I love that one.
https://www.ted.com/talks/george_monbiot_for_more_wonder_rewild_the_world?language=en

 

Clams especially can be good eats. I've boiled them up a few times.

What are the best fish to go for? I imagine farm-raised would also be better than wild-caught, in the interest of protecting ecosystems.

 

Actually, ive read that fish farms are not very good for the environment. Lots of chemicals and excessive waste, and they are fed tons of sardines, which leads to overfishing of them. Its cheaper than wild caught, but wild caught is actually better from an environmental point of view, from what I understand. Mackerel, herring, sardines (try to avoid west coast sardines..overfished), wild caught Alaskan salmon, wild caught rainbow trout. Sardines and herring are good because the method catching them does not include drag nets that damage the ocean floor.

Really you just have to try to figure out where and how they are caught. The most eco freindly tend to be more expensive, as their catching methods are less efficient but much better for the environment.

 

Now is the time to start turning these ideas into action, while there is this growing awareness and urgency around climate change. Ideally, farmers could be given incentives and economic assistance to implement these sorts of changes. Federal lands suffering desertification could be used to raise cattle in a cooperative model that involves neither purely government nor purely private control over the land.

 

I would really like to hunt them, not many in PA.

 

Well, I can get this awesome fish soup from the Russian market. It's from Armenia and has "fish balls" made from rainbow trout. Being in the Heartland, I'm not in an ideal place to get fresh fish, but at least I have this option. I do see fresh stuff in the meat dept., though to be honest I'm not too experienced with preparing it well. I've fried fish a few times. Taste and versatility differ a lot from something like beef, though I guess I mainly only have burger in things like spaghetti and Hamburger Helper And fast food, of course. I wonder how eco-friendly a fish sandwich from McDonald's is?

 

Aside from occasional eggs and wild-caught fish, my diet is mostly vegan. I am not sure if there is a connection between the hormones that make pigs and cows grow bigger, faster, and the fact that Americans are growing bigger, faster, but I want to be their lab rat.

 

Those shellfish have a sustainable population? Around me, oysters and crabs are in trouble.

 

Oh yeah. I have never watched this one, but I have seen the video on youtube about the wolf reintroduction and trophic cascades. I completely agree with him too. I would like to see the North American prairies restored, but not sure how that will work out.

 

Of course it's gamey it's not raised on a factory. Nor is it fed the optimal diet as determined by the amount of fat it produces. Gamey is another word for wild.

I like a sirloin myself and there's nothing wrong with liking sirloin or porterhouse or whatever. But not liking something because it tastes different is a bit odd.

 

I suppose we should be discussing this with our elected officials, huh?

 

you mean you don't want to be their lab rat, and I agree. The real problem though is from the risk of pandemic from antibiotic resistant disease.

What accelerates the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance?

http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antimicrobial-resistance

 

If we want to see something done. Farmers won't have much choice as it is now, I fear. Land is expensive.

But it would be interesting to have a bunch of our beef raised in wild country eating wild grasses and such, instead of on farms being fed farmed grains. This would impact growers of grains as well, but that could also be a good thing in the end. They could grow more for human consumption and cattle could be raised far more affordably, though it might be harder to round them up and process them when the time comes. Good work for ranchers, though.

 

We have over 1.5 million. They get up to 500 lbs. My niece hit a 300 lb hog with her truck a few years ago. It killed the hog and totaled her pick up. They can do incredible damage to fencing and crops. They try to avoid you, but will attack if cornered. One breeding pair can turn into about 60 hogs in a year.

 

Right. Industrialized agriculture is the single biggest problem in the world.

 

Wild boar, it's the other bacon.

 

Is it? Then yeah, it's about time changes were made.

 

We have dead zones all over the world, we have red tides causing fish kills and dead sea turtles. Here take a look at the satellite imagery of NC after the last hurricane. You can see the pollution flowing out to sea. It is from the flooded manure holding tanks at the concentrated animal feedlots.

NASA

Also, since humans transitioned from hunter gatherers to agriculture ~12k year ago, soil carbon has steadily been depleted, with the largest amount being lost since the beginning of the industrial era.

World’s soils have lost 133bn tonnes of carbon since the dawn of agriculture
https://www.carbonbrief.org/worlds-...onnes-of-carbon-since-the-dawn-of-agriculture

 

Oops! I left out an important word. Not only don't I want to be their lab rat, I have not taken antibiotics in 15 years. I was prone to sinus infections growing up and was prescribed antibiotics several times a year. When they stopped working, I just let my body fight on its own. It was awful at first, but I learned to strengthen my immune system naturally and now I don't get them anymore. My family still eats meat, so I do prepare it for them. I just insist on grass fed, no antibiotics.

 

My SIL has a ranch that has 500-1000 head of cattle at any time. They trade cattle for a living and don't butcher them. They do raise a few calves if they buy a pregnant heifer. Most of the cattle are treated very well. Before he died recently, my BIL said that he wouldn't buy 95% lean beef because the cattle were very stressed when they were killed. Otherwise, they lived pretty good lives.

 

Yeah, it's time that agriculture caught up with modern science, same as our power generation and transportation technologies.

 

The best way is all grass cattle. No grain finishing at CAFOs. The problem is that in the past, research showed that grain finishing reduced methane emissions. The alternate solution to that is better soil and grass plant biodiversity. A better grass diet can cut methane emissions by half.

 

I prefer to hunt my meat. Wild pork is awesome.

 

Here is how its done properly:

 

tx and a few other states have a serious feral hog problem. glad to hear it is open year round. in the north east, it is white tail deer. unfortunately the season is limited and they have black bear hunts too, which are one of the white tails main predator.