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Archive:000/Limits to sustainable animal consumption: Difference between revisions
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==FAQ== | ==FAQ== | ||
{{faq | {{faq | ||
| | |What about chickens & pigs? | ||
|Since chickens & pigs are not ruminants, they depend on eating grains or other foods that ''people'' could eat - this ''includes'' the "table scraps" often mentioned by owners of chickens.{{x|To see how to really use vegetables to the fullest, see [[food/full_use#vegetables]].}} | |Since chickens & pigs are not ruminants, they depend on eating grains or other foods that ''people'' could eat - this ''includes'' the "table scraps" often mentioned by owners of chickens.{{x|To see how to really use vegetables to the fullest, see [[food/full_use#vegetables]].}} | ||
[[Backyard chickens]] can't solve the ''food-inefficiency'' problem, but they ''can'' at least reduce the ''animal cruelty'' problem. Backyard chickens are generally treated better{{x|with some exceptions,<!--TODO: write about electric fences--> unfortunately}} than chickens in [[factory farms]]. Also, chickens are useful on crop lands because they can eat insects that would otherwise be pests.{{x|This can help with [[crop yields]]. Chickens also poop which can help [[fertilizer|fertilize]] the soil, but from a higher perspective, this doesn't add any minerals that weren't already there in the first place (the [[soil]] page will explain this in more detail).}} This could certainly contribute ''some'' chicken & eggs to the food supply, but it probably wouldn't be much compared to the status quo of chicken consumption.{{qn|and could be added to the total}} To be fair, when it comes to exceeding the "limits to sustainable animal consumption", chicken isn't as bad as beef{{x|for the same amount of meat}}. Cows have a much worse [[feed efficiency]], which is a problem when they are fed grains. | [[Backyard chickens]] can't solve the ''food-inefficiency'' problem, but they ''can'' at least reduce the ''animal cruelty'' problem. Backyard chickens are generally treated better{{x|with some exceptions,<!--TODO: write about electric fences--> unfortunately}} than chickens in [[factory farms]]. Also, chickens are useful on crop lands because they can eat insects that would otherwise be pests.{{x|This can help with [[crop yields]]. Chickens also poop which can help [[fertilizer|fertilize]] the soil, but from a higher perspective, this doesn't add any minerals that weren't already there in the first place (the [[soil]] page will explain this in more detail).}} This could certainly contribute ''some'' chicken & eggs to the food supply, but it probably wouldn't be much compared to the status quo of chicken consumption.{{qn|and could be added to the total}} To be fair, when it comes to exceeding the "limits to sustainable animal consumption", chicken isn't as bad as beef{{x|for the same amount of meat}}. Cows have a much worse [[feed efficiency]], which is a problem when they are fed grains. | ||
}} | }} | ||
== | ==Writer's comments== | ||
This page mostly deals with the ''inefficiency'' problems in agriculture. It doesn't account for ''other'' environmental issues such as methane emissions or soil depletion. Maybe this page should be a ''subpage'', and there could be other subpages | This page mostly deals with the ''inefficiency'' problems in agriculture. It doesn't account for ''other'' environmental issues such as methane emissions or soil depletion, or other ethical issues like animal cruelty{{x|On one hand, at least grass-fed cows aren't forced to spend their whole lives in cages. On the other hand, male calves are almost always separated from their mothers at birth and slaughtered for veal, since they aren't very useful to the milk or beef industry (only a small number of bulls are ever needed). This is obviously distressing for the cows whose sons are taken away and killed. There needs to be a page on this. It could talk about whether there are any less-cruel alternatives (sex-selective abortion, perhaps? would the cost be reasonable though?).}}. Maybe this page should be a ''subpage'', and there could be other subpages involving those issues. The main "Limits to sustainable animal consumption" page could provide just a summary (tl;dr) and links to all the subpages. | ||
==See also== | ==See also== | ||