If the total American Ag system is an energy sink( 10 to 1 gives a lot of room for error bars), it is historically unique and a concern as liquid fuels get more expensive. The local oyster business and honey business may be similar. The inputs were less and the production local. In “Energy and Civilization” Vaclav Smil gives early American farms EROEI of around 20/1. The EROEI for average farms is difficult, but said to be 0.1 or 10 calories of input for every calorie produced(frame may be at the consumer’s table). The average American farmer is losing dollars(google) and needs to work off the farm. Ms Haspel may have a positive energy return and dollar return(ROI) on her oysters, and that would be interesting. I can be a bulldog about energy return on energy invested (EROEI) but it obviously varies a lot with setting and the frames chosen. So time spent on the agricultural area is most welcome. When derivatives, central banks and fossil fuels begin to wane, we may get there again. ![]() Someone said that in the 1800s economics was basically about the wheat market. If you like “sweet and sour chicken”, you can get it in TVP. Today, modern vegetarians and vegans now have access to textured vegetable proteins (TVP), where soybeans (and sometimes cotton seeds, wheat, and oats) have their proteins are heated, denatured and puffed up in a process, and they can be made into a multitude of different shapes and textures, then flavor of many kinds can be added (see “Gardein”, which is a leading product). Of course they ate meat when available, but it wasn’t every day. Native Mexicans used to get most of their calories from beans and corn (the latter often in the form of tortillas), the combination of which provides all needed amino acids for the body to build proteins. It is true that tomatoes, onions, cucumber, eggplant and bananas are all commonly consumed by vegetarian Indians, but they are not the base of the diet. Milk is also important in many parts of India. Rice and wheat bread fill out the calorie requirements. The staple are lentils (dhal), often mixed with cheese and cooked with plant oils. įor example, there are hundreds of millions of vegetarians in India. No sane vegetarian thinks that they are only going to eat specialty crop “vegetables”. ![]() I didn’t quite get the vegetarian section. What does it say about our society that we raise billions of animals in (arguably) torturous conditions so we can have yummy and cheap food? And while I agree that a slaughterhouse being gross is not in itself a moral argument, the question is still one worth thinking about. Of course there’s a moral question as well. I had to dissect a cat in high school and it was SUPER gross. Field trips seem like a decent way to remove some ignorance regarding basic realities of modern life.Īlso, the fact that something is “gross” is not a super strong argument against it’s educational value. This applies to other things (car or iPhone manufacturing plants, mining operations, soy bean growers/crushers, cotten fields, chemical producers etc). People should have a basic idea of where the things they use and consume everyday come form… that’s, like, education man. ![]() ![]() There’s a pretty basic argument for the “slaughter house field trip” idea which doesn’t involve vegetarians trying to gross out omnivores.
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