Is a Big Hunk of Steak Worth Almost 2,000 Gallons of Water?

[Charlie]

CO2 goes back into the environment also.........

yeah yeah....obfuscation of the issue.

Try carp instead, hardly any use of water. ;-)

Charlie

"I don't drink water, fish f*ck in it." ~~~ WC Fields

[zxcvbob]

Shhh! You're not supposed to ask that.

Bob

[Billy]

In article , "Zootal" wrote:

Eel sauce? It might taste fine but my first reaction is that my heart goes out to you. Eel sauce. I don't even want to eat eel (elle maybe but not eel). I just consider it a testimony as to how hungry a person can get. It's right up there with the Donner party.

Some may call for vegetarianism on moral, health, or economic grounds but we are omnivores. We have four canine teeth. Our dinner is our choice for better or worse.

Do you live near a Confined Animal Feeding Operation? I don't but I have yet to read about anyone who is pleased to have them for a neighbor. Apparently, they render the air unbreathable and foul the water table. The animals live in manure which is part of the reason that abattoirs have trouble keeping the meat free of salmonella and e. coli (especially Escherichia coli O157:H7). An estimated 76 million cases of foodborne disease occur each year in the United States. The great majority of these cases are mild and cause symptoms for only a day or two. Some cases are more serious, and CDC estimates that there are 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths related to foodborne diseases each year.

The animals are crowded together so closely that they tend to give each other illnesses. Did you know that 50% of the antibiotics used in this country are used on animals. This helps create antibiotic resistant bacteria which are a threat to us, human beings. The stress that the animals experience affects the quality of their meat. weren't meant to eat corn. If they ate corn for more than six months they would drop dead from stomach ulcers. To increase the protein in their diets, ground up fowl and sheep are fed to cattle. This isn't a conspiracy but feed producers will look at protein content and play fast and loose with where the protein came from. Even though the FDA promises to tighten up on ground up critters in animal feed next year, up to now, we have been paying Russian roulette. must have heard of recent stories like the one from Chino, California, where downer cattle (cattle that exhibit BSE characteristics) were sent to slaughter. Not only won't our own government increase inspection for the health of it's population, it won't even allow producers to pay for more stringent testing themselves to assuage the fears of overseas consumers. Where do you think the cattle feed comes from? It comes from thousands of acres of corn fields.

Now here is a futuristic idea, what if we put the cattle on that land to graze on grass (their historic food source)? No stress related meat impact, reduced antibiotic use, cleaner air and water, no contamination from being fed animal residue, less crap on the animals to contaminate our food, and it would make American meat competitive with anybody's.

Wadda ya think Zoot? What would that be worth to you? Ten cents a pound, twenty-five cents, a dollar?

And if you are looking for new energy sources, look hard. We Americans use 25% of the world's energy but we represent only 5% of the worlds population. Funny thing is that everyone wants to live the way they see us live on the movie screens. India and China, representing 40% of the world's population, are presently trying to close that gap. So if you find a new energy source, make sure there will be plenty of it because a lots of people want it.

[Charlie]

So, you think the original posting is bullshit and of no concern?

Charlie

[Charlie]

Sometimes you just get this.....feeling, ya' know?

Perusal thru files gives insight, at least to me. More than I wanted to know.

up your own mind.

Charlie

[Omelet]

I've driven by them.

Food irradiation is safe and would render this a non-problem for both produce and meats, and would drastically increase shelf-life.

Unfortunately, too many ignorant fools are opposed to it. I wish I could get a home unit, but the price is prohibitive.

[Omelet]

Not bullshit babe, just of no concern.

There is no doubt that it uses that much water, but water is not destroyed by it.

It is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned. :-)

We need more desalinization plants. That would solve the entire planets need for both water, and salt.

[Jangchub]

Why so hostile? I didn't accuse meat eating people of anything. I merely exposed my own reasons. And plants are not sentient beings. They do not have a conscience or an awareness. Some say studies show plants react to certain stimuli. True. According to my belief system, they are not sentient.

As for the masks, of course th>Plants are forms of life also. Each plant we eat was once a sentient being

[Zootal]

No, I went to bed after posting :-)

At my age I live with one foot in the grave, I dug it years ago...

[Billy]

Guilty as charged babe. If the USDA would only lable the food then we could each have what we want ;o)

? Our trained taste testers noted a slight but distinct off-taste and smell in most of the irradiated beef and chicken we cooked and sampled, likening it to singed hair. In the beef, the taste was detectable even with a bun, ketchup, and lettuce. Because it was usually subtle, however, some consumers may not notice it.

? Irradiated food is safe to eat, according to federal and world health officials. It certainly does not become radioactive. But a recent study on the chemical byproducts that irradiation creates in meat has led some researchers and the European Parliament to call for further studies.

Sierra Club and 50 other consumer and environmental groups filed a petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, demanding the labeling of biotech food. Bills to require labeling have been introduced in the House (H.R. 3377) and the Senate (S. 2080), and are strenuously opposed by the biotech industry. Marion Nestle, chair of the Nutrition Department at New York University, calls this opposition "self-destructive" and "the single issue that has done most to undermine industry credibility in the public mind."

At least labeling is mandatory for irradiation, a process in which blasts of Cobalt-60 or electron beams kill potentially dangerous bacteria. The FDA requires that nuked foods be marked with a stylized flower called a "radura" and a statement such as "treated with radiation." After strenuous lobbying by industry, the FDA consented to reduce the size of the label, and the National Food Processors Association is now trying to replace the word radiation ("Few consumers express willingness to purchase foods with such a label statement") with "cold pasteurization."

Irradiated meat will probably first appear in hospitals, nursing homes, and schools, where there are no labeling requirements and the industry can claim to be protecting vulnerable populations from pathogens like E. coli and salmonella. "They're using the excuse of food-borne disease," claims Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project, "but it's really about shelf life." Irradiated hamburger, she says, can last 35 days; strawberries, up to 3 weeks.

Critics fear that irradiation's promise to kill pathogens at the end of the packing process will encourage sloppiness before that point. This concern was reinforced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's shift to a new meat-inspection system (simultaneous with its approval of irradiated meat) that will focus on random visits and eliminate 150 inspectors, saving the food industry $19 million a year. Already, says Public Citizen, processed chickens are exhibiting more visible fecal matter. "Americans don't want to eat fecal matter," notes Hauter, "even if the bacteria's dead."

[Billy]

Doesn't seem to stop the GMO people, or our government from reducing the number of inspectors at meat packing plants, or the introduction of nano additives to our food chain, or medications released with only in house assessments of their safety, or planning the containment of radioactive waste for the next 10,000 years.

I would agree, first do no harm and, then proceed cautiously.

[Pan]

Did someone cancel the old water cycle?

You know where you drink water then you pee then it evaporates in the sunlight and it then returns as rain?

[Marie Dodge]

You would think everyone knew this little fact by now. ;-)

[Billy]

But conservatives are always sayin' they want to shrink any regulatory bodies and that liber-als want cradle to grave big government. Whereas theists believe in a cradle to grave regulatory body (up-stairs) and atheists deny a regulatory body. So, IF we were cosistent, conservatives would be atheists and liber-als would be theists.

You know, dealing with people is kind of like pushing a string. right back at cha';-)

[Billy]

You're not leaving much room for agnostics and atheists but as far as I know he ran as a Republican ;O))

[Billy]

Here the water is diverted to the south for people to grow lawns in the desert, wash their cars and, hose off their driveways and walks. Or it goes to farmers in the central valley who have been know to resell their rights to the water. (If you don't use it. You lose it.) Meanwhile, the salmon can't make it up stream because the water is low and warm, which takes away food and employment.

Grain to ethanol has already been shown to be a bad idea, so what we are seeing now is the corn lobby and the subsidies lobby at work.

Course if we pastured cows they could eat grass and improve the soil quality at the same time.

Hopefully some of that cast away food is finding its' way to Second Harvest or the local food bank, what with "food insecurity" on the rise.

You can't be far from Friedricksburg to write "grossery" store like that;-)

[Billy]

Proteins or amino acids? If it's proteins, I'll have to reconsider my handling procedure for eggs. Don't want to get cut by no egg shell

[Billy]

Sterilized crap is still crap ;O)

Nice whatever that is. Didn't get a lot of that in lab Sometimes I just don't know if I should or ;o))

[Billy]

The trick is to do it a top the Continental Divide and have part got to the Pacific Ocean and the rest to the watershed of the Mississippi. It is said to be a cosmic experience.

[Billy]

Hell, I don't even buy green bananas anymore.