Posted on 12/22/2014 10:26:23 AM PST by grundle
Despite environmentalists worries, cattle dont guzzle water or cause hungerand can help fight climate change
People who advocate eating less beef often argue that producing it hurts the environment. Cattle, we are told, have an outsize ecological footprint: They guzzle water, trample plants and soils, and consume precious grains that should be nourishing hungry humans. Lately, critics have blamed bovine burps, flatulence and even breath for climate change.
As a longtime vegetarian and environmental lawyer, I once bought into these claims. But now, after more than a decade of living and working in the businessmy husband, Bill, founded Niman Ranch but left the company in 2007, and we now have a grass-fed beef companyIve come to the opposite view. It isnt just that the alarm over the environmental effects of beef are overstated. Its that raising beef cattle, especially on grass, is an environmental gain for the planet.
At the same time, cattle are key to the worlds most promising strategy to counter global warming: restoring carbon to the soil. One-tenth of all human-caused carbon emissions since 1850 have come from soil, according to ecologist Richard Houghton of the Woods Hole Research Center. This is due to tillage, which releases carbon and strips the earth of protective vegetation, and to farming practices that fail to return nutrients and organic matter to the earth. Plant-covered land that is never plowed is ideal for recapturing carbon through photosynthesis and for holding it in stable forms.
Most of the worlds beef cattle are raised on grass. Their pruning mouths stimulate vegetative growth as their trampling hoofs and digestive tracts foster seed germination and nutrient recycling. These beneficial disturbances, like those once caused by wild grazing herds, prevent the encroachment of woody shrubs and are necessary for the functioning of grassland ecosystems.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
We would not have grasslands and prairies today were not for bison. Want to get rid of greenbriar and scrub? Put a bale in the middle of it. The cows will do all the work.
Once upon a time there were millions of Bison.
Many millions more than there are cattle today.
But I guess Bison don't fart.
that and it tastes wonderful
The difference between grass fed and corn fed is astounding. Corn fed doesn’t even taste good to me anymore.
If it isn't corn fed and aged with lots of fat marbling I won't eat it.
Grass fed is inedible crap!!!
This is nothing new. Congress appropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the study of this in the late 80's and early 90's.
Conversely, there was a study in Canada a number of years ago that measured the gas expulsion of several humans on a daily basis. They found that the average human expels approx. 3 liters of gas per day.
Do some math! 7 billion humans times 3 and the amount of gas expelled by humans far exceeds what a few cows might do.
Perhaps you could learn to cook the grass fed beef properly, then you would discover the incredible flavor of it?
We’ll just have to agree to disagree, FRiend.
Grass-fed! LOL! Well, okay. It will be your money and my cost savings!
[Ain’t city slickers great?]
“Grass fed is inedible crap!!!”
True that. Years ago one of the grocery stores tried selling that at a big discount, that didn’t last long.
Even at a discount it is unfit for anything except hamburger.
So far the basic premise — Liberals are wrong about absolutely everything — remains rock solid.
***People who advocate eating less beef often argue that producing it hurts the environment.***
80 milliom bison=good!
80 million cattle=bad!
We must all eat grass!
***The difference between grass fed and corn fed is astounding.***
Yes it is, and the purpose of grain fed cattle is to get rid of the “off” flavors picked up by the cattle. You really should try some beef that has been eating on pasture with some wild onions growing in it! You will never badmouth grain fed beef again.
I buy grass fed when I can. Aldi’s has grassfed hamburger in a one pound package. Its from Uruguay and Argentina and Australia. Frozen of course
In fact, Argentinian beef is in high demand in much of the world specifically because the cattle in Argentina graze on grass only.
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