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Cake day: June 1st, 2023

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  • The method of mass killing are quite brutal too. In the last outbreaks, primarily these were the two primary methods:

    Ventilation shutdown (VSD) is a means to kill livestock by suffocation and heat stroke in which airways to the building in which the livestock are kept are cut off. It is used for mass killing — usually to prevent the spread of diseases such as avian influenza. Animal rights organizations have called the practice unethical. The addition of carbon dioxide or additional heat to the enclosure is known as ventilation shutdown plus (VSD+).[1][2][3][4][5]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventilation_shutdown

    Foam depopulation or foaming is a means of mass killing farm animals by spraying foam over a large area to obstruct breathing and ultimately cause suffocation.[1] It is usually used to attempt to stop disease spread.[2] Foaming has also been used to kill farm animals after backlogs in slaughtering occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.[3] Foam depopulation has been used on poultry and pigs and has seen initial research for use on cattle.[4] It has faced criticism from some groups. Some veterinarians have called it inhumane,[5] along with many animal rights and animal welfare organizations who cite the pain caused by suffocation or the harm experienced by the stray survivors.[6][7]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foam_depopulation






  • The science doesn’t agree with that

    It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that appropriately planned vegetarian, including vegan, diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. These diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes. Plant-based diets are more environmentally sustainable than diets rich in animal products because they use fewer natural resources and are associated with much less environmental damage. Vegetarians and vegans are at reduced risk of certain health conditions, including ischemic heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, certain types of cancer, and obesity. Low intake of saturated fat and high intakes of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, soy products, nuts, and seeds (all rich in fiber and phytochemicals) are characteristics of vegetarian and vegan diets that produce lower total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and better serum glucose control. These factors contribute to reduction of chronic disease

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27886704/

    Nevertheless, several RCTs [randomized controlled trials] have examined the effect of vegetarian diets on intermediate risk factors of cardiovascular diseases (Table 1). In a meta-analysis of RCTs, Wang et al. (22) found vegetarian diets to significantly lower blood concentrations of total, LDL, HDL, and non-HDL cholesterol relative to a range of omnivorous control diets. Other meta-analyses have found vegetarian diets to lower blood pressure, enhance weight loss, and improve glycemic control to greater extent than omnivorous comparison diets (23-25). Taken together, the beneficial effects of such diets on established proximal determinants of cardiovascular diseases found in RCTs, and their inverse associations with hard cardiovascular endpoints found in prospective cohort studies provide strong support for the adoption of healthful plant-based diets for cardiovascular disease prevention

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/am/pii/S1050173818300240

    Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits, including lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein as well as higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, and antioxidants such as vitamins C and E and phytochemicals

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12778049/







  • That’d still be quite high in emissions. Land deforestation and the massive amounts of feed are large portions of emissions for meat and dairy products. It takes far more feed than it does to eat crops directly due to the energy loss from creatures using that energy to move around, on their body functions, etc.

    The practices somewhat similar to what’s suggested there work out too well in practice. Manure lagoons, where waste is stored in huge pools to break down, have several environmental problems

    Rates of asthma in children living near a CAFO are consistently elevated.[4] The process of anaerobic digestion has been shown to release over 400 volatile compounds from lagoons.[13] The most prevalent of these are: ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, methane, and carbon dioxide

    […]

    Contaminants that are water-soluble can escape from anaerobic lagoons and enter the environment through leakage from badly constructed or poorly maintained manure lagoons as well as during excess rain or high winds, resulting in an overflow of lagoons.[2] These leaks and overflows can contaminate surrounding surface and ground water with some hazardous materials which are contained in the lagoon.[2] The most serious of these contaminants are pathogens, antibiotics, heavy metals and hormones. For example, runoff from farms in Maryland and North Carolina are a leading candidate for Pfiesteria piscicida. This contaminant has the ability to kill fish, and it can also cause skin irritation and short term memory loss in humans[20]

    […]

    Antibiotics are fed to livestock to prevent disease and to increase weight and development, so that there is a shortened time from birth to slaughter. However, because these antibiotics are administered at sub-therapeutic levels, bacterial colonies can build up resistance to the drugs through the natural selection of bacteria resistant to these antibiotics. These antibiotic-resistant bacteria are then excreted and transferred to the lagoons, where they can infect humans and other animals.[13]

    Each year, 24.6 million pounds of antimicrobials are administered to livestock for non-therapeutic purposes.[23] Seventy percent of all antibiotics and related drugs are given to animals as feed additives.[4] Nearly half of the antibiotics used are nearly identical to ones given to humans. There is strong evidence that the use of antibiotics in animal feed is contributing to an increase in antibiotic-resistant microbes and causing antibiotics to be less effective for humans.[4] Due to concerns over antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the American Medical Association passed a resolution stating its opposition to the use of sub-therapeutic levels of antimicrobials in livestock.[13]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_lagoon#Environmental_and_health_impacts


  • The stats touted around seaweed and other feed adatives are highly misleading. Even looking at the highest touted claims you only get an 8% reduction of overall emissions. The high numbers you see are only reporting the feedlot reductions which aren’t where the majority of the missions come from

    What’s more, feeding cattle algae is really only practical where it’s least needed: on feedlots. This is where most cattle are crowded in the final months of their 1.5- to 2-year lives to rapidly put on weight before slaughter. There, algae feed additives can be churned into the cows’ grain and soy feed. But on feedlots, cattle already belch less methane—only 11 percent of their lifetime output

    […]

    Unfortunately, adding the algae to diets on the pasture, where it’s most needed, isn’t a feasible option either. Out on grazing lands, it’s difficult to get cows to eat additives because they don’t like the taste of red algae unless it’s diluted into feed. And even if we did find ways to sneak algae in somehow, there’s a good chance their gut microbes would adapt and adjust, bringing their belches’ methane right back to high levels.

    […] All told, if we accept the most promising claims of the algae boosters, we’re talking about an 80 percent reduction of methane among only 11 percent of all burps—roughly an 8.8 percent reduction total

    https://www.wired.com/story/carbon-neutral-cows-algae/








  • I can quote some of the relevant sections here (not supposed to share the whole thing). These are just some of the problems listed with the metrics there’s quite a lot more but this comment is getting too long

    The relative protein content, IAA content, and IAA profile of a given food are required to calculate the DIAAS. The FAO has not prescribed a specific methodology to determine protein content for the DIAAS but acknowledged that nitrogen con- tent can be used to estimate protein content for the PDCAAS [24]. Food-specific nitrogen-to-protein conversion factors have been determined for various foods and can be used for this calculation; however, the FAO does not recommend their use. Instead, it recommends that the generalized nitrogen-to- protein conversion factor be utilized [29]. The generalized factor was set at 6.25 because all proteins were originally estimated to contain 16% nitrogen; however, this varies great- ly between proteins [32]. Importantly, estimating protein content using the general- ized or food-specific factors influences the corresponding PDCAAS and DIAAS. For example, the food-specific factors for almonds and soybeans are 5.20 and 5.61, respectively. As a result, using the generalized factor to calculate their DIAAS yields 16.8% and 10.2% lower values, respectively, than when they are calculated based on their food-specific factors. Conversely, the food-specific factors for skim milk and yogurt are 6.36 and 6.40, respectively [33]. Accordingly, their DIAAS are higher when generalized factors are used. In ad- dition, greater discrepancies exist between conversion factors for plant foods than animal foods, with recent values ranging from 5.3 to 5.8 for grains compared with 5.85–6.15 for milk products [34]. The particular methodology used to calculate protein content therefore influences the DIAAS of plant and animal foods differently, decreasing scores for plant-based sources of protein while increasing scores for animal-based sources of protein. Due to differences in the ranges of food- specific factors, use of the generalized factor may also lead to more inaccurate scores for plant foods than animal foods.

    Most literature examining dietary protein consumption and postprandial muscle protein synthesis (MPS) has focused on isolated protein sources, as used in the DIASS method, with limited literature focusing on the influence of whole foods on MPS [31•]. In most settings, protein is not consumed in isolation. Rather, whole foods are consumed with their intrinsic nutrients exhibiting a synergistic and concerted effect [48] and can influence the post-exercise MPS [49–51].

    Raw foodstuff is used for most DIAAS modeling, whereas protein-rich plant foods (legumes, grains, etc.) typically un- dergo heat treatment, processing, or both before human con- sumption. Common cooking techniques modify proteins, with heat-treated plant-based proteins demonstrating higher digest- ibility compared with unprocessed sources [30, 52]. One such modification relates to the protease inhibitor trypsin, and pro- cessing treatments have been shown to deactivate as much as 80% of its inhibitory activity in raw flour [52]. Malting and fermentation processes can also increase the digestibility of some proteins, likely by bacterial protein pre-digestion and the lessening of “anti-nutrients” like oxalates, tannins, and phytic acid [31•, 53]. Their effects are significant, both for foods and supplements. The fermentation of grain coupled with other cooking techniques, as is often employed in tradi- tional cooking methods (e.g., sourdough bread), can increase the digestibility of grain protein to a level approaching that of meat [53]. Further, compared with untreated pea seeds, pea protein concentrate demonstrated 12% higher digestibility, matching the protein digestibility of casein [52].


  • Interestingly enough, there are now non-animal whey milks out there (made via fermentation). It’s worth noting that protein bioavailable numbers are pretty misleading because the way they are done overvalues the availability of animal products and undervalues it for plant-based foods

    While multiple strengths characterize the DIAAS, substantial limitations remain, many of which are accentuated in the context of a plant-based dietary pattern. Some of these limitations include a failure to translate differences in nitrogen-to-protein conversion factors between plant- and animal-based foods, limited representation of commonly consumed plant-based foods within the scoring framework, inadequate recognition of the increased digestibility of commonly consumed heat-treated and processed plant-based foods, its formulation centered on fast-growing animal models rather than humans, and a focus on individual isolated foods vs the food matrix. The DIAAS is also increasingly being used out of context where its application could produce erroneous results such as exercise settings. When investigating protein quality, particularly in a plant-based dietary context, the DIAAS should ideally be avoided.

    (emphasis mine)

    https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s13668-020-00348-8.pdf