joeblueskies’s Recent Comments

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  The rain in Spain.....

  uuuh....Iowa?

  Bacon, the gateway meat.

  On Climate change means worse droughts for American Southwest, Australia posted 1 year, 4 months ago 2 Responses

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  hey nim

  bravo on making the connection between animals and soil fertility.  Not so many do these days.  I had the same question about the ACS.  Also that the report came out of that noteable hot-bed of sustainable ag research Carnegie Mellon University.  Smart people, but not so much their regular gig.

  Interesting that the sub-title for this thread is "Still more reasons to eat local and lay off the beef".  Well, a key part of eating local is learning to eat seasonally.  And guess what one of the few food sources that is available fresh - with all that means for good nutrition and taste - on a year-round basis in the northern hemisphere?  Hmmmmmmm.. less see now... Oh yeah - I got it - beef and dairy products! oh wait....

  Bacon, the gateway meat.

  On Still more reasons to eat local and lay off the beef posted 1 year, 5 months ago 33 Responses

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  Janus beef

  Too bad you have to pay to actually read the article, so I don't know what went into their analysis.  Call me cheap. I assume "beef" in this case means industrial corn-fed feedlot beef.  I would like to see the results of a peer-reviewed study of totally grass-fed beef, produced through intensive rotational grazing, including the role of the rapidly growing grasslands in carbon sequestration in the root zone.  This would definitely help offset all those cow burps.  I am quite sure that the picture would be very different than is painted here.  Beef production is not a one-size-fits-all creature.

  Plus, the food value would be very different as well.  The nutritional profile of grass-fed animals is quite preferential to the industrial model.

  All that aside, most of the beef produced in America is fed primarily on grain for all or a substantial part of its life, so this is quite good information.  But its nice to know we have choices.

  Bacon, the gateway meat.

  On Still more reasons to eat local and lay off the beef posted 1 year, 5 months ago 33 Responses

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  grazing followup

  There is not doubt that intermountain grazing has historically been very environmentally damaging.  However, attitudes and practices are changing and there are many initiatives afoot to create restorative ranching practices which also sustain the local ranching communities. Several good resources are the Red Lodge Clearinghouse web site (rlch.org) and the Quivira Coalition, a Santa Fe based group (quiviracoalition.org).

  Frankly, the Denzel Ferguson book is 25 years old and dated.  While doing undergraduate thesis work at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 1979, I used the library at the Malheur Field Station in SE Oregon which he directed at the time, and he was a hero to budding young western ecologists.  He spelled out that problems with conventional grazing practices and the history of destruction better than anyone. Since then, and partly thanks to his work, it seems that the most effective people have moved on from confrontation to cooperation.  There is a lot of interesting work being done in restoration ecology, and ranchers are a necessary part of the solution.

  Bacon, the gateway meat.

  On So says U.K. study posted 1 year, 5 months ago 13 Responses

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  Asia, buffalos, and milk

  According to Wikipedia, South Asia comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and consists of the following countries and territories: Bangladesh; British Indian Ocean Territory; Bhutan; India; Maldives; Nepal; Pakistan;  & Sri Lanka.  People there consume a LOT of milk.  India alone annually produces about 30 million pounds of water buffalo milk, not even considering milk of sacred cows.  And yes, Southeast Asian countries traditionally did not use buffalos for dairy.  That seems more to me to mean that they missed out on a useful source of nutrition, for whatever reason, rather than implying that milk and its derivatives are poor food source.

  Bacon, the gateway meat.

  On So says U.K. study posted 1 year, 5 months ago 13 Responses