The next pandemic?

[YoDoug]

Want to ensure another pandemic that cripples the worlds economy and takes many lives, keep the current factory farming practices going. Scientists can estimate the number of time a virus needs to change hosts to evolve to be more deadly and even to jump species. This is in the hundreds of thousands to millions of hosts. Todays moderns factory farms can have nearly a million poultry in one barn. If we don't change how meat is produced we will start reliving the Covid-19 nightmare possibly every decade or more.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-11-30/minks-covid-pandemic-factory-farms">https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2 ... tory-farms">https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-11-30/minks-covid-pandemic-factory-farms

[TylerBeer]

yeeeeup. Just the fact that a guy like you Doug has changed eating habits is a good sign for the future.

Some point someone is going to crack an economical way to grow 'real' beef in a lab and we'll be in sanitary flavour country

[YoDoug]

yeeeeup. Just the fact that a guy like you Doug has changed eating habits is a good sign for the future.

Some point someone is going to crack an economical way to grow 'real' beef in a lab and we'll be in sanitary flavour country

flavour? If you ever want to be taken seriously as a murrican, you need to spell it flavor!

Seriously though, wouldn't giant labs growing meat be one big "petri dish" for viruses to grown in. I have seen enough zombie movies to know not to eat lab grown meat.

As for your first statement, I have changed quite a bit in last decade. I am more on the fence about man made environmental issues now. While I will never call it "systemic", I see and recognize the challenges to minorities in our society. I see the wealth inequity and the problems it causes. However, I still believe with every bit of logic and reasoning I have that Biden only won because of massive voter fraud.

[Matthew Hajicek]

Factory farming is a systemic problem.  It's cruel, it's filthy, and as you said, dramatically increases the chance of problematic pathogens.  The continuous use of antibiotics breeds antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria for one.

[pmartin]

[quote="Matthew Hajicek" post_id=2976 time=1610387649 user_id=57]
Factory farming is a systemic problem.  It's cruel, it's filthy, and as you said, dramatically increases the chance of problematic pathogens.  The continuous use of antibiotics breeds antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria for one.
[/quote]

That coupled with the practice of feeding animal waste to other animals.

[beej]

just for reference, define "factory farm"

[Matthew Hajicek]

just for reference, define "factory farm"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/factory%20farm">https://www.merriam-webster.com/diction ... ory%20farm">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/factory%20farm

[beej]

[quote="Matthew Hajicek" post_id=2991 time=1610391845 user_id=57]

just for reference, define "factory farm"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/factory%20farm">https://www.merriam-webster.com/diction ... ory%20farm">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/factory%20farm
[/quote]

: a large industrialized farm especially : a farm on which large numbers of livestock are raised indoors in conditions intended to maximize production at minimal cost

That definition defines every family farm in the US.

[YoDoug]

just for reference, define "factory farm"

For me, I think there is a few criteria that make a factory farm;

1. Mostly or all indoor living. Animals are kept in barns their whole lives.
2. Density of animals. When they have little to no room to move.
3. The conditions almost certainly require constant use of antibiotics.
4. Overall size, which contributes to all of the above.

I am keeping my personal beliefs about diet and other out of this as I do respect the small organic farms right to exist. If I were "king for a day" I would eliminate all subsidies to meat, feed crop, and dairy farms. Let the free market reign.

[CNCAppsJames]

Just get on the Soylent diet and get on with it already.

[Matthew Hajicek]

Just get on the Soylent diet and get on with it already.

It's actually pretty good.  I'll have Soylent for breakfast or as a snack several times a week.

https://soylent.com/">https://soylent.com/

[beej]

just for reference, define "factory farm"

For me, I think there is a few criteria that make a factory farm;

1. Mostly or all indoor living. Animals are kept in barns their whole lives.
2. Density of animals. When they have little to no room to move.
3. The conditions almost certainly require constant use of antibiotics.
4. Overall size, which contributes to all of the above.

I am keeping my personal beliefs about diet and other out of this as I do respect the small organic farms right to exist. If I were "king for a day" I would eliminate all subsidies to meat, feed crop, and dairy farms. Let the free market reign.

nearly every pig on every family or corporate farm is raised indoors and have been since the 80's.  My dad raised hogs on dirt when I was a young. you can't make money.  It would be similar to a shop trying to make money without CNC machines. Hogs on dirt try to root out from under the fence. You have to put rings in their noses to keep them from doing it. they freeze to death during hard winters. the  runoff from hogs raised on dirt get's into streams and water supplies.  Raising them in buildings eliminates all that.  you would probably be surprised by the disinfecting process that happens between one shipment of hogs and another in those buildings.

2 I know a lot of farmers. I do not know a single farmer that uses antibiotics on animals that are not sick.  Antibiotics can get expensive quickly.  And every farmer I know uses the approach that preventive measures are better than treating the animal once they get sick. an on-going joke among farmers is to say, in their best Oprah voice, "Everybody get's free ANTIBIOTICS today!  You get an antibiotic and you get an antibiotic! it's become a joke because of  people making those statements.

milk is tested for antibiotics.  If a 5000 gallon vat of milk has even the smallest hint of antibiotics in it. the entire vat is dumped out. Dairy farmers are barely making it as it is.  They can not afford to let that happen.  Dairy farmers treat their cows better than any farmer.

last year, I raised a couple bottle calves.  I paid $400 each. both of them got sick. I ended up having to put about $200 of antibiotics and vet care into them.  One of them still died.  The other made it and I ended up butchering it myself.  I had him tested for antibiotics before I did. it had been 18months since those shots.  He tested negative.  which is exactly what the vet told me would happen, but I wanted to know for my own sake.

[Zoober]

just for reference, define "factory farm"

For me, I think there is a few criteria that make a factory farm;

1. Mostly or all indoor living. Animals are kept in barns their whole lives.
2. Density of animals. When they have little to no room to move.
3. The conditions almost certainly require constant use of antibiotics.
4. Overall size, which contributes to all of the above.
.........

That actually sounds like the Ark.

[TylerBeer]

just for reference, define "factory farm"

For me, I think there is a few criteria that make a factory farm;

1. Mostly or all indoor living. Animals are kept in barns their whole lives.
2. Density of animals. When they have little to no room to move.
3. The conditions almost certainly require constant use of antibiotics.
4. Overall size, which contributes to all of the above.

I am keeping my personal beliefs about diet and other out of this as I do respect the small organic farms right to exist. If I were "king for a day" I would eliminate all subsidies to meat, feed crop, and dairy farms. Let the free market reign.

nearly every pig on every family or corporate farm is raised indoors and have been since the 80's.  My dad raised hogs on dirt when I was a young. you can't make money.  It would be similar to a shop trying to make money without CNC machines. Hogs on dirt try to root out from under the fence. You have to put rings in their noses to keep them from doing it. they freeze to death during hard winters. the  runoff from hogs raised on dirt get's into streams and water supplies.  Raising them in buildings eliminates all that.  you would probably be surprised by the disinfecting process that happens between one shipment of hogs and another in those buildings.

2 I know a lot of farmers. I do not know a single farmer that uses antibiotics on animals that are not sick.  Antibiotics can get expensive quickly.  And every farmer I know uses the approach that preventive measures are better than treating the animal once they get sick. an on-going joke among farmers is to say, in their best Oprah voice, "Everybody get's free ANTIBIOTICS today!  You get an antibiotic and you get an antibiotic! it's become a joke because of  people making those statements.

milk is tested for antibiotics.  If a 5000 gallon vat of milk has even the smallest hint of antibiotics in it. the entire vat is dumped out. Dairy farmers are barely making it as it is.  They can not afford to let that happen.  Dairy farmers treat their cows better than any farmer.

last year, I raised a couple bottle calves.  I paid $400 each. both of them got sick. I ended up having to put about $200 of antibiotics and vet care into them.  One of them still died.  The other made it and I ended up butchering it myself.  I had him tested for antibiotics before I did. it had been 18months since those shots.  He tested negative.  which is exactly what the vet told me would happen, but I wanted to know for my own sake.

And you could avoid all of that by not eating meat. Kaizen that @#$%!@

[beej]

And you could avoid all of that by not eating meat. Kaizen that @#$%!@

 yeah......that ain't happenin'