We have a new member @JGL who is a medical anthropologist. Some others of us have a strong interest in anthropology as well. Come chat and share any interesting articles or/and research you have heard about, etc.
Don’t you just love learning new things about our world?
I thought that this would be a fun place to start for those who are interested in thinking about the keto WOE-- I have seen a lot of discussion here about connecting keto/paleo to evolutionary anthropology, but I am curious about situating the conversation in a contemporary context, because I am still really thinking through the connection between mass meat production industry and CO2 emissions.
What does a meat-based lifestyle mean when we are on a planet of 8 billion people-- something very very different from our evolutionary ancestors? I welcome all thoughts and opinions on this, especially those contrasting mass crop production with mass meat production. My own family’s history is deeply wrapped up in the beginning of the industrial revolution in America, which I might get into in subsequent posts, but to start, I will put this out here.
If there is real interest in talking more about the Anthropocene, if someone can help me upload PDFs, I am happy to post a book chapter I wrote last year about working with cultural communities in the Pacific who are in danger of losing their land due to sea level rise. This is one of the reasons why I am taking the climate impacts on WOE very seriously. Looking forward to talking more.
But to start, what the heck is the Anthropocene anyway?
And then thinking through the way different lobbying interests are driving the conversation on how to interpret the data on mass meat consumption, this is an interesting article with a great link through to a report from the Proceedings from the National Academy of Science:
What do you all think? Thanks again for helping get this started, @collaroygal!
Oh jeez, IMO, you should avoid the topic of anthropogenic global warming based on CO2 emissions. There is too much controversy involved. And too little actual Science.
Dirt eater here! There are even more benefits to eating dirt than they know, especially with keto! This is ancient stuff!
Does not take much to get benefits!
This is the part that gets a mere (the most important) blip in the ancient acetic dietary subsistence habits in the paleo anthropological literature besides eating all the guts (offal; i.e. organ meats, marrow & bone)…
Why Eating Dirt Should Be Part of Your Daily Routine
The Old And Mysterious Practice Of Eating Dirt, Revealed
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/04/02/297881388/the-old-and-mysterious-practice-of-eating-dirt-revealed
7 SURPRISING HEALTH BENEFITS OF EATING DIRT
Eating Dirt: It Might Be Good for You ABC NEWS
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Diet/story?id=1167623
Eating dirt can be good for the belly, researchers find
I am not the type to avoid conversations of valid scientific consideration because there is controversy surrounding the topic. That just makes it all the more clear for the necessity to approach the data with a sober, balanced, analytical perspective and the openness necessary for a conversation that welcomes a multiplicity of viewpoints. So, while I hear your point on controversy and data problems, that is exactly why I feel impelled to utilize my professional training to help harness a robust conversation while also expanding my own exposure to a multiplicity of perspectives.
Hmmmm. How about this then? Recently, and I don’t have the studies at my fingertips, it’s been asserted that eating meat is actually “Greener” than being a vegetarian. It appears, very reasonably I might add, that animals such as cattle are very efficient at converting plants to protein and fat, in terms of total calories available when the animals are processed. Contrast this with the high level of resources needed, both in the cultivation as well as the transport of an equivalent number of edible calories delivered to someone following a vegetarian lifestyle. The meat/fat diet clearly requires fewer resources to produce, is arguably healthier, and is therefore “Greener”.
Yes, I have heard that rhetoric shared here in a few posts, but I would love to see the data on it, because there are a lot of factors like methane production and I am unsure of how those factors are being accounted for in calculations. I could not find the report that was alluded to when I searched, but without knowing what field of science it was published in, it is a little tricky to know what keywords to zero in on re: methodology, parameters, theoretical versus experimental, global/regional scale for finding it.
If you come across it, do please send along and I will give it the best analysis I can and will consult my colleagues in the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation where I work for their analysis as well. We have a weekly literature club on Wednesday afternoons and I would be happy to schedule readings on this topic to crowdsource ~12 other scientific opinions on this issue.
Methane production? As is related to Animal Husbandry? You do understand you’re talking about a trace gas at less than two ppm in the atmosphere?
I’m afraid I’ll be playing “Devil’s Advocate” on much of this subject.
PPM is not really a good indicator of contribution to atmospheric warming because it is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, so even while it is less concentrated than CO2, it is responsible for about a quarter of the overall impact on the greenhouse effect, so it cannot be dismissed from the perspective of atmospheric contribution alone. It isn’t the ppm, it the efficacy of those parts on the overall greenhouse effect, which his far from negligible. Beyond that, evidence indicates that lessening overall methane emissions reduces the impact that CO2 makes on the production of tropospheric ozone.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2002GL015601/full
Sure, I’m aware of all the “Forcing Models” and other efforts to rationalize the belief system. I’m afraid I’m still a skeptic, mainly due to all the violations of the Scientific Method related to much of the research, as well as the massive alterations going on in regard to historical data, and lastly, the socio-political agendas involved.
http://naturalclimatechange.us/origin-of-agw-fraud/the-global-warming-scam-by-vincent-gray/
There is about 1.9 billion acres of land in the lower 48 states. 16% of it is farmland. While not all of the rest is pasture/grassland/rangeland, much of it is and that is where cattle can be raised. In fact, much of the land useful for cattle is not being used as such, but could be. Virtually all of the land that can be farmed IS being farmed, so there is no need to take farmland out of production to raise more cattle. One misconception about the notion of raising more beef is that is will cut into plant production and that is not true. IMO, we don’t have more beef in production because the kind of work involved to raise healthy cattle on pasture is not the kind that many people want to do. It’s a 24/7 job involving physical labor. Worse, the return in dollars, on the whole, is not that attractive.
Methane from cattle is another story. I’ve read both sides, that feed lot cattle produce more methane than 100% pasture raised cattle and vice versa.
