As one particularly loud farmer I'm familiar with is fond of saying, there are certain foods that should only be eaten if you have a gizzard.
Gizzards can't process all of the things a ruminant can, but there's some overlap.
The thing is chickens aren't vegetarians. They're omnivores. We'd be better off if we processed the leftovers through invertibrates (worms, soldier flies) and then fed the invertibrates to the chickens. Same for pigs. And both pathways would still be more efficient than cows.
Re:Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?
by acjohnson55 on Friday December 07, 2018 @06:29PM
(#18632637)
But how much of our meat is raised on pasture versus in meat factories?
Re:Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?
by virtuallynathan on Friday December 07, 2018 @09:55PM
(#18633598)
Only about 10-15% of US cattle heads are on feedlots at any given time.
In the USA, 44% of land is for agriculture, but only 17% is arable, 27% serves as pasture land.
Only around 10% of a cow's lifetime feed comes from grain, and very little of what they are fed is human consumable. Think leftovers from corn (stalks, etc), leftovers from brewing (malt, oats, all that kind of stuff).
Beef is also very nutrient dense, and provides a large % of bioavailable nutrients and amino acids per gram.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arable_land https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_the_United_King... https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8791215 https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/... https://www.beefresearch.org/CMDocs/BeefResearch/Sustainabil... https://medium.com/@beefitsfordinner/fao-affirms-cattles-cri... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_value#Typical_value...