Feeding cows seaweed cuts 99% of greenhouse gas emissions from their burps

Re:Feeding cows seaweed cuts 99% of greenhouse gas emissions... by reissbaker on Friday August 20, 2021 @05:14AM (#28244181)

I'm generally against corn subsidies, but grass-fed vs grain-fed beef is actually fairly complicated when it comes to greenhouse gases. Depending on the region, finishing on grain may be better from a greenhouse gas perspective: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/13/746576239/is...

The issue is generally that grass-finishing is slower, so cows (may) end up producing more methane overall.

However, grass-fed is definitely better from an animal welfare perspective.

Some of your other claims seem difficult to support; for example, I'm not sure it's well-understood what is driving obesity, and so claiming that it's corn seems like a bit of a stretch. Similarly, corn does actually have nutritional value, which is why people have grown it for a very long time, even before subsidies.

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Re:Feeding cows seaweed cuts 99% of greenhouse gas emissions... by avnigo on Friday August 20, 2021 @06:27AM (#28244549)

When you look at air pollutants like NOx, NH3, NMVOC, etc. excreta deposited by grazing livestock has a lower emission factor than those deposited in yards/housing, where corn-fed cattle are usually kept. [0]

> The more time grazing livestock are housed, the smaller the proportion of their excreta deposited on grazed pastures will be, and hence the smaller the emissions from those pastures.

[0]: https://www.eea.europa.eu/ds_resolveuid/8e90ca718fd34d5786c1...

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Re:Feeding cows seaweed cuts 99% of greenhouse gas emissions... by tsjq on Friday August 20, 2021 @05:20AM (#28244210)

>what is driving obesity

High Fructose Corn Syrup, no ?

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Re:Feeding cows seaweed cuts 99% of greenhouse gas emissions... by JetSetWilly on Friday August 20, 2021 @07:54AM (#28245027)

In the UK we are fairly obese and we don't grow corn, we don't have HFCS subsidies, and we don't have have HFCS in everything either - eg coca cola is just plain old sugar here. So I doubt that the US getting rid of corn subsidies will make any difference to obesity - some other sugar would be used instead, sugar cane or sugar beet.

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Re:Feeding cows seaweed cuts 99% of greenhouse gas emissions... by raducu on Friday August 20, 2021 @05:23AM (#28244229)

Because regular sugar won't make you obse?

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Re:Feeding cows seaweed cuts 99% of greenhouse gas emissions... by belorn on Friday August 20, 2021 @05:59AM (#28244418)

High Fructose Corn Syrup is about half the price of regular sugar.

It would be an interesting thought experiment about what would happen to obesity levels if prices were taxed to the point where the price difference would be eliminated.

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Re:Feeding cows seaweed cuts 99% of greenhouse gas emissions... by ThePadawan on Friday August 20, 2021 @08:25AM (#28245235)

Isn't that thought experiment just Europe?

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Re:Feeding cows seaweed cuts 99% of greenhouse gas emissions... by brailsafe on Friday August 20, 2021 @05:58AM (#28244413)

My hunch is that HFCS is more versatile and cheaper than other sugar products, and it can compensate for garbage food in the same way. Therefore passably good tasting food is cheaper and more readily available than anything else.

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Re:Feeding cows seaweed cuts 99% of greenhouse gas emissions... by loceng on Friday August 20, 2021 @06:40AM (#28244616)

I'm guessing the cows are healthier with grass fed since they're getting more nutrients and therefore a better end product as well, to balance into the equation?

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