The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
livestock.

In order to examine the efficiency of some process,
there must be agreement on what the end product is
whose efficiency of production you are examining. If
you're looking at the production of consumer
electronics, for example, then the output is
televisions, stereo receivers, DVD players, etc.
Rather obviously, you need to get specific. No
sensible person is going to suggest that we ought to
discontinue the production of television sets, because
they require more resources to produce (which they do),
and produce more DVD players instead. (For the
cave-dwellers, an extremely high quality DVD player may
be bought for under US$100, while a comparable quality
television set is going to cost several hundred
dollars. $500 for a DVD player is astronomical - I'm
not even sure there are any that expensive - while you
can easily pay $3000 or more for large plasma TV
monitor, which will require a separate TV receiver.)

What are the "vegans" doing with their misuse of
"inefficiency"? They're clearly saying that the end
product whose efficiency of production we want to
consider is "food", i.e., undifferentiated food
calories. Just as clearly, they are wrong. Humans
don't consider all foods equal, and hence equally
substitutable. As in debunking so much of "veganism",
we can see this easily - laughably easily - by
restricting our view to a strictly vegetarian diet,
without introducing meat into the discussion at all.
If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food production
efficiency, they would be advocating the production of
only a very small number of vegetable crops, as it is
obvious that some crops are more efficient to produce -
use less resources per nutritional unit of output -
than others.

But how do "vegans" actually behave? Why, they buy
some fruits and vegetables that are resource-efficient,
and they buy some fruits and vegetables that are
relatively resource-INefficient. You know this by
looking at retail prices: higher priced goods ARE
higher priced because they use more resources to
produce. If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food
production efficiency, they would only be buying the
absolutely cheapest fruit or vegetable for any given
nutritional requirement. This would necessarily mean
there would be ONLY one kind of leafy green vegetable,
one kind of grain, one variety of fruit, and so on.

If "vegans" were to extend this misuse of "efficiency"
into other consumer goods, say clothing, then there
would be only one kind of shoe produced (and thus only
one brand). The same would hold for every conceivable
garment. A button-front shirt with collars costs more
to produce - uses more resources - than does a T-shirt,
so everyone "ought" to wear only T-shirts, if we're
going to focus on the efficiency of shirt production.
You don't "need" any button front shirts, just as you
don't "need" meat. But look in any "vegan's" wardrobe,
and you'll see a variety of different kinds of clothing
(all natural fiber, of course.) "vegans" aren't
advocating that only the most "efficient" clothing be
produced, as their own behavior clearly indicates.

The correct way to analyze efficiency of production is
to focus as narrowly as possible on the end product,
then see if that product can be produced using fewer
resources. It is important to note that the consumer's
view of products as distinct things is crucial. A
radio can be produced far more "efficiently", in terms
of resource use, than a television; but consumers don't
view radios and televisions as generic entertainment
devices.

The critical mistake, the UNBELIEVABLY stupid mistake,
that "vegans" who misconceive of "inefficiency" are
making, is to see "food" as some undifferentiated lump
of calories and other nutritional requirements. Once
one realizes that this is not how ANYONE, including the
"vegans" themselves, views food, then the
"inefficiency" argument against using resources for
meat production falls to the ground.

I hope this helps.

Rudy Canoza wrote:
>
> The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
> the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
> could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
> for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
> that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
> livestock.
>
> In order to examine the efficiency of some process,
> there must be agreement on what the end product is
> whose efficiency of production you are examining. If
> you're looking at the production of consumer
> electronics, for example, then the output is
> televisions, stereo receivers, DVD players, etc.
> Rather obviously, you need to get specific. No
> sensible person is going to suggest that we ought to
> discontinue the production of television sets, because
> they require more resources to produce (which they do),
> and produce more DVD players instead. (For the
> cave-dwellers, an extremely high quality DVD player may
> be bought for under US$100, while a comparable quality
> television set is going to cost several hundred
> dollars. $500 for a DVD player is astronomical - I'm
> not even sure there are any that expensive - while you
> can easily pay $3000 or more for large plasma TV
> monitor, which will require a separate TV receiver.)
>
> What are the "vegans" doing with their misuse of
> "inefficiency"? They're clearly saying that the end
> product whose efficiency of production we want to
> consider is "food", i.e., undifferentiated food
> calories. Just as clearly, they are wrong. Humans
> don't consider all foods equal, and hence equally
> substitutable. As in debunking so much of "veganism",
> we can see this easily - laughably easily - by
> restricting our view to a strictly vegetarian diet,
> without introducing meat into the discussion at all.
> If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food production
> efficiency, they would be advocating the production of
> only a very small number of vegetable crops, as it is
> obvious that some crops are more efficient to produce -
> use less resources per nutritional unit of output -
> than others.
>
> But how do "vegans" actually behave? Why, they buy
> some fruits and vegetables that are resource-efficient,
> and they buy some fruits and vegetables that are
> relatively resource-INefficient. You know this by
> looking at retail prices: higher priced goods ARE
> higher priced because they use more resources to
> produce. If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food
> production efficiency, they would only be buying the
> absolutely cheapest fruit or vegetable for any given
> nutritional requirement. This would necessarily mean
> there would be ONLY one kind of leafy green vegetable,
> one kind of grain, one variety of fruit, and so on.
>
> If "vegans" were to extend this misuse of "efficiency"
> into other consumer goods, say clothing, then there
> would be only one kind of shoe produced (and thus only
> one brand). The same would hold for every conceivable
> garment. A button-front shirt with collars costs more
> to produce - uses more resources - than does a T-shirt,
> so everyone "ought" to wear only T-shirts, if we're
> going to focus on the efficiency of shirt production.
> You don't "need" any button front shirts, just as you
> don't "need" meat. But look in any "vegan's" wardrobe,
> and you'll see a variety of different kinds of clothing
> (all natural fiber, of course.) "vegans" aren't
> advocating that only the most "efficient" clothing be
> produced, as their own behavior clearly indicates.
>
> The correct way to analyze efficiency of production is
> to focus as narrowly as possible on the end product,
> then see if that product can be produced using fewer
> resources. It is important to note that the consumer's
> view of products as distinct things is crucial. A
> radio can be produced far more "efficiently", in terms
> of resource use, than a television; but consumers don't
> view radios and televisions as generic entertainment
> devices.
>
> The critical mistake, the UNBELIEVABLY stupid mistake,
> that "vegans" who misconceive of "inefficiency" are
> making, is to see "food" as some undifferentiated lump
> of calories and other nutritional requirements. Once
> one realizes that this is not how ANYONE, including the
> "vegans" themselves, views food, then the
> "inefficiency" argument against using resources for
> meat production falls to the ground.
>
> I hope this helps.
>

This is a straw man argument.

If you want something to play DVD's - you'd buy a DVD player. If you
wanted to watch TV - you'd buy a TV. Two different items with two
different functions. The choice is FUNCTIONAL.

If you want to eat - you eat food. Food has the same function; to
nourish. The choice is NOT FUNCTIONAL. (In many cases, it's an aesthetic
choice).

If there's a non-functional choice of the item being discussed (be it
food or shirts) then it would seem reasonable to raise the issue of
relative efficiency).

PinBoard wrote:
> Rudy Canoza wrote:
>>
>> The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
>> the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
>> could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
>> for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
>> that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
>> livestock.
>>
>> In order to examine the efficiency of some process,
>> there must be agreement on what the end product is
>> whose efficiency of production you are examining. If
>> you're looking at the production of consumer
>> electronics, for example, then the output is
>> televisions, stereo receivers, DVD players, etc.
>> Rather obviously, you need to get specific. No
>> sensible person is going to suggest that we ought to
>> discontinue the production of television sets, because
>> they require more resources to produce (which they do),
>> and produce more DVD players instead. (For the
>> cave-dwellers, an extremely high quality DVD player may
>> be bought for under US$100, while a comparable quality
>> television set is going to cost several hundred
>> dollars. $500 for a DVD player is astronomical - I'm
>> not even sure there are any that expensive - while you
>> can easily pay $3000 or more for large plasma TV
>> monitor, which will require a separate TV receiver.)
>>
>> What are the "vegans" doing with their misuse of
>> "inefficiency"? They're clearly saying that the end
>> product whose efficiency of production we want to
>> consider is "food", i.e., undifferentiated food
>> calories. Just as clearly, they are wrong. Humans
>> don't consider all foods equal, and hence equally
>> substitutable. As in debunking so much of "veganism",
>> we can see this easily - laughably easily - by
>> restricting our view to a strictly vegetarian diet,
>> without introducing meat into the discussion at all.
>> If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food production
>> efficiency, they would be advocating the production of
>> only a very small number of vegetable crops, as it is
>> obvious that some crops are more efficient to produce -
>> use less resources per nutritional unit of output -
>> than others.
>>
>> But how do "vegans" actually behave? Why, they buy
>> some fruits and vegetables that are resource-efficient,
>> and they buy some fruits and vegetables that are
>> relatively resource-INefficient. You know this by
>> looking at retail prices: higher priced goods ARE
>> higher priced because they use more resources to
>> produce. If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food
>> production efficiency, they would only be buying the
>> absolutely cheapest fruit or vegetable for any given
>> nutritional requirement. This would necessarily mean
>> there would be ONLY one kind of leafy green vegetable,
>> one kind of grain, one variety of fruit, and so on.
>>
>> If "vegans" were to extend this misuse of "efficiency"
>> into other consumer goods, say clothing, then there
>> would be only one kind of shoe produced (and thus only
>> one brand). The same would hold for every conceivable
>> garment. A button-front shirt with collars costs more
>> to produce - uses more resources - than does a T-shirt,
>> so everyone "ought" to wear only T-shirts, if we're
>> going to focus on the efficiency of shirt production.
>> You don't "need" any button front shirts, just as you
>> don't "need" meat. But look in any "vegan's" wardrobe,
>> and you'll see a variety of different kinds of clothing
>> (all natural fiber, of course.) "vegans" aren't
>> advocating that only the most "efficient" clothing be
>> produced, as their own behavior clearly indicates.
>>
>> The correct way to analyze efficiency of production is
>> to focus as narrowly as possible on the end product,
>> then see if that product can be produced using fewer
>> resources. It is important to note that the consumer's
>> view of products as distinct things is crucial. A
>> radio can be produced far more "efficiently", in terms
>> of resource use, than a television; but consumers don't
>> view radios and televisions as generic entertainment
>> devices.
>>
>> The critical mistake, the UNBELIEVABLY stupid mistake,
>> that "vegans" who misconceive of "inefficiency" are
>> making, is to see "food" as some undifferentiated lump
>> of calories and other nutritional requirements. Once
>> one realizes that this is not how ANYONE, including the
>> "vegans" themselves, views food, then the
>> "inefficiency" argument against using resources for
>> meat production falls to the ground.
>>
>> I hope this helps.
>>
>
> This is a straw man argument.

No, it isn't. "vegans" make this bogus "inefficiency"
argument all the time. Here's an example of it in
alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian from just yesterday:

The truth can no longer be dodged. Livestock farming
gobbles up agricultural land, water and energy that
could far more efficiently be devoted to growing
food for people to eat directly. Meat, therefore,
is a rich person's food and those who consume it -
whether in India, Denmark or England - cause
malnourishment and death among the world's poorest
people.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.a...87ba15c70a9667


This vegetarian extremist site,
http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/tomeat.html, is
one of dozens or even hundreds that belabor the same
*wrong* point. This claim of "inefficiency" reveals
massive ignorance of what "efficient" means.


>
> If you want something to play DVD's - you'd buy a DVD player. If you
> wanted to watch TV - you'd buy a TV. Two different items with two
> different functions. The choice is FUNCTIONAL.

If I were to argue as the people who wrongly make this
bogus "inefficiency" argument, I would say that DVD
players and television receivers both supply
undifferentiated "electronic entertainment". Your
point about different functionality applies equally
well to animal and vegetable sources of nutrition:
meat provides a different function to the consumer than
vegetables.


>
> If you want to eat - you eat food.

No, that's completely wrong. Different foods are not
the same in the personal utility calculations of
consumers. NO ONE thinks, "I just want basic calories
and protein, and I don't care what form they're in."


> Food has the same function; to
> nourish. The choice is NOT FUNCTIONAL. (In many cases, it's an aesthetic
> choice).

The choice *is* functional: the function of consuming
the thing you want.


>
> If there's a non-functional choice of the item being discussed (be it
> food or shirts) then it would seem reasonable to raise the issue of
> relative efficiency).

The functional choice is there. You just want to
ignore it for ideological reasons.

Rudy Canoza wrote:
> PinBoard wrote:
>> Rudy Canoza wrote:
snip OP
>>
>> This is a straw man argument.
>
> No, it isn't.

It setup a false position comparing DVD and TV's to equate meat and non
meat foods. A straw man.

>"vegans" make this bogus "inefficiency" argument all the
> time. Here's an example of it in alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian from
> just yesterday:
>
> The truth can no longer be dodged. Livestock farming
> gobbles up agricultural land, water and energy that
> could far more efficiently be devoted to growing
> food for people to eat directly. Meat, therefore,
> is a rich person's food and those who consume it -
> whether in India, Denmark or England - cause
> malnourishment and death among the world's poorest
> people.
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.a...87ba15c70a9667
>
>
>
> This vegetarian extremist site,
> http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/tomeat.html, is one of dozens or
> even hundreds that belabor the same *wrong* point. This claim of
> "inefficiency" reveals massive ignorance of what "efficient" means.
>
>

As I wrote "..it would seem reasonable to raise the issue of relative
efficiency".

>>
>> If you want something to play DVD's - you'd buy a DVD player. If you
>> wanted to watch TV - you'd buy a TV. Two different items with two
>> different functions. The choice is FUNCTIONAL.
>
> If I were to argue as the people who wrongly make this bogus
> "inefficiency" argument, I would say that DVD players and television
> receivers both supply undifferentiated "electronic entertainment". Your
> point about different functionality applies equally well to animal and
> vegetable sources of nutrition: meat provides a different function to
> the consumer than vegetables.

You must be able to see that this is a very weak argument. - No one goes
out to purchase "electronic entertainment" per se, but they do go out to
get "food".

http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourc...e+Search&meta=

>
>
>>
>> If you want to eat - you eat food.
>
> No, that's completely wrong. Different foods are not the same in the
> personal utility calculations of consumers. NO ONE thinks, "I just want
> basic calories and protein, and I don't care what form they're in."

Ask some one like this person, to dispel that assumption:

http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/od...arving-boy.jpg

(Or me when I've just come back from the pub!)

>
>
>> Food has the same function; to nourish. The choice is NOT FUNCTIONAL.
>> (In many cases, it's an aesthetic choice).
>
> The choice *is* functional: the function of consuming the thing you want.

Weak semantics. - It is plain to see that food's principle purpose, and
hence function is to provide nutrition; not to "consume the thing you want".

>
>
>>
>> If there's a non-functional choice of the item being discussed (be it
>> food or shirts) then it would seem reasonable to raise the issue of
>> relative efficiency).
>
> The functional choice is there. You just want to ignore it for
> ideological reasons.

I understand the different functions, and hence choices; it is you that
are ignoring them, or more correctly, dismissing them.

PinBoard wrote:
> Rudy Canoza wrote:
>> PinBoard wrote:
>>> Rudy Canoza wrote:
> snip OP
>>>
>>> This is a straw man argument.
>>
>> No, it isn't.
>
> It setup a false position comparing DVD and TV's to equate meat and non
> meat foods. A straw man.

No. First of all, it isn't a false comparison; the
comparison is apt. Secondly, you clearly don't know
what a straw man argument is. It is when you attribute
a position to your opponent that he doesn't hold, in
order to knock it down. That's not what I did. I made
an apt comparison. "vegans" fatuously wish to pretend
that what people want is just "food", undifferentiated.
I have shown that that is *like* saying people want
"electronic entertainment media", undifferentiated.
But we know that's wrong. Radio programs and
television programs are two different entertainment
vehicles. At some level, they are substitutable, but
they are not perfectly substitutable. If you take away
an hour of TV programming from someone and give him an
hour of radio programming in its place, he won't
consider himself as well off.


>
>> "vegans" make this bogus "inefficiency" argument all the time. Here's
>> an example of it in alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian from just yesterday:
>>
>> The truth can no longer be dodged. Livestock farming
>> gobbles up agricultural land, water and energy that
>> could far more efficiently be devoted to growing
>> food for people to eat directly. Meat, therefore,
>> is a rich person's food and those who consume it -
>> whether in India, Denmark or England - cause
>> malnourishment and death among the world's poorest
>> people.
>>
>> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.a...87ba15c70a9667
>>
>>
>>
>> This vegetarian extremist site,
>> http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/tomeat.html, is one of dozens or
>> even hundreds that belabor the same *wrong* point. This claim of
>> "inefficiency" reveals massive ignorance of what "efficient" means.
>>
>>
>
> As I wrote "..it would seem reasonable to raise the issue of relative
> efficiency".

Except it's not reasonable at all, because you're still
trying to say that undifferentiated food calories are
what people want to consume, and that's false.

In fact, physical output isn't even the right measure
of efficiency at all; the correct thing to look at is
value. Say I have a hectare of land, and on it I can
grow wheat that will cost me $500 to raise (including
the imputed rent of the land), and which (for a stated
yield) I can sell for $600, so I realize a 20% return
on my investment. Now let's say I could have used that
same hectare of land to raise cattle, and it will cost
me $1000 (land rental, feed, water, fencing, etc.) but
I can sell the beef for $1300, or a 30% return. It
DOES NOT MATTER if the amount of beef produce will
"only" feed 50 people, while the amount of wheat I
could have produced would feed 100 people; the fact is
that those prices tell me people value beef more highly
than wheat, and in terms of value produced, it is more
efficient to produce the beef.


>>> If you want something to play DVD's - you'd buy a DVD player. If you
>>> wanted to watch TV - you'd buy a TV. Two different items with two
>>> different functions. The choice is FUNCTIONAL.
>>
>> If I were to argue as the people who wrongly make this bogus
>> "inefficiency" argument, I would say that DVD players and television
>> receivers both supply undifferentiated "electronic entertainment".
>> Your point about different functionality applies equally well to
>> animal and vegetable sources of nutrition: meat provides a different
>> function to the consumer than vegetables.
>
> You must be able to see that this is a very weak argument. - No one goes
> out to purchase "electronic entertainment" per se, but they do go out to
> get "food".

No, that's utterly false. People do *not* wish to
consume just "food", without regard to the components
of it. They want to consume *particular* foods.

Similarly, there's a category of goods in the national
accounts called "consumer durables", which includes
refrigerators, washing machines, dryers, home
electronics and more. If a given factory could produce
twice as many washing machines as it could
refrigerators, it would be insane to suggest, "Well,
washing machines are more 'efficient' that
refrigerators, and a consumer durable is a consumer
durable, so no more refrigerators." But that's the
equivalent of what you're proposing with food.


>>> If you want to eat - you eat food.
>>
>> No, that's completely wrong. Different foods are not the same in the
>> personal utility calculations of consumers. NO ONE thinks, "I just
>> want basic calories and protein, and I don't care what form they're in."
>
> Ask some one like this person, to dispel that assumption:
>
> http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/od...arving-boy.jpg

That kid is obviously going to be less picky than
someone who is usually better fed, but even that boy is
not overall indifferent between different types of
nutritionally equivalent food.


>>> Food has the same function; to nourish. The choice is NOT FUNCTIONAL.
>>> (In many cases, it's an aesthetic choice).
>>
>> The choice *is* functional: the function of consuming the thing you
>> want.
>
> Weak semantics.

No, it isn't weak at all. What is utterly weak is your
belief that consumers are indifferent among different
types of food.


>>> If there's a non-functional choice of the item being discussed (be it
>>> food or shirts) then it would seem reasonable to raise the issue of
>>> relative efficiency).
>>
>> The functional choice is there. You just want to ignore it for
>> ideological reasons.
>
> I understand the different functions, and hence choices; it is you that
> are ignoring them, or more correctly, dismissing them.

No, that would be you. A serving of chicken has a
different function to a consumer than does a serving of
potatoes.

Posted by Voroshilov >

But so good it deserves a wider audience.

On Mar 5, 4:55 pm, "Pat Gardiner" > wrote:
> Anyway, I hope to able to record
> the unravelling of the Pig MRSA scandal on uk.business.agriculture now,
For those who can't keep up with them all, here's a handy cut-out-and-
keep guide to The History of Pat's Scandals

Aug 21 2001, 11:06 am
There you have it - the biggest scandal for years

Dec 26 2001, 12:09 pm
The scandal is about to break

Jan 10 2002, 8:45 am
This scandal will eventually bring the present government down.

Jan 28 2002, 7:24 pm
I know (and I do mean know) that the biggest political and
constitutional scandal since the abdication crisis is going to break
some day soon.

Oct 26 2003, 7:08 pm
You have just earned yourself the inside track on the scandal of the
century

Jan 7 2004, 4:43 pm
This is going to be the biggest scandal for many many years.

Feb 11 2004, 9:13 pm
I'm telling you now, as I told you then, this is the scandal of a
lifetime.

Dec 4 2005, 10:10 pm
There is going to be an international scandal of the first order

Dec 25 2005, 2:34 pm
I suspect we are about to see the scandal of the century unfold.

Oct 7 2006, 9:14 am
A major scandal is brewing

Dec 12 2006, 8:33 pm
There is going to be a massive scandal.

Jan 28 2007, 8:55 pm
This is an international scandal with its epicentre in Britain

Nov 27 2007, 8:16 pm
You are onto a bigger scandal than you ever imagined.

Feb 25 2008, 5:33 pm
No government can survive a scandal like this

Note to Pat - Just in case Prince Philip orders MI6 to bump you off, a
copy of this message has been stored in a disused nuclear bunker in
Montana guarded by crazed right-wing gun nuts.




--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.

Rudy Canoza wrote:
>
> The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
> the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
> could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
> for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
> that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
> livestock.
>
> In order to examine the efficiency of some process,
> there must be agreement on what the end product is
> whose efficiency of production you are examining. If
> you're looking at the production of consumer
> electronics, for example, then the output is
> televisions, stereo receivers, DVD players, etc.
> Rather obviously, you need to get specific. No
> sensible person is going to suggest that we ought to
> discontinue the production of television sets, because
> they require more resources to produce (which they do),
> and produce more DVD players instead. (For the
> cave-dwellers, an extremely high quality DVD player may
> be bought for under US$100, while a comparable quality
> television set is going to cost several hundred
> dollars. $500 for a DVD player is astronomical - I'm
> not even sure there are any that expensive - while you
> can easily pay $3000 or more for large plasma TV
> monitor, which will require a separate TV receiver.)
>
> What are the "vegans" doing with their misuse of
> "inefficiency"? They're clearly saying that the end
> product whose efficiency of production we want to
> consider is "food", i.e., undifferentiated food
> calories. Just as clearly, they are wrong. Humans
> don't consider all foods equal, and hence equally
> substitutable. As in debunking so much of "veganism",
> we can see this easily - laughably easily - by
> restricting our view to a strictly vegetarian diet,
> without introducing meat into the discussion at all.
> If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food production
> efficiency, they would be advocating the production of
> only a very small number of vegetable crops, as it is
> obvious that some crops are more efficient to produce -
> use less resources per nutritional unit of output -
> than others.
>
> But how do "vegans" actually behave? Why, they buy
> some fruits and vegetables that are resource-efficient,
> and they buy some fruits and vegetables that are
> relatively resource-INefficient. You know this by
> looking at retail prices: higher priced goods ARE
> higher priced because they use more resources to
> produce. If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food
> production efficiency, they would only be buying the
> absolutely cheapest fruit or vegetable for any given
> nutritional requirement. This would necessarily mean
> there would be ONLY one kind of leafy green vegetable,
> one kind of grain, one variety of fruit, and so on.
>
> If "vegans" were to extend this misuse of "efficiency"
> into other consumer goods, say clothing, then there
> would be only one kind of shoe produced (and thus only
> one brand). The same would hold for every conceivable
> garment. A button-front shirt with collars costs more
> to produce - uses more resources - than does a T-shirt,
> so everyone "ought" to wear only T-shirts, if we're
> going to focus on the efficiency of shirt production.
> You don't "need" any button front shirts, just as you
> don't "need" meat. But look in any "vegan's" wardrobe,
> and you'll see a variety of different kinds of clothing
> (all natural fiber, of course.) "vegans" aren't
> advocating that only the most "efficient" clothing be
> produced, as their own behavior clearly indicates.
>
> The correct way to analyze efficiency of production is
> to focus as narrowly as possible on the end product,
> then see if that product can be produced using fewer
> resources. It is important to note that the consumer's
> view of products as distinct things is crucial. A
> radio can be produced far more "efficiently", in terms
> of resource use, than a television; but consumers don't
> view radios and televisions as generic entertainment
> devices.
>
> The critical mistake, the UNBELIEVABLY stupid mistake,
> that "vegans" who misconceive of "inefficiency" are
> making, is to see "food" as some undifferentiated lump
> of calories and other nutritional requirements. Once
> one realizes that this is not how ANYONE, including the
> "vegans" themselves, views food, then the
> "inefficiency" argument against using resources for
> meat production falls to the ground.
>
> I hope this helps.
>



'Fraid not,Rudy. You've gone to a lot of trouble to produce
this statement but I am afraid your logic is flawed.

Try looking at it this way:-

One acre of farmland will feed one adult for
77Days
if used for beef

527 days
if used for wheat

6 years
if used for soya.

Furthermore it takes 3 to 4 years to raise beef cattle
from gestation to slaughter,whereas you can get a
soya harvest every year.
So which produce gives the highest yield per acre,
in terms of human sustenance?

Sam.

sam wrote:
> Rudy Canoza wrote:
>>
>> The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
>> the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
>> could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
>> for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
>> that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
>> livestock.
>>
>> In order to examine the efficiency of some process,
>> there must be agreement on what the end product is
>> whose efficiency of production you are examining. If
>> you're looking at the production of consumer
>> electronics, for example, then the output is
>> televisions, stereo receivers, DVD players, etc.
>> Rather obviously, you need to get specific. No
>> sensible person is going to suggest that we ought to
>> discontinue the production of television sets, because
>> they require more resources to produce (which they do),
>> and produce more DVD players instead. (For the
>> cave-dwellers, an extremely high quality DVD player may
>> be bought for under US$100, while a comparable quality
>> television set is going to cost several hundred
>> dollars. $500 for a DVD player is astronomical - I'm
>> not even sure there are any that expensive - while you
>> can easily pay $3000 or more for large plasma TV
>> monitor, which will require a separate TV receiver.)
>>
>> What are the "vegans" doing with their misuse of
>> "inefficiency"? They're clearly saying that the end
>> product whose efficiency of production we want to
>> consider is "food", i.e., undifferentiated food
>> calories. Just as clearly, they are wrong. Humans
>> don't consider all foods equal, and hence equally
>> substitutable. As in debunking so much of "veganism",
>> we can see this easily - laughably easily - by
>> restricting our view to a strictly vegetarian diet,
>> without introducing meat into the discussion at all.
>> If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food production
>> efficiency, they would be advocating the production of
>> only a very small number of vegetable crops, as it is
>> obvious that some crops are more efficient to produce -
>> use less resources per nutritional unit of output -
>> than others.
>>
>> But how do "vegans" actually behave? Why, they buy
>> some fruits and vegetables that are resource-efficient,
>> and they buy some fruits and vegetables that are
>> relatively resource-INefficient. You know this by
>> looking at retail prices: higher priced goods ARE
>> higher priced because they use more resources to
>> produce. If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food
>> production efficiency, they would only be buying the
>> absolutely cheapest fruit or vegetable for any given
>> nutritional requirement. This would necessarily mean
>> there would be ONLY one kind of leafy green vegetable,
>> one kind of grain, one variety of fruit, and so on.
>>
>> If "vegans" were to extend this misuse of "efficiency"
>> into other consumer goods, say clothing, then there
>> would be only one kind of shoe produced (and thus only
>> one brand). The same would hold for every conceivable
>> garment. A button-front shirt with collars costs more
>> to produce - uses more resources - than does a T-shirt,
>> so everyone "ought" to wear only T-shirts, if we're
>> going to focus on the efficiency of shirt production.
>> You don't "need" any button front shirts, just as you
>> don't "need" meat. But look in any "vegan's" wardrobe,
>> and you'll see a variety of different kinds of clothing
>> (all natural fiber, of course.) "vegans" aren't
>> advocating that only the most "efficient" clothing be
>> produced, as their own behavior clearly indicates.
>>
>> The correct way to analyze efficiency of production is
>> to focus as narrowly as possible on the end product,
>> then see if that product can be produced using fewer
>> resources. It is important to note that the consumer's
>> view of products as distinct things is crucial. A
>> radio can be produced far more "efficiently", in terms
>> of resource use, than a television; but consumers don't
>> view radios and televisions as generic entertainment
>> devices.
>>
>> The critical mistake, the UNBELIEVABLY stupid mistake,
>> that "vegans" who misconceive of "inefficiency" are
>> making, is to see "food" as some undifferentiated lump
>> of calories and other nutritional requirements. Once
>> one realizes that this is not how ANYONE, including the
>> "vegans" themselves, views food, then the
>> "inefficiency" argument against using resources for
>> meat production falls to the ground.
>>
>> I hope this helps.
>>
>
>
>
> 'Fraid not,Rudy. You've gone to a lot of trouble to produce
> this statement but I am afraid your logic is flawed.

Nope.


>
> Try looking at it this way:-
>
> One acre of farmland will feed one adult for
> 77Days
> if used for beef
>
> 527 days
> if used for wheat
>
> 6 years
> if used for soya.

Irrelevant. If a person can't or won't eat wheat or
soya, then it simply doesn't matter.

You're continuing to make the same fatal mistake:
thinking that people want to consume undifferentiated
calories. They don't. The demand is for particular
kinds of food, and the correct measure of efficiency is
to look at a given output and determine the lowest
amount of resource inputs needed to make that output.


>
> Furthermore it takes 3 to 4 years to raise beef cattle
> from gestation to slaughter,whereas you can get a
> soya harvest every year.
> So which produce gives the highest yield per acre,
> in terms of human sustenance?

You're asking the wrong question - as usual.

Rudy Canoza wrote:
> sam wrote:
>> Rudy Canoza wrote:


>>>
>>
>>

>
> You're asking the wrong question - as usual.

Whaddya mean?
I've never heard of you in my life,let alone written to you.
Sam

sam wrote:
> Rudy Canoza wrote:
>> sam wrote:
>>> Rudy Canoza wrote:
>
>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>>
>> You're asking the wrong question - as usual.
>
> Whaddya mean?
> I've never heard of you in my life,let alone written to you.

Irrelevant.

The implicit question you're asking is, "How can we get
the most calories out of the least amount of land,
water, labor, etc." That's the wrong question, because
people don't want to eat undifferentiated calories;
people want specific foods.

The correct question is to take a specific food, and
ask how to get the most *OF THAT FOOD* out of a given
amount of resources; or, what amounts to the same
thing, take a given amount of that specific food and
ask how to minimize the resource inputs used to create it.

I always love pointing out to "vegans" that their
arguments can be completely queered even if we look
only at a strictly vegetarian diet. It's obvious that
not all fruits and vegetables are equally efficient to
produce, and that they don't all yield the same
nutritional output. So, for example, a serving (172g)
of cooked soybeans yields 298 calories, and 29g of
protein
(http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c218a.html),
while a serving (192g) of durum wheat yields 651
calories and 26g of protein
(http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c21Ub.html).
So, since soy and wheat yields are approximately the
same - 35-45 bushels per acre in the U.S. - then there
is *NO* excuse for growing soy, because it doesn't
supply as much nutrition per bushel as does wheat, in
terms of caloric content - and your argument assumes
people only want basic calories, rather than particular
foods.

Stop producing soy now. Efficiency demands it.

On Mar 3, 3:53*pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
> The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
> the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
> could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
> for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
> that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
> livestock.

Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
footprint than a meat based one.
>
> In order to examine the efficiency of some process,
> there must be agreement on what the end product is
> whose efficiency of production you are examining. *If
> you're looking at the production of consumer
> electronics, for example, then the output is
> televisions, stereo receivers, DVD players, etc.
> Rather obviously, you need to get specific. *No
> sensible person is going to suggest that we ought to
> discontinue the production of television sets, because
> they require more resources to produce (which they do),
> and produce more DVD players instead. *(For the
> cave-dwellers, an extremely high quality DVD player may
> be bought for under US$100, while a comparable quality
> television set is going to cost several hundred
> dollars. *$500 for a DVD player is astronomical - I'm
> not even sure there are any that expensive - while you
> can easily pay $3000 or more for large plasma TV
> monitor, which will require a separate TV receiver.)

Yes. Meat and grain are not the same product with regard
to their value to the consumer but in terms of the resources
that need to be used to keep a population adequately fed,
they are comparable.

> What are the "vegans" doing with their misuse of
> "inefficiency"? *

There is no misuse. The meaning of efficiency depends
on context. They are not using the definition employed
by economists. That's all.

> They're clearly saying that the end
> product whose efficiency of production we want to
> consider is "food", i.e., undifferentiated food
> calories. *Just as clearly, they are wrong. *Humans
> don't consider all foods equal, and hence equally
> substitutable. *As in debunking so much of "veganism",
> we can see this easily - laughably easily - by
> restricting our view to a strictly vegetarian diet,
> without introducing meat into the discussion at all.
> If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food production
> efficiency, they would be advocating the production of
> only a very small number of vegetable crops, as it is
> obvious that some crops are more efficient to produce -
> use less resources per nutritional unit of output -
> than others.

Information on the relative ecological efficiency of those
foods is not so widely available.
>
> But how do "vegans" actually behave? *Why, they buy
> some fruits and vegetables that are resource-efficient,
> and they buy some fruits and vegetables that are
> relatively resource-INefficient. *You know this by
> looking at retail prices: *higher priced goods ARE
> higher priced because they use more resources to
> produce.

Actually the prices are merely an approximation to the
actual costs of production since we do not live in a
completely free market with perfect information.

>*If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food
> production efficiency, they would only be buying the
> absolutely cheapest fruit or vegetable for any given
> nutritional requirement. *This would necessarily mean
> there would be ONLY one kind of leafy green vegetable,
> one kind of grain, one variety of fruit, and so on.
>
> If "vegans" were to extend this misuse of "efficiency"
> into other consumer goods, say clothing, then there
> would be only one kind of shoe produced (and thus only
> one brand). *The same would hold for every conceivable
> garment. *A button-front shirt with collars costs more
> to produce - uses more resources - than does a T-shirt,
> so everyone "ought" to wear only T-shirts, if we're
> going to focus on the efficiency of shirt production.
> You don't "need" any button front shirts, just as you
> don't "need" meat. *But look in any "vegan's" wardrobe,
> and you'll see a variety of different kinds of clothing
> (all natural fiber, of course.) *"vegans" aren't
> advocating that only the most "efficient" clothing be
> produced, as their own behavior clearly indicates.
>
> The correct way to analyze efficiency of production is
> to focus as narrowly as possible on the end product,
> then see if that product can be produced using fewer
> resources. *It is important to note that the consumer's
> view of products as distinct things is crucial. *A
> radio can be produced far more "efficiently", in terms
> of resource use, than a television; but consumers don't
> view radios and televisions as generic entertainment
> devices.
>
> The critical mistake, the UNBELIEVABLY stupid mistake,
> that "vegans" who misconceive of "inefficiency" are
> making, is to see "food" as some undifferentiated lump
> of calories and other nutritional requirements. *Once
> one realizes that this is not how ANYONE, including the
> "vegans" themselves, views food, then the
> "inefficiency" argument against using resources for
> meat production falls to the ground.
>
> I hope this helps.

Not at all. You have pointed out that many people prefer
non-vegan diets and are prepared to pay market price for
meat. You have also pointed out that most vegans don't
always make the least resource-intensive choice either
with food or anything else.

However you have not succesfully refuted the point that
going vegan almost always reduces one's ecological footprint
and that is all vegans mean when they make the efficiency
argument.

"Buxqi" > wrote in message
...

There is a way to make Google Groups insert carats in your replies, maybe
you could look for it.

On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
> The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
> the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
> could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
> for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
> that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
> livestock.

Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
footprint than a meat based one.

Negro men "generally", according to statistics, commit more crime and
abandon their families more often than white men. Does that make negro men
less moral by definition? That in fact is a very common perception, and
wrong. People, like diets, must be judged on their actual merits, not the
characteristics of a larger group to which they may belong. My diet,
although not a vegetarian one, probably has more positive attributes on most
relevant criteria you can name than most vegan diets.


> In order to examine the efficiency of some process,
> there must be agreement on what the end product is
> whose efficiency of production you are examining. If
> you're looking at the production of consumer
> electronics, for example, then the output is
> televisions, stereo receivers, DVD players, etc.
> Rather obviously, you need to get specific. No
> sensible person is going to suggest that we ought to
> discontinue the production of television sets, because
> they require more resources to produce (which they do),
> and produce more DVD players instead. (For the
> cave-dwellers, an extremely high quality DVD player may
> be bought for under US$100, while a comparable quality
> television set is going to cost several hundred
> dollars. $500 for a DVD player is astronomical - I'm
> not even sure there are any that expensive - while you
> can easily pay $3000 or more for large plasma TV
> monitor, which will require a separate TV receiver.)

Yes. Meat and grain are not the same product with regard
to their value to the consumer but in terms of the resources
that need to be used to keep a population adequately fed,
they are comparable.

Averting starvation is not the only goal of eating, it's arguably not even
the primary one. If it were your argument might have some legs, but in fact
almost everyone looks at food in a far richer context than that.

> What are the "vegans" doing with their misuse of
> "inefficiency"?

There is no misuse. The meaning of efficiency depends
on context. They are not using the definition employed
by economists. That's all.

It is a thinly veiled attempt to pass off a moral judgment as an economic
argument.

If everyone in the world followed Christianty there would be far less
conflict and destruction in the world. Does that make non-Christians
immoral? No, in fact the real problem is the very narrow-minded attitude
which perceives that either you think as I do or you are misguided.


> They're clearly saying that the end
> product whose efficiency of production we want to
> consider is "food", i.e., undifferentiated food
> calories. Just as clearly, they are wrong. Humans
> don't consider all foods equal, and hence equally
> substitutable. As in debunking so much of "veganism",
> we can see this easily - laughably easily - by
> restricting our view to a strictly vegetarian diet,
> without introducing meat into the discussion at all.
> If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food production
> efficiency, they would be advocating the production of
> only a very small number of vegetable crops, as it is
> obvious that some crops are more efficient to produce -
> use less resources per nutritional unit of output -
> than others.

Information on the relative ecological efficiency of those
foods is not so widely available.

Nobody is even looking, because efficiency is not their real concern, it's
simply a club to use against people who aren't following the same
restrictive lifestyle they are.

>
> But how do "vegans" actually behave? Why, they buy
> some fruits and vegetables that are resource-efficient,
> and they buy some fruits and vegetables that are
> relatively resource-INefficient. You know this by
> looking at retail prices: higher priced goods ARE
> higher priced because they use more resources to
> produce.

Actually the prices are merely an approximation to the
actual costs of production since we do not live in a
completely free market with perfect information.

Some of the most expensive food pound for pound is organic produce, which
vegans should approve of, however it often contains hidden environmental
costs, like transportation.


> If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food
> production efficiency, they would only be buying the
> absolutely cheapest fruit or vegetable for any given
> nutritional requirement. This would necessarily mean
> there would be ONLY one kind of leafy green vegetable,
> one kind of grain, one variety of fruit, and so on.
>
> If "vegans" were to extend this misuse of "efficiency"
> into other consumer goods, say clothing, then there
> would be only one kind of shoe produced (and thus only
> one brand). The same would hold for every conceivable
> garment. A button-front shirt with collars costs more
> to produce - uses more resources - than does a T-shirt,
> so everyone "ought" to wear only T-shirts, if we're
> going to focus on the efficiency of shirt production.
> You don't "need" any button front shirts, just as you
> don't "need" meat. But look in any "vegan's" wardrobe,
> and you'll see a variety of different kinds of clothing
> (all natural fiber, of course.) "vegans" aren't
> advocating that only the most "efficient" clothing be
> produced, as their own behavior clearly indicates.
>
> The correct way to analyze efficiency of production is
> to focus as narrowly as possible on the end product,
> then see if that product can be produced using fewer
> resources. It is important to note that the consumer's
> view of products as distinct things is crucial. A
> radio can be produced far more "efficiently", in terms
> of resource use, than a television; but consumers don't
> view radios and televisions as generic entertainment
> devices.
>
> The critical mistake, the UNBELIEVABLY stupid mistake,
> that "vegans" who misconceive of "inefficiency" are
> making, is to see "food" as some undifferentiated lump
> of calories and other nutritional requirements. Once
> one realizes that this is not how ANYONE, including the
> "vegans" themselves, views food, then the
> "inefficiency" argument against using resources for
> meat production falls to the ground.
>
> I hope this helps.

Not at all. You have pointed out that many people prefer
non-vegan diets and are prepared to pay market price for
meat. You have also pointed out that most vegans don't
always make the least resource-intensive choice either
with food or anything else.

So where do they get off pointing fingers ?

However you have not succesfully refuted the point that
going vegan almost always reduces one's ecological footprint
and that is all vegans mean when they make the efficiency
argument.

If that is all vegans were saying there would be no argument, but it's not.
There is a carload of judgmentmentalism that invariably comes along with
that observation.

On Mar 4, 4:41*am, "Dutch" > wrote:
> "Buxqi" > wrote in message
>
> ...
>
> There is a way to make Google Groups insert carats in your replies, maybe
> you could look for it.

I did but I couldn't find a way to alter my settings.

> On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>
> > The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
> > the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
> > could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
> > for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
> > that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
> > livestock.
>
> Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
> footprint than a meat based one.
>
> Negro men "generally", according to statistics, commit more crime and
> abandon their families more often than white men. Does that make negro men
> less moral by definition?

Of course not. You can choose what you eat. You can not choose a race.
Furthermore racial characteristics do not define an individual's
intelligence,
morality, athleticism or any other charcteristics.

> That in fact is a very common perception, and
> wrong. People, like diets, must be judged on their actual merits, not the
> characteristics of a larger group to which they may belong.

Sure. Undoubtedly there are some non-vegan diets that are more
ecologically efficient* than some vegan diets. Indeed it is plausible
that the most ecologically efficient diet possible includes some
animal products. However, as a general rule, cutting out meat
will reduce your ecological footprint.

* For the purposes of this discussion I am defining ecological
efficiency as the number of people who can meet all their RDAs
per unit of natural resource.

> My diet,
> although not a vegetarian one, probably has more positive attributes on most
> relevant criteria you can name than most vegan diets.

Quite possibly....

> > In order to examine the efficiency of some process,
> > there must be agreement on what the end product is
> > whose efficiency of production you are examining. If
> > you're looking at the production of consumer
> > electronics, for example, then the output is
> > televisions, stereo receivers, DVD players, etc.
> > Rather obviously, you need to get specific. No
> > sensible person is going to suggest that we ought to
> > discontinue the production of television sets, because
> > they require more resources to produce (which they do),
> > and produce more DVD players instead. (For the
> > cave-dwellers, an extremely high quality DVD player may
> > be bought for under US$100, while a comparable quality
> > television set is going to cost several hundred
> > dollars. $500 for a DVD player is astronomical - I'm
> > not even sure there are any that expensive - while you
> > can easily pay $3000 or more for large plasma TV
> > monitor, which will require a separate TV receiver.)
>
> Yes. Meat and grain are not the same product with regard
> to their value to the consumer but in terms of the resources
> that need to be used to keep a population adequately fed,
> they are comparable.
>
> Averting starvation is not the only goal of eating, it's arguably not even
> the primary one. If it were your argument might have some legs, but in fact
> almost everyone looks at food in a far richer context than that.

True. Eating meat is a luxury, like driving a car or posting on
usenet....

> > What are the "vegans" doing with their misuse of
> > "inefficiency"?
>
> There is no misuse. The meaning of efficiency depends
> on context. They are not using the definition employed
> by economists. That's all.
>
> It is a thinly veiled attempt to pass off a moral judgment as an economic
> argument.

There is a moral argument in favour of ecologically efficient diets...
>
> If everyone in the world followed Christianty there would be far less
> conflict and destruction in the world. Does that make non-Christians
> immoral?

No. That isn't an argument in favour of Christianity per se. It is
an argument in favour of uniform beliefs or since this is never
going to happen, tolerance of other people's beliefs. A poor analogy
though. The issue is not whether universal veganism would make
the world a better place because it avoids conflict but whether it
would make the world better because of the actions themselves.

> No, in fact the real problem is the very narrow-minded attitude
> which perceives that either you think as I do or you are misguided.

Well, naturally If I disagree with you then by definition I believe
you are misguided. No?

> > They're clearly saying that the end
> > product whose efficiency of production we want to
> > consider is "food", i.e., undifferentiated food
> > calories. Just as clearly, they are wrong. Humans
> > don't consider all foods equal, and hence equally
> > substitutable. As in debunking so much of "veganism",
> > we can see this easily - laughably easily - by
> > restricting our view to a strictly vegetarian diet,
> > without introducing meat into the discussion at all.
> > If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food production
> > efficiency, they would be advocating the production of
> > only a very small number of vegetable crops, as it is
> > obvious that some crops are more efficient to produce -
> > use less resources per nutritional unit of output -
> > than others.
>
> Information on the relative ecological efficiency of those
> foods is not so widely available.
>
> Nobody is even looking, because efficiency is not their real concern, it's
> simply a club to use against people who aren't following the same
> restrictive lifestyle they are.

Yeah. This is largely true. Perhaps there are a few people who
have chosen to become vegan over concerns about efficiency but
I am not aware of any. I have met non-vegans who consider it
a strong argument but evidently not strong enough to prevent
them from eating meat.

Most vegans use the argument because it strengthens their
position, not because it determined thier position.

> > But how do "vegans" actually behave? Why, they buy
> > some fruits and vegetables that are resource-efficient,
> > and they buy some fruits and vegetables that are
> > relatively resource-INefficient. You know this by
> > looking at retail prices: higher priced goods ARE
> > higher priced because they use more resources to
> > produce.
>
> Actually the prices are merely an approximation to the
> actual costs of production since we do not live in a
> completely free market with perfect information.
>
> Some of the most expensive food pound for pound is organic produce, which
> vegans should approve of, however it often contains hidden environmental
> costs, like transportation.

No more so than conventional produce... Organic produce
is expensive partly because it is more expensive to produce
but then the expense is partly because of externalities like
the environmental damage.

> > If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food
> > production efficiency, they would only be buying the
> > absolutely cheapest fruit or vegetable for any given
> > nutritional requirement. This would necessarily mean
> > there would be ONLY one kind of leafy green vegetable,
> > one kind of grain, one variety of fruit, and so on.
>
> > If "vegans" were to extend this misuse of "efficiency"
> > into other consumer goods, say clothing, then there
> > would be only one kind of shoe produced (and thus only
> > one brand). The same would hold for every conceivable
> > garment. A button-front shirt with collars costs more
> > to produce - uses more resources - than does a T-shirt,
> > so everyone "ought" to wear only T-shirts, if we're
> > going to focus on the efficiency of shirt production.
> > You don't "need" any button front shirts, just as you
> > don't "need" meat. But look in any "vegan's" wardrobe,
> > and you'll see a variety of different kinds of clothing
> > (all natural fiber, of course.) "vegans" aren't
> > advocating that only the most "efficient" clothing be
> > produced, as their own behavior clearly indicates.
>
> > The correct way to analyze efficiency of production is
> > to focus as narrowly as possible on the end product,
> > then see if that product can be produced using fewer
> > resources. It is important to note that the consumer's
> > view of products as distinct things is crucial. A
> > radio can be produced far more "efficiently", in terms
> > of resource use, than a television; but consumers don't
> > view radios and televisions as generic entertainment
> > devices.
>
> > The critical mistake, the UNBELIEVABLY stupid mistake,
> > that "vegans" who misconceive of "inefficiency" are
> > making, is to see "food" as some undifferentiated lump
> > of calories and other nutritional requirements. Once
> > one realizes that this is not how ANYONE, including the
> > "vegans" themselves, views food, then the
> > "inefficiency" argument against using resources for
> > meat production falls to the ground.
>
> > I hope this helps.
>
> Not at all. You have pointed out that many people prefer
> non-vegan diets and are prepared to pay market price for
> meat. You have also pointed out that most vegans don't
> always make the least resource-intensive choice either
> with food or anything else.
>
> So where do they get off pointing fingers ?

Well certainly on a vegan forum or if asked why they chose
to be vegan, they are entitled to explain their position...

> However you have not succesfully refuted the point that
> going vegan almost always reduces one's ecological footprint
> and that is all vegans mean when they make the efficiency
> argument.
>
> If that is all vegans were saying there would be no argument, but it's not..
> There is a carload of judgmentmentalism that invariably comes along with
> that observation

Maybe. I'm willing to admit to making value judgements such as
"we should all consider the effects of our actions on the
environment."
Naturally I don't always make the most ecologically efficient choice
in my diet or anything else. I try to take it into account but I don't
ignore aesthetic considerations and meat certainly tastes different to
grain...

All I am arguing is that the average vegan diet is ecologically
efficient.
Then again I'm not vegan either.

On Tue, 4 Mar 2008 12:56:20 -0800 (PST), Buxqi >
wrote:

>On Mar 4, 4:41*am, "Dutch" > wrote:
>> "Buxqi" > wrote in message
>>
>> ...
>>
>> There is a way to make Google Groups insert carats in your replies, maybe
>> you could look for it.
>
>I did but I couldn't find a way to alter my settings.
>
>> On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>>
>> > The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
>> > the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
>> > could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
>> > for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
>> > that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
>> > livestock.
>>
>> Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
>> footprint than a meat based one.
>>
>> Negro men "generally", according to statistics, commit more crime and
>> abandon their families more often than white men. Does that make negro men
>> less moral by definition?
>
>Of course not. You can choose what you eat. You can not choose a race.
>Furthermore racial characteristics do not define an individual's
>intelligence,
>morality, athleticism or any other charcteristics.
>
>> That in fact is a very common perception, and
>> wrong. People, like diets, must be judged on their actual merits, not the
>> characteristics of a larger group to which they may belong.
>
>Sure. Undoubtedly there are some non-vegan diets that are more
>ecologically efficient* than some vegan diets. Indeed it is plausible
>that the most ecologically efficient diet possible includes some
>animal products. However, as a general rule, cutting out meat
>will reduce your ecological footprint.
>
>* For the purposes of this discussion I am defining ecological
>efficiency as the number of people who can meet all their RDAs
>per unit of natural resource.
>
>> My diet,
>> although not a vegetarian one, probably has more positive attributes on most
>> relevant criteria you can name than most vegan diets.
>
>Quite possibly....
>
>> > In order to examine the efficiency of some process,
>> > there must be agreement on what the end product is
>> > whose efficiency of production you are examining. If
>> > you're looking at the production of consumer
>> > electronics, for example, then the output is
>> > televisions, stereo receivers, DVD players, etc.
>> > Rather obviously, you need to get specific. No
>> > sensible person is going to suggest that we ought to
>> > discontinue the production of television sets, because
>> > they require more resources to produce (which they do),
>> > and produce more DVD players instead. (For the
>> > cave-dwellers, an extremely high quality DVD player may
>> > be bought for under US$100, while a comparable quality
>> > television set is going to cost several hundred
>> > dollars. $500 for a DVD player is astronomical - I'm
>> > not even sure there are any that expensive - while you
>> > can easily pay $3000 or more for large plasma TV
>> > monitor, which will require a separate TV receiver.)
>>
>> Yes. Meat and grain are not the same product with regard
>> to their value to the consumer but in terms of the resources
>> that need to be used to keep a population adequately fed,
>> they are comparable.
>>
>> Averting starvation is not the only goal of eating, it's arguably not even
>> the primary one. If it were your argument might have some legs, but in fact
>> almost everyone looks at food in a far richer context than that.
>
>True. Eating meat is a luxury, like driving a car or posting on
>usenet....
>
>> > What are the "vegans" doing with their misuse of
>> > "inefficiency"?
>>
>> There is no misuse. The meaning of efficiency depends
>> on context. They are not using the definition employed
>> by economists. That's all.
>>
>> It is a thinly veiled attempt to pass off a moral judgment as an economic
>> argument.
>
>There is a moral argument in favour of ecologically efficient diets...
>>
>> If everyone in the world followed Christianty there would be far less
>> conflict and destruction in the world. Does that make non-Christians
>> immoral?
>
>No. That isn't an argument in favour of Christianity per se. It is
>an argument in favour of uniform beliefs or since this is never
>going to happen, tolerance of other people's beliefs. A poor analogy
>though. The issue is not whether universal veganism would make
>the world a better place because it avoids conflict but whether it
>would make the world better because of the actions themselves.
>
>> No, in fact the real problem is the very narrow-minded attitude
>> which perceives that either you think as I do or you are misguided.
>
>Well, naturally If I disagree with you then by definition I believe
>you are misguided. No?
>
>> > They're clearly saying that the end
>> > product whose efficiency of production we want to
>> > consider is "food", i.e., undifferentiated food
>> > calories. Just as clearly, they are wrong. Humans
>> > don't consider all foods equal, and hence equally
>> > substitutable. As in debunking so much of "veganism",
>> > we can see this easily - laughably easily - by
>> > restricting our view to a strictly vegetarian diet,
>> > without introducing meat into the discussion at all.
>> > If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food production
>> > efficiency, they would be advocating the production of
>> > only a very small number of vegetable crops, as it is
>> > obvious that some crops are more efficient to produce -
>> > use less resources per nutritional unit of output -
>> > than others.
>>
>> Information on the relative ecological efficiency of those
>> foods is not so widely available.
>>
>> Nobody is even looking, because efficiency is not their real concern, it's
>> simply a club to use against people who aren't following the same
>> restrictive lifestyle they are.
>
>Yeah. This is largely true. Perhaps there are a few people who
>have chosen to become vegan over concerns about efficiency but
>I am not aware of any. I have met non-vegans who consider it
>a strong argument but evidently not strong enough to prevent
>them from eating meat.
>
>Most vegans use the argument because it strengthens their
>position, not because it determined thier position.
>
>> > But how do "vegans" actually behave? Why, they buy
>> > some fruits and vegetables that are resource-efficient,
>> > and they buy some fruits and vegetables that are
>> > relatively resource-INefficient. You know this by
>> > looking at retail prices: higher priced goods ARE
>> > higher priced because they use more resources to
>> > produce.
>>
>> Actually the prices are merely an approximation to the
>> actual costs of production since we do not live in a
>> completely free market with perfect information.
>>
>> Some of the most expensive food pound for pound is organic produce, which
>> vegans should approve of, however it often contains hidden environmental
>> costs, like transportation.
>
>No more so than conventional produce... Organic produce
>is expensive partly because it is more expensive to produce
>but then the expense is partly because of externalities like
>the environmental damage.
>
>> > If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food
>> > production efficiency, they would only be buying the
>> > absolutely cheapest fruit or vegetable for any given
>> > nutritional requirement. This would necessarily mean
>> > there would be ONLY one kind of leafy green vegetable,
>> > one kind of grain, one variety of fruit, and so on.
>>
>> > If "vegans" were to extend this misuse of "efficiency"
>> > into other consumer goods, say clothing, then there
>> > would be only one kind of shoe produced (and thus only
>> > one brand). The same would hold for every conceivable
>> > garment. A button-front shirt with collars costs more
>> > to produce - uses more resources - than does a T-shirt,
>> > so everyone "ought" to wear only T-shirts, if we're
>> > going to focus on the efficiency of shirt production.
>> > You don't "need" any button front shirts, just as you
>> > don't "need" meat. But look in any "vegan's" wardrobe,
>> > and you'll see a variety of different kinds of clothing
>> > (all natural fiber, of course.) "vegans" aren't
>> > advocating that only the most "efficient" clothing be
>> > produced, as their own behavior clearly indicates.
>>
>> > The correct way to analyze efficiency of production is
>> > to focus as narrowly as possible on the end product,
>> > then see if that product can be produced using fewer
>> > resources. It is important to note that the consumer's
>> > view of products as distinct things is crucial. A
>> > radio can be produced far more "efficiently", in terms
>> > of resource use, than a television; but consumers don't
>> > view radios and televisions as generic entertainment
>> > devices.
>>
>> > The critical mistake, the UNBELIEVABLY stupid mistake,
>> > that "vegans" who misconceive of "inefficiency" are
>> > making, is to see "food" as some undifferentiated lump
>> > of calories and other nutritional requirements. Once
>> > one realizes that this is not how ANYONE, including the
>> > "vegans" themselves, views food, then the
>> > "inefficiency" argument against using resources for
>> > meat production falls to the ground.
>>
>> > I hope this helps.
>>
>> Not at all. You have pointed out that many people prefer
>> non-vegan diets and are prepared to pay market price for
>> meat. You have also pointed out that most vegans don't
>> always make the least resource-intensive choice either
>> with food or anything else.
>>
>> So where do they get off pointing fingers ?
>
>Well certainly on a vegan forum or if asked why they chose
>to be vegan, they are entitled to explain their position...
>
>> However you have not succesfully refuted the point that
>> going vegan almost always reduces one's ecological footprint
>> and that is all vegans mean when they make the efficiency
>> argument.
>>
>> If that is all vegans were saying there would be no argument, but it's not.
>> There is a carload of judgmentmentalism that invariably comes along with
>> that observation
>
>Maybe. I'm willing to admit to making value judgements such as
>"we should all consider the effects of our actions on the
>environment."
>Naturally I don't always make the most ecologically efficient choice
>in my diet or anything else. I try to take it into account but I don't
>ignore aesthetic considerations and meat certainly tastes different to
>grain...
>
>All I am arguing is that the average vegan diet is ecologically
>efficient.
>Then again I'm not vegan either.

You don't need to be vegan to make sense. The fact that Jonny and co
make no sense on a diet of donuts and burgers, has nothing to do with
their diet. Even if they were vegan I feel sure they'd still be
village idiots.

stupid lying shitbag troll pete lied:
> On Tue, 4 Mar 2008 12:56:20 -0800 (PST), Buxqi >
> wrote:
>
>> [snip a whole load of shit the stupid ****wit shitbag troll pete unnecessarily left in]
>>
>> All I am arguing is that the average vegan diet is ecologically
>> efficient.
>> Then again I'm not vegan either.
>
> You don't need to be vegan to make sense.

You just don't make any sense at all, shitbag pete.

On Mar 4, 12:56*pm, Buxqi > wrote:
> On Mar 4, 4:41*am, "Dutch" > wrote:
>
> > "Buxqi" > wrote in message
>
> ...
>
> > There is a way to make Google Groups insert carats in your replies, maybe
> > you could look for it.
>
> I did but I couldn't find a way to alter my settings.

Don't know what to tell ya, I'm using Google Groups now and your
replies are showing carated.
>
> > On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>
> > > The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
> > > the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
> > > could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
> > > for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
> > > that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
> > > livestock.
>
> > Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
> > footprint than a meat based one.
>
> > Negro men "generally", according to statistics, commit more crime and
> > abandon their families more often than white men. Does that make negro men
> > less moral by definition?
>
> Of course not. You can choose what you eat. You can not choose a race.
> Furthermore racial characteristics do not define an individual's
> intelligence,
> morality, athleticism or any other charcteristics.

The point I was trying to make was that it is a fallacy to attempt to
prejudge an individual case based on a generalization. Just because
vegan diets "in general" are more efficient from a resource use
standpoint says nothing about any indivdual diet.

>
> > That in fact is a very common perception, and
> > wrong. People, like diets, must be judged on their actual merits, not the
> > characteristics of a larger group to which they may belong.
>
> Sure. Undoubtedly there are some non-vegan diets that are more
> ecologically efficient* than some vegan diets. Indeed it is plausible
> that the most ecologically efficient diet possible includes some
> animal products. However, as a general rule, cutting out meat
> will reduce your ecological footprint.

So will any number of measures, none of which are suggested carry the
same kind of moral/ethical baggage that vegans imply are associated
with this one.

> * For the purposes of this discussion I am defining ecological
> efficiency as the number of people who can meet all their RDAs
> per unit of natural resource.

OK, but nobody uses that criterion when choosing food. What you are
doing is choosing your food for other reasons, then suggesting that
this is a reason you do it.

>
> > My diet,
> > although not a vegetarian one, probably has more positive attributes on most
> > relevant criteria you can name than most vegan diets.
>
> Quite possibly....
>
>
>
>
>
> > > In order to examine the efficiency of some process,
> > > there must be agreement on what the end product is
> > > whose efficiency of production you are examining. If
> > > you're looking at the production of consumer
> > > electronics, for example, then the output is
> > > televisions, stereo receivers, DVD players, etc.
> > > Rather obviously, you need to get specific. No
> > > sensible person is going to suggest that we ought to
> > > discontinue the production of television sets, because
> > > they require more resources to produce (which they do),
> > > and produce more DVD players instead. (For the
> > > cave-dwellers, an extremely high quality DVD player may
> > > be bought for under US$100, while a comparable quality
> > > television set is going to cost several hundred
> > > dollars. $500 for a DVD player is astronomical - I'm
> > > not even sure there are any that expensive - while you
> > > can easily pay $3000 or more for large plasma TV
> > > monitor, which will require a separate TV receiver.)
>
> > Yes. Meat and grain are not the same product with regard
> > to their value to the consumer but in terms of the resources
> > that need to be used to keep a population adequately fed,
> > they are comparable.
>
> > Averting starvation is not the only goal of eating, it's arguably not even
> > the primary one. If it were your argument might have some legs, but in fact
> > almost everyone looks at food in a far richer context than that.
>
> True. Eating meat is a luxury, like driving a car or posting on
> usenet....

Eating meat is not the only dietary luxury, eating tropical fruit is
one too, one of many. In fact any consumption of calories above and
beyond what one requires to survive is a luxury. Yet we all do it.
Meanwhile, again vegans single out *meat* as the luxury. It is highly
hypocritical..

>
> > > What are the "vegans" doing with their misuse of
> > > "inefficiency"?
>
> > There is no misuse. The meaning of efficiency depends
> > on context. They are not using the definition employed
> > by economists. That's all.
>
> > It is a thinly veiled attempt to pass off a moral judgment as an economic
> > argument.
>
> There is a moral argument in favour of ecologically efficient diets...

There is a moral argument in favour of ecologically efficient
lifestyles. There is no supportable moral argument which forbids the
consumption of meat per se, this is the axe that vegans have to grind.

>
> > If everyone in the world followed Christianty there would be far less
> > conflict and destruction in the world. Does that make non-Christians
> > immoral?
>
> No. That isn't an argument in favour of Christianity per se. It is
> an argument in favour of uniform beliefs or since this is never
> going to happen, tolerance of other people's beliefs. A poor analogy
> though. The issue is not whether universal veganism would make
> the world a better place because it avoids conflict but whether it
> would make the world better because of the actions themselves.

That is an argument that vegans have never successfully made.

>
> > *No, in fact the real problem is the very narrow-minded attitude
> > which perceives that either you think as I do or you are misguided.
>
> Well, naturally If I disagree with you then by definition I believe
> you are misguided. No?

Right, if you are representing the typical vegan view you believe that
as a consumer of meat I am misguided.


>
>
>
> > > They're clearly saying that the end
> > > product whose efficiency of production we want to
> > > consider is "food", i.e., undifferentiated food
> > > calories. Just as clearly, they are wrong. Humans
> > > don't consider all foods equal, and hence equally
> > > substitutable. As in debunking so much of "veganism",
> > > we can see this easily - laughably easily - by
> > > restricting our view to a strictly vegetarian diet,
> > > without introducing meat into the discussion at all.
> > > If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food production
> > > efficiency, they would be advocating the production of
> > > only a very small number of vegetable crops, as it is
> > > obvious that some crops are more efficient to produce -
> > > use less resources per nutritional unit of output -
> > > than others.
>
> > Information on the relative ecological efficiency of those
> > foods is not so widely available.
>
> > Nobody is even looking, because efficiency is not their real concern, it's
> > simply a club to use against people who aren't following the same
> > restrictive lifestyle they are.
>
> Yeah. This is largely true. Perhaps there are a few people who
> have chosen to become vegan over concerns about efficiency but
> I am not aware of any. I have met non-vegans who consider it
> a strong argument but evidently not strong enough to prevent
> them from eating meat.
>
> Most vegans use the argument because it strengthens their
> position, not because it determined thier position.

I think in general it gives vegans a false sense of superiority. This
feeling of moral superiority in my view is a poor exchange for the
ability to enjoy a rich, varied diet.

>
> > > But how do "vegans" actually behave? Why, they buy
> > > some fruits and vegetables that are resource-efficient,
> > > and they buy some fruits and vegetables that are
> > > relatively resource-INefficient. You know this by
> > > looking at retail prices: higher priced goods ARE
> > > higher priced because they use more resources to
> > > produce.
>
> > Actually the prices are merely an approximation to the
> > actual costs of production since we do not live in a
> > completely free market with perfect information.
>
> > Some of the most expensive food pound for pound is organic produce, which
> > vegans should approve of, however it often contains hidden environmental
> > costs, like transportation.
>
> No more so than conventional produce... Organic produce
> is expensive partly because it is more expensive to produce
> but then the expense is partly because of externalities like
> the environmental damage.

It's expensive because of economies of scale, although organic farms
are becoming larger all the time.

>
>
>
>
>
> > > If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food
> > > production efficiency, they would only be buying the
> > > absolutely cheapest fruit or vegetable for any given
> > > nutritional requirement. This would necessarily mean
> > > there would be ONLY one kind of leafy green vegetable,
> > > one kind of grain, one variety of fruit, and so on.
>
> > > If "vegans" were to extend this misuse of "efficiency"
> > > into other consumer goods, say clothing, then there
> > > would be only one kind of shoe produced (and thus only
> > > one brand). The same would hold for every conceivable
> > > garment. A button-front shirt with collars costs more
> > > to produce - uses more resources - than does a T-shirt,
> > > so everyone "ought" to wear only T-shirts, if we're
> > > going to focus on the efficiency of shirt production.
> > > You don't "need" any button front shirts, just as you
> > > don't "need" meat. But look in any "vegan's" wardrobe,
> > > and you'll see a variety of different kinds of clothing
> > > (all natural fiber, of course.) "vegans" aren't
> > > advocating that only the most "efficient" clothing be
> > > produced, as their own behavior clearly indicates.
>
> > > The correct way to analyze efficiency of production is
> > > to focus as narrowly as possible on the end product,
> > > then see if that product can be produced using fewer
> > > resources. It is important to note that the consumer's
> > > view of products as distinct things is crucial. A
> > > radio can be produced far more "efficiently", in terms
> > > of resource use, than a television; but consumers don't
> > > view radios and televisions as generic entertainment
> > > devices.
>
> > > The critical mistake, the UNBELIEVABLY stupid mistake,
> > > that "vegans" who misconceive of "inefficiency" are
> > > making, is to see "food" as some undifferentiated lump
> > > of calories and other nutritional requirements. Once
> > > one realizes that this is not how ANYONE, including the
> > > "vegans" themselves, views food, then the
> > > "inefficiency" argument against using resources for
> > > meat production falls to the ground.
>
> > > I hope this helps.
>
> > Not at all. You have pointed out that many people prefer
> > non-vegan diets and are prepared to pay market price for
> > meat. You have also pointed out that most vegans don't
> > always make the least resource-intensive choice either
> > with food or anything else.
>
> > So where do they get off pointing fingers ?
>
> Well certainly on a vegan forum or if asked why they chose
> to be vegan, they are entitled to explain their position...

There is a fine line between explaining one's position and condemning
others. Vegans frequently cross this line.

>
> > However you have not succesfully refuted the point that
> > going vegan almost always reduces one's ecological footprint
> > and that is all vegans mean when they make the efficiency
> > argument.
>
> > If that is all vegans were saying there would be no argument, but it's not.
> > There is a carload of judgmentmentalism that invariably comes along with
> > that observation
>
> Maybe. I'm willing to admit to making value judgements such as
> "we should all consider the effects of our actions ...

Yes, as opposed to focusing exclusively on the effects of the actions
of others. Vegans have plenty to say about the suffering and death
associated with animal products but are noticeably silent on the
suffering and death associated with plant-based products such as rice,
wheat, apples, bananas, or cotton. It all comes across as self-
serving.

On Mar 3, 4:00 pm, Buxqi > wrote:
> On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>
> > The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
> > the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
> > could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
> > for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
> > that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
> > livestock.
>
> Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
> footprint than a meat based one.

Not necessarily. But that isn't really their argument about
efficiency. They're talking about resource use, not environmental
degradation.


> > In order to examine the efficiency of some process,
> > there must be agreement on what the end product is
> > whose efficiency of production you are examining. If
> > you're looking at the production of consumer
> > electronics, for example, then the output is
> > televisions, stereo receivers, DVD players, etc.
> > Rather obviously, you need to get specific. No
> > sensible person is going to suggest that we ought to
> > discontinue the production of television sets, because
> > they require more resources to produce (which they do),
> > and produce more DVD players instead. (For the
> > cave-dwellers, an extremely high quality DVD player may
> > be bought for under US$100, while a comparable quality
> > television set is going to cost several hundred
> > dollars. $500 for a DVD player is astronomical - I'm
> > not even sure there are any that expensive - while you
> > can easily pay $3000 or more for large plasma TV
> > monitor, which will require a separate TV receiver.)
>
> Yes. Meat and grain are not the same product with regard
> to their value to the consumer but in terms of the resources
> that need to be used to keep a population adequately fed,
> they are comparable.

But not the same. Value to the consumer is what matters. There is no
Diet Czar in any civilized society making macro-level decisions on how
to feed a population at the least cost - nor should there be. People
demand goods and services according to their own preference functions,
and the invisible hand directs resources to the satisfaction of that
demand.


> > What are the "vegans" doing with their misuse of
> > "inefficiency"?
>
> There is no misuse.

There is.

> The meaning of efficiency depends
> on context. They are not using the definition employed
> by economists. That's all

They aren't using any valid meaning at all. No one looks at overall
resource usage in that way.

> > They're clearly saying that the end
> > product whose efficiency of production we want to
> > consider is "food", i.e., undifferentiated food
> > calories. Just as clearly, they are wrong. Humans
> > don't consider all foods equal, and hence equally
> > substitutable. As in debunking so much of "veganism",
> > we can see this easily - laughably easily - by
> > restricting our view to a strictly vegetarian diet,
> > without introducing meat into the discussion at all.
> > If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food production
> > efficiency, they would be advocating the production of
> > only a very small number of vegetable crops, as it is
> > obvious that some crops are more efficient to produce -
> > use less resources per nutritional unit of output -
> > than others.
>
> Information on the relative ecological efficiency of those
> foods is not so widely available.

Not the issue.


> > But how do "vegans" actually behave? Why, they buy
> > some fruits and vegetables that are resource-efficient,
> > and they buy some fruits and vegetables that are
> > relatively resource-INefficient. You know this by
> > looking at retail prices: higher priced goods ARE
> > higher priced because they use more resources to
> > produce.
>
> Actually the prices are merely an approximation to the
> actual costs of production since we do not live in a
> completely free market with perfect information.

They're a very good approximation, not "merely" one. Raspberries cost
more than apples because they're more expensive to produce: they
require more resources.

> > If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food
> > production efficiency, they would only be buying the
> > absolutely cheapest fruit or vegetable for any given
> > nutritional requirement. This would necessarily mean
> > there would be ONLY one kind of leafy green vegetable,
> > one kind of grain, one variety of fruit, and so on.
>
> > If "vegans" were to extend this misuse of "efficiency"
> > into other consumer goods, say clothing, then there
> > would be only one kind of shoe produced (and thus only
> > one brand). The same would hold for every conceivable
> > garment. A button-front shirt with collars costs more
> > to produce - uses more resources - than does a T-shirt,
> > so everyone "ought" to wear only T-shirts, if we're
> > going to focus on the efficiency of shirt production.
> > You don't "need" any button front shirts, just as you
> > don't "need" meat. But look in any "vegan's" wardrobe,
> > and you'll see a variety of different kinds of clothing
> > (all natural fiber, of course.) "vegans" aren't
> > advocating that only the most "efficient" clothing be
> > produced, as their own behavior clearly indicates.
>
> > The correct way to analyze efficiency of production is
> > to focus as narrowly as possible on the end product,
> > then see if that product can be produced using fewer
> > resources. It is important to note that the consumer's
> > view of products as distinct things is crucial. A
> > radio can be produced far more "efficiently", in terms
> > of resource use, than a television; but consumers don't
> > view radios and televisions as generic entertainment
> > devices.
>
> > The critical mistake, the UNBELIEVABLY stupid mistake,
> > that "vegans" who misconceive of "inefficiency" are
> > making, is to see "food" as some undifferentiated lump
> > of calories and other nutritional requirements. Once
> > one realizes that this is not how ANYONE, including the
> > "vegans" themselves, views food, then the
> > "inefficiency" argument against using resources for
> > meat production falls to the ground.
>
> > I hope this helps.
>
> Not at all.

Sure it does.

> You have pointed out that many people prefer
> non-vegan diets and are prepared to pay market price for
> meat. You have also pointed out that most vegans don't
> always make the least resource-intensive choice either
> with food or anything else.

That second one proves that "vegans" aren't following their own
prescription; not even close.

>
> However you have not succesfully refuted the point that
> going vegan almost always reduces one's ecological footprint

That's false.


> and that is all vegans mean when they make the efficiency
> argument.

No, that is not at all what they mean.

Rudy Canoza wrote:
> On Mar 3, 4:00 pm, Buxqi > wrote:
>> On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>>
>>> The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
>>> the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
>>> could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
>>> for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
>>> that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
>>> livestock.
>> Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
>> footprint than a meat based one.
>
> Not necessarily. But that isn't really their argument about
> efficiency. They're talking about resource use, not environmental
> degradation.
>

There's also the point that some animals - goats, sheep, etc., can
live on land where it wouldn't be possible to grow much that is edible
by humans. You can't grow wheat, or even soy, on high boggy moorland
in the semi-Arctic moorlands of Scotland. Sheep and deer, OTOH,
thrive on the food available to them there.

--
Jette Goldie

http://www.jette.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
http://wolfette.livejournal.com/
("reply to" is spamblocked - use the email addy in sig)

"Jette" > wrote in message
...
> Rudy Canoza wrote:
>> On Mar 3, 4:00 pm, Buxqi > wrote:
>>> On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>>>
>>>> The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
>>>> the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
>>>> could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
>>>> for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
>>>> that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
>>>> livestock.
>>> Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
>>> footprint than a meat based one.
>>
>> Not necessarily. But that isn't really their argument about
>> efficiency. They're talking about resource use, not environmental
>> degradation.
>>
>
> There's also the point that some animals - goats, sheep, etc., can live on
> land where it wouldn't be possible to grow much that is edible by humans.
> You can't grow wheat, or even soy, on high boggy moorland in the
> semi-Arctic moorlands of Scotland. Sheep and deer, OTOH, thrive on the
> food available to them there.
>

yes, and actually if you follow pre-modern 'folding' techniques where you
bring the animals down from the fell overnight to milk them, then they build
up the fertility of your crop ground around the steading, while being
sparsely stocked and not having a major effect on the ground they graze on

Jim Webster

Jette wrote:

>
> There's also the point that some animals - goats, sheep, etc., can
> live on land where it wouldn't be possible to grow much that is edible
> by humans. You can't grow wheat, or even soy, on high boggy moorland
> in the semi-Arctic moorlands of Scotland. Sheep and deer, OTOH,
> thrive on the food available to them there.

They subsist, not thrive.

To thrive they need to come down to good pastures.
Man has taken sheep over to the eastern pastures for many centuries as he
recognised this gave a better carcase.

--

regards
Jill Bowis

Pure bred utility chickens and ducks
Housing; Equipment, Books, Videos, Gifts
Herbaceous; Herb and Alpine nursery
Working Holidays in Scotland
http://www.kintaline.co.uk

On Mar 4, 5:39*pm, Jette > wrote:
> Rudy Canoza wrote:
> > On Mar 3, 4:00 pm, Buxqi > wrote:
> >> On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>
> >>> The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
> >>> the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
> >>> could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
> >>> for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
> >>> that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
> >>> livestock.
> >> Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
> >> footprint than a meat based one.
>
> > Not necessarily. *But that isn't really their argument about
> > efficiency. *They're talking about resource use, not environmental
> > degradation.
>
> There's also the point that some animals - goats, sheep, etc., can
> live on land where it wouldn't be possible to grow much that is edible
> by humans. *You can't grow wheat, or even soy, on high boggy moorland
> in the semi-Arctic moorlands of Scotland. *Sheep and deer, OTOH,
> thrive on the food available to them there.

Yes, that is indeed an important point for anyone motivated by the
concept of ecological efficiency to bear in mind. It's not always an
argument for not eating meat if you know where it comes from.

It is also worth considering the use of animals in organic
agriculture.
Crop rotations are a popular way to maintain soil fertility and
prevent crop-specific pests from taking hold. The traditional
rotations usually involve grazing animals. I don't know if they
are necessary though....

"Buxqi" > wrote in message news:04b5a2ba-7ce2-4738-a90d-
Yes, that is indeed an important point for anyone motivated by the
concept of ecological efficiency to bear in mind. It's not always an
argument for not eating meat if you know where it comes from.

It is also worth considering the use of animals in organic
agriculture.
Crop rotations are a popular way to maintain soil fertility and
prevent crop-specific pests from taking hold. The traditional
rotations usually involve grazing animals. I don't know if they
are necessary though....
---------------

Work has been done and you can do organic rotations with green manures, but
they are described as 'fragile'
The main problem with them is that it reduces the food produced over the
period of the rotation and thus they are actually less 'efficient' than
conventional rotations including livestock

Jim Webster

Buxqi > writes

>It is also worth considering the use of animals in organic agriculture.

Indeed so. However remember 'organic' agriculture is not new, its been
used for about 20,000 years and also remember that older people can
still remember when UK farming had no pesticides (basically no effective
ones existed) and imported little fertiliser (it was too expensive).

So some of us have farmed in essentially organic days.

>Crop
>rotations are a popular way to maintain soil fertility and prevent crop-
>specific pests from taking hold.

Er, they were the ONLY way. No crops were ever grown consecutively and
even grass was often reseeded in the more fertile areas.

>The traditional rotations usually involve
>grazing animals.

Traditional rotations ALWAYS involved grazing animals. Essentially they
stripped the potash so it could be used for potash demanding crops (all
vegetables demand high potash).

>I don't know if they are necessary though....

You can use pig manure and human manure BUT you MUST recycle or
replenish your soil nutrient status somehow if you are going to crop it.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.

"Buxqi" > wrote in message
...
On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
> The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
> the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
> could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
> for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
> that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
> livestock.

Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
footprint than a meat based one.

but this is irrelevent if the person eating the diet has a huge ecological
footprint because they fly regularly or drive a big car

You have to look at the overal efficiency of the person, not merely one
aspect of their lives

Jim Webster

On Tue, 4 Mar 2008 07:09:59 -0000, "Jim Webster"
> wrote:

>
>"Buxqi" > wrote in message
...
>On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>> The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
>> the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
>> could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
>> for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
>> that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
>> livestock.
>
>Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
>footprint than a meat based one.
>
>but this is irrelevent if the person eating the diet has a huge ecological
>footprint because they fly regularly or drive a big car
>
>You have to look at the overal efficiency of the person, not merely one
>aspect of their lives
>
>Jim Webster

That's a stupid answer, you need do no such thing. Quite a silly one
too given your position within the CLA, no doubt that would be the
party line and if that's the best they can come up with then they are
really struggling.

The discussion is about getting rid of the hugely damaging livestock
industry and swapping over to the much more efficient and planet
friendly vegetarian diet. What car or other habits people have is
irrelevant, although veggies will also usually be very conscientious
in other areas of their lives.

Presently we are nearing global capacity for meat production. Much
more and we are in serious, serious trouble. Go veggie and we
instantly drop to around half the production levels with huge capacity
in reserve.

The maths are very simple.

Curtain Cider wrote:
> On Tue, 4 Mar 2008 07:09:59 -0000, "Jim Webster"
> > wrote:
>
>> "Buxqi" > wrote in message
>> ...
>> On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>>> The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
>>> the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
>>> could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
>>> for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
>>> that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
>>> livestock.
>> Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
>> footprint than a meat based one.
>>
>> but this is irrelevent if the person eating the diet has a huge ecological
>> footprint because they fly regularly or drive a big car
>>
>> You have to look at the overal efficiency of the person, not merely one
>> aspect of their lives
>>
>> Jim Webster
>
> That's a stupid answer, you need do no such thing. Quite a silly one
> too given your position within the CLA, no doubt that would be the
> party line and if that's the best they can come up with then they are
> really struggling.
>
> The discussion is about getting rid of the hugely damaging livestock
> industry and swapping over to the much more efficient

Not so. You, too, misuse "efficient". You just don't
know the correct meaning of the word.


> and planet
> friendly vegetarian diet. What car or other habits people have is
> irrelevant, although veggies will also usually be very conscientious
> in other areas of their lives.

No, they're not. What an absurd claim.


>
> Presently we are nearing global capacity for meat production.

Ballocks.


> Much more and we are in serious, serious trouble.

Big steaming load.


> Go veggie and we
> instantly drop to around half the production levels with huge capacity
> in reserve.

And people don't get what they want.


> The maths are very simple.

Except they're based on fundamental misapprehension of
basic concepts. People want individual foods,
according to their preferences; they do not want
undifferentiated calories.

On Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:02:00 -0800, Rudy Canoza
> wrote:

>Curtain Cider wrote:
>> On Tue, 4 Mar 2008 07:09:59 -0000, "Jim Webster"
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> "Buxqi" > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>> On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>>>> The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
>>>> the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
>>>> could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
>>>> for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
>>>> that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
>>>> livestock.
>>> Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
>>> footprint than a meat based one.
>>>
>>> but this is irrelevent if the person eating the diet has a huge ecological
>>> footprint because they fly regularly or drive a big car
>>>
>>> You have to look at the overal efficiency of the person, not merely one
>>> aspect of their lives
>>>
>>> Jim Webster
>>
>> That's a stupid answer, you need do no such thing. Quite a silly one
>> too given your position within the CLA, no doubt that would be the
>> party line and if that's the best they can come up with then they are
>> really struggling.
>>
>> The discussion is about getting rid of the hugely damaging livestock
>> industry and swapping over to the much more efficient
>
>Not so. You, too, misuse "efficient". You just don't
>know the correct meaning of the word.

The meaning is clear and simple, apparently not to you though!

>> and planet
>> friendly vegetarian diet. What car or other habits people have is
>> irrelevant, although veggies will also usually be very conscientious
>> in other areas of their lives.
>
>No, they're not. What an absurd claim.

Fact. Most of us veggies care enough about sentient beings not to eat
or abuse them. Only an ignoramus would eat meat without a thought for
the consequence.

<snip Neanderthal grunts from the village idiot>

>> Go veggie and we
>> instantly drop to around half the production levels with huge capacity
>> in reserve.
>
>And people don't get what they want.

Getting what we want is what has placed the planet in dire straights.
It's now time to start think about needs rather *I want* *I want*. Man
has abused the system he has been given and that must change.

>> The maths are very simple.
>
>Except they're based on fundamental misapprehension of
>basic concepts. People want individual foods,
>according to their preferences; they do not want
>undifferentiated calories.

People will get what they are given. The simple fact is there is no
need whatsoever for a meat diet, that is based on personal preference.
When that preference is damaging the planet and ourselves we need to
do something about it. Staples like fruit and veg we must have.

In message >, Jim Webster
> writes
>
>"Buxqi" > wrote in message
...
>On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>> The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
>> the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
>> could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
>> for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
>> that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
>> livestock.
>
>Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
>footprint than a meat based one.
>
>but this is irrelevent if the person eating the diet has a huge ecological
>footprint because they fly regularly or drive a big car
>
>You have to look at the overal efficiency of the person, not merely one
>aspect of their lives

I usually avoid mega-threads:-)

Somewhere, way back up this one, is the assumption that all acres of
land are equal and could produce average yields of Soya, Wheat beef etc.

There is also the assumption that cereals and legumes can be grown
without necessary rotation.

Taking the top end figures for each case does not make a strong
argument: ranched beef may well take 4 years to finish but not on land
that would support continuous Wheat. Soya may well produce high yields
of usable protein but I doubt it can be grown in all parts of the US.
Continuous cropping usually leads to reduced yields and higher chemical
inputs.

regards

--
Tim Lamb

"Tim Lamb" > wrote in message
...
> In message >, Jim Webster
> > writes
>>
>
> I usually avoid mega-threads:-)
>
> Somewhere, way back up this one, is the assumption that all acres of land
> are equal and could produce average yields of Soya, Wheat beef etc.
>
> There is also the assumption that cereals and legumes can be grown without
> necessary rotation.

There is a strong underlying lack of knowledge about the practicality. I
know that there has been work done now with organic systems of rotation
which will get yields up to about the same as conventional, continuous
cereals, but only for two or three yields a decade when you have the cereal
crop, in the other years you tend to be using livestock to build up the
fertility.
Also as you say there are problems of climate and land type. Anyone in the
UK dependent on soya as their protein source is going to be importing most
of their protein, althrough of course they could make do with broad beans
and peas.

>
> Taking the top end figures for each case does not make a strong argument:
> ranched beef may well take 4 years to finish but not on land that would
> support continuous Wheat. Soya may well produce high yields of usable
> protein but I doubt it can be grown in all parts of the US. Continuous
> cropping usually leads to reduced yields and higher chemical inputs.
>
> regards

this is true but one of the advantages of GM varieties is that it helps
limit this and allow continuous cropping to go on longer without depleting
soil moisture too much

Jim Webster

On Tue, 4 Mar 2008 10:23:38 -0000, "Jim Webster"
> wrote:

>
>"Tim Lamb" > wrote in message
.. .
>> In message >, Jim Webster
>> > writes
>>>
> >
>> I usually avoid mega-threads:-)
>>
>> Somewhere, way back up this one, is the assumption that all acres of land
>> are equal and could produce average yields of Soya, Wheat beef etc.
>>
>> There is also the assumption that cereals and legumes can be grown without
>> necessary rotation.
>
>There is a strong underlying lack of knowledge about the practicality. I
>know that there has been work done now with organic systems of rotation
>which will get yields up to about the same as conventional, continuous
>cereals, but only for two or three yields a decade when you have the cereal
>crop, in the other years you tend to be using livestock to build up the
>fertility.

No Jim that's a blatant lie. When was the last time anyone saw
livestock grazing on a well managed arable farm?

To be honest it's quite a shock to see such deliberately misleading
rubbish coming from a CLA employee. Perhaps we should ask the CLA if
they would agree with you?

If you are going to join in civil debate, try at least to be honest.

On Tue, 4 Mar 2008 08:48:08 +0000, Tim Lamb
> wrote:

>In message >, Jim Webster
> writes
>>
>>"Buxqi" > wrote in message
...
>>On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>>> The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
>>> the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
>>> could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
>>> for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
>>> that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
>>> livestock.
>>
>>Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
>>footprint than a meat based one.
>>
>>but this is irrelevent if the person eating the diet has a huge ecological
>>footprint because they fly regularly or drive a big car
>>
>>You have to look at the overal efficiency of the person, not merely one
>>aspect of their lives
>
>I usually avoid mega-threads:-)
>
>Somewhere, way back up this one, is the assumption that all acres of
>land are equal and could produce average yields of Soya, Wheat beef etc.
>
>There is also the assumption that cereals and legumes can be grown
>without necessary rotation.
>
>Taking the top end figures for each case does not make a strong
>argument: ranched beef may well take 4 years to finish but not on land
>that would support continuous Wheat. Soya may well produce high yields
>of usable protein but I doubt it can be grown in all parts of the US.
>Continuous cropping usually leads to reduced yields and higher chemical
>inputs.

I don't think you need to tell an arable farmer how to grow arable
crops.

Julie wrote:
> On Tue, 4 Mar 2008 08:48:08 +0000, Tim Lamb
> > wrote:
>
>> In message >, Jim Webster
>> > writes
>>> "Buxqi" > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>> On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>>>> The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
>>>> the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
>>>> could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
>>>> for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
>>>> that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
>>>> livestock.
>>> Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
>>> footprint than a meat based one.
>>>
>>> but this is irrelevent if the person eating the diet has a huge ecological
>>> footprint because they fly regularly or drive a big car
>>>
>>> You have to look at the overal efficiency of the person, not merely one
>>> aspect of their lives
>> I usually avoid mega-threads:-)
>>
>> Somewhere, way back up this one, is the assumption that all acres of
>> land are equal and could produce average yields of Soya, Wheat beef etc.
>>
>> There is also the assumption that cereals and legumes can be grown
>> without necessary rotation.
>>
>> Taking the top end figures for each case does not make a strong
>> argument: ranched beef may well take 4 years to finish but not on land
>> that would support continuous Wheat. Soya may well produce high yields
>> of usable protein but I doubt it can be grown in all parts of the US.
>> Continuous cropping usually leads to reduced yields and higher chemical
>> inputs.
>
> I don't think you need to tell an arable farmer

No such thing. You're an idiot.

On Mar 4, 7:09*am, "Jim Webster"
> wrote:
> "Buxqi" > wrote in message
>
> ...
> On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>
> > The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
> > the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
> > could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
> > for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
> > that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
> > livestock.
>
> Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
> footprint than a meat based one.
>
> but this is irrelevent if the person eating the diet has a huge ecological
> footprint because they fly regularly or drive a big car
>
> You have to look at the overal efficiency of the person, not merely one
> aspect of their lives

I realise that simply adopting a vegan diet does not automatically
make you a green person.

"Buxqi" > wrote in message
...
On Mar 4, 7:09 am, "Jim Webster"
> wrote:
> "Buxqi" > wrote in message
>
> ...
> On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>
> > The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
> > the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
> > could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
> > for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
> > that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
> > livestock.
>
> Yes. A vegan diet will generally have a smaller ecological
> footprint than a meat based one.
>
> but this is irrelevent if the person eating the diet has a huge ecological
> footprint because they fly regularly or drive a big car
>
> You have to look at the overal efficiency of the person, not merely one
> aspect of their lives

I realise that simply adopting a vegan diet does not automatically
make you a green person.
---------------

Absolutely.
It is the whole package, diet is merely a part of it, and ironically it can
be a very small part of it depending on the persons life style

Jim Webster

On Mar 3, 3:53 pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
> The "vegan" pseudo-argument on "inefficiency" is that
> the resources used to produce a given amount of meat
> could produce a much greater amount of vegetable food
> for direct human consumption, due to the loss of energy
> that results from feeding grain and other feeds to
> livestock.
>
> In order to examine the efficiency of some process,
> there must be agreement on what the end product is
> whose efficiency of production you are examining. If
> you're looking at the production of consumer
> electronics, for example, then the output is
> televisions, stereo receivers, DVD players, etc.
> Rather obviously, you need to get specific. No
> sensible person is going to suggest that we ought to
> discontinue the production of television sets, because
> they require more resources to produce (which they do),
> and produce more DVD players instead. (For the
> cave-dwellers, an extremely high quality DVD player may
> be bought for under US$100, while a comparable quality
> television set is going to cost several hundred
> dollars. $500 for a DVD player is astronomical - I'm
> not even sure there are any that expensive - while you
> can easily pay $3000 or more for large plasma TV
> monitor, which will require a separate TV receiver.)
>
> What are the "vegans" doing with their misuse of
> "inefficiency"? They're clearly saying that the end
> product whose efficiency of production we want to
> consider is "food", i.e., undifferentiated food
> calories. Just as clearly, they are wrong. Humans
> don't consider all foods equal, and hence equally
> substitutable. As in debunking so much of "veganism",
> we can see this easily - laughably easily - by
> restricting our view to a strictly vegetarian diet,
> without introducing meat into the discussion at all.
> If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food production
> efficiency, they would be advocating the production of
> only a very small number of vegetable crops, as it is
> obvious that some crops are more efficient to produce -
> use less resources per nutritional unit of output -
> than others.
>
> But how do "vegans" actually behave? Why, they buy
> some fruits and vegetables that are resource-efficient,
> and they buy some fruits and vegetables that are
> relatively resource-INefficient. You know this by
> looking at retail prices: higher priced goods ARE
> higher priced because they use more resources to
> produce. If "vegans" REALLY were interested in food
> production efficiency, they would only be buying the
> absolutely cheapest fruit or vegetable for any given
> nutritional requirement. This would necessarily mean
> there would be ONLY one kind of leafy green vegetable,
> one kind of grain, one variety of fruit, and so on.
>
> If "vegans" were to extend this misuse of "efficiency"
> into other consumer goods, say clothing, then there
> would be only one kind of shoe produced (and thus only
> one brand). The same would hold for every conceivable
> garment. A button-front shirt with collars costs more
> to produce - uses more resources - than does a T-shirt,
> so everyone "ought" to wear only T-shirts, if we're
> going to focus on the efficiency of shirt production.
> You don't "need" any button front shirts, just as you
> don't "need" meat. But look in any "vegan's" wardrobe,
> and you'll see a variety of different kinds of clothing
> (all natural fiber, of course.) "vegans" aren't
> advocating that only the most "efficient" clothing be
> produced, as their own behavior clearly indicates.
>
> The correct way to analyze efficiency of production is
> to focus as narrowly as possible on the end product,
> then see if that product can be produced using fewer
> resources. It is important to note that the consumer's
> view of products as distinct things is crucial. A
> radio can be produced far more "efficiently", in terms
> of resource use, than a television; but consumers don't
> view radios and televisions as generic entertainment
> devices.
>
> The critical mistake, the UNBELIEVABLY stupid mistake,
> that "vegans" who misconceive of "inefficiency" are
> making, is to see "food" as some undifferentiated lump
> of calories and other nutritional requirements. Once
> one realizes that this is not how ANYONE, including the
> "vegans" themselves, views food, then the
> "inefficiency" argument against using resources for
> meat production falls to the ground.
>
> I hope this helps.

Think in terms of how much food/protein could actually be produced on
one acre of land...the most efficent might be vegan only, or a mix
with animals, but its very unlikely to be animals only. (Also factor
in resource uses from outside). There is a big and boring bias towards
livstock farming in many areas of the UK - I found rural/mountainous
wales like some sort of hammer house film - no sir, we don't like
trees here, we kill them silently at night (type thing). Its really
that bad - totally fuked up colonialised nightmare. The druids would
go absolutely mental. Now, of course, in mid wales, around Pumlumon
you have so called conservationists saying that the current cleared
(of people and trees) waste of the welsh mountains is a 'wilderness'.
Too fuking much! (thus blocking Forestry Commission native tree
regeneration grants also in many areas of previously wildness forest
with this false designation).

**** off and die fuking idiots, I've had it with you.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research...tre/index.html