Home » Posts tagged 'meat'

Tag Archives: meat

(Image from Statistics Canada: Prices for meat products rise year over year in September)

Canada’s CPI rose 4.4% YoY this September, according to Statistics Canada. Every major sector saw gains, but meat prices spiked 9.5%, marking the fastest pace of growth since April 2015. Canada’s Food Price Report for 2021, released in December 2020, predicted that meat prices would rise 4.5% to 6.5% in 2021, a drastic underestimate. Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, project lead and Director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University warned people that they should develop “immunity” to rising prices. “Immunity to higher food prices requires more cooking, more discipline and more research. It’s as simple as that.” Gaslighting the people to believe they need to change their lives, rather than government change their policy, is at play once again.

Let me remind you that Bill Gates and others have been advocating for a move to 100% synthetic beef. But his logic only applies to the “rich” countries such as the US and Canada. “Weirdly, the US livestock, because they’re so productive, the emissions per pound of beef are dramatically less than emissions per pound in Africa,” Gates said in an interview in February 2021. “So no, I don’t think the poorest 80 countries will be eating synthetic meat. I do think all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef. You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time. Eventually, that green premium is modest enough that you can sort of change the [behavior of] people or use regulation to totally shift the demand.” This ties into the climate change agenda and the idea that starvation can help us shift to zero CO2…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Meat Prices To Remain Elevated Amid Depleted Reserves

September 23, 2021

US Meat Prices To Remain Elevated Amid Depleted Reserves

Beef, pork, and chicken in US cold storage warehouses have yet to recover from pandemic lows and could continue to support higher prices.

New United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) data shows beef reserves dropped 7.7% from a year ago in August, poultry supplies fell 20%, and pork plunged 44% to their lowest levels since 2017, according to Bloomberg.

“Prices remain very elevated compared to seasonal expectations,” Sullivan said.

Soaring supermarket prices have been on the radar of the Biden administration as working-poor families allocate a high percentage of their incomes to basic and essential items. Higher food inflation eats away their wages and is why Biden recently increased SNAP benefits by a quarter.

Earlier this month, the Biden administration finally addressed inflation as a concern but didn’t blame the trillions of dollars in fiscal and monetary policies and labor shortages on increased food inflation but instead placed responsibility on meatpackers.

White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese said “pandemic profiteering” food companies are driving up supermarket costs for Americans. This is nothing more than a blame game and failed government policies that have not just increased food prices but have left supply chains reeling due to stimulus checks that disincentivized workers from working.

New data of low meat supply at US cold storage facility is more bad news for the Biden administration, who will have to develop a new narrative about why meat prices aren’t going down. If food inflation remains elevated into early next year, Americans might vote with their wallets during next year’s midterms.

How to Make Beef Jerky – DIY – Prepper’s Kitchen

July 31, 2021

How to Make Beef Jerky – DIY – Prepper’s Kitchen

City Prepping Ultimate Jerky Recipe In this blog, we’re going to take you through, step-by-step, showing you how to make beef jerky. We’ll cover the steps, the recipe, and all of the items you’ll need on hand. Nobody has ever been able to eat a whole cow in one sitting but to survive, it’s essential to preserve as much of the meat as possible for consumption.

It seems like everyone I know has their own jerky recipe, but Shawn assures me his is the ultimate jerky recipe. You don’t need a fancy dehydrator to make it.

WHAT YOU NEED
I’ll address optional ingredients in a moment, but Siracha is a great fermented pepper sauce to use for this. For my recipe, you will need two or more pounds of beef (I used top round and flank steak), a bowl to marinate the meat, a measuring cup, 3/4 cup soy sauce, one tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, one teaspoon smoked paprika, one tablespoon brown sugar, one teaspoon or more ground pepper, one teaspoon garlic powder, one teaspoon onion powder, one teaspoon liquid smoke.

Optional other ingredients include toasted sesame oil, hot pepper flakes or hot pepper powder, 1/4 cup pineapple juice, two teaspoons ginger, Siracha sauce to taste. If you have a particular Ultimate Jerky Ingredients preference in taste, feel free to add an optional ingredient. I will add some sesame oil, pineapple juice, and chili paste to mine at the end of the basic recipe to make mine just a little more Pacific Island style.

THE QUICK RECIPE

Trim the fat off the meat and reserve it for other purposes like making tallow, which I cover in another blog. Cut the meat against the grain into 1/2 inch to 1/4 inch slices depending upon the thickness. You don’t want the meat so thick it will be hard to dry the center.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

JBS Shutters All US Meat Plants As Cyber Attack Jeopardizes Food Supply

June 2, 2021

JBS Shutters All US Meat Plants As Cyber Attack Jeopardizes Food Supply

Update (2002 ET): The USDA has released an important update about the Biden administration’s steps to mitigate potential supply constraints and price surges following JBS’ ransomware attack.

As noted earlier today by the White House, USDA is aware of the ransomware attack against JBS, which is affecting the company’s operations, including its facilities in the United States. USDA continues to work closely with the White House, Department of Homeland Security, JBS USA and others to monitor this situation closely and offer help and assistance to mitigate any potential supply or price issues. As part of that effort, USDA has reached out to several major meat processors in the United States to ensure they are aware of the situation, encouraging them to accommodate additional capacity where possible, and to stress the importance of keeping supply moving.

USDA has also been in contact with several food, agriculture and retail organizations to underscore the importance of maintaining close communication and working together to ensure a stable, plentiful food supply. USDA will continue to encourage food and agriculture companies with operations in the United States to take necessary steps to protect their IT and supply chain infrastructure so that it is more durable, distributed and better able to withstand modern challenges, including cybersecurity threats and disruptions.

* * *

Update (1916 ET): Bloomberg News reports an official at the United Food & Commercial Workers has indicated all JBS’ US meat plants have been shuttered due to a ransomware attack over the weekend.

According to CBS News, JBS has halted operations at 13 of its processing facilities. A complete list of the plant closings is shown below.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Meat Shortages Go Mainstream with Rations and Menu Changes: How to Keep Meat on Your Table

May 9, 2020

Meat Shortages Go Mainstream with Rations and Menu Changes: How to Keep Meat on Your Table

Chalk it up to a side effect nobody ever expected from the pandemic: meat is becoming difficult to get. Who would have expected this to result in grocery stores across the country rationing meat purchases? Who would have ever thought the COVID-19 virus would mean that places like Wendy’s would stop selling burgers altogether and that McDonald’s would cut its menu to only a handful of offerings?

Workers at meat packaging plants have been especially hard hit with the coronavirus. Almost 60% of the employees at one Tyson plant in Iowa have tested positive for COVID. Plants everywhere are shutting down for the safety of their employees and despite President Trump’s invocation of the Defense Production Act to force them to reopen, many workers have refused to return to the plants. Factory farms have culled millions of cows, hogs, and chickens because they cannot be to plants that are either closed or reducing the amount of meat they’re able to process while practicing social distancing.

Historically, the centralization of food has always ended in disaster. Unfortunately, giant CAFO operations and USDA approval have centralized our own food supply, and here we are.

Do the meat shortages mean that you have to become a vegetarian? While that is one option, here are some other ways to keep meat on the table at your house.

Buy in bulk locally

One of the best ways to acquire meat is to purchase in bulk and to do so locally. You can buy a quarter or a half of a pig or cow and have it processed into your favorite cuts. As well, you are locking in your meat price by purchasing it all at once. This way, you won’t be as strongly affected by meat inflation until next season.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Meat Prices Suddenly Surge As Food Processing Plants Shut Down, With 1000s Of Tons Left To Spoil

April 19, 2020

Meat Prices Suddenly Surge As Food Processing Plants Shut Down, With 1000s Of Tons Left To Spoil

As we pointed out earlier in the week, China-owned Smithfield Food’s decision to temporarily shutter the largest pork processing plant in the US, based in Sioux Falls, SD, due to a coronavirus outbreak is a much more significant even than the mainstream media gave credit for. While WaPo focused on bashing the state’s governor, whose refusal to issue a ‘stay at home’ order was blamed for the outbreak, the real significant wasn’t accorded sufficient time and attention, we feel.

The real takeaway here, is that the supply chain for American staples was badly damaged by the outbreak, with the damage still more extensive and stubborn than government officials have really acknowledged. Two months on, and millions of Americans are still having trouble finding toilet paper and sterilizing wipes. A comprehensive list of products in perpetual short-supply would be quite lengthy, at this point.

For all we know, Smithfield might be only the beginning. Earlier on Sunday, we noted a Hormel foods plant in Illinois has been forced to close temporarily after a cluster of cases in the surrounding counties was traced back to workers at the plant. That could leave millions of Americans without access to popular processed foods like Spam. An unopened can of Spam can keep for between 2 an 5 years, depending on storage conditions.

If closures like these continue, it could add further strain on the supply chain. Everywhere you look, you see experts talking about an overabundance of food thanks to the closure of restaurants, which has resulted in unprecedented levels of food waste. But sadly, thanks to the way our food distribution is set up, if there’s no way to process the products, package them and then distribute them to markets around the country, then the food will spoil before it’s eaten.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Eat Less Meat and Save the Planet

February 6, 2019

Eat Less Meat and Save the Planet

Salvador Dali **Portrait of Gala with Two Lamb Chops Balanced on Her Shoulder** 1933

Dr. D:

Eat less meat to save the planet – report (1)
The new diet that could save the planet (2)
What to eat to save the planet: Report urges ‘radical changes’ to world’s diet – less meat, more veggies (3)

These headlines, likely sourced from a recent article from “The Lancet” (4) are a regular feature of our time, in diet, in environmentalism, and in global warming. They are well-researched, sourced by the world’s experts, and put forward with the highest intentions. However, they are also completely wrong – dangerously, ignorantly wrong.

Like most industries, agriculture and food production is a specialty, with its own language and details. I don’t attempt to tell the Lancet how to perform heart surgery, for to do so would be ridiculous, dangerous, outside of my expertise. I wouldn’t tell a geologist how to interpret the magnetic layers of rock, or how oceanographers should properly interpret sea water samples to guide us on fishing or pollution. Yet this is what they do for farmers.

The primary drive of most such articles is that, with so many people, and so much hunger, we find that it takes “2,500 gallons of water, 12 pounds of grain, 35 pounds of topsoil and the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline to produce one pound of feedlot beef.” that “64% of US cropland produces livestock feed.” (5) That it takes “20 pounds corn [to make] 1 pound beef.” (6) Or that you can get 15lbs of beef per acre, but 263lbs of soybeans. (7) Also that cattle are the primary reason for deforestation, and a major cause of methane.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

More vegetables, less meat for all our sakes

January 17, 2019

More vegetables, less meat for all our sakes

Spanish market: Vegetable-rich diets make for a healthier planet. Image: By ja ma on Unsplash

Researchers are clear: the healthy diet for a healthy planet is more vegetables, less meat. What matters is the food that’s served, and the way it’s produced too.

LONDON, 17 January, 2019 − An international panel of health scientists and climate researchers has prescribed a new diet for the planet: more vegetables, less meat, fresh fruit, wholegrains and pulses, give up sugar, waste less and keep counting the calories.

And if 200 nations accept the diagnosis and follow doctor’s orders, tomorrow’s farmers may be able to feed 10 billion people comfortably by 2050, help contain climate change, and prevent 11 million premature deaths per year.

A commission sponsored by one of the oldest and most distinguished medical journals in the world today provides what it calls the first scientific targets for a healthy diet, from a sustainable food production system, that operates within what its authors term “planetary boundaries.”

The commission is the result of three years’ consultation by 37 experts from 16 countries, among them experts in health, nutrition, environmental sustainability, economics and political governance.

Goal within reach

It addresses the twin problems of global food supply: altogether 3 billion people are either under-nourished, or approaching clinical obesity because they are too well-nourished.

And global food production in its present form is helping to drive global warming and climate change, trigger accelerating biodiversity loss, pollute the rivers, lakes and coasts with ever greater levels of nitrogen and phosphorus run-off, and make unsustainable use of both land and fresh water.

“The food we eat and how we produce it determines the health of people and the planet, and we are currently getting this seriously wrong,” said Tim Lang, a food scientist at the City University of London, and one of the authors.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Scientists: The Globe’s Food Supply System Is Broken

December 2, 2018

Scientists: The Globe’s Food Supply System Is Broken

The world’s science academics are saying that the global food supply system is completely broken. They say that in order to avoid a “climate catastrophe” the global population should overhaul the farming system and eat less meat.

Billions of people worldwide are either underfed or overweight. The current food system fails to properly nourish all of these people. And that is currently driving the planet towards a climate catastrophe, according to 130 national academies of science and medicine across the world. More than 820 million people went hungry last year, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, while a third of all people did not get enough vitamins. At the same time, 600 million people were classed as obese and 2 billion overweight, with serious consequences for their health. On top of this, more than 1 billion tonnes of food is wasted every year, a third of the total produced.

“The global food system is broken,” said Tim Benton, professor of population ecology, at the University of Leeds, who is a member of one of the expert editorial groups which produced the report. He said the cost of the damage to human health and the environment was much greater than the profits made by the farming industry. “Whether you look at it from a human health, environmental or climate perspective, our food system is currently unsustainable and given the challenges that will come from a rising global population that is a really [serious] thing to say,” Benton said.

And while these are all horrible problems, without vast reductions in individual freedom and liberty (such as the liberty to decide what to eat and how much) the problem won’t resolve. Solutions are, of course, more totalitarian intervention to save people from themselves.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Meat and Consequences: More Bad News for Climate Change

November 28, 2018

Meat and Consequences: More Bad News for Climate Change

Photo Source Audrey | CC BY 2.0

Thanksgiving is quite a holiday. In one day, we manage to eat and enjoy 44 million turkeys, twice the number consumed at Christmas. Yes, vegetarians may live longer and vegans even more so, but the smell of a roasting turkey in the kitchen lingering in the nostrils, titillating appetites as friends and relations gather, is synonymous with Thanksgiving — a meal where it is politic to keep politics away from the table.

Yet the news about our world cannot cease. The annual greenhouse gas bulletin issued by the World Meteorological Organization reports a new high in CO2 levels of 405.5 parts per million reached in 2017; it is 46 percent higher than preindustrial levels. The rising trend continues for on May 14, 2018, another high of 412.60 ppm was recorded.

The enthusiastic consumption of meat in industrialized countries is one cause. The worst culprits are lamb, mutton and beef because sheep, goats and cattle are ruminants and their digestive systems release methane mostly through belching rather than the other end. Cattle emit so much greenhouse gas that if they were a country they “would be the planet’s third largest greenhouse gas emitter.” They produce an astounding 270,000 tonnes of emissions over their agricultural life cycle per tonne of protein, multiple times more than pork or poultry or eggs. Transferring our carnivorous instincts from beef to poultry reduces so much emissions as to be near as good as being vegetarian although not quite.

Another way of imagining the effect is to translate a kilo of food sources into the number of car miles driven to produce the same emissions. A kilo of beef equates to 63 miles. Eating chicken reduces this by 47 miles, rice by another 10, lentils by 4 more.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Big Meat and Dairy are Heating up our Planet

July 27, 2018

What do Smithfield, Tyson and Cargill have in common? Besides being three of the largest meat producers in the United States and the world, each of them has committed to reducing its climate footprint. But are they? Who is monitoring these companies to hold them accountable?

Today, IATP and GRAIN jointly published a first of its kind study that quantifies emissions from 35 of the world’s largest meat and dairy companies and scrutinizes their climate plans. What do these companies intend to do to reduce their share of emissions for the world to avoid climate catastrophe?

The short answer: These companies are pursuing growth strategies that will actually increase their emissions.

Our research shows that:

The five largest meat and dairy corporations combined (JBS, Tyson, Cargill, Dairy Farmers of America and Fonterra) are already responsible for more annual greenhouse gas emissions than ExxonMobil, Shell or BP.
The combined emissions of the top 20 meat and dairy companies surpass the emissions from entire nations, such as Germany, Canada, Australia or the United Kingdom.
Most of the top 35 meat and dairy companies (16) either fail to report emissions entirely, or exclude their supply chain emissions, which account for 80-90 percent of emissions. Only four companies provide comprehensive emissions estimates.
Less than half of the top 35 meat and dairy companies have announced any type of emissions reduction targets. Out of these, only six include emissions generated from the supply chain.
If the growth of the global meat and dairy industry continues as projected, the livestock sector as a whole could consume 80 percent of the planet’s annual greenhouse gas budget by 2050.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Permaculture Chickens–6 Practical Lessons From the Evolution of Chickens

June 28, 2018

PERMACULTURE CHICKENS – 6 PRACTICAL LESSONS FROM THE EVOLUTION OF CHICKENS

One of the fundamentals of permaculture design is to observe, understand and work with natural ecosystems.

It sounds simple enough to apply permaculture principles to chicken keeping. Can’t we just observe wild chickens in their natural environment? The problem is, modern domesticated chickens don’t exist in the wild. Junglefowl are the immediate ancestor of chickens, however it’s not that simple.

Modern chickens were domesticated more than 8,000 years ago and have changed a lot as a result of selective breeding. To get a more complete picture, that accounts for the differences between modern chickens and Junglefowl, I’ve studied the evolution of chickens from the Asian jungle, to modern factory farming and chicken nuggets.

I have distilled this research into 6 lessons for a permaculture approach to happy, healthy, backyard chickens.

Evolution of Chickens

Before I jump into the 6 lessons for permaculture chickens, I’ll start by setting the scene with a brief history and evolution of the modern domestic chicken.

Junglefowl – The chicken’s immediate ancestor:

Domestic chickens can be traced back to  Red Junglefowl, from South East Asia and India. Jungle fowl have small lean bodies and they only lay about 20 eggs each year.

If we trace chickens back even further, chickens are the closest living relative of the T-Rex. This makes a lot of sense because chickens go crazy for meat, hunt down insects and even small rodents. And check out this incredible video of a chicken grabbing (stealing) a mouse that was being hunted down by a cat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwtuoHyLEiw  .

Domestication and family farming (1900s to 1950):

Junglefowl were domesticated around 8,000 years ago. Despite domesticated chickens being very different ‘physically’ to jungle fowl, studies show that genetic differences are actually pretty small. This study of the genetic evolution of chickens shows there are two important mutations:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Biggest analysis to date: Cutting out animal products is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth

June 5, 2018

Biggest analysis to date: Cutting out animal products is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth

The Guardian reports on a new study out of the University of Oxford:

Avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet, according to the scientists behind the most comprehensive analysis to date of the damage farming does to the planet.

The new research shows that without meat and dairy consumption, global farmland use could be reduced by more than 75% – an area equivalent to the US, China, European Union and Australia combined – and still feed the world.

Loss of wild areas to agriculture is the leading cause of the current mass extinction of wildlife.

…even the very lowest impact meat and dairy products still cause much more environmental harm than the least sustainable vegetable and cereal growing.

“A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use,” said Joseph Poore, at the University of Oxford, UK, who led the research. “It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car,” he said, as these only cut greenhouse gas emissions.

“Agriculture is a sector that spans all the multitude of environmental problems,” he said. “Really it is animal products that are responsible for so much of this. Avoiding consumption of animal products delivers far better environmental benefits than trying to purchase sustainable meat and dairy.”

The comparison of beef with plant protein such as peas is stark, with even the lowest impact beef responsible for six times more greenhouse gases and 36 times more land.

Subsidies for sustainable and healthy foods and taxes on meat and dairy will probably also be necessary.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Meeting Paris Goals Means Dealing with Climate Impacts of Eating Meat

September 3, 2017

Meeting Paris Goals Means Dealing with Climate Impacts of Eating Meat

beef cattle in feedlot

Environmental groups place a lot of attention on trying to stop new oil, gas, and coal development since current fossil fuel projects would likely already blow us past the less-than 2°C upper limit for warming laid out in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. In fact, there’s a whole movement, known as “Keep It in the Ground,” predicated on this idea.

But when faced with a resurgence of support for fossil fuels from the White House, perhaps just as important is talking about how to “Keep It in the Cow,” according to some reports. Right now, experts predict agriculture is set to eat up half the greenhouse gas emissions the world can release by 2050 and still stay below 2°C (3.6°F) of warming.

That is, unless the world takes a big bite out of its meat consumption, especially from cattle and other livestock that chew their cud, say researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. Raising these ruminants produces a lot of methane, a much more potent but shorter-lived greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

While “Meatless Mondays” is one approach to this problem, their studies show that it’s not necessarily how much meat people eat that’s linked to the climate impacts of their diet. Instead, it’s the amount of beef, lamb, and dairy.

A 2017 Chalmers study concluded that: “A switch from diets rich in ruminant meat to diets with meat from monogastric animals (pork, chicken) reduces [methane] emissions by almost the same amount as a switch to an entirely vegan diet.” Researchers at the University of Oxford in 2016 found similar benefits, concluding that shifting to a vegetarian diet could lessen greenhouse gas emissions by two-thirds.

(If you want to eat vegan, of course, that’s also an option. In addition, eggs and dairy each have about half the climate impact of eating chicken and beef.)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Eat Less Meat to Save Ourselves.

September 6, 2015

Eat Less Meat to Save Ourselves.

A report has been released by the U.N., in which it is urged that we reduce consumption of meat and dairy products as a means to mitigate climate change, hunger and fuel poverty It is stressed that food, transportation and housing must be made more sustainable if we seriously intend to ameliorate biodiversity loss and climate change, and as a matter of urgency. Some 30% of global CO2 emissions is a result of internationally traded goods, while the mining sector uses 7% of the world’s energy: a fraction that is expected to increase in line with “growth”, which has serious connotations regarding international policy. A doubling of income is predicted to cause an 81% increase in CO2 emissions, which is an alarming prospect in the context of the rising population, predicted to be over 9 billion by 2050. 70% of all the world’s freshwater consumption is taken by agriculture, which also accounts for 38% of the total use of land, and 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It has been estimated that it will be necessary to increase food production by 70% in 2050 if the population of the world is to be fed, but its expected increase from 7.3 billion now to perhaps 9.6 billion in 2050 will overwhelm any efficiency gains in agriculture. The production of animal products is particularly demanding in terms of land for grazing animals, and water, and a rising global middle class which is increasingly meat-hungry.

The above 70% increase in food production assumes that the western diet will spread to the Global South, with no reduction in consumption by the northern nations. 30-40% of cereals are presently fed to animals, which could rise to 50% if levels of meat and dairy consumption increase as predicted. It has been reckonedthat 3.5 billion additional people could be fed if all cereals were given over for human consumption.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: meat

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Latest Posts