Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Rolan7]

I wonder how much impact there is in Americans' general aversion to organ meat over meat... meat.

I'm curious about that too if anyone happens to know.  I tended to buy liver for that reason, but never checked to see if it mattered.  The locally produced liver pudding at least had a lower transportation cost, presumably true of most of the pork products.  Beef and chicken livers are great too though, if a bit tough and strong-tasting.

Pretty much, that is indeed the case.  (humans routinely underestimating animal intelligence, either because it is different from theirs, is not highly pro-social like theirs, or the animal has a convenient material utility, which accepting the intelligent nature of the animal would make difficult to exploit.)


I would again point out the data presented by the USDA concerning total cattle operations, and the number of actual factory dry feedlots in the country. It really is around 50 total.  They just happen to also be basically concentration camps for cows.  (and naturally, I am strongly against their use)

Those 50 or so drylots produce a very alarming amount of beef in the US, but it is not upwards of 50%. (I will need to re-read the figures-- it HAS been over a year, and we HAVE had an international pandemic up our asses. Lots of stuff on my mind chasing things out lately.)  Removing the drylots would reduce beef availability, but not by the seemingly expected amounts imagined by vegans.  People need to eat less meat anyway, and the subsequent rise in beef prices would only be beneficial in cementing the natural pasturage operations: The beef production would be the most profitable use of that land. (and if coupled with quality regulations prohibiting the destruction of other kinds of habitat to produce cattle, and similar methods to prevent people being idiots, and destroying farmland to raise cattle, seeking that high high price per pound of flesh, it not be a significant source of problems.) Most of the issues with zoonotic pathogens comes from people feeding cattle absurd amounts of corn and silage, which is highly acidic, and basically gives the cows dietary distress, which makes them susceptible to diseases. To combat that, they shoot the cattle full of lots of antibiotics, because those are cheap, and proper pasturage is expensive.  Proper regulation to prohibit drylot operations, would make it nonsensical to continue such practices.  This would have a naturally correlated reduction in the amount of antibiotics shot into cattle, and thus strongly reduce the capacity for the cattle ranching operations to produce antibiotic-resistant superbugs.


Beef and other meat products SHOULD be expensive.  That is kinda necessary, since the demand for the product is not going to go down. (Only the supply, through regulation.)  I do not consider that a bad thing, since again, a high unit price means highly profitable cattle ranching operations on appropriate grazelands, and would be a strong incentive to not over-extend the pasturage (since drylotting would be illegal, and overpasturage results in drylot conditions.)

You would have lots of angry cattle farmers looking at "how much they COULD be making if you would just allow drylotting again", but that is not the same thing as cattle ranching being unprofitable. If there is any lesson this century should have writ large, it is that unregulated capitalist enterprises fuck the commons faster than anything else.  Regulation is a good thing. Embrace it. Demand it. That very same regulation should also prohibit the clearcutting or conversion of inappropriate biomes to convert them into pasture.

Thanks for pointing out the drylots information!  I'm happy to hear that they're responsible for less beef than I expected!
I'm no economist but I bet a 50% reduction in beef production wouldn't even double the price of beef, because a lot of people would be encouraged to reduce their consumption.

(I feel like demand for the product does go down if vegetarian activism is successful... so yeah the demand is static   But reducing supply would drive the price point up, and people would reduce consumption (likely switching to other meat, but maybe the suddenly cheaper vegetarian crops)).

I like that abolishing drylots is a concrete policy point to advocate for.  Probably a ways off, but concrete and more practical than trying to enforce vegetarianism or something.

Edit: quoted 'cuz new page

[WealthyRadish]

All cattle spend the first period of their life eating grass, and a drylot is just an extension of the feedlot system to that first period (i.e. feeding calves grass-like fodder in an enclosed pen alongside their mother for part of their grazing period, such as during the winter). They're later "finished" on either grain or grass, or some combination, such as a feedlot proper where they're fattened on the intensively-grown grains in the period prior being slaughtered.

The number that gets cited everywhere is that only around 5% of cattle in the US are fed nothing but grass, with most "free-range" or "grass-fed" beef being fattened on grain before being fed grass again a little bit immediately before slaughter (there's zero regulation on the use of those terms in the US with respect to anything but poultry, so it means whatever the seller wants it to mean). So it's 95% of cattle being fattened on grain for the last third of their life in a feedlot or feedlot-like situation, with some of that getting a little less if they want to market it as "grass-fed", and around 5% actually satisfying the "graze-only" setting.

[delphonso]

I wonder how much impact there is in Americans' general aversion to organ meat over meat... meat.

I think about this a lot. In China, people eat a lot of meat, potentially more than Americans, even. There are way more people, and far fewer vegetarians here - but Chinese cuisine includes most organs. I pretty often wonder how much that offsets their animal consumption compared to Americans.

Aso super interesting on the grass-fed stuff. Thanks

[Bumber]

I assume the organs are used for pet food and hotdogs. People tend not to think too hard about how the sausage is made.

[Quaksna]

Here we eat organs... Just like that. Treated as every other piece of meat. I think the sausage stuff is made from something "less valuable", like the parts you can't really eat. Traditionally you want nothing from the animal to be wasted, so you use everything. I'm not a butcher, so I can't tell you how it exactly works, but nothing is wasted.

But yeah, the old mindset regarding perception animal is slowly fading away, even here. One friend from countryside told me a story, how his father homesteader once saw a rabbit hopping onto his property, alone, so he caught it and made himself a dinner. After a while, a group of people approached him, searching for the rabbit. They asked him, and he told them: "Yeah, yeah, he was here, I already cooked it, come for a mouthful." And the strangers nearly started throwing tantrums, and I mean, I feel for them, but the old homesteader's not to blame, too. For them, the rabbit was a pet. For him, it was a source of food, a domestic animal.

Actually this really interests me, how do people perceive the butcher job where you guys live? Here it's kind of mixed, but people don't make that big of deal about it.

[delphonso]

I assume the organs are used for pet food and hotdogs. People tend not to think too hard about how the sausage is made.

That's a good point. And fast food slime probably uses a lot of organ meat which is cheap and presumably plentiful.

Actually this really interests me, how do people perceive the butcher job where you guys live? Here it's kind of mixed, but people don't make that big of deal about it.

In the US, I lived in an area with a lot of hunting. Almost everyone I knew had butchered something at least once. So butchers were just any other job.

It's largely the same, in my experience, in China. Everyone has chopped up a chicken, and knows how to, so a butcher is just someone who does it a lot.

[Quaksna]

Here we're not really hunters, apart from foresters and gamekeepers, there are pretty strict rules for hunters in Czech Republic, you gotta pass lots of exams and stuff, my father actually went through it and does sometimes bring game home. The ability to butcher animal is perceived as pretty hardcore, manly thing here, as far as I know at least. Most people just buy the stuff finished, but when you can prepare raw meat yourself, you're cool.

I was mainly curious because I didn't ever hear of American aversion towards organs. I mean, I know some people don't like them but it's never been a global thing. I remember visiting one restaurant in Sarajevo once, I think they were some Turkish, Arabic specialized, something from the east. And they served everything from the animal, on a big platter, muscle and organs alike. The kidneys were delicious, I found the organs better than regular beef, actually.

I'm a big fan of households housing domestic animals or plants themselves, it's actually pretty popular here, my organ teacher builds his personal realm right now. It's really cool seeing these old traditions being preserved, and people being interested in it. Our family hasn't got nothing special in our little kingdom, but we've got quite a lot of bear garlic growing on our property, so we supply our friends when it's season, and they offer us honey, jams, apples, nuts... When someone is slaughtering, there's usually a big event around it, the person invites all their friends and they all celebrate. It's really sweet sharing with people the fruit of your labor.

[KittyTac]

PTW.

Here in Russia liver is popular. I like liver. Not many other organs except as a delicacy.

[Bumber]

Beef liver and onions used to be popular across the USA, but now it's mainly eaten in the Midwest and the South. Chitlins (fried pig intestines) are also popular in the South.

[scriver]

In Sweden I think we've seen a huge drop in organ eating just in the last 40-50-60 years. Before that eating everything was very common, now it's very rare.

[Rolan7]

I too forgot about hotdogs.  Beef liver with onions was indeed reasonably popular here in cafeterias, at least pre-covid, along with grocery stores carrying breaded pork "liver pudding" and chicken livers for frying.

Oh and then there's tripe.  I'm currently consuming something called "bulk sausage" which is apparently pork stomach, beef tripe ("second stomach"), ground beef, beef heart, water/wheat/spices.  It's pretty good, if a bit intense.  Strange, I always thought tripe was cow tongue, but I guess that's different.  This bulk sausage is made here in NC, it looks pretty Southern-branded.  I wonder if openly eating organ meat (apart from hotdogs) is really a Southern thing, like grits.

[scriver]

Oh, several organ meals still exist here too -- liver paste is a popular sandwich-lay-on and on delicacy tables, liver stew isn't that rare, and blood pudding is still very common. But it's far more rare than it used to be too.

[Caz]

Beyond haggis (lungs, heart etc), black pudding (is blood considered offal?), pate (liver), steak and kidney pudding/pie, fried liver, tongue (sandwich meat) pig feet (soup) and gravy making I don't think we consume much offal here. I guess when even the choicest meats are cheap as all hell people don't really bother with it anymore? I know people who won't buy meat with bones because they think it's scary or disgusting to debone it, or eat meat on the bone etc. They don't like being reminded of it being an animal so they'll just get pre-cubed chicken breast to add to a stir fry or whatever. Or because they don't like the strong 'meat' taste from offal and dark meats. If you're gonna go to that extent I don't know why they don't just go for tofu, seitan or paneer instead, factory-made chicken doesn't even have any meat flavour anyway.

[scriver]

Whenever I buy whole chicken (which isn't whole bit you know, it's not fileted) I always feel like I'm throwing away half the meat even after I've cleaned it down to the bone though

Also blood may not be considered offal per se but it's certainly part of eating the "whole" animal so to speak.

Also also _{blood pudding is superior blood based pudding}

[Dostoevsky]

There's also Mechanically Separated Meat, commonly used in things like hot dogs, burgers, chicken nuggets, lunch meats, etc.

Spoiler: Wiki description (click to show/hide)

The process entails pureeing or grinding the carcass left after the manual removal of meat from the bones and then forcing the slurry through a sieve under pressure. This puree includes bone, bone marrow, skin, nerves, blood vessels, and the scraps of meat remaining on the bones. The resulting product is a blend primarily consisting of tissues not generally considered meat along with a much smaller amount of actual meat (muscle tissue).

Assuming it's done properly it's more of an 'ew' thing for people than a bad/risky thing - except for beef, where mad cow prions are a human risk and so are limited (in the US) to animal food. (Hot dog meat containing beef uses a different method than MSM.)

[Semi-related is the 'pink slime' thing from a few years back, but that's more of an additive/treatment thing than the meat used itself. The network involved in that piece ended up settling for a pretty sizable sum after getting sued for defamation by one of the major producers, and considering defamation law in the US that doesn't speak well for the network.]