The Weekly Watch

The Meat of the Matter

This week we'll try to take a substantive look at some of the week's news as well as discuss the health of meat production and consumption. Vegans and vegetarians will not be disparaged nor criticized, however I think meat consumption and production has been vilified by those who do not understand ecological farming nor health. I heard one scientist suggest that we did not evolve to eat meat, we evolved because we ate meat. We all have (or had) canine teeth. E. O. Wilson suggests our brains evolved when we learned to cooperate and we became truly social creatures which he calls eusocial (“eu-” meaning true). In our early development we were either running after something or running from something. Both activities benefited from some level of cooperation.

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Let's start with the issue of meat production being bad for the environment. There is no doubt that modern CAFO's are horrid for the environment and our health. But there are ways to produce livestock that are humane and ecologically beneficial.

And yet it is not impossible to imagine a far different food and farming system than the one we have today, beginning with a long-term commitment to pasture-based farming. Many have been advocating for some time for an ambitious transformation in U.S. agriculture: away from soil-eroding feed grains toward deep-rooted perennial pastures; converting large-areas of the High Plains back to grass and grazing operations; diversifying the corn and soybean dominated Midwest. In fact, thousands of family farmers are managing appropriately-scaled, grass-fed meat, dairy and egg farms without raising animals in vile and sordid conditions. A smart pasture operation (SPO)—to pick up on a new phrase—is one of the easiest entry points for beginning farmers in current U.S. agriculture. Start-up costs are relatively modest and markets for healthfully raised animal products are underserved and growing rapidly. These pasture-based rotational grazing systems can be extremely resource efficient, and often have the advantage of not needing the energy- and capital-intensive inputs such as heating, ventilation, and cooling systems, housing construction, imported industrial feeds, and mechanized manure management systems. They rely on sound animal husbandry techniques and integrate farm animals into a healthy landscape, using manure as a source of soil fertility. But this will require whole new generations of farmers willing to join the ranks of this noble profession, and legions of consumers and an financial and production infrastructure to support them.

http://www.cafothebook.org/howitshouldbe.htm

One third of Earth's land surface is grassland, much of it becoming desert. These grasslands are the most fertile soils on the planet and much has been lost to crop land and erosion.

5 min

Allan Savory grew up in Africa loving wildlife and hating livestock because he was taught they were to blame for grassland destruction. But when he moved to the United States years later, he was shocked to find national parks desertifying “as badly as anything in Africa” and there had been no livestock allowed in the parks for over 70 years. He looked into all the projects where cattle had been removed from prairie land to stop desertification, and found they had accomplished the opposite:

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And in the last 50-years, well-intentioned environmentalists have only made the problem worse by over-correcting and removing grazing animals from “protected” lands altogether. Over-grazing is destructive, but apparently under-grazing can be just as bad or worse, according to Savory.
https://returntonow.net/2017/11/30/cows-can-turn-desert-back-grassland-s...

Here's one more from the Savory Institute "The Story of Meat".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv588n0IXrc (20 min)

There are few farmers better than Joel Salatin at using animal integration to improve the environment and enhance the ecosystem. This is a very interesting sit down conversation between minimalist Rob Greenfield and Joel. He integrates cattle, pigs, chickens, rabbits and more while improving soil fertility and enhancing the ecosystem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0STnesHPH8c (37 min)


2 min short from Joel and others...

So why is Joel regarded by Time magazine as the world’s most innovative farmer? It is his combination of innovation in terms of mob and successional grazing; locking up carbon in the soil; building soil and fertility; stacking enterprises, developing new infrastructures to support mob grazing innovation; creating an environment that encourages micro-enterprises and young entrepreneurs; developing internships and apprenticeships; bringing new people on to the farm; marketing direct to customers on the farm; selling bespoke products direct to restaurants; innovative online marketing… and then going out and telling his story in an incredibly entertaining way to anyone who will listen in an indefatiguable way.

https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/why-polyface-farm-so-successful-... ...and...
https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/joel-salatins-pattern-carbon-far...

He also pasture raises pigs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FafhRyKEVso (50 min)
and chickens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfT49gaiktg (21 min).

Properly managed goats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJBtmSR7Nnc (27 min)
sheep https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSrGNvBVakU (27 min)
and even our native bison https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqj9T6wSFMc (28 min)
can enhance grasslands and improve diversity and the ecosystem at large.

Dr Mark Hyman discusses ranching, farming, and fishing with Miriam Horn of the Environmental Defense Fund and New York Times-best selling author. She challenged and brought into question our assumptions about how we can save the environment. We so often point to ranchers, farmers and fisherman, the people who cultivate and raise our food, as being the enemy. But Miriam shows that in those places, we can find unlikely allies who could shape the future our world forever and for the better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcLBZwdS-rs (1 hour)

So we can improve the environment using grazing animals, but what about the effects of eating meat, especially red meat, on our health.

getting to the meat.jpg

The answer is that many of the nation's official nutrition recommendations — including the idea that red meat is a killer — have been based on a type of weak science that experts have unfortunately become accustomed to relying upon. Now that iffy science is being questioned. At stake are deeply entrenched ideas about healthy eating and trustworthy nutrition guidelines, and with many scientists invested professionally, and even financially, in the status quo, the fight over the science won't be pretty.

Red meat is a particularly contentious topic because people have such strong objections to eating meat for a variety of reasons: the environment, animal rights and even religion (Seventh-day Adventists advise against it).

Last week's news, however, goes a long way toward removing health effects from the list of reasons for favoring a vegetarian diet. The highly rigorous four-paper review of the science, in the prestigious Annals of Internal Medicine journal, looked at all the research examining health and red meat and concluded that only "low- or very low-certainty" evidence existed to show that this meat causes any kind of disease — not cancer, not heart disease, not Type 2 diabetes. Eating red meat isn't killing us.

Remember that the original reason we've distrusted red meat is that starting in 1961, the American Heart Assn. told us to limit our consumption of saturated fat to prevent heart disease. However, recent decades have seen a reconsideration of this topic. A recent paper in the journal BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine consolidates 17 separate reviews showing these fats, whether from meat, cheese or coconut oil, have no effect on mortality. And if red meat causes disease by some mechanism other than saturated fat, no strong body of evidence has emerged to support it.

...

Only clinical trials can demonstrate cause and effect because these are actual experiments. At their simplest, a group fed a diet is compared to another group of non-dieting controls. Such experiments aren't always easy, but they're nevertheless considered the gold standard by international systems for reviewing scientific evidence.

The red meat studies used one such review system, known as GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluations). In properly prioritizing clinical trials over observational research, GRADE necessarily pushed epidemiology off its pedestal, and this caused the GRADE team of 40-plus researchers from more than 10 countries to conclude that reducing your intake of meat is very unlikely to make you healthier.

The nutrition establishment went ballistic. Even before publication of the Annals papers, 14 heavyweights in the field signed a letter demanding a preemptive "retraction" of the review. All the signers were members of a group called the True Health Initiative that advocates for a plant-based diet. Many of them recommend plant-based diets in their research papers, which rely heavily on epidemiology. Some are financially conflicted.
...the True Health Initiative letter signers included five epidemiologists from Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which in 2017-18 received hundreds of thousands of dollars from walnut and peanut industry groups; the walnut group is cited as a donor for the previous five years. At least nine Harvard papers in five years have supported the health benefits of nuts.

https://www.sott.net/article/421780-Nina-Teicholz-The-latest-flip-flop-o...

Nina Teicholz, a New York Times bestselling investigative science journalist, explains the studies. She has played a pivotal role in challenging the conventional wisdom on dietary fat. Her groundbreaking work, 'The Big Fat Surprise', The Economist named as the #1 science book of 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rz-8H_i1wA (34 min)
For more, here's an excellent interview with Nina and Mark Hyman exploring meat, butter, and more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc_e5ME_5Cg (1.25 hours)

what's the matter w meat.jpg
Will meat be replaced by processed substitutes?
beyond meat.png

Dr Gary Fattke was targeted by the Australian dietary organizations for recommending a high fat low carb diet for his patients. He and his wife began researching the roots of these groups...

The American Dietetic Association in 1917. The founder of that Association was a woman by the name of Linda Cooper. Linda Cooper was a protégé of John Harvey Kellogg. So she was working for John Harvey Kellogg, she effectively started the American Dietetics Association, she then wrote the textbooks for the next 30 years for dietetics, which formed the basis of dietetics and nutrition for the world.

First of all the model of the Dietetics Association as well as the textbooks became that not only for the US, but for Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand. So the Western organizations all followed suit and effectively the cereal industry was right there at the beginning.

Well, John Harvey Kellogg and Linda Cooper were both vegetarians, both members of the Adventist Church. And the Seventh-day Adventist Church have been right there at the beginning, heavily promoting their concept and they are promoting the Garden of Eden diet, which is vegan.

Cereal based, anti-meat, anti-dairy… Vegan. And effectively they have been influencing the dietary guidelines for 100 years. So the people involved in writing the vegetarian mandate for the American Association and for the Australian dietetics guidelines were effectively all vegan/vegetarian... Eight out of nine were vegetarian, vegan, five of the nine were Adventists and the other person who was neither vegan nor vegetarian nor Adventist was working for the processed food industry. So here we’ve got major influence at the highest levels which has actually come from religious ideology.

They are not so much pro-cereal as they are anti-meat. That’s the basis of the Ellen G. White’s prophecies And her belief is that meat is one of the– if you consume meat, that is as close to demonizing yourself as you can possibly do and you will not get salvation if you do that. And that’s the backbone of their belief system.

So the terms, “Meat causes violence, causes masturbation, causes cancer”, those terms are coming around in the early– no, the late 19th century, the 1860s, 1870s, the meat causes heart disease came up in the 1900s. Essentially we worked out that meat doesn’t cause masturbation and the meat doesn’t really cause violence so those messages are the 19th century ones.

So then we got the next message, the meat causes cancer, which continued to come along. And if you look at the data, that’s very poor Association data for a couple of cancers with low relative risk ratio but nonetheless get over marketed. And so that narrative of fat causes heart disease is actually part of the meat causes heart disease. It’s whatever they can use to try and travel that path.

So we’ve now moved back to meat causes cancer. Now the latest one is meat causes environmental harm. It’s all a complete nonsense. But you got to realize that the backing of this is coming from a religious ideology for salvation, not for health.

https://www.dietdoctor.com/diet-doctor-podcast-30-dr-gary-fettke (video or text)

So this is not to suggest being vegan or vegetarian is wrong headed, but to emphasize that eating meat is not bad for you nor the environment if the animals are raised correctly...mob grazed on pasture. These days there are more and more good producers. We have two younger families pasture raising animals on the mountain. Yes, this meat will cost more than meat in the store, but you know the animals were well raised and healthy. So you make your own dietary decisions, and I hope I've provided you some additional information about meat today.

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So the big news this week to my mind is the joke of an impeachment, BoJo's election in the UK, and the failure of the COP25 to move the needle on climate chaos.

So the dimwits are proceeding with a very flawed impeachment attempt.

The Inspector General's conclusions show that the FBI's new standards for investigations are so low, everyone should be worried.
https://therealnews.com/stories/inspector-general-systemic-problems-fbi (video or text)

Glenn Greenwald explains some of the problems with the IG report.

the IG Report documents multiple instances in which the FBI – in order to convince a FISA court to allow it spy on former Trump campaign operative Carter Page during the 2016 election – manipulated documents, concealed crucial exonerating evidence, and touted what it knew were unreliable if not outright false claims.

https://theintercept.com/2019/12/12/the-inspector-generals-report-on-201...

Jimmy covers the story too...in a more entertaining way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb0gyt9Vriw (27 min)

But MSDNCIA defends the FBI and the discredited dossier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FOzRVoPE94 (25 min)

Jimmy covers the failure of the impeachment...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEUq9-FYxRY (21 min)
More from Jimmy on the hypocrisy of Pelosi and the dims impeachment fiasco.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuKk1s1AXss (18 min)

Two of the best reporters around Aaron Mate' and Matt Taibbi discuss media and more...

Taibbi and Maté discuss why some progressive news outlets embraced the Russia conspiracy theory, the parallels between UkraineGate and RussiaGate, how Trump's impeachment proceedings will impact the 2020 election, and compare the foreign policies put forward by Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzrhRkhhD1w (55 min)

As we know, the media promote war...

What the Afghanistan Papers do offer is a confirmation of what critics had already been asserting for nearly two decades: that there is no clearly defined goal or endpoint to the war to help determine when to stop fighting, and that our efforts have been futile at best and deeply destructive at worst.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/afghanistan-papers-confirm-that-the-lo...
West Point graduate, and writer Danny Sjursen explains the story...
https://therealnews.com/stories/afghanistan-papers-prove-lie (video or text)

Whatta mess!
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Jonathon Pie's take on the UK election.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0nIhL4v6bY (4.5 min)

There are several interesting footnotes to this election, including a big comeback by the Scottish National Party, who have won at least 48 seats, virtually wiping out both Labour and the Tories north of the border and reigniting the push for Scottish independence. The centrist Liberal Democrats, who had hoped to thrive by being the only party clearly against Brexit, remain irrelevant, with party leader Jo Swinson losing her seat to the SNP.
But for Labour and the overall British left, no sugarcoating is possible. This election is an unmitigated disaster.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/britains-grim-lesson-for-america/

JEREMY CORBYN: Social justice and the issues of needs of people will not go away just because Brexit is dealt with in the way in which Boris Johnson presumably plans to deal with it in the moment. All those issues will come back center stage in the debate, and the fundamental Labour message about justice and equality within our society is going to be one that is there for all time, because it’s the very core of what my party believes in and what I will always advocate on behalf of my constituency and on behalf of my party. I want to also make it clear that I will not lead the party in any future general election campaign.

GEORGE MONBIOT: Well, it is a very dark day for everyone who believes in justice, for everyone here who wants a kinder, fairer, greener nation, arguably the darkest day that we’ve had since the end of the Second World War in this country. And we’ve now stepped into the same political arena as the U.S. has with Trump, India has with Modi, as the Philippines have with Duterte, and Brazil with Bolsonaro. These are very dangerous times. Just when we need to confront the greatest predicament humankind has ever faced, which is the collapse of our life support systems, our governments are in the hands of giant toddlers who just want to smash up all our public protections, our public services, any means by which the power of capital and those who accumulate it can be restrained.

PRIYA GOPAL: India, where we’ve just had the Citizenship Amendment Bill, where ethnonationalist, authoritarian forces have won an election for a second time earlier this year. I think that I simply see Britain as the latest footnote, if you like, in what George just referred to as the global perilous state that democracy is in. What we’re seeing is the authoritarian right rampaging across the globe. And in a way, Britain has simply joined Brazil, India and Hungary, Poland and, of course, the U.S.A. So, we do need to see what is happening in Britain in a global context, and that should worry us very greatly.

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/12/13/uk_election_boris_johnson_jeremy...

British activist Tariq Ali argues that Labour's strategy was deeply flawed, but turmoil will follow Boris Johnson despite the large Conservative victory.
https://therealnews.com/stories/all-not-lost-for-labour (video or text)

After U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Tory party won a strong majority in the general election Thursday, British progressives mourned the "utterly devastating" result and geared up for a fight to defend the National Health Service from more right-wing budget cuts and privatization efforts. ...
Just two weeks before the vote, U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn unveiled over 450 pages of documents that he said showed a Tory plan to privatize the NHS in negotiations with the U.S. over a possible post-Brexit trade pact.
"Mega-corporations see Johnson's alliance with Trump as a chance to make billions from the illness and sickness of people in this country," said Corbyn. "And if the Conservatives have their way and this deal goes forward, the changes I've revealed will be almost irreversible."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/13/britons-gear-defend-nhs-pri...

Max and Aaron discuss the manner in which the media has smeared Jeremy Corbyn labeling him as an anti-Semite, Russian asset.
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/08/us-uk-military-intelligence-apparatus...

Just before British elections, the UK’s military-intelligence apparatus is smearing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn with evidence-free Russiagate allegations. NATO-funded “researchers” are claiming that leaked documents publicized by Corbyn that exposed secret US-UK talks over the British health service are in fact the result of a Russian disinformation campaign. The Russia-baiting against Corbyn comes as the Labour leader also faces an ongoing campaign to smear him with fake charges of anti-Semitism. The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal discusses the British and US government-tied forces behind the anti-Corbyn effort, and how Bernie Sanders could be next.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyKLuyRBCYQ (36 min)
Max recommends the series "A Very British Coup" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACg6IuFfMJE
as an example of how the deep state would treat a progressive leader in the UK.

The Bernie Blackout...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGyrmDbiF6k]

The failure of COP25 is best summarized by Greta...

Without seeing the full picture, we will not solve this crisis. Finding holistic solutions is what the COP should be all about. But instead, it seems to have turned into some kind of opportunity for countries to negotiate loopholes and to avoid raising their ambition. Countries are finding clever ways around having to take real action, like double counting emissions reductions and moving their emissions overseas and walking back on their promises to increase ambition or refusing to pay for solutions or loss and damage. This has to stop. What we need is real, drastic emission cuts at the source....
Only setting up distant dates and saying things which give the impression of that action is underway will most likely do more harm than good, because the changes required are still nowhere in sight. The politics needed does not exist today, despite what you might hear from world leaders. And I still believe that the biggest danger is not inaction. The real danger is when politicians and CEOs are making it look like real action is happening when in fact almost nothing is being done apart from clever accounting and creative PR.....
In just three weeks we will enter a new decade, a decade that will define our future. Right now we are desperate for any sign of hope. Well, I’m telling you there is hope. I have seen it. But it does not come from the governments or corporations. It comes from the people, the people who have been unaware but are now starting to wake up. And once we become aware, we change. People can change. People are ready for change. And that is the hope, because we have democracy. And democracy is happening all the time, not just on Election Day, but every second and every hour. It is public opinion that runs the free world. In fact, every great change throughout history has come from the people. We do not have to wait. We can start the change right now. We, the people.

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/12/12/greta_thunberg_speech_cop_time_m...

The whole speech is worthwhile...(12 min)

In Final Hours, COP 25 Denounced as 'Utter Failure' as Deal Is Stripped of Ambition and US Refuses to Accept Liability for Climate Crisis "The only thing more disastrous than the state of UN climate negotiations at COP 25 is the state of the global climate."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/14/final-hours-cop-25-denounce...
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/13/we-are-furious-cop-25-draws...

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So we'll wrap it up for today. I hope the dims feel good demonizing Trump and not reflecting on their own corruption. I suspect it spells their loss to Trump in 2020. I feel for the UK. I hope they can protect their NHS. I never expected the COP to be successful....too much corporate influence. As for eating meat, although some folks have gone full carnivore, I personally eat meat only few times a week. We had wild caught salmon last night with fresh garden salad...one of our favorites. We do have access to local pasture raised pig, chicken, turkey, and beef which makes up the remainder of our meat consumption. So in closing I hope you all are feeling well and healthy and enjoying the diet of your choice. Have a great Sunday!

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CB's picture

if god hadn't wanted us to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them out of meat.

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Lookout's picture

@CB

That eating meat is immoral and unhealthy. I tried to be unoffensive to those folks.

For more than two million years we were primarily meat eaters. Only in the last 10,000 years did the human diet shift, with the cultivation of grains and legumes. But are we more suited to this diet lower in meat? In the last 10,000 years we’ve gotten smaller in stature and brain size. With a heavily grain- and sugar-based diet, we are suffering increased rates of obesity, cancer, diabetes, and osteoporosis. We’re also experiencing alarming incidence of skin problems, heart disease, and inflammation of all kinds.

I have to politely disagree with the anti-meat argument. Our genes were developed before the agricultural revolution, when we were not only meat eaters, but enthusiastic ones at that. On top of that, the human genome has changed less than 0.02% in the last 40,000 years. Our bodies were genetically programed for optimal functioning on a diet including meat, and that programming has not changed.

https://breakingmuscle.com/healthy-eating/why-all-humans-need-to-eat-mea...

Good to "see" you this morning. Hope all is well in your world. Sunny cool day here.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

CB's picture

@Lookout
I've always been a "meat eater" - i.e. the major portion of the food on my plate was meat. If I didn't have enough meat, I didn't feel satisfied. In addition, I always skipped breakfast AND lunch, even as a child in school, probably due to being a latchkey kid since the second grade. I hated sandwiches unless freshly made so I invariably tossed them out at school lunch times. I didn't mind eating fresh fruit.

After a lifetime of mostly eating one meal a day, I consistently maintained a weight of 150-160 pounds at 5'-11" whether doing physical labor or not (computer programming during day, auto/home repair evenings/weekends to rest my brain). Family and SO's always pestered me - "You have to eat three meals a day to stay healthy!". Both mother and sister struggled with weight and related health problems - they were not big meat eaters - both loved their veggies and carbs. A meal for them was not complete w/o a sweet desert.

Then came retirement. I found myself with little to do in mornings so I ended up making breakfast, then lunch. (I was always the main cook in my relationships, probably due to meat being the main course.) Then the weight piled on. At 70 my weight was 225 pounds and I had to purchase a pull thingy to put my socks on and had to get my toenails clipped by someone else. Most of the extra weight had gone straight to my belly and I felt like shit - both mentally and physically.

So last year I started a keto diet in the summer (1 1/2 years ago) and dropped 35 pounds in 3 months with next to no effort. I also felt better. But, I do love my bread (I like to bake it) and I stopped sticking to keto/fasting and went back to the bad habits I had begun when I turned 65.

Colon cancer hit last May but luckily it was caught in time. It had not metastasized so right semi-colonectomy cured the cancer. This is the first major medical problem I've ever had (other than cuts, bruises and broken bones) and I'm now wondering if the change in eating habits had something to do with this?

I have regained about 10 pounds (now 197) and do not feel as good - especially mental acuity. THIS is starting to scare me. I have become very forgetful and am losing my words. Your essay is making me think that there is a direct link between mental health and the food we eat. I had never given a thought to diet for most of my life. Just ate lots of meat with small servings of carbs once a day for supper.

Thanks for the eye opener. I'm going to look into this in detail.

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Lookout's picture

@CB

...and like you missed bread when I went keto. We made almond and coconut bread to easy the withdrawal. Now we rarely make it, cause in many ways eating is a habit.

In 1928 two explorers spent a year eating only meat with excellent health outcomes.
https://healthimpactnews.com/2013/wonders-of-the-ketogenic-diet-two-men-...
Here's the scientific article
http://www.jbc.org/content/87/3/651.full.pdf+html

Glad you caught your cancer in time to deal with it! I still do some extended water fasts (3-5 days) when I feel like I'm gaining weight. So far so good for me from 235 lbs to a stable 170-175 for the last couple of years. Best of luck on your health journey!

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@CB
Horses and rabbits haven't the chompers to dig into a prime rib. Us omni's do okay with a good sharp knife. I know a few dogs that like carrots, tho.
Wink

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Lookout's picture

@QMS

especially if they had fat and oil on them. The teeth say much of our origins.

Hope you're snug at home rather than sailing on a cold sea. A sunny 45 degrees here. Great for walking.

All the best my friend!

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@Lookout
When they had to up-chuck.
Had enough rain yesterday to float my boat.
Glad the basement sumps are working!
Be hell to sink on tierra firma.
Thanks for the round-up.
Peach mint, bojo and copout25. Sheesh
We can do better than this.

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Lookout's picture

@QMS

of today's column
Peach mint, bojo and copout25

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lotlizard's picture

@CB  
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/TheyMade.shtml

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@lotlizard

"They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

Ha!

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Lookout's picture

@lotlizard

is another one...(3.4 min trailer)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LozJSTjrvek]

Hellen Mirren's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) also involve human consumption.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover 1989 - The wife of a barbaric crime boss engages in a secretive romance with a gentle bookseller between meals at her husband's restaurant. Food, colour coding, sex, murder, torture and cannibalism are the exotic fare in this beautifully filmed but brutally uncompromising modern fable which has been interpreted as an allegory for Thatcherism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYSiuIc9Tg8 (2 min trailer)

Hope all is well on your side of the pond!

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lotlizard's picture

@Lookout  
Boris Johnson laughed the puritans off the stage, so the crowd is his

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Lookout's picture

@lotlizard

He called this before the election...
Corbyn Out, McDonnell In? Galloway predicts Corbyn's resignation on Thursday 12th
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DTp2BZd-jM (1.5 min)

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@CB
We've known for a long time that animals on the range is the most ecologically sound way of raising food. They feed on hardy grasses and fertilize the grassy plains in-place. This is the "hunter" part of hunter-gatherer. We've been doing this for 200,000 years. We've evolved based on this diet.

As soon as you cut down forests to grow agricultural crops you are destroying the planetary biome, converting carbon sinks to carbon sources and destroying planetary homeostasis. When you increase the fertility of the land by chemicals or organic methods you are increasing the nutrient runoff and pollute the planet's waterways.

The problem is that we don't have enough land to feed 7.5 trending to 10 billion people directly from free range grazing animals. We have to resort to feeding grains to animals directly to produce meat. The poor conversion efficiency will eventually rule out meat in the global diet. Overpopulation is right up there with deforestation and 1,000 gigatons, plus 40 gigatons per year, of excess CO2 put into the atmosphere by industrialization, in creating a civilization that ends in catastrophe.

If there is a small human population that survives it should plan on feeding itself with range fed animals, tree nuts and berries if it wants to avoid the mistakes of this current version of civilization.

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

Lookout's picture

@The Wizard

As populations become educated their growth rate slows. Of course education systems are expensive and not so common in overpopulated countries.

I think integrated stacked systems like Joel's are more efficient than just free-range. It is daily moving of multiple species. The irony of restoration grazing systems is the need to have a high density of animals moving daily. We should transition to local grown foods. A market garden in every neighborhood focused on leafy greens rather than grains...using some legumes to enhance nitrogen accumulation.

Operations like this could be replicated...6.5 min
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJAnBGHhjAc]

Not saying we will create more local farms, but it seems to be happening in my area.

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CB's picture

@The Wizard
at a much higher rate than previously determined - even in third world countries.

China is already starting to gear up for their declining birth rate (1.4), which is now lower than the UK, by investing massively into robotics not only in manufacturing but in the service industry in order to cope with their aging population.

If the decline continues to accelerate at today's rates, world population should peak at about 9 billion or less by mid-century and then start to decline.

What goes up: are predictions of a population crisis wrong?
...
These remarks offer a window on one of the most compelling questions of our time: how many people will fill the Earth? The United Nations Population Division projects that numbers will swell to more than 11 billion by the end of this century, almost 4 billion more than are alive today. Where will they live? How will we feed them? How many more of us can our fragile planet withstand?

But a growing body of opinion believes the UN is wrong. We will not reach 11 billion by 2100. Instead, the human population will top out at somewhere between 8 and 9 billion around the middle of the century, and then begin to decline.

Jørgen Randers, a Norwegian academic who decades ago warned of a potential global catastrophe caused by overpopulation, has changed his mind. “The world population will never reach nine billion people,” he now believes. “It will peak at 8 billion in 2040, and then decline.”

Similarly, Prof Wolfgang Lutz and his fellow demographers at Vienna’s International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis predict the human population will stabilise by mid-century and then start to go down.

A Deutsche Bank report has the planetary population peaking at 8.7 billion in 2055 and then declining to 8 billion by century’s end
...

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@CB
We are closing in on 8 billion. Africa will add another billion in the next few decades. My prediction is that it peaks at 10.5 billion in 2070 and then by 2100 it will be one billion, since it's clear that we are going to do nothing about climate emergency. The major agriculture areas of the world will fail simultaneously. We have about one year of stored food. The numbers are staggering and back-yard projects are orders of magnitude too small. The problem is just too large.

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

CB's picture

@The Wizard
Humans are much too resilient. Under the scenario you predict populations will be automatically restricted and reduced - by war, pestilence, desertification, disease, hunger, privation.

I'm not so pessimistic. For every climatic niche that is destroyed another will open up somewhere else. Worldwide population rise has dramatically reduced in the last 1/2 decade at a rate no one anticipated despite rapid increases in disease control in third world countries. And this rate of reduction has not been linear. It is increasing with each year.

Why does the richest country in the world have so many of it's population living on the streets in abject poverty? Hunger and privation are not due to lack of resources but rather lack of political will and waste.

Food Waste
...
That is why an effective food strategy must address the issue of food loss and waste. In order to meet global food security needs, as well as the food demands of an increasingly affluent global population, we will need to both increase productivity and efficiency as well as reduce food waste.

Worldwide, humans waste one of every three food calories produced. These wasted calories are enough to feed three billion people—10 times the population of the United States, more than twice that of China, and more than three times the total number of malnourished globally. Wasted food represents about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and is a main contributor to deforestation and the depletion of global water sources.
...

I look around the world and am astounded at the number of high tech and low tech solutions that are now being applied to these problems. The list is endless. These solutions have been initiated long before Greta started running around the world playing "chicken little" with the media.

I was at one of her rally's and watched as thousands of young (overfed) students each held up their expensive cellphones to record her (phones that cost enough to feed and house a family of four in Africa). Many of them arrived in expensive SUV's driven by their parents while wearing designer clothes. They proceeded afterwards to do some shopping and then to the nearest fast food joint to stuff their faces. These kids will return to their private bedrooms in a $350,000, 2-3 thousand sq. ft. homes stuffed with crap that will end up in a storage shed to make room for more "stuff".

Let me know when Greta comes up with real viable solutions. I won't hold my breath. I give it a year until it will be

Greta who?
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Lookout's picture

@The Wizard @CB

much less the fate of our species and biosphere.

As a homesteader/soil scientist I think I can adapt to the coming changes in my remaining decades. I do think about it. I've built more cold and warm frames. I'm planting more perennials....working to establish more (biological and hydrologic) flexibility. For I'm convinced large severe weather swings are coming. I hope I'm wrong, but all the evidence points that way. I already notice the reduction in insect and bird populations. Ecosystem collapse is happening all over. It may be chicken little but I think the sky isn't falling but in great flux...mirroring the oceans....and the terrestrial ecosystems.

My line has been...treasure every day.

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@The Wizard

population is pretty key - lower density does increase a lot of options sustainability-wise.

If you want to crap under a different tree every day and there are 10,000 trees per person that's pretty viable. When the ratio starts skewing toward a lot more people per tree, well, that can get messy.

Here in Japan, where the population is declining, (and immigration restrictive) much farmland is going out of production due to farmers aging and young people being mostly uninterested in such work.

In one sense not good, because the food self-sufficiency rate is already dangerously low and vital skills are being lost, but it does create other opportunities - fields that are now filled in with crappy subsoil, built on or left to grow back into brush and trees could support grazing or perennial crops - olives are starting to become a significant thing here, for example and more people are experimenting with brush eating goats, backyard chickens and such.

Pheasant population is up considerably, probably due to better habitat (abandoned fields) and few predators - although I was sizing up the healthy looking pheasant cock wandering around what is essentially my back yard the other day for holiday feast potential...

Have to be less in the way of carbon footprint and considerably tastier than a factory chicken, anyway.

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magiamma's picture

Born to run is a good book to read about evolution, running, and brain growth. Made a lot of sense to me. Though I am not sure of the ‘science’ behind it. Loved that book. Also, here there is a woman named Ellen Farmer who does sustainable cattle on no till soils. Not sure that’s exactly the correct way to ’say’ that. She’s got a film out on it. I posted it once. I am with phone only so cannot do this justice. Thanks for the info. Always good. Be well...

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

Lookout's picture

@magiamma

Ellen Farmer sounds like some of the farmers I featured today. We can live in harmony with the planet, but it is going to take a different approach...a whole new way of living. It is a hard sell, but we can all start down the path ourselves and lead the way.

Have a nice Sunday!

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Anja Geitz's picture

Well, we know one thing for sure, champagne corks were popping in D.C. Let's hope the Labour Party in the U.K. doesn't take its cue from the Democrats and their "Trump Derangement Syndrome" style of politics as they decide how to respond.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Lookout's picture

@Anja Geitz

...with the dims fighting against Bernie and Tulsi, the 2 strongest candidates for the general election with Trump. The worst enemy progressives have in the US is the democratic party. The Labour party in the UK has been working against Jeremy and his policies all along. Plus the constant negative press against them all.

It is clear the changes needed are not going to come from the political kabuki theater. We can choose our path but there are plenty of rapids approaching quickly. Think ahead. Be healthy. Be happy.

Wish you all the most on the left coast!

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Anja Geitz's picture

@Lookout

Think I might have to join you in the tree planting curative for my mental health.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Lookout's picture

@Anja Geitz

Some people are making wildflower seed bombs and lobbing them into vacant lots, along right of ways, and so on https://www.gardenista.com/posts/diy-wildflower-seed-bombs/

Somehow it is healthful (to me) to plant things and watch them grow. A positive feedback loop.

Have a good one!

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lotlizard's picture

@Lookout  
Then their crackpottery might at least be doing some good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_swastika

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@lotlizard
as long as they are called bombs
enthusiastic lobbing ensues Wink

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Lookout's picture

@lotlizard
...and the symbol has a long history.
The word ‘swastika’ is a Sanskrit word (‘svasktika’) meaning ‘It is’, ‘Well Being’, ‘Good Existence, and ‘Good Luck’.
https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/symbol-swastika-and-its-12...

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lotlizard's picture

@Lookout  
I forget where I read it now, but someone said Boris Johnson proved he had the mettle to lead the U.K. when he kicked 21 members of parliament (who were working against him and Brexit) out of the Conservative party — and Jeremy Corbyn proved he didn’t have what it takes when for two years he did nothing about all the Labour MPs openly working to undermine him.

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Lookout's picture

@lotlizard

...similar tendencies. I saw it back in 2016 when I had such hope. In the first debate the $hill attacked Bernie for supporting gun rights. I thought he had her there because there had been some coverage of all the arms deals she had done as SoS (many preceded or followed with million dollar donations to the foundation), but not a word from Bernie. You can't win without revealing your opponents flaws.

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Anja Geitz's picture

@Lookout

Surrounded by leaves drifting in the air like harvest color glitter. Of course, living in the foothills, we also have the occasional low lying precipatation that comes in the form of fog. Which is very atmospheric especially with all the Christmas lights. Drove home other night, up the winding roads hugging the mountains, through the fog and the colored lights. Felt like I was driving in a world of cotton candy.

Weird weather.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Lookout's picture

@Anja Geitz

Our trees are mostly bare with a carpet of leaves through the woods, covering the roads, and piled in the flower beds.

It is my favorite season for hiking.

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Azazello's picture

Here's Jimmy Dore on the NDAA:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsfH77HgPo0 width:500 height:300]
From the Afghan Papers: Consumed by corruption - The U.S. flooded the country with money then turned a blind eye to the graft it fueled
The same thing happened in Ukraine. Vicky Nuland bragged about $5 billion being spent to "bring democracy" to that unfortunate nation, a lot of that was scammed off and found its way back here.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

Lookout's picture

@Azazello

to the Clinton Foundation. Whata coinky dink.
https://www.rt.com/usa/243017-ukraine-clinton-foreign-donors/

Thanks as always for the links!

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mimi's picture

1. eat only when I am hungry
2. eat only two times a day and don't eat anything in between
3. work physically at least on hour a day in the outside
4. walk at least 45 minutes a day straight outside
5. avoid elevators and run up the stairs
6. eat only what I like to eat, meat is part of it, spicy stuff and sour stuff as well.
7. I make myself laugh at least once a day.

Can I get away with that?

Give rose Thanks for the fish. I want to have a little river running by and steal a pond out of it to raise fish in it to attract the storks, while raising rabbits and keep a home for hedgehogs in the bushes.

Our days are so short, so I don't wake up on time, don't want to get out of of bed, because before I am ready to work on my 7 point list above, it is already dark again and I wanna go to bed.

So, today I have sinned, feel miserable, cry like Jimmy Swaggart and have a headaches with hissy fits. Because where are my sheep, my pinky piggies, pickety little chickens not to speak of the colorful cocks and my dancing black and white dancing cows?

[video:https://youtu.be/edvmrZI-gBg]

Silent night is coming, so I had to post my favorite dancing cows from my part of the world in advance, because silent means silent. Promised.

to be continued next year.

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Lookout's picture

@mimi

Best of the holidays to you!
You're a mean one Mr Trump...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9-5DJhBh6M]

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studentofearth's picture

for land management. Each species has a unique impact on the soil and plant mixture. I rotate the cattle, sheep, donkeys and chickens, plus my activity based on what the land seems to need for the season. Is an interesting experiment.

First moved on the property in 2002. Many of the plantings other than grass failed. It is on the east side of a cinder cone with minimal depth soil to no soil in places. The past 12 years have exclusively used animal rotations and no chemicals (fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides). Planting and seeding of broad leaf plants, shrubs and trees are surviving & thriving. In addition volunteer plants are arriving, most likely irrigation water and the dramatic increase in birds.

Now baby steps increasing soil fungus and edible mushrooms. Deliberate planting of edible plants to compete with what I consider weeds. Would like to rely more on plant competition and mulching than livestock to manage part of the landscape. Every mulch I have tried other than rocks has been eaten. Some areas can not have livestock as part of the weed management is my plan to reduce the number of animals is going to work.

At my last home in town, grass in the roses was successfully controlled with Hen's and Chicks as a ground cover.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

Lookout's picture

@studentofearth

We were walking today noticing the growth of the forest over our 30 years or so here. The canopy has developed opening/shading out the understory. Woods are now clear and open...at least now that we're at winter.

Reading the land, and modifying your practice is an art. Being an artist is fun.

All the best!

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I'm giving meat away to make room for more. Not as tasty as beef that is "finished" on corn but it's pretty good anyway. At around 200 lbs per animal it adds up before you know it. The weather has been good, a couple layers of snow and temps in the 20s, I'm sure I'll connect soon. It's a lot of work to process but then there is a connection with the thousands of generations that came before me. Foraging for fauna never gets old.

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Lookout's picture

@ban nock

We were at a friends place the other week...a grassfed cattle producer. A bunch of deer were frolicking in his pasture. He said he didn't hunt them cause they foraged in the neighbors GMO soybean and he thought his beef was a healthier choice. I thought that was an interesting take. Personally I like venison, but it needs to be properly aged and cooked.

All the best, and congrats on having a full freezer!

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@Lookout I would no more avoid GMO plants and animals that eat them than animals that eat them than any other. Everything is GMO.

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Hawkfish's picture

I would love it if Savory’s claims would work, but they clearly do not. Here is a 127 page academic summary of the debate that I spent about 8 hours wading through last week. The researchers are all academics from top tier universities and the paper has hundreds of footnotes, including most of your links I suspect. I’ve also included the summary video for those with less time.

I know this isn’t going to go over well but I am still rather annoyed at how I was misled by Savory’s claims.

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

Lookout's picture

@Hawkfish

All over the world. I wonder who funded this study. I did Ag research at the University and understand how it can be influenced. I've seen others dismiss his work too... including George Monbiot. There is a big difference between grazing cows and mob grazing and moving daily. You can't compare holistic management with a standard grazing system. That seems the big flaw in the study.
https://holisticmanagement.org/blog/science-supporting-holistic-manageme...

Here's a couple of examples of the restoration...
before.jpg
after.jpg

and another...
before and after.jpg

How can you argue with that kind of success? Or are you suggesting it is faked?
Here's several land managers showing their results...
https://www.savory.global/holistic-management/

I had scanned the report, and I appreciate you bringing it and the clip. Nothing is black and white...just shades of gray.

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mhagle's picture

Delicious. Smile

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo