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From ‘Make America Great Again’ to ‘Cope With Being Poor’ in One Election Cycle
Bloomberg has some helpful hints for coping with runaway Bidenflation and Bidenfuelshortages. It basically involves cutting back on buying things that are getting too expensive. (Where would we be without experts, am I right?) And, strangely enough, the exploding cost of fuel under Biden should force us into driving less, getting rid of our cars, and switching to unreliable, union-staffed public transportation just like the environmental extremists have been pushing for years.
To deal with gas prices, it’s worth reconsidering public transportation if it’s an option where you live. Fares are up about 8% compared with 38% for gasoline. Now may even be the time to sell your car.
Also, hopefully, you aren’t too terribly fond of your household pets.
If you’re one of the many Americans who became a new pet owner during the pandemic, you might want to rethink those costly pet medical needs.
Also, switch from meat to lentils as an intermediate step between our meat-enjoying past and our bug-eating “you will own nothing and be happy” future.
Tasty meat substitutes include vegetables (where prices are up a little over 4%, or lentils and beans, which are up about 9%). Plan to cut out the middle creature and consume plants directly. It’s a more efficient, healthier and cheaper way to get calories.
The author probably doesn’t realize that beans and lentils depend on hydrocarbon intensive fertilizers and planting/harvesting machines. She has a Ph.D. in Economics from Berkeley and is on the Board of a Left-Wing Think Tank.
Published in General
And who wants cricket eggs for breakfast?
That statement seems to be contradicted by the PLoS article in the next link.
It is true that there is some variation from one kind of animal/insect to another. But a 12-fold difference in energy conversion? That’s not exactly the measure they are using, but I am suspicious. I suppose I could follow up on some of the other links that were given in the next link to see if these differences can be reconciled.
I consider myself to be an environmentalist: a right-wing, conservative environmentalist. Do I need to take protective measures if you’re nearby?
Do you dispute the numbers?
As an aside, in Kampot, Cambodia I met a guy and his wife who were in the process of selling their rather well-located pub with very good food in very good portions, and start a cricket farm. Apparently they already had a bunch of purchasers that would take crickets since they’re a delicacy of sorts. And apparently they are very low maintenance and prolific to grow. He was talking about converting two large barns with an eye toward building a larger steel structure. And neither he nor his wife were Cambodian.
It wasn’t environmental for him, it was economics.
If it’s ever economical here, we’re in big trouble.
The first says 200g of food to produce 100g of crickets. The next says 450g to produce 260 grams of crickets. That’s 2 grams of food per gram of cricket, and 1.7 grams of food per gram of crickets. This could easily be accounted for by the type of food and the environment. Where’s the discrepancy.
If you mean that chickens take far less food per pound of growth then mammals like cattle, I think that’s been said for years. And it certainly fits in with my experience with chickens and goats.
The discrepancy is with the data in the PLoS article. Maybe knowing how the numbers were obtained would help.
I would like to see a numeric value for “far.”
If the cattle are producing other products besides meat – such as milk, and leather… – then those should be considered too.
I’d have to find my ledgers and that will take time.
One thing I learned is that in the old days, people would usually analyze these things in terms of energy units, or calories. The old days would include me, and energy conversion was the basis for my initial comment on bugs vs hamburger.
Nowadays, people often study these issues in terms of protein conversion: This table with some protein conversion data on various animals is from a paper written by somebody I know. (In fact, back in the days when he was still doing zooplankton research I had thought of asking him if he would be interested in being my PhD advisor, and we did joke about it at a reception one time when I had already made the decision not to go further in pursuing a PhD. My boss interrupted the conversation and pointed out that I had an obligation to do the job he had just hired me to do. We did have at least one other mealtime conversation years after that when we talked about profit requirements, risk, and game theory, or something along those lines. Some people snidely referred to him as a conservative, which in those circles meant he was not a full Stalinist.)
Anyhow, the conversion for beef is about 20 (20 input units per 1 output) and for poultry is about 4.7 (4.7 input units per 1 output). I am a little surprised that the difference is quite that great, but I believe it and it gives me a numeric value for “far.”
If I wasn’t so lazy I’d look for the caloric conversion ratios, too.
Now I’d like to see some reliable numbers for bugs and crickets.
I found this quote in an article. It sounds about right.
Great. Now, how much leather, fertilizer, and other things on that chart, do we get from crickets?
Here is an article that gives a news-type report on what seems to be the PLoS article referred to above:
Crickets Are Not a Free Lunch, Protein Conversion Rates May Be Overestimated
Leather is out. Has been out for years.
I wear leather shoes and use leather belts. However, I long ago gave up on leather for my bicycle saddles.
The study is linked.
Good. Most footwear, jackets and purses and so forth are plastic nowadays.
Only if you start banging on about how I have to eat bugs. And at any rate, I would make an exception in your case. Probably.
Don’t care. Eat beef. (Although I’m glad it worked out for those folks).
Didn’t even mention the fore & aft uh portals, from which hot dogs are made. “Ls & As”
We’ve been feeding distiller’s grains to cattle for decades. Why are these guys so far behind the curve?
Which means oil. So the whackos can choose between raising cattle, or drilling for oil. And then their heads explode!
I suspect you are actually a conservationist and not an environmentalist.
Both. But yes, I am probably more friendly toward the conservation aspect of environmentalism than some of the people-hating environmentalists are.
Come on. You ride a motorcycle. You know you eat bugs.
I’ve eaten grubs. They’re nondescript except for the oil they’re fried in. When the stuff gets going, cooking oil will be rare and the grubs will have to be skillet roasted, but I hear when you’re starving they’re so rich!
But I do like meat. Beef most of all. And I just took a 20 lb. brisket out of the freezer and will cut it up and stew a small part of it, probably today. Dang, I like meat.
(Rice is just filler. Salads are not filler.)
That’s just the methane.