new research debunks trad views on nutrition

[Perris]

I grant that would be a very different amount than the amounts the cow would eat if the poultry litter is deliberately fed to them

that is the difference, and it is significant.

To illustrate the point, think of a blob of infected fecal matter as the number 6 on a die. The chance of getting a 6 when throwing one die is 1 in 6, or about 17%. The chance of getting a 6 throwing 6 dice is about 66%. The chance of getting a 6 throwing 60 dice is essentially 100%.

The probability of a cow catching AI from eating infected matter in a field is vanishingly remote - perhaps still possible, but very unlikely. I don't think they'd eat a dead bird by accident, and that seems to be the route of transmission to mammals.

In contrast, mixed with other foodstuffs in such a way as to try to ensure that all pellets have the same nutritional content, infected material from carcasses buried in the litter and added to feed would be spread as far and wide as it could be. One would expect the litter to be treated before addition, but perhaps whatever's done to it is not sufficient to kill the virus.

In any case, the good news is that the outbreak is being taken seriously and quite a lot of scientists are now working to understand how it got into cattle in those states reporting it, and they've initiated many more tests on herds (no longer leaving it to producers to volunteer the information that their cows are sick with something new), so we should have proper explanations before too long.

 

[RoyalChick]

that is the difference, and it is significant.

To illustrate the point, think of a blob of infected fecal matter as the number 6 on a die. The chance of getting a 6 when throwing one die is 1 in 6, or about 17%. The chance of getting a 6 throwing 6 dice is about 66%. The chance of getting a 6 throwing 60 dice is essentially 100%.

The probability of a cow catching AI from eating infected matter in a field is vanishingly remote - perhaps still possible, but very unlikely. I don't think they'd eat a dead bird by accident, and that seems to be the route of transmission to mammals.

In contrast, mixed with other foodstuffs in such a way as to try to ensure that all pellets have the same nutritional content, infected material from carcasses buried in the litter and added to feed would be spread as far and wide as it could be. One would expect the litter to be treated before addition, but perhaps whatever's done to it is not sufficient to kill the virus.

In any case, the good news is that the outbreak is being taken seriously and quite a lot of scientists are now working to understand how it got into cattle in those states reporting it, and they've initiated many more tests on herds (no longer leaving it to producers to volunteer the information that their cows are sick with something new), so we should have proper explanations before too long.

I hope your optimism is well placed.
It feels to me like we just don’t learn. We know that feeding infected dead sheep to cattle had disastrous effects, but somehow we thought it would be OK to feed them infected dead chickens?
I am as interested in the scientific study as the next man (maybe more), but it all just defies common sense and makes me depressed.

 

[Shadrach]

so that's true also of e.g. salmonella, campylobacter etc. but people regularly get these from chickens because it hasn't been cooked or handled properly, and the same would apply to bird flu in beef.

My point is really that this new health hazard is so unnecessary: cattle do not naturally eat dead birds, bird poo, feathers and sawdust, and those ingredients shouldn't go into cattle food just because they are a cheap way to add protein, carbohydrate, fibre, vitamin and mineral levels to cattle concentrated feed.

Having visited Smithfield Market,
https://www.smithfieldmarket.com/
albit many years ago and been to a couple of abattoirs I'm surprised anyone who eats meat is still alive. I've also maintained some of the precision machinery in a few canning factories.
Maybe hygiene and quality control has improved over the years, somehow I doubt it.
We, are being encouraged by nutritionists to eat less meat and more fruit and vegetables, but fruit and veg is full of crap as well.
The food I'm growing at the allotments, that's going to have plastics and other chemicals in it; they're in the water and in the soil.
We don't know how to clean up, even if we decided to try.
I believe one would be hard pressed to find an area in the world we haven't directly, or indirectly crapped on.
It's the last 50 years some say that are responsible for the worst of the environmental damage. That would be my generation and probably many of those who read this. Some custodians of the future generations welfare.

 

[Sally PB]

It's the last 50 years some say that are responsible for the worst of the environmental damage. That would be my generation and probably many of those who read this. Some custodians of the future generations welfare.

I apologized to one of the young people I worked with. "Simon, we are leaving you a really crappy mess. My generation could have turned it around, and we didn't. I'll probably be dead before the bottom really falls out, and you and your descendants will have to deal with it. I'm sorry."

 

[Molpet]

Some custodians of the future generations welfare.

My brother insists that people can't effect the world because it's too big.

 

[RoyalChick]

I want to love this idea, but of course it also makes me nervous.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68927816

 

[Shadrach]

"But not everyone is convinced by the idea of developing biodegradable alternatives to conventional plastics. Some scientists argue it is far better to reduce the amount of plastic used in the first place."

I'm with this chap.

 

[RoyalChick]

"But not everyone is convinced by the idea of developing biodegradable alternatives to conventional plastics. Some scientists argue it is far better to reduce the amount of plastic used in the first place."

I'm with this chap.

I suspect the situation requires both.

 

[Molpet]

"But not everyone is convinced by the idea of developing biodegradable alternatives to conventional plastics. Some scientists argue it is far better to reduce the amount of plastic used in the first place."

I'm with this chap.

I agree.

I want to love this idea, but of course it also makes me nervous.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68927816

I had some garbage bags that were supposed to be biodegradable. I usually dump everything into one bag. So the living room can gets empty but I use the same bag. One day I realized the bag was turning to shreds. I had the roll in the bottom and it was the same. So I never bought again

 

[Perris]

I suspect the situation requires both.

Indeed; it's not an either or situation. Some microbes have already evolved to consume some pollutants without human intervention. We already know that fungi can degrade pesticides, synthetic dyes, TNT and RDX (explosives), crude oil, some plastics, and can accumulate heavy metals for safe disposal, and can filter polluted water (e.g. remove e coli), in a lab. There's one found in the environment where it lives entirely on something that was only invented in the last century - annoyingly I can't remember where I read that, possibly Ball's How Life Works but it's not obviously indexed in that fat, dense book - but anyway, which demonstrates how quickly evolution can work to exploit a new niche, and our pollutants are a massive virgin territory for anything that can extract nutrition from it.

Mycoremediation is the field trying to harness fungi to work at scale and move these discoveries out of the lab and into the environment.