Green poo-poo: the moral health conspiracy!

The "go green" moral health issues remind me of an old tale:

"I would not, could not, in a box. I could not, would not, with a fox. I will not eat them with a mouse. I will not eat them in a house. I will not eat them here or there. I will not eat them anywhere. I do not eat green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am." -- Dr. Seuss

What if you found a way to cover up the major mistakes that factory-farmers have done with another measure to "go green" and make it sounds like good poo-poo. That is exactly what can be said with these new "recovery" plans that governments have decided to take.

The government will go out of its way to clean poo-poo up, but won't spend a dime on universal health care? Take a look at this recent news:

(PA) Governor Edward G. Rendell today announced the commonwealth is investing $5 million in federal recovery money in eight innovative alternative energy projects that use biological materials such as sewage, animal and food processing waste to generate enough energy to power more than 80,000 homes.

Source

That sounds great!!! Or, what is it that they haven't said besides how that money could be spent more directly on health care. How about the concerns that the EPA pointed out in their reports about waste distribution from factory farms, for example:

The EPA reports that roughly 99 percent of dairy operations distribute their waste overland, in an attempt to fortify the soil.

That sounds as good as the plan to distribute waste to use for power, but there has been a problem:

They also note, however, that 36-61 percent of small (200-700 milking cows) dairies have insufficient land to absorb the nutrients of their manure, while 14 percent have no land at all. Fifty-one to sixty-eight percent of large facilities (>700 milking cows) have insufficient land, and 22 percent have no land (EPA 2002, p. 4-83).

In other words, there isn't enough land to keep their poo-poo together, so how have they solved that so far:

This discrepancy is sometimes remedied by distributing manure on another farmer's land, but nutrients from animal waste often far exceed regional needs.

Aha! They shovel their poo-poo on someone else to take care of it. We could mention what kind of drugs these factory-farms feed their livestock, and how those drugs wind of in their waste, and then is used in other farms that grow vegetation. You probably understand here that vegetarians are able to let liberal omnivores eat what they want, but vegetarians are still upset about what drugs end up in their vegetables from so-called 'fetilizers'.

In 1998 Carpenter et al found that "nutrient flows to aquatic ecosystems are directly related to animal stocking densities, and under high livestock densities, manure production exceeds the needs of crops to which the manure is applied" (p. 559). In this case, nutrients become pollutants and can be toxic to living systems.

Not only are the drugs pollutants to the fertilizers, but so is the over-abundance of nutrients! These factory-farmers have been up to their nose in poo-poo, and the governor's plan to find a new place for it was just another way for them to keep their mouth shut about it. Or, maybe they really do realize that life is just like a poo-poo sandwhich, the more bread you have the less you have to eat!

Don't even have to wait to taste this one to know it is a conspiracy, you can smell it far away! Just wait to people start to rely on this 'knew' found power resource... it'll be a way for the factory-farmers to justify their business existence beyond the moral issues once 80,000 people become dependant on them.

There certainly are other ways to reduce the poo-poo from dairy farms, the largest cheese manufacturer (bigger than McDonalds) has given up dairy farms in gone in favor of non-dairy cheese:

MECHELEN, Belgium - 17 September, 2009 - Cargill has launched a unique breakthrough innovation that enables the cost-effective production of a 100 percent non-dairy cheese analogue for pizza and other prepared food applications. Lygomme™ ACH Optimum functional system (patent pending) replicates the functionality of dairy protein and replaces it fully at an outstanding cost advantage for the manufacturer.

Source

This moral health conspiracy over green poo-poo can't be denied when suddenly Cargill has to stand on the defensive, as the same article was edited to add:

Cargill's recent launch of an ingredient for use in making analogue cheese, per the below press release, has raised concerns by some in the U.S. dairy industry that it will hurt dairy producers.

Is that the same 99 percent of dairy producers (the EPA mentions) that distribute waste over land and have found it actually hurts the environment as well as cause further health issues????

Was asked about the silicone in pizza, as noticed earlier that there is a thread about Pizza Hut's cheese.

Pizza Hut's method looks a bit different from Cargill's cheese. It would be a difference like synthetically made substance versus grown by Cargill's Lygomme.

Does Pizza Hut's cheese have the same affect on the dairy industry as Cargill? A google at a glance only says there is a shift of trends, yet nothing like Cargill's impact.

Is there some moral health reason to eat Pizza Hut's silicone versus Cargill's Lygomme? I don't think that answer is obvious unless you prefer organically grown foods.

You do realize that in nature, 'poo-poo' is fertilizer, right? The grass really does grow greener over the septic tanks.... well the dispersion lines anyway...

We do seem to have this problem with people not understanding what food grows from. The same things that make up animal waste are what plants use to grow. Do you know what the best fertilizer in the world is? A mixture of compost, rabbit droppings (sprinkled liberally with liquid waste from the little furry critters) and chicken manure.

Yes, in its raw state, it is toxic to plant life. We call that 'burning' the plants out here where that food is grown; essentially the soil is simply too rich for the plants to thrive well. But that's not how you apply it. Manure/compost is best applied right after harvest. It leaches into the soil during the winter, enriching it, and then is turned under to further decompose before planting. That little bit of time turns it from being capable of over-fertilizing the crops into soil that you can plant a penny in and grow dollar trees.

I know these 'experts' don't like the way common people do things, but I for one place more faith in the guy who has been actually growing food for his entire life than some guy in an office building who has read a book on it.

Oh, and you know that enriched soil you buy in little plastic bags to put your houseplants in? You do know what it's made of, right?

'poo-poo'!

TheRedneck

Theres a dairy farm in PA that ferments the poo for methane which powers generators which in turn powers the whole farm and he has enough left over to power 5-6 of his neighbors, and does.

If I remember tomorrow Ill look for a link. Time for bed now though.

Originally posted by TheRedneck

Of course, you can even find worksheets and application guides about the process (example).

It's the rate of manure production (under factory-farm conditions) plus the remains of any drugs fed to animals and how that comes out in the end, which then stays in the manure used for fertilizer, that is of concern besides misapplication.

Beside the EPA report, this one from Organic Consumers Collation explains also what happens:

Everyday, an average cow produces six to seven gallons of milk and 18 gallons of manure. New Mexico has 300,000 milk cows. That totals 5.4 million gallons of manure in the state every day. It's enough to fill up nine Olympic-size pools. Every single day.

Dealing with the waste - so-called "manure management" - is the dairy industry's greatest environmental challenge.

Farms dispose of waste in two ways.

First, workers hose the muck off the concrete floor of a milking barn, and it flows into a plastic- or clay-lined lagoon where the liquid evaporates.

Second, waste from the feedlot where the cows live is collected and used as fertilizer for grain crops.

But the New Mexico Environment Department reports that two-thirds of the state's 150 dairies are contaminating groundwater with excess nitrogen from cattle excrement. Either the lagoons are leaking, or manure is being applied too heavily on farmland.

"As we get more and more monitoring data, what we see is that more and more dairies have contamination underneath them. So something isn't working about those facilities," says Marcy Leavitt, director of the department's Water and Wastewater Division.

The problem is worsened by the tendency of large dairies to cluster together.

Source

Notice at the very end of the report they claim:

In many places, the powerful dairy lobby blocks tough state regulations, and the federal EPA lacks broad powers to crack down on agricultural runoff. But in New Mexico, the winds might have begun to shift.

Well, while 'poo' is actuall fertilizer, the problem is, human poo is known to cary lots of pathogens, and with al the chemicals we are exposed to daily, synthetics in foods, that too ends up in thier. I read an article months ago online, some guy went green,a nd for well over a decade, he poos in his own garden, as a way fo natural fertilizing.
Years ago, when i was 16, my fathr and i had a small square area in our yard, like 8 feet by 8 feet, wede grow veggies in. He wanted to richen up the soil one day, so he boughts god knows how many bags of cow manure. good lord!!! it smelled for almos a month! and their were a descent amount of flies : x maggots grew n hatched* i would not regard human poo as fertilizer, as to me, when they say you are what you eat* it just seems cannablistic*
LOL! that dr.seuss tale always gets me. Always reminds me of a freind when we were 19, came up with his own version of green eggs n ham....he dubbed it, the son of sam tale*
" I am the son of sam, i am i am. I wil not eat from a can, unless its your iver with ham. cleaned and de spleened, not once but twice, i will not eat your brain, unless its off a blcok of ice" Chris chovit 1994*

reply to post by dzonatas


What the hell is your headache if people prefer to eat vegetarian food...

reply to post by CuteAngel


I have nothing against vegetarians (read).

No matter what you eat, I do still find what organic farmers and researchers turn up are valid concerns for moral health issues.


[edit on 30-12-2009 by dzonatas]

Notice at the very end of the report they claim:

In many places, the powerful dairy lobby blocks tough state regulations, and the federal EPA lacks broad powers to crack down on agricultural runoff. But in New Mexico, the winds might have begun to shift.


I dont belive anything the EPA says. In yesterdays local newspaper, thier was an article about a local exxon gas station back in the 90's they found MTBE had leaked badly fom the gas staions tanks, as well as water getting into the gas tanks. They were testing again, almsot 2 decades later, and found MTBE is stil thier, as well as Toluene(most common ingrideint in gasoline), methyl tertiary-butyl ether, a gasoline additive banned in 2004 becaue it can containmate groundwater,MTBE, benzeze( another common ingridient in gasoline). It is localized near a fuel isalnd, and is righ next door, to a public park. Thier is ltos of groundwater around this station. Its the 2nd time it got in trouble. back in the 90's exxon paid the wate bills for all the residents for 10 years* apparently, the cleanup ddint work*
Thier investigating a nasty chemical they think came form a landfill that operated from 1930 to 1970's... my point to this all is, its runoff* Humans are exposed to things like this, as well as othr chemcials n synthetics,,.passes through our bodys. In my city, a few years ago, we became the first city, to incorporate a new waste management system. They are still playing around n experimenting with it..seperating human poo from sewer line, and using it as fertilizer. BEfore it was incinerated.
I stillt hink incinerating a mass amount of matter even the devil would frown at, is best.
What gets me most, about hte articel, is benzene.. in June 2009 found it, a known carcinogen in gasoline, levels were at 3,440 and 2,820 parts per billion, well above the states permitted level level of 130 parts per billion. MTBE wass found fro 173 to 331 parts per billion nearly 5 times the permitted levls of 70 parts per billion.
no matter what we eat or use, their will be contamination...coutesy of corporate america

reply to post by dzonatas


Oh, ok. Guess I got a little pissd with the title of the thread.
You mite want to note that chemicals and adulterants can also be added to meat and eating bad meat can produce much ill effects than eating bad vegetables. Of course a balance in diet is whats required, if ya ask me...

reply to post by dzonatas

Of course, you can even find worksheets and application guides about the process

And again, these are written by people who sit in an office, not people who have spent their lives growing food.

I speak from the standpoint of the farmer. I am not one myself, but I have many many family members who are, and who farm thousands of acres. I was raised among farmers and have spent my life on farms. They are the ones who know what it takes to grow the food the EPA pencil-pushers eat.

Now, from that report... I see a few things that don't exactly jibe with the facts...

• 18 gallons of manure per day? I'll admit I haven't been following dairy cows around with a measuring cup, but that sounds a little exaggerated.
  
  
• "Excess nitrogen"? Nitrogen is a gas, and a harmless one at that. About 80% of the atmosphere is nitrogen.
  
  Perhaps they meant "nitrates"?
  
  
• I'd like to know what is considered 'contamination'. Apparently nitrogen gas is... what else? We live in a society where almost anything can be considered 'contamination', even if this 'contamination' is actually healthy.

It's ironic that the more society tries to 'sterilize' itself, the more society suffers. I have personally seen the shift in my lifetime from a life where a bath was once every three days to where showers were taken twice daily. I have seen deodorant change from "What's that stuff" to an absolute necessity. I have seen fertilizer become this product that is sold in bags instead of something you shovel onto your fields every fall. I have seen nutrition change from being a simple rule of thumb to guide you to being some gigantic complex chemical experiment. And during the same time frame I have seen people live longer, but get sicker earlier, making those last few years absolute agony.

We are a part of nature. As long as we continue to act like we are somehow above nature, we will continue to sicken and degrade as a society. It's not the 'poo-poo' in the fertilizer that makes your food 'contaminated'... it is the processing, the sterilization, the packaging and treating that is making you sick. Are you aware that the margarine you buy in the store because it is 'better' than butter is actually made of a type of plastic? It's officially called 'partially-hydrogenated soybean oil', but in reality it is a polymer chain that is formed form forcing hydrogen gas under pressure into the soybean oil. It is a dull gray mass that looks similar to Silly Putty until artificial coloring and taste is added to it. And yet, you will consume plastic and complain about using natural fertilizer?

Keep listening to the EPA... they'll show you the way to better health. It's the opposite way they keep pointing.

TheRedneck

Originally posted by TheRedneck
reply to post by dzonatas

Of course, you can even find worksheets and application guides about the process

And again, these are written by people who sit in an office, not people who have spent their lives growing food.

Actually, it appears to be written by student researchers and not any professional office pen-pusher. I don't know if their campus is anything like UC Davis, but UC Davis is planted in the middle of a 50 mile radius of agricultural businesses.

Davis is just west of Sacramento, also known by outsiders as "cowtown," but people that have lived in Sacramento know that the drive from Davis to Sacramento becomes bright red in certain times of tomatoe season, so they've called it Sacratomato and not cowtown.

EPA has been one of the buildings that is planted in Sacramento. Maybe they should of put it in New York along with all the other pen-pushers?

You can only guess why some still call it cowtown!

reply to post by dzonatas

Here in Bama, the leading agricultural university is Auburn University. Some years back, some students decided to 'go organic' and developed a hybrid ladybug. They released these things by the millions into my area. Crops did a little better that year because they did eat a lot of the pests, but that fall, they started to die off... in numbers so huge that many homes were condemned because of the stench of attics and wall spaces filled with dead decaying ladybug corpses.

I have personally swept an inch deep carpet of dead ladybugs off a porch.

Great intent, but a lousy job of research and a terrible experiment without regard to consequences. University students are some of the brightest minds around, but they make errors in judgment just like everyone else.

It's nice to see we agree in principle on the EPA.

TheRedneck

reply to post by TheRedneck


That hybrid Ladybug sounds more like something I would do in my line of research -- Ag-Biotech, yet I wouldn't consider the move to use them as 'organic' in agricultural terms.

I did google it, and I didn't find a link. I just found places to buy ladybugs.

It wouldn't be the first time insects were crossed as hybrids or more simply mix-bred. Africanized bees still are no match to the japanese hornet.

I'm more of the type to 'reprogram' the plant directly. Yes, even if that means if it changes your hair green -- then I can market it as 'No more hair dye.'

The thing that gets me about researchers that hype 'silicon' claims in cheese is that those same scientist also claim their brain is made of plastic. Go figure!

Take that cow manure and human sewage and turn it into biofuel.

The process has been around since WW2 to make fuel from these and landfill trash.
en.wikipedia.org...
The Germans used the Fischer-Tropsch process to make almost all of there aircraft fuel during WW2.

The US government needs to start a research program to build low cost small Fischer-Tropsch process fuel plants across the US so that we can use all this waste and stop buying arab oil.

This would save trillions of dollars in the long run and these plants would be carbon neutral and could sell carbon credits along with fuel.

reply to post by dzonatas

I just checked myself and didn't find a link either. I can only assume it is buried in the Internet somewhere. It happened back in the 1980s, if my memory serves.

The good news is that the ladybugs adapted and now we have just a little more than we used to, anf that makes aphids less common... definitely a good thing.

TheRedneck

reply to post by ANNED


There has been more interest into biogas for hydrogen fuel cells, which would completely eliminate crude oil demands as it now known. Hydrogenized biomass/oils then could replace crude oil for the rest of those demands.

Brazil, however, is proof that even manure isn't needed to produce biogas. Refined biomass and even leftover veggie oils are being turned into biodiesel -- perfect enough for regular diesel engines, so that would eliminate the need to replace engines to support biogas.

People complain that corn crops would be diminished due to increase demands for biomass, but that is not true since even hemp grows quite faster as a viable biomass economy. There are more options than just hemp and corn, but these two tend to be a more popular choice.

Part of the organic process is to turn the soil every few growth cycles and let other vegetation grow in (and under). If a farmer used land to just grow biomass not used for food, then I can see manure being used in an organic manner for this process. In this sense, the manure is being strictly used as soil rather than as fertilizer. The difference here is that there would be no need to use an extra catalyst or high temperatures in order to achieve the same results as the Fischer–Tropsch process.

If too much nitrogen builds up in these 'non-food' farms, add extra algae. I'm sure you have heard of algae farmers.

The farmers that don't follow the organic process obviously are prone to over-abundant use of nutrients/chemicals(/manure). Algae is not an option for them if they desire to maximize growth periods.

That is where I think the report is not in error because preventive measures could be taken to balance the soil rather than force it to grow another crop again.

EDIT: certainly don't want to let crops go from excess nitrogen, to excess nitrates, to excess nitrites, to excess ammonia... even if the ammonia makes an excellent fuel source for fuel cells.

[edit on 30-12-2009 by dzonatas]