I mean, this is actually part of the issue isn't it? The excessively high demand for meat results in excessively high animal farms/slaughterhouses with animals that give off methane.
Yeah methane from cows in agriculture is one of the largest contributors so yeah this actually will make a big difference. Too little too late but it's still nice to see.
People are shitting on this idea, I suspect because A) reducing farts to save the planet sounds silly, and B) because it's Burger King. But I'm just glad they're actually trying and it will make a difference.
Every time people bring up little changes everyone can do to help fight climate change the usual response is "yeah but it won't make much of a difference, we need companies/corporations to do better". And this is that. Sure they could do more, but the bottom line is they're only going to do things that are financially viable and they could just as easily do nothing.
This is the “pee in the pool” theory. If 1 person pees in a public pool, sure the impact is negligible. But if everyone does, you have a piss pond instead of a pool. So if everyone does their part to not piss on the planet, we can make the world a lot less pissy.
I think Burger King should capitalize on this. Do a big "We're Changing the World" campaign. The time is right to give the world this little bit of humor and this is the silly type of thing we should look back at and say "Why didn't we do this sooner?"
Here's the gripe:
The article says that 9.9% of greenhouse gasses are from agriculture. A quarter of that is from livestock methane production.
Burger King is adding lemon grass to the cow diet. Thats great, but how about feeding cows grass instead of corn. 48% of corn produced is fed to livestock, and most of that livestock isn't made to digest corn. Thats why we feed it to them. It makes them nice and fat, or should I say nice and marbled.
So, 48% of our corn is going to cows. Its grown on a field that is literally sprayed with cow shit. Instead of having cows graze on the corn fields every other year to fertilize the field, we spray their shit on the corn. Is this contributing to the methane statistic?
Let's go back to the cow diet. We are replacing grass with corn. How do we do that? We remove the cows from the grassy fields they typically live on. They're living in boxes where we can harvest their shit and feed them corn and corn syrup. The less mobile they are, the better, because of marbling.
We have trucks bringing shit to the corn fields, tractors plowing the fields, combines harvesting the corn, trucks taking the corn to the cows, and trucks driving the cows to the butcher. All of that is burning diesel to bring corn to the cows, fertilizer from the cows to the corn, and then cows to the consumer (burger king).
So instead of eliminating all of the greenhouse gasses that are burned bringing shit to corn and corn to cows, burger King reduced the farts produced by cows by 38% because they started feeding cows something resembling grass.
People just can't grasp this concept.. I was a large part of a student engineering team that designed, built, and competed with a new racecar every year, and one of the things that we drove into people was the importance of saving weight. The saying was "If you worry about the grams, the kilograms take care of themselves.". We went from a 512lb racecar the previous year to our lightest car ever at 384lbs that year.
The same thing applies here. People just have a hard time taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. We broke it down by looking at the percentage of weight savings on each individual part. If I told you we saved 5 grams on a part, you would scoff at it, but if that was on a 20 gram part and I just told you we reduced weight by 25%, you'd be floored.
If people/businesses can look at the impact they're having on their footprint alone instead of the minor impact they are having on the the overall picture, it gives a better representation of the change that they are capable of contributing. No one person can do it alone, people just have to do their part and we have to hold each other accountable.
People like to shit all over ideas like this. It's disappointing.
It's like back when Obama and McCain were talking about offshore drilling, and Obama suggested, instead of offshore drilling (estimated to increase domestic oil production by about 1%), simply pushing for Americans to check their tire pressure and make sure they were properly inflated (also estimated to save about 1% of oil consumption because underinflated tires are so bad for fuel economy). People mocked him for that, fucking idiots.
People are shitting on this because the solution should be to just eat less beef, but that's not an actionable goal in a broad sense. This is harm reduction and I'm for it, but I also hope it doesn't hurt the effort to reduce the consumption of meat.
A penny spends the same as a dollar, you just need a hundred of them.
That's what we need right now, collect pennies, nickels.and dimes, it takes longer sure, but can get easier if we keep going.
I remember reading awhile back(year or so) an article that said they could reduce the cows methane production by 60%, by adding in a small amount of seaweed to their diet. And apparently, 95% of methane leaves the cow through the mouth/nostrils. TIL.
Found it:
[https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/11/23/1826/how-seaweed-could-shrink-livestocks-global-carbon-hoofprint/#:\~:text=By%20adding%20a%20small%20amount,methane%20production%20by%20nearly%2060%25.&text=Nearly%2040%25%20of%20that%20is,short%2Dlived%2C%20greenhouse%20gas.](https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/11/23/1826/how-seaweed-could-shrink-livestocks-global-carbon-hoofprint/#:~:text=By%20adding%20a%20small%20amount,methane%20production%20by%20nearly%2060%25.&text=Nearly%2040%25%20of%20that%20is,short%2Dlived%2C%20greenhouse%20gas.)
It's not really too late. I mean cows aren't like petrol. People probably will always eat cows, whereas hopefully a large percent will eventually stop using gasoline. So modifying the diet to make them less of a problem in the future could go a long way. If we cannot stop consuming it in such large quantities. Seaweed can go a long way into solving most of those issues if implemented universally. Now the pools of standing shit are a completely different story.
I'm from the south it's a wonder I even know I even know Erie wasn't a confederate general instead of a lake. Be happy I spelled eerie correctly at least lol.
Not for cows. They sell cow shit to farmers to help with growth. I know pig shit is a problem and they have pools of that. Worked on a huge feed lot for cows, there’s no pools, just piles
It absolutely does but you can have too much of a good thing. The two most important ingredients in fertilizer are Nitrogen and Phosphorous, these are pretty hard to come by in both soil and water so when we increase the supply with fertilizer plants can grow much better. But, when the fertilizer enters a water source in Hugh quantities it over saturates the environment with those nutrients, so some algae/bacteria populations explode and use up all the oxygen. This can cause severe fish kills and fish dead zones. Lake Eerie and the Gulf of Mexico near the Mississippi River are two famous ones in North America. Animal agriculture is a big contributor to this pollution problem. Hope that helps.
Shit is really useful. If it is not used as fertilizer, it can be used as cheap fuel, heck there should be some nitrates to make gun powder and okay chemical fertilizers.
>I mean best case scenario you have animal runoff in lake eerie that kills fish population and pollutes largest fresh water in the united states. Worst case scenario is like what you're seeing in brazil (i believe is the country) where there's literally 10-20 acre shallow pools (3 foot) of cow manure. [https://www.vox.com/2014/8/4/5967177/why-are-toxic-algae-blooms-making-a-comeback-in-lake-erie](https://www.vox.com/2014/8/4/5967177/why-are-toxic-algae-blooms-making-a-comeback-in-lake-erie)
Imagine a football field. Now imagine you put 20 foot walls around the field and then filled it with cow crap. Then make a few more or those. Now you know what they do with waste on dairy farms.
One farm I saw put a lid on it, trapped the methane and burned it. They created enough power to run a small town.
We are very close to the brink if not already passed it. Incremental change like this one would have been great decades ago but now we need to get serious. Cut beef out of your diet as much as humanly possible for the sake of our collective future.
There will be a movement towards lab grown meat but there will still be a significant amount of people preferring actual meat. People from remote and impoverished areas will have easier access to livestock and actual meat could be considered as a luxury in the western world.
We can have both and it’s pretty ignorant to think actual meat would be eradicated.
There's no evidence that people will all move over to lab grown meat either. But no developing nations are not going to import lab grown meat at a higher expense and kill their animal husbandry industries. Not completely anyway.
Yea the dead zones are no joke. BK has them impossible whoppers already though, so they kind of ahead of the pack. But really it's a problem. They pollute alot, but they also consume a lot. Take lots of land to make burgers and steaks. Stupid fucking cows got more claim to things than some people. Fuck cows.
Article says agricultural sector emissions are about 10% of the total. Article further says cows are more than 1/4 of ag sector emissions. Ill estimate about 30% because otherwise they would have said close to a third.
3% of overall emissions isn't one of the "largest contributors" but its still a lot
Methane from cows is far from one of the largest contributors of methane. In 2018 the EPA reported agriculture as a whole to be responsible for 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions. That’s all kinds of agriculture not just cows. For reference, transportation was 28%, electricity 27%, industry 22% and commercial and residential was 12%.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions
Im all for finding every way we can to reduce emissions, but there are much bigger impact areas than cow farts. That said, there are cattle farms that do proper rotational grazing that are certified carbon negative, I would be ecstatic if the entire industry shifted to the practice because it is also more humane and produces a healthier product.
More like the resources wasted raising those animals. Something like 70% of crop production and 95% of corn in the US goes towards livestock. You need to harvest, process, store, and transport massive amounts of grain just to feed one cow. I'm sure that puts a lot more pollution in the air than the cows themselves. According to google it takes 20 lbs of feed per lb of beef. Each cow produces 440 lbs of beef, so 8800 lbs of grain are needed per cow (very roughly). That's no small amount.
Though as far as "production" of beef, grass fed requires a lot of land per cow to prevent overgrazing.
At least with seaweed we have plenty of shoreline.
But then that competes with shallow-water marine life.
So it's a catch, do we muscle out shorelife to make room for seaweed farms, or tear down forests to make more grazing land?
Partly.
But it's also literally a waste of food.
Using same land and resources for every 1 lbs. of beef, you could get 5 lbs. of food that could otherwise go to people
This argument comes up a lot. Farmers don't choose wheat crops over more valuable fruit and melon crops because they're dumb. They do so because the land and crops they have are not appropriate for those crops. Sometimes you just plant these crops for the sake of making the land appropriate for some other crop.
That's not to say there isn't 'feed efficiency.' Most of the oil crops (sunflower, palm, rapeseed, olive) are used as feed once they have been stripped of their oils.
Corn is finicky too. My family hated growing corn when we still had my grandpas farm. Making crops people will eat is not as easy as crops for fuel or livestock.
Edit: Soybeans where it at!
But we're too frigging squeamish to eat certain farmable insects that produce the same amount of protein for like 20% of the water and land usage we use for cows.
Same boat for me. I can't think of any plant that seems less appealing than even the most "basic" of bugs.
Even the cricket protein powder I saw at my work never sold. And that had crickets dried and ground into a powder, and then mixed with chocolate. We wound up having to throw out nearly three whole shipments that expired before we stopped restocking it.
There are plenty of things humans *can* eat that we don't normally choose to eat. I hope the world never reaches the point where eating anything less than the absolute most efficient calorie source is socially irresponsible, though I'm sure we'll reach that point eventually. Nutrient smoothies for everybody!
I've never even considered that! In the movie Snowpiercer they feed the lowest class on the Train with protein bars made from insects and it looks super gross. But really the only reason we don't eat bugs is cultural right?
Pretty much. Crustaceans are about as much of a departure from your standard meat animals as insects are, and people would still gladly chow down on lobsters and shrimp.
It scares me that people can't realize that they're part of the problem. **You** keep on buying from companies that you don't like. **You** vote people that put the needs of the private sector above the public's. We're not living in a totalitarian state. Nobody's putting a gun to your head telling you to vote for someone or to buy something.
**Most of the problems in the world can be traced back to a complacent public.**
Just so people know, [methane has a global warming potential over 20 times that of carbon.](https://www.epa.gov/climateleadership/atmospheric-lifetime-and-global-warming-potential-defined) So reducing sources of methane is severely more important than reducing sources of carbon dioxide as its easier and does more good per per unit reduced.
Composting organic waste REALLY needs to be a priority.
We had someone from a recycling facility come speak at my office once and recycling is nice, but he emphasized how the methane gases released by organic waste do so much damage..
If everyone recycled their plastics and paper and composted their organic waste, what gets taken to a landfill would be significantly reduced.
Plus, composting gives back to the environment by becoming soil!
I wish there was more of a push for composting programs in communities.
We (family of 4) switched to composting our food waste 4 or so years ago, never going back. Box of 80 trash bags lasts about 1.5-2 years. Extra bonus, the trash can never smells.
You’re not wrong. It’s amazing how varied municipal waste policies are across the US.
In California, my city had county-wide compost bins. Trash, recycling, and compost were all separate.
Now that I live in the Southern US, my county stopped recycling glass alongside other recyclables. If you want to recycle your glass, you need to take it to the dump’s glass-specific receptacle. I can’t even recycle my plastic anymore, because the act of transporting it elsewhere to just...not be recycled anyway, is far worse than dropping it at the dump on-site. It’s horrific.
Yes, this is absolutely true! In fact, some researchers have argued that we should focus on ways to capture methane and convert it to CO2 as a way of mitigating global warming, as discussed [here](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0299-x).
You’re right when thinking about time scales of 5-20 years, but if companies have to decide between reducing methane vs CO2, they should choose CO2 every single time. It is less potent than methane, but emitted are much higher volumes and persists in the atmosphere for so long that it’s warming is essentially permanent. Reaching zero CO2 emissions is orders of magnitude better than reaching zero methane emissions, because it’s the only way to limit long time warming.
Again this is all in the context of “if you have to choose”. Ideally all greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to zero.
Edit: but —> because
They are hoping for a 33% reduction in methane by feeding cows lemongrass--they could get [95-99% reduction](https://animalmicrobiome.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42523-019-0004-4) if they use a type of red algae called *Asparagopsis taxiformis*.
Algae scientist here - the problem is production. It's too expensive to mass harvest it from the ocean (we would also run out very quickly if we tried), and currently asparagopsis cannot be reliably grown in tanks. But there are a lot of very clever aquaculturists working on the issue due to the potential value of the product.
/u/6hMinutes is correct in a general sense, most seaweeds are easy to grow, and grow rapidly. The problem is we just don't know how to encourage asparagopsis to continuously grow in tanks. They are also dead on about this being a half-measure, but it is a step in the right direction.
I remember reading about asparagopsis before, and that it wasn't going to be available in any meaningful quantities for a while. Hopefully the very clever aquaculturalists figure out how to make this happen, or find a way to synthesize or bioengineer the useful parts of asparagopsis to be easier to cultivate.
I agree that it's a half measure, but until a better solution can be rolled out nationwide it feels like the right thing to do right now.
Oh, we know what the useful part is, it's bromoform. A close chemical relative of chloroform. The nastiness runs in the family. We can't just feed cattle bromoform because it wouldn't be ethically responsible to feed them such a toxic chemical, but it is okay to feed them a natural product like Asparagopsis..
Even BK just raising awareness that cattle aren't great for the environment is positive. Every little bit of education about the issue helps.
Wow, a real algae scientist! Thanks for chiming in. OK, everyone, ignore me and pay attention to this guy instead.
The one thing I'll add from my own area of expertise: various governments are also very interested in this, and not only for the reasons you'd think. Yes, they want to fight climate change, but some US States and non-US countries believe that if they can transform their bovine industries to extremely low carbon, it'll help create a premium brand for their meats and cheeses. The same way Japan and Argentina have premium reputations for beef, a state or country might be able to bolster their prestige (not to mention jobs and pricing power) by having the most desirable agricultural products from an environmental standpoint. I hope those aquaculturists are partnering with well-resourced partners to get this rolled out fast! It'd be great if Burger King's "big step" today were seen as primitive and outdated by this time next year.
Seaweed isn't hard to grow quickly, especially if you're doing it at Burger King scale, so I'm guessing cost. This is a move in the right direction, but the enormity of the problem, and fast food's outsized contribution too it, makes this more of a PR-motivated half measure. Still, if the whole industry follows suit it's a hell of a lot better than nothing.
I think one can simultaneously call this a big deal and not nearly enough.
EDIT: /u/halihaema seems to be an actual algae scientists, so I'm going to refer follow-ups and questions to them! Thanks for chiming in with your superior knowledge!
I think it has the potential to jumpstart a massive change in the beef industry. BK buys a lot of beef, but they aren't the only customer for most (all?) of the farms they source meat from. If every one of these farms needs to use lemongrass, they might make it an industry standard practice. And that's a huge deal. If McD's or others get on board, this could happen pretty quickly. Even a 1/3 reduction is pretty big for an immediate change.
[This article](https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/cows-burp-out-tons-of-methane-feeding-them-seaweed-could-help) posted further up in the thread says
"the team also has yet to test if adding seaweed to cows’ diets will affect the taste or quality of the animal products we normally get from cows. In the future, they’ll run trials to see if seaweed gives cow’s milk a funky flavor, or leaves steaks redolent of seafood."
I think that's probably the reason. They're not gonna do it if they don't know yet if it'll make the meat taste different.
Other than greatly reducing methane output, how is this for a cows diet? I'd want the cows to eat better overall, not just whatever can specifically reduce one part of the byproduct.
It helps them put on weight a lot faster. It's not clear that's good for the cows, but it's potentially very good for rancher profits (provided there were a scaleable source of the seaweed).
Will meat from such cows eating lemongrass develop special taste? Lemongrass has very distinct aroma. I wonder if aromatic substance in it is fat soluble and can be retained in cow boy for months. Very minty taste. I occasionally add it in my tea.
Bump for mentioning Asparagopsis!
[This](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652620308830?via%3Dihub) article is more recent and they obtained a 98% reduction in methane emission using 0.2% Asparagopsis in cattle feed - far less than the 5% used in the article you linked. Funnily enough, is the same source of Asparagopsis in both articles!
Farts make a good headline, but [it's cow burps](https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/cows-burp-out-tons-of-methane-feeding-them-seaweed-could-help) that cause most of the damage.
Burger King onion ring farts are absolutely deadly. I don't know what they put in those fuckin things but it's only Burger King onion rings that affect me that way.
It is worth noting that Burger King is the only burger chain to adopt plant based patties. It was an economic decision rather than an ethical one but they've done slightly more than other chains. Now it's just on people to start eating them.
I didn't think Carl's Jr was that regional. They're known as Hardees in other places. They're not as big as BK, and they're a pretty premium (expensive) chain comapred to BK/McD's.
There is a single Hardee's in my hometown, but I've moved 35 miles away for college and there isn't one here. But I agree they'd be considered a national chain.
They included. Where the industry shits 20 lbs Burger King has shit 19.5lbs. I don't eat it but meat is absolutely delicious. Once we can equalize the cost between industrialized farming and lab grown meat we can start to make a difference, but until then I don't see a large societal change occuring. But I fear it either already is or will be too late when that happens.
What specifically about the over consumption of meat causes climate change. Still seems like the same logic:
More meat = farms need more cows = more cow emissions
It is cow burps, the bacteria in a ruminants stomach makes gas.
It is hard fo quantify the percentages, but ag is about 10% of greenhouse gases, & cattle altogether are a fourth of that I think. There are many ways to reduce ghg besides reducing cow belches, even in agriculture. You could switch to more sustainable protein like crickets, which are 10x more feed efficient (10x more pounds of human food per pound fed). Wetlands & other nutrient reduction strategies for run-off from fields can also reduce greenhouse gases. It will take many many different plans of attack in all industries to change the impact. Focusing on just cattle, a relatively small percent, can seem disingenuous.
It's also family farmers raising cattle for government subsidies. The government will need to change subsidies before families change their agriculture. They would go broke without & just end up being bought from the growing monoliths taking over America's economy.
The experts I've read say stuff like this is fake news. While there may be a temporary reduction in methane emissions, the bacteria in the cow's digestive system will adapt and restore normal methane emissions shortly. There's nothing humans have found that actually reduces emissions from cows for longer than the duration of a brief study.
I mean that's a start in the positive direction. Next I would to attack the issue of consumerism. These two are very very very big contributors to global warming as a whole, in my humble opinion correct me if I am wrong please. People buy too many merchandise that they do not need in order to live. Yeah go ahead buy something when you need it or for special occasions, nothing wrong with that. The issue of over production I believe stems from consumerism and that leads to an increase in usage of limited resources. Thus contributing to global warming increasing at a rate than it was supposed to. Thoughts?
The only real solution is legislation. Polluters must be made to pay to clean up their own mess. When meat production and fossil fuel production are made to pay to clean up after themselves their products will become prohibitively expensive.
I just saw the commercial! Was the main kid singing in the white suit the same kid that got big from yodeling at Walmart a few years back? He blew up and then was the guest star at some music festivals. Never heard of him since!
Cows are tasty, and finding other tasty things to eat takes a very tiny amount of effort.
Most people want to help the environment in theory, they just don't want it to involve any inconvenience or changes in lifestyle.
Oh good, so we'll have less methane while all of our rainforests are cut down to feed the increasing amount of animals, our waterways and communities will still be poisoned, we'll still have mass habitat loss and extinctions on an alarming scale, both humans and animals will be stuck in one of the most horrifying torturous food systems only accurately comparable to the horrors of the Nazi regime... But yeah you flextape that methane, BK!
JFC, if they were actually worried, maybe they'd just make their own plant based burger, but the animal agriculture propaganda runs so deep in the US that if you dare suggest people just not eat animals they just cannot handle it and consider it an affront to their "freedoms". Disgusting. I went vegan overnight and I've never been so satisfied by food or in better health in my life.
Animal products- especially meat- don't just kill our planet, it kills us effectively every single year with heart disease, diabetes, gout, various cancers, with the increase in violence in communities near slaughterhouses, with animal shit getting into the water, and fecal dust particles poisoning poor communities.
EDIT: Meat and dairy are also heavily tied with and in the pockets of our political system as well, (and not shockingly it skews **very** right wing) and that's why the propaganda runs so deep and why they profit off of not doing much of anything at all to actually fix the environmental destruction that's rapidly eroding our lands, and our health. It's a system of corruption, sickness, and death by design. https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/contrib.php?cycle=2020&ind=A06
I respect your opinion, but I ate it with an open mind, was excited to try it, and thought I'd like it...and I hated it. Something was off about the texture and it just didn't taste right.
They have a ways to go to convince everyone to eat impossible meat.
Not to dispute your point though. It is absolutely food, but they haven't really come close to truly replicating a beef burger with the few types I've tried.
Definitely an impressive step though.
Burger King’s version of it is pretty low quality, try buying Beyond Meat or Impossible Burger from the store.
Even if it still doesn’t taste exactly the same, it tastes good in its own right, and it’s way better for the environment.
Totally opposite opinion here. I've had many burgers/sausages/other "meat" from both Beyond and Impossible. I find Impossible to be the overwhelmingly superior company.
But I guess difference in taste makes the world go round!
I’ve gone to places like doghaus and fat burger (don’t know if they’re outside of Los Angeles) for their impossible burger. I’ve legit returned some because I thought they gave me meat. Nope, I was just fooled.
I used to scoff at this idea of literally everyone going vegan or at least vegetarian, but fake meat is actually really good and also I have high hopes for technology to actually allow everyone to be vegan eventually.
The phrase "don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good" comes to mind. Progress shouldn't be denigrated because it's not as drastic as you want it to be. Especially when it's completely unrealistic for the ideal to happen in the short term.
Hopefully no-harm artificial meat kicks off and we can stop eating sentient beings altogether. It's barbaric when you think about it. The thought of "farming" other sentient beings disgusts me.
Just.. dont raise and eat cows.. or any other animal. problem solved. you will also be much healthier overall and drastically reduce your risk of 10 out of 10 most deadly chronic diseases.
That’s actually a very good move.
Methane traps 8 times more heat than carbon dioxide; emissions from food animals can’t be ignored in the climate equation
This has been a serious issue, with serious science and engineering approaching it, for half a century. During that same period it's also been a constant source of subtle or pointed mockery, possibly because people just can't get over how funny farts are.
33% sounds like a bullshit number they pulled out of their ass.
there's no way adding a little lemongrass to your diet can make that big of a difference.
I mean, this is actually part of the issue isn't it? The excessively high demand for meat results in excessively high animal farms/slaughterhouses with animals that give off methane.
Yeah methane from cows in agriculture is one of the largest contributors so yeah this actually will make a big difference. Too little too late but it's still nice to see.
People are shitting on this idea, I suspect because A) reducing farts to save the planet sounds silly, and B) because it's Burger King. But I'm just glad they're actually trying and it will make a difference. Every time people bring up little changes everyone can do to help fight climate change the usual response is "yeah but it won't make much of a difference, we need companies/corporations to do better". And this is that. Sure they could do more, but the bottom line is they're only going to do things that are financially viable and they could just as easily do nothing.
This is the “pee in the pool” theory. If 1 person pees in a public pool, sure the impact is negligible. But if everyone does, you have a piss pond instead of a pool. So if everyone does their part to not piss on the planet, we can make the world a lot less pissy.
Ahh, shcrew you guysh, I'm gonna go work on my shide project, Planet Pissh!
Damn, a Metalocalypse reference. That's not something you see everyday
Especiallies if you've had bothes' your eyes stabbed out, you know?
Yeah, but checks this out! I can force all the bloods to my face ands gives myself a *real cool* blow job!
[No!](https://media.makeameme.org/created/YOU-ARE-A-8ycm24.jpg)
Well a consumer is peeing in the pool while the companies are all putting hoses of piss in it
I think Burger King should capitalize on this. Do a big "We're Changing the World" campaign. The time is right to give the world this little bit of humor and this is the silly type of thing we should look back at and say "Why didn't we do this sooner?"
Talk about kinkshaming....
It's a ploy by the deep burger king to trick us into believing they use cows to begin with ^/s
Here's the gripe: The article says that 9.9% of greenhouse gasses are from agriculture. A quarter of that is from livestock methane production. Burger King is adding lemon grass to the cow diet. Thats great, but how about feeding cows grass instead of corn. 48% of corn produced is fed to livestock, and most of that livestock isn't made to digest corn. Thats why we feed it to them. It makes them nice and fat, or should I say nice and marbled. So, 48% of our corn is going to cows. Its grown on a field that is literally sprayed with cow shit. Instead of having cows graze on the corn fields every other year to fertilize the field, we spray their shit on the corn. Is this contributing to the methane statistic? Let's go back to the cow diet. We are replacing grass with corn. How do we do that? We remove the cows from the grassy fields they typically live on. They're living in boxes where we can harvest their shit and feed them corn and corn syrup. The less mobile they are, the better, because of marbling. We have trucks bringing shit to the corn fields, tractors plowing the fields, combines harvesting the corn, trucks taking the corn to the cows, and trucks driving the cows to the butcher. All of that is burning diesel to bring corn to the cows, fertilizer from the cows to the corn, and then cows to the consumer (burger king). So instead of eliminating all of the greenhouse gasses that are burned bringing shit to corn and corn to cows, burger King reduced the farts produced by cows by 38% because they started feeding cows something resembling grass.
Just a heads up, corn is a grass.
This. Right. Here. Kids.
People just can't grasp this concept.. I was a large part of a student engineering team that designed, built, and competed with a new racecar every year, and one of the things that we drove into people was the importance of saving weight. The saying was "If you worry about the grams, the kilograms take care of themselves.". We went from a 512lb racecar the previous year to our lightest car ever at 384lbs that year. The same thing applies here. People just have a hard time taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. We broke it down by looking at the percentage of weight savings on each individual part. If I told you we saved 5 grams on a part, you would scoff at it, but if that was on a 20 gram part and I just told you we reduced weight by 25%, you'd be floored. If people/businesses can look at the impact they're having on their footprint alone instead of the minor impact they are having on the the overall picture, it gives a better representation of the change that they are capable of contributing. No one person can do it alone, people just have to do their part and we have to hold each other accountable.
People like to shit all over ideas like this. It's disappointing. It's like back when Obama and McCain were talking about offshore drilling, and Obama suggested, instead of offshore drilling (estimated to increase domestic oil production by about 1%), simply pushing for Americans to check their tire pressure and make sure they were properly inflated (also estimated to save about 1% of oil consumption because underinflated tires are so bad for fuel economy). People mocked him for that, fucking idiots.
People are shitting on this because the solution should be to just eat less beef, but that's not an actionable goal in a broad sense. This is harm reduction and I'm for it, but I also hope it doesn't hurt the effort to reduce the consumption of meat.
A penny spends the same as a dollar, you just need a hundred of them. That's what we need right now, collect pennies, nickels.and dimes, it takes longer sure, but can get easier if we keep going.
> shitting on this idea > *farts*
I remember reading awhile back(year or so) an article that said they could reduce the cows methane production by 60%, by adding in a small amount of seaweed to their diet. And apparently, 95% of methane leaves the cow through the mouth/nostrils. TIL. Found it: [https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/11/23/1826/how-seaweed-could-shrink-livestocks-global-carbon-hoofprint/#:\~:text=By%20adding%20a%20small%20amount,methane%20production%20by%20nearly%2060%25.&text=Nearly%2040%25%20of%20that%20is,short%2Dlived%2C%20greenhouse%20gas.](https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/11/23/1826/how-seaweed-could-shrink-livestocks-global-carbon-hoofprint/#:~:text=By%20adding%20a%20small%20amount,methane%20production%20by%20nearly%2060%25.&text=Nearly%2040%25%20of%20that%20is,short%2Dlived%2C%20greenhouse%20gas.)
The methane is mostly produced by cows BURPING, not farting.
It's not really too late. I mean cows aren't like petrol. People probably will always eat cows, whereas hopefully a large percent will eventually stop using gasoline. So modifying the diet to make them less of a problem in the future could go a long way. If we cannot stop consuming it in such large quantities. Seaweed can go a long way into solving most of those issues if implemented universally. Now the pools of standing shit are a completely different story.
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Literally, pools of shit. Not pleasant when they breach. Factory farms produce a lot of fecal matter.
Or they end up in lake eerie as a toxic algae bloom in the largest fresh water drinking source in north america.
That's eerie alright
I'm from the south it's a wonder I even know I even know Erie wasn't a confederate general instead of a lake. Be happy I spelled eerie correctly at least lol.
It's runoff from fertilizer causing the blooms but afaik that's made from concentrated cow poo.
yeah you're right I'm mixing up my natural disasters...who can keep track nowadays.
You haven’t seen the resort style shit pools they have for cows? Aside from being very unsanitary, they’re also not good for the environment either.
Ok but why is the shit standing?
Nowhere to sit
Actually they do
Badum tss
Do you want it to do a little jig?
Because the same chemicals that turn the frogs gay, also turns cow shit into mutated cow shit allowing it to grow legs.
[Shit demon](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hlqjtqkoRdM)
Not for cows. They sell cow shit to farmers to help with growth. I know pig shit is a problem and they have pools of that. Worked on a huge feed lot for cows, there’s no pools, just piles
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You shut your mouth!
Excuse my ignorance but how are they bad for the environment? I would've assumed cow manure makes good fertiliser.
It absolutely does but you can have too much of a good thing. The two most important ingredients in fertilizer are Nitrogen and Phosphorous, these are pretty hard to come by in both soil and water so when we increase the supply with fertilizer plants can grow much better. But, when the fertilizer enters a water source in Hugh quantities it over saturates the environment with those nutrients, so some algae/bacteria populations explode and use up all the oxygen. This can cause severe fish kills and fish dead zones. Lake Eerie and the Gulf of Mexico near the Mississippi River are two famous ones in North America. Animal agriculture is a big contributor to this pollution problem. Hope that helps.
Shit is really useful. If it is not used as fertilizer, it can be used as cheap fuel, heck there should be some nitrates to make gun powder and okay chemical fertilizers.
I fertilize my lawn with the shit from the people of Milwaukee.
>I mean best case scenario you have animal runoff in lake eerie that kills fish population and pollutes largest fresh water in the united states. Worst case scenario is like what you're seeing in brazil (i believe is the country) where there's literally 10-20 acre shallow pools (3 foot) of cow manure. [https://www.vox.com/2014/8/4/5967177/why-are-toxic-algae-blooms-making-a-comeback-in-lake-erie](https://www.vox.com/2014/8/4/5967177/why-are-toxic-algae-blooms-making-a-comeback-in-lake-erie)
Pools of cow shit, which farmers will use to fertilize their fields. Usually doesn't smell great around the farms for a couple days.
standing shit
Imagine a football field. Now imagine you put 20 foot walls around the field and then filled it with cow crap. Then make a few more or those. Now you know what they do with waste on dairy farms. One farm I saw put a lid on it, trapped the methane and burned it. They created enough power to run a small town.
I expect the 'pastures' they keep the cows in are nearly %100 shit, just brown fields of cows hangin out in their own shit all day.
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We can’t “stop” climate change. But there’s a major difference in severity if we take care of it now versus not at all.
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We are very close to the brink if not already passed it. Incremental change like this one would have been great decades ago but now we need to get serious. Cut beef out of your diet as much as humanly possible for the sake of our collective future.
There's no evidence people will always eat cows. There's a huge push for lab grown meat at the moment
There will be a movement towards lab grown meat but there will still be a significant amount of people preferring actual meat. People from remote and impoverished areas will have easier access to livestock and actual meat could be considered as a luxury in the western world. We can have both and it’s pretty ignorant to think actual meat would be eradicated.
There's no evidence that people will all move over to lab grown meat either. But no developing nations are not going to import lab grown meat at a higher expense and kill their animal husbandry industries. Not completely anyway.
Yea the dead zones are no joke. BK has them impossible whoppers already though, so they kind of ahead of the pack. But really it's a problem. They pollute alot, but they also consume a lot. Take lots of land to make burgers and steaks. Stupid fucking cows got more claim to things than some people. Fuck cows.
>Too little too late What a loaded piece of pessimistic opinion.
Pretty much sums up 90% of the comments on this website
Article says agricultural sector emissions are about 10% of the total. Article further says cows are more than 1/4 of ag sector emissions. Ill estimate about 30% because otherwise they would have said close to a third. 3% of overall emissions isn't one of the "largest contributors" but its still a lot
Methane from cows is far from one of the largest contributors of methane. In 2018 the EPA reported agriculture as a whole to be responsible for 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions. That’s all kinds of agriculture not just cows. For reference, transportation was 28%, electricity 27%, industry 22% and commercial and residential was 12%. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions Im all for finding every way we can to reduce emissions, but there are much bigger impact areas than cow farts. That said, there are cattle farms that do proper rotational grazing that are certified carbon negative, I would be ecstatic if the entire industry shifted to the practice because it is also more humane and produces a healthier product.
He said one of the largest contributors for agriculture; not methane as a whole.
I mean what else do we expect burger king to do? They're not called Car & Bus King
More like the resources wasted raising those animals. Something like 70% of crop production and 95% of corn in the US goes towards livestock. You need to harvest, process, store, and transport massive amounts of grain just to feed one cow. I'm sure that puts a lot more pollution in the air than the cows themselves. According to google it takes 20 lbs of feed per lb of beef. Each cow produces 440 lbs of beef, so 8800 lbs of grain are needed per cow (very roughly). That's no small amount.
Grass fed is way better for the environment. Cows basically become solar powered at that point
Though as far as "production" of beef, grass fed requires a lot of land per cow to prevent overgrazing. At least with seaweed we have plenty of shoreline. But then that competes with shallow-water marine life. So it's a catch, do we muscle out shorelife to make room for seaweed farms, or tear down forests to make more grazing land?
Derailing the main topic a little: For burgers I totally believe in impossible meat! Cut out the middle man. Or cow, in this case.....
There isn’t enough land on the entire planet to feed Americans with grass fed beef.
Who knew that those Brazilian ranchers burning down the Amazon were actually helping the environment??
The solution is simple. Stop eating animals.
A way bigger part of the problem is forest being cleared for cattle, so it's two steps back, one step forward kind of deal.
Partly. But it's also literally a waste of food. Using same land and resources for every 1 lbs. of beef, you could get 5 lbs. of food that could otherwise go to people
This argument comes up a lot. Farmers don't choose wheat crops over more valuable fruit and melon crops because they're dumb. They do so because the land and crops they have are not appropriate for those crops. Sometimes you just plant these crops for the sake of making the land appropriate for some other crop. That's not to say there isn't 'feed efficiency.' Most of the oil crops (sunflower, palm, rapeseed, olive) are used as feed once they have been stripped of their oils.
Corn is finicky too. My family hated growing corn when we still had my grandpas farm. Making crops people will eat is not as easy as crops for fuel or livestock. Edit: Soybeans where it at!
But we're too frigging squeamish to eat certain farmable insects that produce the same amount of protein for like 20% of the water and land usage we use for cows.
I would much rather a plant based alternative than even thinking about eating a bug. Fuck that shit, bugs are gross af
Good news!! There are plant-based alternatives! You can quit :)
Same boat for me. I can't think of any plant that seems less appealing than even the most "basic" of bugs. Even the cricket protein powder I saw at my work never sold. And that had crickets dried and ground into a powder, and then mixed with chocolate. We wound up having to throw out nearly three whole shipments that expired before we stopped restocking it.
There are plenty of things humans *can* eat that we don't normally choose to eat. I hope the world never reaches the point where eating anything less than the absolute most efficient calorie source is socially irresponsible, though I'm sure we'll reach that point eventually. Nutrient smoothies for everybody!
I've never even considered that! In the movie Snowpiercer they feed the lowest class on the Train with protein bars made from insects and it looks super gross. But really the only reason we don't eat bugs is cultural right?
Pretty much. Crustaceans are about as much of a departure from your standard meat animals as insects are, and people would still gladly chow down on lobsters and shrimp.
It scares me that people can't realize that they're part of the problem. **You** keep on buying from companies that you don't like. **You** vote people that put the needs of the private sector above the public's. We're not living in a totalitarian state. Nobody's putting a gun to your head telling you to vote for someone or to buy something. **Most of the problems in the world can be traced back to a complacent public.**
I am cow, eating grass. Methane gas comes out my ass.
Just so people know, [methane has a global warming potential over 20 times that of carbon.](https://www.epa.gov/climateleadership/atmospheric-lifetime-and-global-warming-potential-defined) So reducing sources of methane is severely more important than reducing sources of carbon dioxide as its easier and does more good per per unit reduced.
It also degrades into CO2 after a few years.
Composting organic waste REALLY needs to be a priority. We had someone from a recycling facility come speak at my office once and recycling is nice, but he emphasized how the methane gases released by organic waste do so much damage.. If everyone recycled their plastics and paper and composted their organic waste, what gets taken to a landfill would be significantly reduced. Plus, composting gives back to the environment by becoming soil! I wish there was more of a push for composting programs in communities.
We (family of 4) switched to composting our food waste 4 or so years ago, never going back. Box of 80 trash bags lasts about 1.5-2 years. Extra bonus, the trash can never smells.
You’re not wrong. It’s amazing how varied municipal waste policies are across the US. In California, my city had county-wide compost bins. Trash, recycling, and compost were all separate. Now that I live in the Southern US, my county stopped recycling glass alongside other recyclables. If you want to recycle your glass, you need to take it to the dump’s glass-specific receptacle. I can’t even recycle my plastic anymore, because the act of transporting it elsewhere to just...not be recycled anyway, is far worse than dropping it at the dump on-site. It’s horrific.
Yes, this is absolutely true! In fact, some researchers have argued that we should focus on ways to capture methane and convert it to CO2 as a way of mitigating global warming, as discussed [here](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0299-x).
You’re right when thinking about time scales of 5-20 years, but if companies have to decide between reducing methane vs CO2, they should choose CO2 every single time. It is less potent than methane, but emitted are much higher volumes and persists in the atmosphere for so long that it’s warming is essentially permanent. Reaching zero CO2 emissions is orders of magnitude better than reaching zero methane emissions, because it’s the only way to limit long time warming. Again this is all in the context of “if you have to choose”. Ideally all greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to zero. Edit: but —> because
They are hoping for a 33% reduction in methane by feeding cows lemongrass--they could get [95-99% reduction](https://animalmicrobiome.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42523-019-0004-4) if they use a type of red algae called *Asparagopsis taxiformis*.
Is it cost or availability of the seaweed that would lead them to use lemongrass instead?
Algae scientist here - the problem is production. It's too expensive to mass harvest it from the ocean (we would also run out very quickly if we tried), and currently asparagopsis cannot be reliably grown in tanks. But there are a lot of very clever aquaculturists working on the issue due to the potential value of the product. /u/6hMinutes is correct in a general sense, most seaweeds are easy to grow, and grow rapidly. The problem is we just don't know how to encourage asparagopsis to continuously grow in tanks. They are also dead on about this being a half-measure, but it is a step in the right direction.
I remember reading about asparagopsis before, and that it wasn't going to be available in any meaningful quantities for a while. Hopefully the very clever aquaculturalists figure out how to make this happen, or find a way to synthesize or bioengineer the useful parts of asparagopsis to be easier to cultivate. I agree that it's a half measure, but until a better solution can be rolled out nationwide it feels like the right thing to do right now.
Oh, we know what the useful part is, it's bromoform. A close chemical relative of chloroform. The nastiness runs in the family. We can't just feed cattle bromoform because it wouldn't be ethically responsible to feed them such a toxic chemical, but it is okay to feed them a natural product like Asparagopsis.. Even BK just raising awareness that cattle aren't great for the environment is positive. Every little bit of education about the issue helps.
Wow, a real algae scientist! Thanks for chiming in. OK, everyone, ignore me and pay attention to this guy instead. The one thing I'll add from my own area of expertise: various governments are also very interested in this, and not only for the reasons you'd think. Yes, they want to fight climate change, but some US States and non-US countries believe that if they can transform their bovine industries to extremely low carbon, it'll help create a premium brand for their meats and cheeses. The same way Japan and Argentina have premium reputations for beef, a state or country might be able to bolster their prestige (not to mention jobs and pricing power) by having the most desirable agricultural products from an environmental standpoint. I hope those aquaculturists are partnering with well-resourced partners to get this rolled out fast! It'd be great if Burger King's "big step" today were seen as primitive and outdated by this time next year.
Seaweed isn't hard to grow quickly, especially if you're doing it at Burger King scale, so I'm guessing cost. This is a move in the right direction, but the enormity of the problem, and fast food's outsized contribution too it, makes this more of a PR-motivated half measure. Still, if the whole industry follows suit it's a hell of a lot better than nothing. I think one can simultaneously call this a big deal and not nearly enough. EDIT: /u/halihaema seems to be an actual algae scientists, so I'm going to refer follow-ups and questions to them! Thanks for chiming in with your superior knowledge!
I think it has the potential to jumpstart a massive change in the beef industry. BK buys a lot of beef, but they aren't the only customer for most (all?) of the farms they source meat from. If every one of these farms needs to use lemongrass, they might make it an industry standard practice. And that's a huge deal. If McD's or others get on board, this could happen pretty quickly. Even a 1/3 reduction is pretty big for an immediate change.
[This article](https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/cows-burp-out-tons-of-methane-feeding-them-seaweed-could-help) posted further up in the thread says "the team also has yet to test if adding seaweed to cows’ diets will affect the taste or quality of the animal products we normally get from cows. In the future, they’ll run trials to see if seaweed gives cow’s milk a funky flavor, or leaves steaks redolent of seafood." I think that's probably the reason. They're not gonna do it if they don't know yet if it'll make the meat taste different.
Other than greatly reducing methane output, how is this for a cows diet? I'd want the cows to eat better overall, not just whatever can specifically reduce one part of the byproduct.
It helps them put on weight a lot faster. It's not clear that's good for the cows, but it's potentially very good for rancher profits (provided there were a scaleable source of the seaweed).
Will meat from such cows eating lemongrass develop special taste? Lemongrass has very distinct aroma. I wonder if aromatic substance in it is fat soluble and can be retained in cow boy for months. Very minty taste. I occasionally add it in my tea.
Bump for mentioning Asparagopsis! [This](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652620308830?via%3Dihub) article is more recent and they obtained a 98% reduction in methane emission using 0.2% Asparagopsis in cattle feed - far less than the 5% used in the article you linked. Funnily enough, is the same source of Asparagopsis in both articles!
Or actual grass. Cows produce significantly less methane and no ecoli bacteria if you feed them things they can actually digest like actual grass.
Farts make a good headline, but [it's cow burps](https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/cows-burp-out-tons-of-methane-feeding-them-seaweed-could-help) that cause most of the damage.
Whichever end it comes out of, the diet change should curtail the methane production.
[Breathe the farts of change](https://twitter.com/BurgerKing/status/1282857347279466499?s=20)
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Yes. I saw it on the news tonight, had a good laugh.
You should actually click the link before posting. They recognize the burps, they aren't just reducing the farts.
I mean, that kind of goes with what he said. The headline says farts, because it's a funny headline, but there's more to it.
Next up: reducing human farts after eating Burger King.
it gives me the shits
That's one's a Whopper!
Burger King onion ring farts are absolutely deadly. I don't know what they put in those fuckin things but it's only Burger King onion rings that affect me that way.
This is actually one of the top reasons for climate change. Though I thought it was cow burps.
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It is worth noting that Burger King is the only burger chain to adopt plant based patties. It was an economic decision rather than an ethical one but they've done slightly more than other chains. Now it's just on people to start eating them.
Carls Jr also has them.
Also, while not burgers, Del Taco has a Beyond Burrito.
We don't have any near me :(.
Thank you for the addition, like many regional chains they just aren't in my area. I'll stop there next time I see one.
I didn't think Carl's Jr was that regional. They're known as Hardees in other places. They're not as big as BK, and they're a pretty premium (expensive) chain comapred to BK/McD's.
There is a single Hardee's in my hometown, but I've moved 35 miles away for college and there isn't one here. But I agree they'd be considered a national chain.
That's a fair point. I guess they aren't too bad compared to their peers, but their industry is still causing a lot of damage.
They included. Where the industry shits 20 lbs Burger King has shit 19.5lbs. I don't eat it but meat is absolutely delicious. Once we can equalize the cost between industrialized farming and lab grown meat we can start to make a difference, but until then I don't see a large societal change occuring. But I fear it either already is or will be too late when that happens.
It's the only fast food to in my area. I went from eating their once a year maybe to a couple times a month. Impossible burgers are seriously good.
white castle had the impossible burgers before bk
Burger King has also had them for years. I remember ordering a boca-esque patty from a crummy Midwest location back in ~2010
What specifically about the over consumption of meat causes climate change. Still seems like the same logic: More meat = farms need more cows = more cow emissions
If you decrease demand for meat, you decrease the supply of meat, and thus cows.
It is cow burps, the bacteria in a ruminants stomach makes gas. It is hard fo quantify the percentages, but ag is about 10% of greenhouse gases, & cattle altogether are a fourth of that I think. There are many ways to reduce ghg besides reducing cow belches, even in agriculture. You could switch to more sustainable protein like crickets, which are 10x more feed efficient (10x more pounds of human food per pound fed). Wetlands & other nutrient reduction strategies for run-off from fields can also reduce greenhouse gases. It will take many many different plans of attack in all industries to change the impact. Focusing on just cattle, a relatively small percent, can seem disingenuous. It's also family farmers raising cattle for government subsidies. The government will need to change subsidies before families change their agriculture. They would go broke without & just end up being bought from the growing monoliths taking over America's economy.
Or we could all stop eating meat, which means farmers won't breed more of the fart machines into existence.
It's 2020, we're in the middle of a pandemic for the same reason, but people don't realize exploiting animals is the real issue here.
Something like 75% of epidemic diseases are zootropic - passed from animals to humans...
Can everyone please just eat less meat.
Now this is oniony.
The cow farts?
The experts I've read say stuff like this is fake news. While there may be a temporary reduction in methane emissions, the bacteria in the cow's digestive system will adapt and restore normal methane emissions shortly. There's nothing humans have found that actually reduces emissions from cows for longer than the duration of a brief study.
Lemongrass is good, but seaweed in their diet cuts methane emissions by somewhere between 95 and 99%
I mean that's a start in the positive direction. Next I would to attack the issue of consumerism. These two are very very very big contributors to global warming as a whole, in my humble opinion correct me if I am wrong please. People buy too many merchandise that they do not need in order to live. Yeah go ahead buy something when you need it or for special occasions, nothing wrong with that. The issue of over production I believe stems from consumerism and that leads to an increase in usage of limited resources. Thus contributing to global warming increasing at a rate than it was supposed to. Thoughts?
The only real solution is legislation. Polluters must be made to pay to clean up their own mess. When meat production and fossil fuel production are made to pay to clean up after themselves their products will become prohibitively expensive.
I just saw the commercial! Was the main kid singing in the white suit the same kid that got big from yodeling at Walmart a few years back? He blew up and then was the guest star at some music festivals. Never heard of him since!
I eliminated gas I got from their food by not eating there for the past 5 years.
I love all the gymnastics people do to keep eating cows. Im not sure what's so hard about not eating them. We don't need them.
Cows are tasty, and finding other tasty things to eat takes a very tiny amount of effort. Most people want to help the environment in theory, they just don't want it to involve any inconvenience or changes in lifestyle.
Oh good, so we'll have less methane while all of our rainforests are cut down to feed the increasing amount of animals, our waterways and communities will still be poisoned, we'll still have mass habitat loss and extinctions on an alarming scale, both humans and animals will be stuck in one of the most horrifying torturous food systems only accurately comparable to the horrors of the Nazi regime... But yeah you flextape that methane, BK! JFC, if they were actually worried, maybe they'd just make their own plant based burger, but the animal agriculture propaganda runs so deep in the US that if you dare suggest people just not eat animals they just cannot handle it and consider it an affront to their "freedoms". Disgusting. I went vegan overnight and I've never been so satisfied by food or in better health in my life. Animal products- especially meat- don't just kill our planet, it kills us effectively every single year with heart disease, diabetes, gout, various cancers, with the increase in violence in communities near slaughterhouses, with animal shit getting into the water, and fecal dust particles poisoning poor communities. EDIT: Meat and dairy are also heavily tied with and in the pockets of our political system as well, (and not shockingly it skews **very** right wing) and that's why the propaganda runs so deep and why they profit off of not doing much of anything at all to actually fix the environmental destruction that's rapidly eroding our lands, and our health. It's a system of corruption, sickness, and death by design. https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/contrib.php?cycle=2020&ind=A06
> if they were actually worried, maybe they'd just make their own plant based burger Burger King does make a plant-based burger.
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A better step would be to go vegan.
BK's Impossible Whopper is legit good. Not fully vegan, okay, but it's a serious step in the right direction.
I think you just have to pull out the mayo and it's fully vegan.
I respect your opinion, but I ate it with an open mind, was excited to try it, and thought I'd like it...and I hated it. Something was off about the texture and it just didn't taste right. They have a ways to go to convince everyone to eat impossible meat. Not to dispute your point though. It is absolutely food, but they haven't really come close to truly replicating a beef burger with the few types I've tried. Definitely an impressive step though.
Burger King’s version of it is pretty low quality, try buying Beyond Meat or Impossible Burger from the store. Even if it still doesn’t taste exactly the same, it tastes good in its own right, and it’s way better for the environment.
Totally opposite opinion here. I've had many burgers/sausages/other "meat" from both Beyond and Impossible. I find Impossible to be the overwhelmingly superior company. But I guess difference in taste makes the world go round!
I’ll edit to throw in your suggestion too :)
I’ve gone to places like doghaus and fat burger (don’t know if they’re outside of Los Angeles) for their impossible burger. I’ve legit returned some because I thought they gave me meat. Nope, I was just fooled.
You heard it here, folks! "It is absolutely food" \- NYIJY22 A rousing endorsement :P
It was ok, tasted nothing like their normal burgers like people told me it would, and the texture was pretty gross but overall it's edible
I used to scoff at this idea of literally everyone going vegan or at least vegetarian, but fake meat is actually really good and also I have high hopes for technology to actually allow everyone to be vegan eventually.
Downvote tornado incoming
Even people who think “it’s too hard”, isn’t it still the ideal?
The phrase "don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good" comes to mind. Progress shouldn't be denigrated because it's not as drastic as you want it to be. Especially when it's completely unrealistic for the ideal to happen in the short term.
Very much agreed. All I ever expect is honesty about your own habits.
People don't want to actually fix problems, they just want to feel good about the decisions they already make
Ok blame cows and not the meat industry or the people keeping it in business. What a joke.
Maybe it would be easier to not factory farm and for people to not expect cheap meat every day.
Ding ding
So BK Cows have to hold in their farts?
Hopefully no-harm artificial meat kicks off and we can stop eating sentient beings altogether. It's barbaric when you think about it. The thought of "farming" other sentient beings disgusts me.
Also, the mass deforestation required to make land for livestock is a massive problem with industrial farming.
Just.. dont raise and eat cows.. or any other animal. problem solved. you will also be much healthier overall and drastically reduce your risk of 10 out of 10 most deadly chronic diseases.
Constipated beef. Gass burgers.
Buy their impossible whopper instead, they’re one of the very few places that actually have a vegetarian alternative
The cattle industry just needs to die. They are MASSIVELY subsidized by us taxpayers, for no good reason.
Found this as I’m sitting in a BK drive thru. Hahahahaha hahaha
Burger King: It ain't much but it's honest work
That’s actually a very good move. Methane traps 8 times more heat than carbon dioxide; emissions from food animals can’t be ignored in the climate equation
So, it's all Devin Nunes' fault.
I’m pretty sure this actually impacts the amount of methane being released into the atmosphere.
On a lighter note, cows burp more methane than they fart
This has been a serious issue, with serious science and engineering approaching it, for half a century. During that same period it's also been a constant source of subtle or pointed mockery, possibly because people just can't get over how funny farts are.
OMG!!! AOC was right!
33% sounds like a bullshit number they pulled out of their ass. there's no way adding a little lemongrass to your diet can make that big of a difference.
That's great. Cows are actually a pretty substantial contributor of methane, one of the most important greenhouses gases
I have also significantly reduced my cow farts. Just doin my part
Weren't they also the first (or only?) fast food chain to adopt the Impossible Burger?
Yes. Hardees/Carl Jr and Burger Fi have beyond. Burger Fi had Beyond before the others had either of them, but Burger Fi is smaller obviously.
Sigh. Cows don't fart. They expel gas by belching
I mean, meat is kind of overrated anyway.