
Josh Tetrick's food revolution: saving the world one egg at a time - miraj
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/mar/20/josh-tetrick-hampton-creek-food-revolution-saving-the-world-one-egg-at-a-time
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codingdave
I want to like this idea. I agree that the world's food supply is a critical
issue. But I'm just not agreeing with some of the underlying assumptions.

Are eggs really the problem we need to be solving? Sure, commercial chickens
farms are scary. But locally sourced eggs / backyard chickens makes more sense
to me than commercially produced egg substitutes.

After all, how are those peas being produced? Is it a large monoculture
operation, involving massive amount of chemicals and fertilizer? Or is it
sustainable and organic? Can the operation scale if it becomes as successful
as the current industry leaders?

To be fair, a brief article probably can't get into enough depth to answer
those questions - maybe these guys have good answers. I'm just a bigger
proponent of the local food movement vs. a new take on commercial operations.

~~~
elevensies
The energy input for animal products is higher across the board than for plant
products [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/webber-more-
effici...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/webber-more-efficient-
foods-less-waste/) . Even if you grow the chickens better way, you still need
to grow the feed, so you are back to the original problem. If the chicken feed
can be grown in a good way, then so can the peas probably.

So -- just moving from eggs to a plant based substitute, changing nothing else
about the agricultural process, would reduce any negative consequences of
farming.

~~~
codingdave
We feed our chickens our kitchen scraps and leftovers. We also house them
under our apple trees so they can catch any windfall and eat any bugs or
rodents that arrive. We move the straw out of the rabbit runs and put it into
a container in the chicken run, so the chickens also pick the seeds and bugs
out of there, too, and start the composting process so all that material can
get recycled. They also fertilize our apple trees with their waste, and the
compost that comes out of this process is used in our gardens.

So the chickens pretty much take care of themselves... lets talk the next step
up - the rabbits. They feed on the grass and other plants that grow in our
fields, as we move their mobile runs around the property. We also provide them
with straw and alfalfa that has been locally grown. (We do buy that from one
of our neighbors.)

So yes, we do feed our animals - but a lot less than one might think, and most
of it comes from our own land. We take advantage of materials that would
otherwise be waste, and use them to have a more sustainable operation. It will
always be true that the same amount of resources could produce more plants (if
your gardens grow perfectly)... that math is inarguable. But if you build a
full ecosystem around your animals, you can do fairly well.

~~~
will_hughes
How much land are you using to produce food for how many people?

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comrade1
Since moving to Switzerland I've learned how much better the basic old-
fashioned foodstuffs are. Mayo made with egg, oil, vinegar, lemon, and
mustard. No preservatives. Bread made the day you eat it, no preservatives.
Amazing cheese. Amazing, but expensive, meat. The same ingredients in the u.s.
are disgusting - flavorless chicken and pork, sour beef, horrible bread...

This stuff that's popular in s.f. right now seems like a step backwards to
1950s 'high-tech' food. First slurm or whatever that gray goop was, and now
mayonnaise made with peas. Yeah, sounds great.

Edit: wanted to mention the sausage/salami too. Sausage made with raw pork and
non pasteurized is just incredible. They've been making it this way for a
thousand years. There no need to pasteurize it. Sausage in the u.s. is a pale
comparison.

And also the flour is different here too - gives better croissants and bread.

~~~
ironchef
> The same ingredients in the u.s. are disgusting - flavorless chicken and
> pork, sour beef, horrible bread...

Of course. Most of the mass produced stuff is horrible. Think about pork for
example. They even put on the "other white meat" branding. Pork isn't supposed
to be white. Now if you want to say that about a lot of the beautiful
heirloom-y meats and produce in the farmers markets in the US, you're
absolutely incorrect.

> This stuff that's popular in s.f. right now seems like a step backwards to
> 1950s 'high-tech' food. First slurm or whatever that gray goop was, and now
> mayonnaise made with peas. Yeah, sounds great.

Actually, the just mayo is fairly decent. I make my own mayo most of the time,
but I can see where they're coming from with it. It's got some nice acidity
and is smooth like homemade. They're also having some of the best chefs in the
world working with the stuff to make sure it's up there from a quality
perspective. Also, they're trying to attack things from a sustainability
perspective which is pretty interesting. Is it worth it that the 6 eggs you
used to make mayo cost around 300 gallons of water to make? Combine that with
the fact that most factory farmed eggs taste horrible to begin with. I'm happy
some place is looking at the quality _and_ sustainability.

~~~
steverb
Where does the 50 gallons of water/egg figure come from?

I've got chickens, they don't drink that much water and they don't eat that
much food.

~~~
ironchef
I've seen numbers from 30 to 120. I think GRACE says 53 per egg. American
water says 120. Orange county water says 36 gallons, etc. It's all over the
board and it depends what they're including. For straight up water, I've heard
an individual hen is probably a bit less than a pint of water per day. They
then start including things like how much water is used to grow the grain they
feed the birds (about a half cup day per). It all depends on what's _actually_
included (as well as things like egg laying / lifetimes (hens don't get into
the thick of it until probably around 6 months in)).

Unfortunately I've never been able to find a _real_ number which is indicative
of the food cycle, etc.

