Would it be more efficient to process the whole body of an animal into "meat"?

[ZetaX]

Read my post again: it does not matter. Pigs are not going to magically make the dangerous diseases go away - just like that did not happen with cows. Bacteria we can probably deal with, the others are a little bit dicey.

a) Your post read fully and completely like you are talking about people eating people, which the original one did not talk about.

Citation needed. Going through a different kind of animal should get rid of most adverse effects of canibalism.

[shynung]

Going through a different kind of animal should get rid of most adverse effects of canibalism.

Unfortunately, that's also a ^{[citation needed]}.

[ZetaX]

Actually it is not: I just gave this as a simple example how his argument might completely fail. The claim was his, and thus so is the burden of proof.

[shynung]

Actually it is not: I just gave this as a simple example how his argument might completely fail. The claim was his, and thus so is the burden of proof.

Sir, you're trying to falsify a dubious claim with another. I do not see how you might prove the original claim wrong.

That said, I'd rather not eat pigs that had human remains as part of its meal. Sounds a lot like Soylent Green.

Edited July 13, 2014 by shynung

[ZetaX]

No, I am giving a _possible_ argument why his statement is at least not that probably as he thinks it to be. I am not falsifying anything here.

And Soylent Green (aka food made from humans) would, if getting rid of the abovementioned illnesses, be pretty fine as long as the humans used died in a completely unrelated/natural way. It is simply an efficient use of ressources instead of letting them rot away.

[Dispatcher]

And Soylent Green (aka food made from humans) would, if getting rid of the abovementioned illnesses, be pretty fine as long as the humans used died in a completely unrelated/natural way. It is simply an efficient use of ressources instead of letting them rot away.

"Humans used"? Hmmm, now there's a slogan. "Our meats died of natural causes." Appetizing? Probably not. If people's remains are allowed to return to the environment, they would contribute to the ecosystem by helping to supply nutrients to the lower food chain; as in plants.

[Armchair Rocket Scientist]

L-Cysteine (in the EU marked as E920 or E921) is widely used in the food industry. In particular in the baking of bread. And guess where it comes from: hair. It is even made from HUMAN hair.

Enjoy your meal!

And? Cellulose, aka dietary fiber, is a polymer of glucose, the same sugar that makes up starch. In theory, it's very nutritious. So why can't we fill our carbohydrate needs by eating grass and other leaves? Because our stomachs can't actually break cellulose into individual glucose molecules. Animals like cows can, but only with the help of bacteria, and the process isn't particularly efficient.

Similarly, hair is made mostly of the protein keratin, which is made of amino acids including cysteine. Unfortunately, this is what happens when humans try to eat hair. Theoretically, if the "meat" were ground up enough, the hairs would be too short to stick together and accumulate in the stomach, but there are many other reasons why grinding up an entire animal carcass is a bad idea.

Also, as others in the thread have mentioned, there are many specific products that use non-meat parts of the animal.

http://www.cattle-empire.net/blog/123/many-uses-cow-beef-products

So, very little of the animal is actually "wasted." At worst, material is used as fertilizer or animal feed, which can actually be very effective. For example, bone meal is an excellent source of phosphorus for plants.

Basically, trading labor and equipment costs for being able to use every part of the animal in the most efficient application, which seems to work fairly well.

[Nuke]

No, I am giving a _possible_ argument why his statement is at least not that probably as he thinks it to be. I am not falsifying anything here.

And Soylent Green (aka food made from humans) would, if getting rid of the abovementioned illnesses, be pretty fine as long as the humans used died in a completely unrelated/natural way. It is simply an efficient use of ressources instead of letting them rot away.

i figure most of the bodies used in the production of soylent green came from the suicide centers.

[ZetaX]

"Humans used"? Hmmm, now there's a slogan. "Our meats died of natural causes." Appetizing? Probably not. If people's remains are allowed to return to the environment, they would contribute to the ecosystem by helping to supply nutrients to the lower food chain; as in plants.

Read the whole story please: the discussion was about feeding dead humans to pigs and eating those pigs.

[Dispatcher]

Actually, the OP seems a little different from much of this thread as it stands now. However, the idea of feeding dead humans to pigs, etc., is a bit taboo in most parts of the world. Others above have pointed out that there are efficient ways of producing protein and other nutrients in an economical and more culturally acceptable manner.

[John FX]

Ground bones as animal feed might be acceptable as additives, but I'm not sure about bowel contents. I mean, aren't bowel contents literally excrement-in-the-making?

Yup, your `meat` would be partly metal (calcium) and partly poo...

As someone said, we don`t really throw anything away now. Maybe your machine could separate the proper meat from the bones and guts etc and provide a few resources, like bone, animal feed, fertilizer, and meat.