• NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 months ago

    At least six billion land-based “food animals” would also be spared from slaughter annually

    I doubt it

      • NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        this assumes the animals are slaughtered for pet food, but they aren’t. the meat fed to pets is generally the worst cuts of the animal and the offal, meaning that feeding this to pets is a conservation of resources.

        • maryu
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          3 months ago

          tbh, i don’t understand those mathematics from this study xd

          https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0291791#sec014

          Around 75% of the animal-based ingredients of pet food are byproducts of making food for humans. These byproducts include ears, snouts and internal organs, and are usually considered inedible by people. Some are sold cheaply to pet food manufacturers, and it’s long been assumed that this lowers its environmental impact by curbing the number of livestock animals that need to be killed.

          However, my research using additional meat industry data demonstrates the opposite. I found that a smaller proportion of carcasses are used to make byproducts than meat. This increases the number of carcasses required to produce the same quantity of pet food ingredients. Demand for byproducts from the pet food industry actually increases the number of livestock animals killed.