Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I read an article that was talking about out meat consumption and how adults really only need .25 to 1 pound of meat per week. Gee I eat that much per day

What do you guys think about that? Are we, as a society, over eating. Perhaps we could live on much less.

What did meals look like before 1950? Fried squash and onion rings? Does anyone know the answer that that? I know that my grand parents rarely are meat and they only went to the store for flour and sugar once every couple months.


My younger daughter naturally only eats one meal a day. We can't even force her to eat more. She just picks peas and strawberries out of the hydro garden through out the day to swipes a piece of bread from t he kitchen. Even so, she is loaded with energy and plays hard all day long. All this got me to thinking that a person can be very healthy eating much less. Which is a paradigm shift in thinking for me because I have been thinking that we must have .5 to 1 pound of meat per person per day to stay healthy. Which is quite expensive I might add. Also, looking at the amount of food that I have to grow to produce 90% of the food for our family is no small task! I have been experimenting with grazing. That is, I am not eating meals, but just snacking on veggies, fruit, nuts and the occasional meat sandwich. I am feeling better already, and we eat healthy anyway, but now I am eating a lot less. If eating less could be part of the answer then perhaps sustainable living might be a touch simpler that I have "made it out to be."

It seems to me that if we feed our fish a lot early on while they grow, 3% body weight, and as they approach maturity we cut it back to 1% body weight, then the same would apply to humans a well.. Heck when I was a teen I could work out side then eat 3 pizzas and drink 12 glasses of tea for lunch. Now 6 eggs in a day along with a few fresh spinach leaves is enough to get buy. I would appreciate any links or articles you guys might know about regarding the amount of food required to live.

One more thing. Its said that Americans are eating more meat per capita that ever before and it keeps going up. In 1961 meat consumption per person per year was 88.5 KG per year? and in 2002 was 124 KG per year. 140% more! Now I know that physical labor has only gone down. (data from earth trends, http://earthtrends.wri.org/searchable_d ... _countries)

Ok, a second thing I forgot to mention.. Health as steadily declined over the years.

Grazing is definately the way we should eat. I've done it that way nearly all my life.
I still sit down for the evening meal,,this is more a family/social interaction thing. Several small meals/grazing gives a relative constant blood sugar level and nutrient supply.
One only has to look around any western country to see what we are doing now is NO GOOD. Obesity is now considered the worlds largest killer,,,makes smoking look almost healthy.

I love my meat and eat it at least once a day,,,meat here in Aus is top quality and a lot cheaper than in the USA.Once again smaller quantities are better but that should NOT lead one to not have a HUGE BBQ cook up twice a month ( balance is the key , as it is with most things).

Ban McDonalds and Coke/Pepsi. You can cook a much better burger at home and you won't get those blinken pickle things to ruin it.

Wonder if its linked?

Yep,,that's the answer,,,BAN pickles on burgers.
Who came up with that dumb idea anyhow?

breakfast like a King
lunch like a prince
dinner like a pawper...

Do you want the long or short answer?
Truth is America is getting fatter- seats are getting larger, meal sizes have gotton bigger, more calories within a single meal, less physical activity- but I view obesity in a different light than most people- obesity, for good or for evil, is a sign of an opulent society and a fairly recent phenomenon. In ancient times, only the weathly were obese, "fat" women were desirable, most people were on borderline starvation and many succumbed.

Also too, you have to understand where we have come from- we had the stock market crash in the 20's, which concentrated the wealth to a lucky few but created "The Great Depression" for the rest of the nation. Men wandered throughout the country, looking for work, looking for food. Poor farm families shared their soup with passer-bys. I have talked to people who have given first hand accounts of how bad it really was. It was a dark time but joining the war brought us out of it. Except for this time, war has always been good for the economy.

Congress decided that Americans would never starve again and so enacted the original farm bill to ensure that food was produced in abudance and also cheap- that food is mostly corn and almost everything we eat is touched by it. Corn is not the best choice for a consistent diet because it is starch and all starch is, are complex sugars. But bad food is better than no food at all.

I watched a PBS special recently called "King Corn". Even as enlightened as I think I am, I still found some things shocking in it. Here is the website but if you get the chance, see the movie in it's entirety- it puts a lot of things into perspective.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/kingcorn/

The reason this is important to me is because I plan on producing all out own food.

If .25 pounds of meat per person is enough then I already have a AP system that will meet my families needs! That is very sustainable! If its not enough protein then I need to keep building. My plans are/were to make 3 more AP systems that are the size of my new system, but if that is not required then I cap put that money into solar cells, cool tubes, or other technology that will liberate more of my income from the hands of the corporations which can be applied to the next step.

AHHh,you are producing 0.25 pounds of fish. Red meat ( in small amounts) is a very important part of a healthy diet,,,even more so for women than men. I've always used the 4:3:2 system,,4 meals fish per 3 meals chicken/turkey/Quail per 2 red meat.
Have you got room for pigs/goats/sheep/cattle?

Variety is the key.

I have two dexter cows coming next month(I have some fencing to get done asap), the mother is pregnate too! We also have chickens in a chicken tractor. So we have variety. I am going to stick to greens and highly productive veggies for the growbeds.

Sounds great Dan,,,sideissue,,,for smaller land areas take a look at "Lowline cattle",becoming very popular.
http://www.lowline.com.au/beef.html

I like the small cows, they finish on just grass, have great weight to harvested meat ratio and the dexters only need .5 acres to grow to maturity on grass..

I do not have access to lowline cows persay, but the dexter is a good choice..

The person we are buying from is getting 60% kill out!