Posted on 07/30/2022 5:20:07 AM PDT by FarCenter
In the U.S., people eat more protein than they need to. And though it might not be bad for human health, this excess does pose a problem for the country’s waterways. The nation’s wastewater is laden with the leftovers from protein digestion: nitrogen compounds that can feed toxic algal blooms and pollute the air and drinking water. This source of nitrogen pollution even rivals that from fertilizers washed off of fields growing food crops, new research suggests.
When we overconsume protein—whether it comes from lentils, supplements or steak—our body breaks the excess down into urea, a nitrogen-containing compound that exits the body via urine and ultimately ends up in sewage. Maya Almaraz, a biogeochemist at the University of California, Davis, and her colleagues wanted to see how much of this nitrogen is being flushed into the U.S. sewage system because of a protein-heavy diet. The researchers combined population data and previous work on how much excess protein the average American eats and found that the majority of nitrogen pollution present in wastewater—some 67 to 100 percent—is a by-product of what people consume. “We think a lot about sewage nitrogen. We know that’s an issue,” Almaraz says. “But I didn’t know how much of that is actually affected by the choices we’re making way upstream—when we go the grocery store, when we cook a meal and what we end up putting in our bodies.”
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Their new study, published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, broke down protein requirements by age (adults 50 to 70 years old need the most) for the current U.S. population and projected future populations out to 2055. By midcentury, the country’s population is expected to be larger overall and to have a greater percentage of older people. The researchers calculated the amount of nitrogen that would enter the environment if people ate today’s average American diet and if they instead reduced their protein intake to only what is nutritionally needed. This shift in diet alone could reduce the amount of nitrogen reaching aquatic ecosystems by 12 percent today and by nearly 30 percent in the future, according to the study’s results. Such a change could also help reduce damaging nitrogen pollution while wastewater infrastructure catches up.
No more meat for you!
No word on the excess estrogen in wastewater due to The Pill.
Zee plan is vorking!
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/beef-prices-set-surge-further-060315310.html
Beef prices set to surge further as farmers sell off cattle herds
With the price of ground beef up 9.7% in June from the same month a year ago, the ongoing decrease in supply could cause prices to surge even further than earlier estimates. The USDA’s previous ...
Yahoo Finance3h
No... it’s all the psychotropic drugs big pharma and medical whackos are pumping into our young people that’s being peed out. lol
BS (never thought I would give the Scientific American a double-take making sure it wasn’t a Babylon Bee article.)
bugs live outside and a higher order preys on them...man has no reason to stoop to that level....he has fire...for steaks...and bacon...
un - scentific un- american
Chick-fil-A will become Tick-fil-A and the cows in the ads will carry signs saying “EAT MOR BUGZ”
Can’t have Americans building too much muscle. It could lead to toxic masculinity. The snowflakes can’t handle it, and it makes it tougher for our enemies.
Actually, most people don’t eat enough protein. To shortcut the explanation, the obesity epidemic in this country is NOT from too much protein.
These people are Godless psychos.
I’m not eating bugs.
Beef. Its what’s for dinner.
These people are begging for major unrest !
———at the University of California, Davis,——
Therefore, the woman is a radical Californian and has zero credibility. Science projected from UC Davis is radically polluted with leftist idealism
Woketardians should show support for their claim by holding it in and never going.
First sentence and I stopped there (I did scan a little of the rest)! Say, what about all the wild carnivores? Don't they eat a lot of meat? How is their pee? Magically non-toxic? Aren't the Lefties telling us bugs are high in protein?
I'm going out for a breakfast taco, with sausage...
Communism is great at solving imaginary problems. Prove that is a problem science.
The excess hormones from medications, especially with the current trans fad, and from birth control pills seem far more concerning.
Such a shame. I remember when SA an esteemed respectable scientific publication based on hard science without any political contamination. That was a long time ago.
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