Danish Government Thinktank Proposes "Red Meat" Eco-Tax

The picture of the viking reenactors is ironic. I’m pretty sure I know how a viking would react to being told not to eat red meat … or being told anything else for that matter.

A major benefit of the Viking diet was the fact that every level of society, from kings to common sailors, ate meat every day. Often this would have been pork, as hogs were easy to raise and quick to mature, but Vikings also ate beef, mutton and goats. Horses were also raised for food, a practice that led to later clashes with Christian leaders, as horsemeat was a forbidden food under church doctrine. Vikings were avid hunters, and would capture reindeer, elk and even bear to bring back to the hearth fires. And of course, since Vikings spent so much time on the water, fish formed a major part of their diet. Herrings were abundant, and prepared in a plethora of ways: dried, salted, smoked, pickled and even preserved in whey. link

The Vikings invaded “England” because they were, pretty much, starving and fighting among themselves and discovered “wealth” (Land to grow stuff like, errrm, food etc) there. And now they want to apply their values on the rest of us? Foxtrot Oscar Denmark! Don’t export your “culture” this time. I am happy to remain a Saxon!

The only safe way to eat grains is to cycle them through a cow first.
GPS, this time it means Grains, potatoes, sugar. Eliminate from your diet.

From the much maligned Wikipaedia:
“In October 2011, Denmark introduced a fat tax on butter, milk, cheese, pizza, meat, oil and processed food if the item contains more than 2.3% saturated fat. However, in November 2012, the Danish Tax Ministry announced it would abolish the fat tax, stating that it failed to change Danes’ eating habits, had encouraged cross border trading, put Danish jobs at risk and had been a bureaucratic nightmare for producers and outlets. The proposed sugar tax plans were also scrapped.
Mette Gjerskov, the Danish minister of food, agriculture and fisheries, stated that “the fat tax is one of the most criticized we had in a long time. Now we have to try to improve public health by other means.” Although the tax resulted in an additional $216 million in revenue, it also led to numerous complaints from Danish retailers that their customers were taking their business to other countries, such as Sweden and Germany, to take advantage of their lower prices.”
Perhaps instead of trying to discourage Danes from eating ‘red meat’, the Danish Council on Ethics should try to get them to eat ‘long pig’ instead. This would be an acceptable substitute for beef and pork, and also help to keep the population down, thus automatically reducing CO2 emissions. For those who may be worried, this was foreshadowed by Jonathan Swift, in his “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick”.

The Eloi are restless.

Isn’t Denmark the country that lost over $1 billion in the carbon market trading scam? I guess they need more of other people’s money for the next scheme. But then it isn’t ever your money in Denmark. It’s the collective’s money.

One area (among many perhaps) where the calculation is flawed comes from a lack of consideration of the aspect of feed. Gringojay above mentions the amounts of feed grain necessary in particular instances. Fair enough. What the vast majority of the public and almost certainly those spouting various water claims don’t recognize is that if we don’t feed that “feed” grain to the animals then it will no use at all. Grain is graded for a variety of reasons that can be mostly distilled down to “quality”. Using wheat as an example, at a particular grade it will be very well suited to baking and is of very high quality with very little in the way of defects. In Canada for example you can have #1, #2, #3 or feed grade wheat and all will meet different sets of standards. But that feed grade is, for various reasons (mildew, sprouted, ergot, etc.) not suitable for the uses for human consumption. It’s not necessarily unhealthy (ergot) but may not produce the quality of flour necessary to bake a consistent product. As such it ends up as feed. Farmers strive to have the best quality of wheat (or any other grain for that matter) because it yields the highest dollar return to them, logically because it can subsequently be sold for the most money. No farmer strives to grow feed grade wheat.
Why is this relevant? Simply because any amount of feed grade grain production should be excluded from the water equation. So all the inputs involved, particularly water, should not be factored in simply because little to none of that grain was targeted to be fed to animals. Mother nature simply ensures through various mechanisms (temperature, drought, insect of pathogen damage) that we do indeed have enough to feed to various forms of livestock. I would put a year’s paycheck on the line to suggest that is NEVER factored in to any calculation regardless of how much or how little it is exaggerated.