Put a Cow In Your Tank

FWIW, it was the anti saturated fat trend that killed the use of lard, as tallow does not have transfats.
AO

The meat-production industry is a massive contributor to global warming, not to mention pollution and deforestation. To turn this into something "green" is spectacularly naive, not to mention irresponsible of Treehugger to report as such.

To quote one source:

"In a groundbreaking 2006 report, the United Nations (U.N.) said that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined. Senior U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization official Henning Steinfeld reported that the meat industry is “one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems.”

To take one small waste product from the final stages of a monstrously wasteful and destructive industry and make something less-polluting out of it is not green. The very definition of "green" should be in the larger view, something this product's marketing completely ignores (whitewashes).

aren't factory farms, THE biggest contributer to global warming? how is this saving anything? it's just a filthy disgusting by-product. its bad enough we eat animals, now we are going to have their dna running through our engines? this is disgusting.

I quit eating meat to spare a cow, not to shove one into my engine block. Ugh.

No one is going to stop people completely from eating beef. You're dreaming if you think so.
If the fat gets thrown out anyway, they might as well be putting it to a better use.. every little bit helps and I don't think an "all or nothing" attitude is very productive.

this product is hog(green)-wash.

"No one is going to stop people completely from eating beef. You're dreaming if you think so.
If the fat gets thrown out anyway, they might as well be putting it to a better use.. every little bit helps and I don't think an "all or nothing" attitude is very productive."

I second this sentiment. The reality is that there ARE factory farms even though they are disgusting/sad/enormous pollution sources. As long as they are around, and it looks like the will be for a while, the bi-products should at least be put to good use.

just because an industry exists does not mean that we should support it- including it's by-products. i'm by no means naive enough to think that people will stop eating beef. i am hopeful however that we can put an end to the corporations who are trying to kill us through their products, and damage to the earth. i refuse to give my money to any company, or industry that benefits off the pain, and suffering other other PEOPLE and BEINGS.

just because an industry exists does not mean that we should support it- including it's by-products. i'm by no means naive enough to think that people will stop eating beef. i am hopeful however that we can put an end to the corporations who are trying to kill us through their products, and damage to the earth. i refuse to give my money to any company, or industry that benefits off the pain, and suffering other other PEOPLE and BEINGS.

Anita and Daniel Quinn, above, are misguided in their sentiments, I think, because there's no such thing as "passive" support of the meat industry. That is, you can't make use of the byproducts of an industry without actively supporting that industry, in a very real financial way.

If we base economic models for products like this one around the ongoing existence of factory farms, then we're not just 'making the most of a bad thing'--we're creating new financial stakes in a bad thing, which helps ensure it will keep being a bad thing for a longer time. We'll be broadening the extent to which our economy relies on factory farming beyond the simple purchase of its end products by consumers, and having both unthinking/uncaring grocery shoppers and secondary corporations banking on factory-farmed meat is a bad long-term idea.

This is part of the reality recognized by vegans (which I am not, but hope to be someday), who realize that economically feeding any part of the animal-product industry (including leather and all the other non-edible products with animal ingredients) keeps the whole, cruel thing going. The only way to help break down the inhuman-industrial animal industry is to pull as many financial interests as possible out of it.

So, since these animals were born, lived, and died in misery, it's therefore better to throw away unwanted parts of their corpses than to use them to reduce pollution?

I do not think it is naive to believe one day people will stop eating beef. Indians have managed without beef, and we can too. Once upon a time our species needed the extra calories that meat provided to supplement our diet and develop larger brains. Once we learned to implement agriculture, and especially now that we can use our technology to create so many meat-substitutes, the need for meat in our diet is not longer justifiable.

When as a society we shift from seeing animals as food to understanding them as living beings that feel pain, pleasure, fear, and happiness, we will make the change. There is a difference in being unable to change and being unwilling to change, and my belief it that one day our better nature will shine through.

Meanwhile, there is no justification for products that create a secondary market from animal slaughter. None.

it's NOT reducing any pollution... the factory farms are still belching crap into our planet. (literally)

it's NOT reducing any pollution... the factory farms are still belching crap into our planet. (literally)

bottom line, as someone else said-- this is not a "green" product

As Kevin and other said, this is essentially greenwashing. In the end, it just supports an incredibly un-green process. It's no different from the "fur is green" campaign.

Indians didn't eat beef? What about BISONS? They're a closely related species. And they didn't throw away the by-products either. They made USEFUL PRODUCTS out of them!

Indians went without beef, but when they had it they often gorged themselves with it. They could survive droughts and famine with little to nothing to eat then when they got the chance, kill half a herd by driving them off a cliff -- much more than they could ever possible eat or use.

Funny,

We go from a postive use of a now waste byproduct into an anti meat eaters thread, now that is a stretch. lol

www.Free-Extended-Warranties-Distributorship.com

It's posts like this that make me not want to read Treehugger. Seriously, you're calling turning sentient beings into fuel a good thing. Think about that, is that really a good idea, is that sustainable? Seriously.

Seriously people. Until the day that no more people eat cows we might as well do something useful with the fat.