At least in the USA, this could in principle be fixed by ending the corporate welfare state. Old news, but All major industries like the beef industry get huge tax breaks, free water and other giveaways at the general taxpayer’s expense.
Fixing the corruption (both democratic and republican parties) in our our political would end up helping the environment a lot. That said, we have zero chance of fixing our corrupt political system. It will never happen, the elites have won that war.
One problem with reducing meat consumption is the general low skill level for cooking. Vegetarian food can taste better than meat dishes but you need skill and good ingredients. I have mixed feelings about Beyond Meat: my wife and I love the hot Italian sausage and burgers, but it is really not that healthy.
- which persuasively argues (with multiple sources) that the US meat industry depends upon massive labor exploitation of undocumented immigrants in order to 1) suppress wages and 2) maintain an otherwise intolerable working environment.
This shows that the problem is not simply corrupt legislation and lobbying, but a de facto symbiotic relationship between the meat industry, federal immigration authorities and border coyotes to maintain artificially low prices.
> which persuasively argues (with multiple sources) that the US meat industry depends upon massive labor exploitation of undocumented immigrants in order to 1) suppress wages and 2) maintain an otherwise intolerable working environment.
That's well-known about the meat industry. The problem with suggesting it as a reason to avoid meat in favor of vegetable-based food is the same is well-known to be true of agriculture generally.
Wouldn't the relationship between the meat industry and federal immigration authorities be the opposite of symbiotic? Federal immigration aims to curb the illegal immigration off of which (we reasonably alledge) the meat industry is profiting. Surely this is evident by the inclusion of "border coyotes" in the alleged symbiotic relationship?
> I have mixed feelings about Beyond Meat: my wife and I love the hot Italian sausage and burgers, but it is really not that healthy.
I totally get this, and have similar feelings. But I try to remind my self what Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger are competing with: meat. They have similar saturated fat profiles to their "real" alternatives.
I look at these meat alternatives as mostly beneficial for:
1. Meat eaters looking to eat more sustainably, but continue eating burgers and sausages and whatnot occasionally
2. "Cook out" situations where you can bring a good veggie burger and not be a total social weirdo eating grilled corn by yourself. And it's a good conversation starter, and others are usually intrigued enough to try, and impressed after having done so.
Why do you guys think saturated fat is bad for you? Certainly when fried it's much much healthier as it doesn't decompose into cancerous aldehydes. The science on this is very tainted so I would be very careful about assumptions here. Are there other things apart from saturated fat you are worried about?
We've been trying to cut our meat consumption, but the cooking complexity is exactly my issue. We're lazy but healthy eaters, meaning our regular entrees are a meat and a couple veggie sides. We also do low carb, mainly because it's just easier to limit calorie intake that way. Most of the dinner work is usually cutting and preparing vegetables. When we cut meat, it cuts the main portion of the entree, which can sometimes be filled with baked potato, corn on the cob, some quinoa thing, but it's not as satisfying and gets boring. We don't like buying processed foods, and soups without meat are nearly a no-go for me. But hey, I'm limiting consumption so I guess I'm doing my part.
Yeah, as a vegetarian I can do some awesome things with lentils, but I remember the days when I could rub some spice on a pork chop and throw it on the grill and then have something boxed and starchy on the side and have a pretty decent meal.
Meanwhile, a good lentil stew is a much more involved project. Much less home-made veggie burger patties which have dozens of ingredients and elaborate preparation processes.
Going full vegan is even harder, because cheese is a pretty good shortcut to making hearty food.
> We don't like buying processed foods, and soups without meat are nearly a no-go for me. But hey, I'm limiting consumption so I guess I'm doing my part.
I lean toward the carnivore spectrum but there are a couple meatless soups that I enjoy:
* New England clam chowder
* Corn chowder
* Barley mushroom (though it’s even better with meat)
* Gazpacho
And while I’d never order it if given the option for a “real one”, vegetarian pho was surprisingly good.
Healthiest way to go about it is to go low-fat, high carb. The body uses glucose for energy most easily. Whole-foods plant based diets, as shown in documentaries like Forks Over Knives, have been shown to let people lose weight and reverse diseases like diabetes. A cooked carb like a potato or rice is like 1 calorie/gram, including the water. Oil is 9 calories/gram. Without oil, sheer food volume and fiber will make you feel full. A huge portion of the world thrives on grains and legumes as staples.
This way you are missing maybe 90% of the soups of the world. Maybe try some exotic spices - I used to hate tomato soup from our school canteen with passion, but once I tried a properly spiced variant in Nepali Himalayas, things were never the same again (for the better) and I love it these days (I mean the Nepali version)
> I have mixed feelings about Beyond Meat: my wife and I love the hot Italian sausage and burgers, but it is really not that healthy.
Beyond Meat is competing with freezer aisle foodstuff and there it handily wins out in just about every category (price, taste, nutrition), even if objectively it's unhealthy for you.
There's a world of vegetarian options outside of the preprocessed fauxmeats (including the entire produce section).
> I have mixed feelings about Beyond Meat: my wife and I love the hot Italian sausage and burgers, but it is really not that healthy.
Regular veggie burgers and other products (not trying to imitate meat) are usually really good. They should embrace the fact that they can include a vast array of vegetables and spices. Example: Morningstar farms has a chickpea burger I really like. Also it's much cheaper than Beyond products. I share your concern about the Beyond products (and other vegetarian products); if I want a ton of saturated fat, I'd just eat meat. Chicken and fish are healthier than Beyond.
A society that eats less meat (or none) is inevitable given time, for both moral and practical reasons of health, scarcity and environmental impact. We should teach people to cook healthy vegan food that they enjoy. Just providing food options people enjoy without meat will reduce meat consumption without pushing a moral agenda that often receives hysterical responses.
Disclaimer: I eat meat, though I've been eating less for the above reasons.
>We should teach people to cook healthy vegan food that they enjoy.
That just isn't realistic; you'll wind up with a lot of really unhealthy people eating food they hate. Not everyone is good at cooking, and one big reason veganism is so unpopular is because it's so hard to make anything that tastes good with it. Meat is easy to cook, even for people who aren't very good at cooking. And veganism is generally unhealthy, because most people aren't dedicated or good enough at it to get the proper nutrition, so they leave out critical nutrients, whereas with meat it's really easy to get everything you need (like iron).
Expecting the whole populace to get good at cooking vegan food is like expecting the whole populace to become very skilled at C++ programming (including template metaprogramming). It isn't going to happen.
If someone makes vegan pre-made meals that can just be microwaved, that would be different.
> One problem with reducing meat consumption is the general low skill level for cooking. Vegetarian food can taste better than meat dishes but you need skill and good ingredients. I have mixed feelings about Beyond Meat: my wife and I love the hot Italian sausage and burgers, but it is really not that healthy.
What? I make stew of any legumes and it does not require more skills than cooking meat.
I read some study somewhere, which says eating meat makes you more sexually attractive and your features are developed better if you eat meat.
If there the case, I don't think you can convince people to not eat meat because it's like telling them to stop using makeup or stop making efforts to become mor handsome/beautiful
> You want to find a rare issue with bipartisan support? Try raising the price of food and seeing how people like it.
Food stamps are designed to raise the market clearing price of food as a subsidy to agriculture (they’ve since become a means-tested welfare program as well, while retaining the original purpose); they have fairly strong political support, which definitely shows a partisan divide.
The Dairy Price Support Program and other agricultural price support programs likely continue to exist despite having the sole purpose of raising the price of food; were raising the price of food the kind of third-rail you are trying to imply, there would be a bipartisan consensus against such programs that would make it impossible to retain them.
> One problem with reducing meat consumption is the general low skill level for cooking. Vegetarian food can taste better than meat dishes but you need skill and good ingredients
No, why? Not at all... My cooking skill level is knowing how to use a
stove. What good ingredients do you mean? In my experience cooking
meat is always the hardest part.
> At least in the USA, this could in principle be fixed by ending the corporate welfare state. Old news, but All major industries like the beef industry get huge tax breaks, free water and other giveaways at the general taxpayer’s expense.
Unfortunately, in my experience when I bring this up the typical response us that I must be a socialist.
In America, saying anything unAmerican is "socialist". So advocating things like much stricter gun laws, more public transit, or ending tax breaks and other giveaways to large politically-connected corporations are unAmerican and therefore "socialist" in American parlance.
> That said, we have zero chance of fixing our corrupt political system
We do have a chance. It's not going to be long until a critical mass of individuals understand that democracy is a system that legitimizes coercion, and that taxation is theft and generates poverty. We just need one more generation until that happens.
When people reach that conclusion, they will move their money away from fiat currencies and they will move their information into distributed systems (eg. blockchains).
By consequence they will make states and coercion not viable. Without the ability to control currencies, states go bankrupt and can't even pay for people to steal your money.
Welcome to anarcho-capitalism, while I wait for the downvotes.
If putting your money in crypto prevents you from paying taxes, it's you who'd go to jail. If any government saw a dip in taxes, they'd just pass a law requiring an "internet driver's license". Then require your wallet number. Such licenses are already common, outside the US.
So, less anarcho anything. More jail time, and then forced labor, and then one again paying taxes.
"Animal agriculture is responsible for 13–18% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions globally, and less in developed countries (e.g. 3% in the USA). Fossil fuel combustion for energy and transportation is responsible for approximately 64% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions globally, and more in developed countries (e.g. 80% in the USA)."
I think in the USA, it would be more productive to address the 80% as higher priority than reducing the 3%. I think this veganism initiative is also more driven by morality and political partisanship than by an effort to find a realistic and practical solution to GHG emissions. And this can backfire: I believe that a reason why nearly half the country will not even openly admit there is a problem, is because they fear the consequences of political over-reaction more than the problem itself.
Eating less meat is not veganism. It's not even vegetarianism.
It's not the first time that I'm seeing reactions about this report to focus on veganism. I don't understand where it comes from: the word "vegan" is absent from the article and the IPCC report doesn't recommend a any diet.
I understand debate about this report and the impact of agriculture and breeding, but I don't understand why the debate is centered around veganism.
If you trace the origin of most of these low meat consumption pushes, its often vegan groups with an agenda trying to get the governments ear. Problem is, the recommendations and studies they site don't stand up to real scrutiny. For example they often say you should not exceed the RDA for meat consumption, without realizing that an RDA is the bare minimum to not be nutrient deficient. It is by no means the optimal level of protein consumption and likely a detrimental recommendations for the vast majority. When called out on it, they will pull the GHG card, but at 3% of US GHG emission even that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Then they pull the morality card, without realized that row crop harvest kill vastly more small animals per harvest. Its all rooted in bias, plane and simple. The most vocal are the vegans and they make a convincing surface argument.
Indeed. It is not an all or nothing kind of thing. I've been eating less meat lately for a number of reasons, but I'm far from being vegan.
The Skeptical Science link doesn't seem to touch on water usage, only focusing on greenhouse gas emissions. Groundwater decline and depletion is another factor that should be kept in mind as people consider their food choices.
it's a knee jerk reaction when people hear "eat less meat" they think "vegans". It's easier to downplay facts and argue against ghosts when you can associate what you don't like hearing with people who are commonly hated.
Is that 3% number associated with meat production in the USA or with meat consumption in the USA? If it's the former, then 3% would be an underestimate of the impact of reducing meat consumption, since the 3% doesn't include the emissions impact of feed and livestock that is imported.
That is true, but I think the point stands. As (mostly) programmers we're quick to understand and make use of practical rules like Ahmdal's law[1] for optimizing software, and know that you always start by looking at the parts that take the longest. Yet in real life we're sometimes tempted to optimize at the fringes first and ignore the obvious biggest contributing factors first.
That 3% figure prbably doesn't take the global supply chain, deforestation and consumption shift towards western diets in developping and emerging economies into account.
At least in the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's Global Calculator[1], the food lever seems to be much more powerful than your comment suggests.
well, we know that animal agriculture results in deforestation. so it's not so simple.
one would need to calculate both the carbon output of animal agriculture and - crucially - the carbon that will /permanently/ not be captured via loss of land that serves as a carbon sink (Amazon rain forest is the big one) that results as demand for additional animal agriculture increases.
I would also be curious to find (I can't find any stats) on how much carbon is put back into circulation when people metabolize hydrated carbon a.k.a. carbohydrates. I've done my part to stop consuming carbohydrates and it was not easy.
It’s also worth pointing out that even if you don’t want to reduce the amount of meat you eat, changing the type of meat can have big effects. For example (and ignoring transport to the consumer), lamb produces about 35 kg CO₂ per kg of meat, beef 25kg CO₂ / kg, pork and farmed salmon 8kg CO₂ / kg and chicken 4kg CO₂ / kg.
As already mentioned in another discussion, the ratio they use for farmed fish is "where the first number is the mass of harvested fish used to feed farmed fish, and the second number is the mass of the resulting farmed fish".
Which makes it much less positive than it first appears.
Yeah chicken is the best farmed animal on CO₂. They burn less themselves because they can cuddle and have it warm. And don’t need to run around. ... in their small cages
this suggests taxing meat as a function of CO2 production, as opposed to price taxation. This would automatically reward local production (the same additional tax for an imported cheaper meat as for a local but more expensive meat, hits the cheaper one harder)
Thank you. Is there a reliable place I can find this information? I have anecdotally been much healthier after incorporating more protein, particularly whole meat (rather than isolated protein) into my diet - fewer illnesses, faster recovery time, better gut health, etc.
There's a good case to be made for humans being primarily meat eaters for much of our history and only eating plants as an alternative to starving - we certainly haven't had time to evolve to eat a vegetarian diet. Agriculture has only been around for a small fraction of our history and the skeletal record clearly shows how disasterous it was for our health.
The current 'plant based' fad diet recommendations are backed up by some very poor science and may be seriously unsuitable for humans and for children in particular, nutrition-wise. Animal agriculture is not even a major source of human emissions so to call for changes to our natural diet seems very premature.
Our stomach pH is very low, comparable to carrion eaters and some carnivores.
"It is interesting to note that humans, uniquely among the primates so far considered, appear to have stomach pH values more akin to those of carrion feeders than to those of most carnivores and omnivores"
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
Our requirements for DHA and B12 indicate a diet rich in both - both found almost exclusively in animal foods
We wean our young for a very short amount of time compared to other apes.
"Our model indicates that carnivory has a specific and quantifiable impact on human development and life history and, crucially, explains why Homo weans so much earlier than the great apes."
Impact of Carnivory on Human Development and Evolution Revealed by a New Unifying Model of Weaning in Mammals
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
Sounds like a big ol' Paleo-esque Appeal to Nature argument.
> The current 'plant based' fad diet recommendations are backed up by some very poor science and may be seriously unsuitable for humans and for children in particular, nutrition-wise
Care to provide evidence to back that up? Your broad, evolutionary talking points and observations on stomach pH in your other response hardly backs up your strongly worded supposition.
Plant based diets have been practiced by not insignificant portions of the population beginning in the 6th-century BCE with Buddhism and Hinduism[1]. An estimated 20-40% of India is currently vegetarian[2]. Not sure "fad" is an accurate descriptor.
I'm sure you'd have a hard time refuting the unending amount of "poor science" that shows plant based diets are effective for longevity, treating obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure[3]. The AICR recommends a plant based diet to prevent cancer[4], and ten other major Nutritional Organizations recognize the health benefits[5].
"It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that appropriately planned vegetarian, including vegan, diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.
These diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes."[5]
>Plant based diets have been practiced by not insignificant portions of the population beginning in the 6th-century BCE with Buddhism and Hinduism. An estimated 20-40% of India is currently vegetarian. Not sure "fad" is an accurate descriptor.
In terms of human history, he's right. 6th-century BCE was not very long ago at all: that's less than a mere 3000 years. Humans have been around for over 2 million years.
Also, he's right about the skeletal record: archaeology shows that humans lost about 1 foot of height when they switched to agriculture. Yes, much of India is vegetarian, but Indians tend to be pretty short, but then when they emigrate to western nations and adopt more western diets, their kids end up dwarfing them.
From an evolutionary perspective, we have evolved: we use tools and process nearly anything we eat anyway. Plants are the only thing we eat with minimal preparation, and only some of those.
When was the last time you had raw beef? for me, it was beef tartare a few years ago...
Raw grain? Nope, that's all processed, either by boiling, or grinding and turning into something else.
Homo Erectus was thought to have subsisted on raw meat. There's evidence of intestinal parasites that suggests such a diet.
Apparently, at some point, we decided to cook our meat, which reduced the parasite load and removed the need for low pH comparative to other carnivores.
But not too long ago, humans did eat some raw meats. Primitive hunters sometimes ate raw hearts, and drinking fresh blood was not unheard of. 1,000 years ago, the Mongols would sometimes nick their horses and drink blood to sustain them on long journeys.
Paleontologists believe that it was the shift from fruits and nuts to a high protein diet of meat that allowed our brains to grow dramatically compared to other primates. We are omnivorous, and our bodies require a certain amount of plant matter ideally, but clearly meat is an integral component of a healthy human diet.
>Our stomach pH is very low, comparable to carrion eaters and some carnivores.
Hmm... this is how you get into an argument where people talk past each other. You may be correct when it comes to that little nugget of information, but when it comes to the larger context, that piece of information will not make sense to someone who has other contradicting pieces of information. ( for example a vegan who thinks that humans ought to have huge canines to be a carnivore).
Anyway it's unfair of me to critique your style/content of your argument without offering an alternative. How about this?:
Ask the person who is into the 'plant based' belief to conduct an experiment of eating only meat for 2 months and then report the results. i.e if both of you agree that most 'science' and 'research' is flawed. Of course it goes without saying that you too should have performed this experiment on yourself.
Side note - I have been carnivore for 6 years ( 99% of my diet is red meat, eggs and dairy ).
I have become an 80% vegetarian - meaning I try to avoid meat completely, but I am not "strong" enough and end up eating a (usually small) piece of meat, once every week/second week.
It took me at least one year to achieve this, because meat is so prevalent in our society. A friend of mine was in India recently and he said he did not miss meat at all since the non-meat dishes were so great. I think a lot of it is just how good the quality of vegetarian dishes is.
I saw a quote I liked recently (on a different topic but applies here too): We don't need a few hundred thousand perfect vegetarians, we need billions of imperfect ones.
Yes, living in Berlin I feel spoiled. When I was in South Korea, most of the time there was nothing vegetarian on the menu, in Berlin you have multiple vegan options and even more vegetarian options.
I believe restaurant options are very important since people learn from those and mimic them at home. We need restaurants to offer more vegetarian and vegan dishes for people to see that they can have a rich (IMHO richer) diet without meat.
I don’t know how to nudge the restaurants though. Lower tax on organic/sustainable food can be one thing, or even better subventions for such restaurants and produce. But most importantly the meat and dairy industry needs to get under real supervision. Governments all around the world have been looking away for far too long.
> I don’t know how to nudge the restaurants though
Visit and ask for vegetarian or vegan dishes. Move on if there is nothing worthwhile; let the staff know if you've liked a particular dish or find the selection too limiting. Demand drives supply.
In the Netherlands the vegetarian option used to be a boring salad with goat cheese. Nowadays not having decent meat-free options means you can't compete with the rest. This is something only the cheaper restaurants aimed at lower socio-economic classes can afford to do (but only for now). The reason for this discrepancy is that this class of people (mostly blue collar workers and their families) tends to lag behind the rest of society a bit as habits shift towards more healthy alternatives (smoking is another example).
In sweden this is called being a Stockholm vegetarian, and it's very much a thing. I know a bunch of people like you, and they all claim that the hardest thing is to not just go "fuck it" and eat meat like they did before.
That’s funny, because I don’t enjoy meat as much as before any more. Before I couldn’t imagine a life without meat. Now, every time I eat it I feel less satisfied. I don’t I ever go back. But who knows.
I'm similar. Only eat meat if I go out at weekends or if there's some left over that needs to get used up. My wife and I almost entirely cook for ourselves and it's pretty easy to make nice vegetarian meals. I do a fair amount of weightlifting and like to get the protein in - quorn, soy, tofu, lentils and eggs are key. I also supplement daily with whey protein shakes and creatine. It's a bit of a hassle and sometimes I find myself dying for a nice bit of lamb or steak, otoh it's good to pay this level of attention to one's diet.
I think this is a situation where we need a Dr. George Washington Carver that not only recognizes that we need to eat less meat but also develops alternatives that the general public will accept.
(Not sure how famous Dr. George Washington Carver is outside the US. He was one of the first famous African American scientists and is known for discovering that rotating crops with peanuts will add nutrients back to the soil and then inventing about 300 uses for peanuts in order to convince farmers to plant them. However, despite popular belief, peanut butter was not one of the uses that he invented.)
I was in Canada recently and tried one of the Tim Hortons "beyond sausage" sausage, egg, and cheese sandwiches. From the "beyond meat" people.
Had I not known what I was eating, I wouldn't have known it was plant-based at all. The taste and texture was, at least in fast food terms, just a really good sausage.
I haven't been able to try the beyond burger Burger King is selling, but if it's on par with the beyond sausage, I can't see why I'd ever eat a meat-based fast food burger again. It was really that good, and an easy decision to make given the meat industry's impact on the environment.
People who diss those meat substitutes out of hand should try them with an open mind (i.e. not from a place of "you can't control me" or "I'll never stop eating meat".)
Quick note: Burger King uses the Impossible Burger, not the Beyond Burger. In my opinion, the Impossible Burger isn't any better than a MorningStar Farms Grillers Prime (at significantly higher price). The Beyond Burger though is easily the best meat-free burger I've ever had.
We're creatures of habit. The pattern of breakfast, lunch and dinner means I'm usually "hungry" before breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I was feeling hungry about dinner time a while back, but I couldn't decide what to eat so I skipped. I woke the next morning and didn't feel hungry at all. That seemed odd to me. So I skipped breakfast and ate lunch only (same portion size as normal) and continued to do so for six weeks. I felt great. Workouts strong, focus and concentration improved. I saved a bunch of time and money.
After that did a 13 day fast (zero food). Day 3 sucked, but the 10 that followed where really eye opening in a wholly positive way. I do a lot of boxing, and I didn't stop during this fast. I thought it would suck but I had tons of energy and lots of speed. At the finishing lime, the first morsel of food (some roast pumpkin) was savored and tasted incredible. It gave me a new awareness and appreciation of what and how much food I need to maintain maximum performance.
I know i could eat a LOT less than I do in a year and be as or more healthy and contribute to a healthier environment. We just have to break the habit. That's really hard given the social culture of eating.
I'm a faster too and have more energy as well. No more energy drain after a big meal. Another advantage of fasting is that you spend less time on food. Our western society involves a lot of time on food(breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks).
Yeah the time saved surprised me also. No more "hmmm what to eat for... " only one meal a day. I was surprised to learn how much time I spend thinking of either what to eat, or eating or digesting it in a food coma :)
I believe you're right. We didn't evolve to eat regular meals, but rather to gorge when there was abundance, then starve/fast during the in-between periods. Probably water was the one thing that we had regularly from day to day.
I've moved to a calorie-limited diet, myself, and the effects on my health have been dramatic. My acid reflux has subsided; it disappeared when I went low carb for a month and has not come back, even though I've added fruit carbs back in to my diet. I'm down over 20 pounds, and hoping to lose another 20 or so, while at the same time working out and replacing fat with muscle mass.
We can be healthier, if we try. Unfortunately, our modern societies, especially here in North America, encourage excessive eating with all of the sad results that are evident if you go out in public and observe the clinical obesity that is commonplace.
Congrats on shedding those pounds! Must be feeling great. I always found it a pain to consume enough vegetables. Then I had my wisdom teeth removed and couldn't eat for a week. I blended a ton of good veggies into a mash to get some nutrients. Even now (many years later) I still blend those veggies. Nutrition hacks! :)
Great comment. I too have experienced great benefits from fasting. Humans evolved under conditions of food scarcity. I think we are actually ‘designed’ to be fasting most of the time.
The scarcity concept is one I really connect with also. A bit extreme, but there's a 30 day water fast (supervised) that's meant to be life changing. From what I recall the believe is that eating as a coping mechanism stores that trauma in the lipids. 30 days burns through it all.
The report states with high confidence that balanced diets featuring plant-based, and sustainably-produced animal-sourced, food “present major opportunities for adaptation and mitigation while generating significant co-benefits in terms of human health”.
I think this says it all. The consumption is not as much of a problem as production. They don't mention how much forest is also cut to build farms and it's not like plant growing industry is any better in terms of emissions [1] and water / land poisoning with pesticides and GMO plants.
Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against GMO that is done well, but the current direction that's only serving corporate greed instead of bettering farming industry is just disgusting. Without animals we are just as equally doomed as we are with them [2].
I also have a feeling that they're trying to optimize the 1% instead of tackling real problems caused by coal energy, cars, airplanes etc.
I didn't read much of the report from which this is sourced from, but it appears that they base their numbers on current farming practices. In the U.S., those practices (for beef, pork, etc.) are, for the most part, horrible and irresponsible. Responsible practices work in concert with and support of the environment, not against it. Cows graze on and replenish lush grasslands. Pigs forage through and replenish forested areas. The animals are allowed to work within the cycle of nature and act as integral parts of healthy land management instead of being removed from it and treated as industrial outputs.
Cows aren't the problem. Pigs aren't the problem. Chickens aren't the problem. Mankind's industrialization of cows, pigs, and chickens is the problem.
So, for me, that's why we're still having this debate.
Readit News
Fixing the corruption (both democratic and republican parties) in our our political would end up helping the environment a lot. That said, we have zero chance of fixing our corrupt political system. It will never happen, the elites have won that war.
One problem with reducing meat consumption is the general low skill level for cooking. Vegetarian food can taste better than meat dishes but you need skill and good ingredients. I have mixed feelings about Beyond Meat: my wife and I love the hot Italian sausage and burgers, but it is really not that healthy.
- which persuasively argues (with multiple sources) that the US meat industry depends upon massive labor exploitation of undocumented immigrants in order to 1) suppress wages and 2) maintain an otherwise intolerable working environment.
This shows that the problem is not simply corrupt legislation and lobbying, but a de facto symbiotic relationship between the meat industry, federal immigration authorities and border coyotes to maintain artificially low prices.
That's well-known about the meat industry. The problem with suggesting it as a reason to avoid meat in favor of vegetable-based food is the same is well-known to be true of agriculture generally.
I totally get this, and have similar feelings. But I try to remind my self what Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger are competing with: meat. They have similar saturated fat profiles to their "real" alternatives.
I look at these meat alternatives as mostly beneficial for:
1. Meat eaters looking to eat more sustainably, but continue eating burgers and sausages and whatnot occasionally
2. "Cook out" situations where you can bring a good veggie burger and not be a total social weirdo eating grilled corn by yourself. And it's a good conversation starter, and others are usually intrigued enough to try, and impressed after having done so.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3t902pqt3C7nGN99hV...
Meanwhile, a good lentil stew is a much more involved project. Much less home-made veggie burger patties which have dozens of ingredients and elaborate preparation processes.
Going full vegan is even harder, because cheese is a pretty good shortcut to making hearty food.
I lean toward the carnivore spectrum but there are a couple meatless soups that I enjoy:
* New England clam chowder
* Corn chowder
* Barley mushroom (though it’s even better with meat)
* Gazpacho
And while I’d never order it if given the option for a “real one”, vegetarian pho was surprisingly good.
This way you are missing maybe 90% of the soups of the world. Maybe try some exotic spices - I used to hate tomato soup from our school canteen with passion, but once I tried a properly spiced variant in Nepali Himalayas, things were never the same again (for the better) and I love it these days (I mean the Nepali version)
Beyond Meat is competing with freezer aisle foodstuff and there it handily wins out in just about every category (price, taste, nutrition), even if objectively it's unhealthy for you.
There's a world of vegetarian options outside of the preprocessed fauxmeats (including the entire produce section).
Regular veggie burgers and other products (not trying to imitate meat) are usually really good. They should embrace the fact that they can include a vast array of vegetables and spices. Example: Morningstar farms has a chickpea burger I really like. Also it's much cheaper than Beyond products. I share your concern about the Beyond products (and other vegetarian products); if I want a ton of saturated fat, I'd just eat meat. Chicken and fish are healthier than Beyond.
A society that eats less meat (or none) is inevitable given time, for both moral and practical reasons of health, scarcity and environmental impact. We should teach people to cook healthy vegan food that they enjoy. Just providing food options people enjoy without meat will reduce meat consumption without pushing a moral agenda that often receives hysterical responses.
Disclaimer: I eat meat, though I've been eating less for the above reasons.
That just isn't realistic; you'll wind up with a lot of really unhealthy people eating food they hate. Not everyone is good at cooking, and one big reason veganism is so unpopular is because it's so hard to make anything that tastes good with it. Meat is easy to cook, even for people who aren't very good at cooking. And veganism is generally unhealthy, because most people aren't dedicated or good enough at it to get the proper nutrition, so they leave out critical nutrients, whereas with meat it's really easy to get everything you need (like iron).
Expecting the whole populace to get good at cooking vegan food is like expecting the whole populace to become very skilled at C++ programming (including template metaprogramming). It isn't going to happen.
If someone makes vegan pre-made meals that can just be microwaved, that would be different.
What? I make stew of any legumes and it does not require more skills than cooking meat.
If there the case, I don't think you can convince people to not eat meat because it's like telling them to stop using makeup or stop making efforts to become mor handsome/beautiful
Food stamps are designed to raise the market clearing price of food as a subsidy to agriculture (they’ve since become a means-tested welfare program as well, while retaining the original purpose); they have fairly strong political support, which definitely shows a partisan divide.
The Dairy Price Support Program and other agricultural price support programs likely continue to exist despite having the sole purpose of raising the price of food; were raising the price of food the kind of third-rail you are trying to imply, there would be a bipartisan consensus against such programs that would make it impossible to retain them.
No, why? Not at all... My cooking skill level is knowing how to use a stove. What good ingredients do you mean? In my experience cooking meat is always the hardest part.
Unfortunately, in my experience when I bring this up the typical response us that I must be a socialist.
We do have a chance. It's not going to be long until a critical mass of individuals understand that democracy is a system that legitimizes coercion, and that taxation is theft and generates poverty. We just need one more generation until that happens.
When people reach that conclusion, they will move their money away from fiat currencies and they will move their information into distributed systems (eg. blockchains).
By consequence they will make states and coercion not viable. Without the ability to control currencies, states go bankrupt and can't even pay for people to steal your money.
Welcome to anarcho-capitalism, while I wait for the downvotes.
So, less anarcho anything. More jail time, and then forced labor, and then one again paying taxes.
Sorry.
"Animal agriculture is responsible for 13–18% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions globally, and less in developed countries (e.g. 3% in the USA). Fossil fuel combustion for energy and transportation is responsible for approximately 64% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions globally, and more in developed countries (e.g. 80% in the USA)."
I think in the USA, it would be more productive to address the 80% as higher priority than reducing the 3%. I think this veganism initiative is also more driven by morality and political partisanship than by an effort to find a realistic and practical solution to GHG emissions. And this can backfire: I believe that a reason why nearly half the country will not even openly admit there is a problem, is because they fear the consequences of political over-reaction more than the problem itself.
It's not the first time that I'm seeing reactions about this report to focus on veganism. I don't understand where it comes from: the word "vegan" is absent from the article and the IPCC report doesn't recommend a any diet.
I understand debate about this report and the impact of agriculture and breeding, but I don't understand why the debate is centered around veganism.
The Skeptical Science link doesn't seem to touch on water usage, only focusing on greenhouse gas emissions. Groundwater decline and depletion is another factor that should be kept in mind as people consider their food choices.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law#Serial_programs
At least in the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's Global Calculator[1], the food lever seems to be much more powerful than your comment suggests.
[1] http://tool.globalcalculator.org
one would need to calculate both the carbon output of animal agriculture and - crucially - the carbon that will /permanently/ not be captured via loss of land that serves as a carbon sink (Amazon rain forest is the big one) that results as demand for additional animal agriculture increases.
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If you really want to have an impact while still eating meat, just stop eating beef/lamb altogether
The amount of food and water needed to produce 1kg of beef meat is just insane
Eat poultry or fish instead
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio
>Cattle is the worst at something like 15:1. Aquaculture, specifically tilapia and catfish, is good at under 2:1
Which makes it much less positive than it first appears.
The current 'plant based' fad diet recommendations are backed up by some very poor science and may be seriously unsuitable for humans and for children in particular, nutrition-wise. Animal agriculture is not even a major source of human emissions so to call for changes to our natural diet seems very premature.
To really contribute, it would be nice if you came up with some citations to your claim.
"It is interesting to note that humans, uniquely among the primates so far considered, appear to have stomach pH values more akin to those of carrion feeders than to those of most carnivores and omnivores" https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
Our requirements for DHA and B12 indicate a diet rich in both - both found almost exclusively in animal foods
Evolution of the Human Brain: the key roles of DHA(omega-3 fatty acid) andD6-desaturase gene https://www.ocl-journal.org/articles/ocl/pdf/2018/04/ocl1700...
We wean our young for a very short amount of time compared to other apes.
"Our model indicates that carnivory has a specific and quantifiable impact on human development and life history and, crucially, explains why Homo weans so much earlier than the great apes." Impact of Carnivory on Human Development and Evolution Revealed by a New Unifying Model of Weaning in Mammals https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
I wouldn’t call the world consensus of the IPCC poor science. It is actually the opposite: the best science we have available.
The report goes into depth about the health benefits these diets have also.
> The current 'plant based' fad diet recommendations are backed up by some very poor science and may be seriously unsuitable for humans and for children in particular, nutrition-wise
Care to provide evidence to back that up? Your broad, evolutionary talking points and observations on stomach pH in your other response hardly backs up your strongly worded supposition.
Plant based diets have been practiced by not insignificant portions of the population beginning in the 6th-century BCE with Buddhism and Hinduism[1]. An estimated 20-40% of India is currently vegetarian[2]. Not sure "fad" is an accurate descriptor.
I'm sure you'd have a hard time refuting the unending amount of "poor science" that shows plant based diets are effective for longevity, treating obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure[3]. The AICR recommends a plant based diet to prevent cancer[4], and ten other major Nutritional Organizations recognize the health benefits[5].
"It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that appropriately planned vegetarian, including vegan, diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.
These diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes."[5]
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_vegetarianism#Ancie...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country#India
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662288/
4. https://www.aicr.org/patients-survivors/healthy-or-harmful/v...
5. https://www.theplantway.com/is-vegan-healthy/
In terms of human history, he's right. 6th-century BCE was not very long ago at all: that's less than a mere 3000 years. Humans have been around for over 2 million years.
Also, he's right about the skeletal record: archaeology shows that humans lost about 1 foot of height when they switched to agriculture. Yes, much of India is vegetarian, but Indians tend to be pretty short, but then when they emigrate to western nations and adopt more western diets, their kids end up dwarfing them.
When was the last time you had raw beef? for me, it was beef tartare a few years ago...
Raw grain? Nope, that's all processed, either by boiling, or grinding and turning into something else.
Homo Erectus was thought to have subsisted on raw meat. There's evidence of intestinal parasites that suggests such a diet.
Apparently, at some point, we decided to cook our meat, which reduced the parasite load and removed the need for low pH comparative to other carnivores.
But not too long ago, humans did eat some raw meats. Primitive hunters sometimes ate raw hearts, and drinking fresh blood was not unheard of. 1,000 years ago, the Mongols would sometimes nick their horses and drink blood to sustain them on long journeys.
Hmm... this is how you get into an argument where people talk past each other. You may be correct when it comes to that little nugget of information, but when it comes to the larger context, that piece of information will not make sense to someone who has other contradicting pieces of information. ( for example a vegan who thinks that humans ought to have huge canines to be a carnivore).
Anyway it's unfair of me to critique your style/content of your argument without offering an alternative. How about this?: Ask the person who is into the 'plant based' belief to conduct an experiment of eating only meat for 2 months and then report the results. i.e if both of you agree that most 'science' and 'research' is flawed. Of course it goes without saying that you too should have performed this experiment on yourself.
Side note - I have been carnivore for 6 years ( 99% of my diet is red meat, eggs and dairy ).
[1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
It took me at least one year to achieve this, because meat is so prevalent in our society. A friend of mine was in India recently and he said he did not miss meat at all since the non-meat dishes were so great. I think a lot of it is just how good the quality of vegetarian dishes is.
I believe restaurant options are very important since people learn from those and mimic them at home. We need restaurants to offer more vegetarian and vegan dishes for people to see that they can have a rich (IMHO richer) diet without meat.
I don’t know how to nudge the restaurants though. Lower tax on organic/sustainable food can be one thing, or even better subventions for such restaurants and produce. But most importantly the meat and dairy industry needs to get under real supervision. Governments all around the world have been looking away for far too long.
Visit and ask for vegetarian or vegan dishes. Move on if there is nothing worthwhile; let the staff know if you've liked a particular dish or find the selection too limiting. Demand drives supply.
In the Netherlands the vegetarian option used to be a boring salad with goat cheese. Nowadays not having decent meat-free options means you can't compete with the rest. This is something only the cheaper restaurants aimed at lower socio-economic classes can afford to do (but only for now). The reason for this discrepancy is that this class of people (mostly blue collar workers and their families) tends to lag behind the rest of society a bit as habits shift towards more healthy alternatives (smoking is another example).
(Not sure how famous Dr. George Washington Carver is outside the US. He was one of the first famous African American scientists and is known for discovering that rotating crops with peanuts will add nutrients back to the soil and then inventing about 300 uses for peanuts in order to convince farmers to plant them. However, despite popular belief, peanut butter was not one of the uses that he invented.)
Had I not known what I was eating, I wouldn't have known it was plant-based at all. The taste and texture was, at least in fast food terms, just a really good sausage.
I haven't been able to try the beyond burger Burger King is selling, but if it's on par with the beyond sausage, I can't see why I'd ever eat a meat-based fast food burger again. It was really that good, and an easy decision to make given the meat industry's impact on the environment.
People who diss those meat substitutes out of hand should try them with an open mind (i.e. not from a place of "you can't control me" or "I'll never stop eating meat".)
A&W and Carl's Junior are Beyond Burger joints.
I was feeling hungry about dinner time a while back, but I couldn't decide what to eat so I skipped. I woke the next morning and didn't feel hungry at all. That seemed odd to me. So I skipped breakfast and ate lunch only (same portion size as normal) and continued to do so for six weeks. I felt great. Workouts strong, focus and concentration improved. I saved a bunch of time and money.
After that did a 13 day fast (zero food). Day 3 sucked, but the 10 that followed where really eye opening in a wholly positive way. I do a lot of boxing, and I didn't stop during this fast. I thought it would suck but I had tons of energy and lots of speed. At the finishing lime, the first morsel of food (some roast pumpkin) was savored and tasted incredible. It gave me a new awareness and appreciation of what and how much food I need to maintain maximum performance.
I know i could eat a LOT less than I do in a year and be as or more healthy and contribute to a healthier environment. We just have to break the habit. That's really hard given the social culture of eating.
I've moved to a calorie-limited diet, myself, and the effects on my health have been dramatic. My acid reflux has subsided; it disappeared when I went low carb for a month and has not come back, even though I've added fruit carbs back in to my diet. I'm down over 20 pounds, and hoping to lose another 20 or so, while at the same time working out and replacing fat with muscle mass.
We can be healthier, if we try. Unfortunately, our modern societies, especially here in North America, encourage excessive eating with all of the sad results that are evident if you go out in public and observe the clinical obesity that is commonplace.
I think this says it all. The consumption is not as much of a problem as production. They don't mention how much forest is also cut to build farms and it's not like plant growing industry is any better in terms of emissions [1] and water / land poisoning with pesticides and GMO plants. Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against GMO that is done well, but the current direction that's only serving corporate greed instead of bettering farming industry is just disgusting. Without animals we are just as equally doomed as we are with them [2]. I also have a feeling that they're trying to optimize the 1% instead of tackling real problems caused by coal energy, cars, airplanes etc.
[1] https://agreenerworld.org/a-greener-world/it-wasnt-the-cows-...
[2] https://youtu.be/vpTHi7O66pI
Animal agriculture is enormously more resource-intensive than plant agriculture:
https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1159831081798864898...
How are we still having this debate?
Cows aren't the problem. Pigs aren't the problem. Chickens aren't the problem. Mankind's industrialization of cows, pigs, and chickens is the problem.
So, for me, that's why we're still having this debate.