> Meat-heavy diets not only risk our health but that of the planet, as livestock farming on a massive scale destroys habitats and generates greenhouse gases.
Well that's a bit over the top...
Seems like they could have stuck with the "vegetables are good for you" line and had just as relevant of an article.
It's interesting how your response to the point that farming plants is far more efficient and sustainable than farming animals is "but some vegetable farms are bad for the environment, too!"
Mixed permaculture habitats that mimic nature and incorporate animals are sustainable. The vegatarian mafia would be happy with endless rows of unsustainable conventional monoculture agriculture, I know this because of the blank look so many vegans have give me when I start to talk about permaculture. You're a hypocrite.
You've accused me of hypocrisy based on your claimed experiences with other people. How charming.
In any case, sure, sustainable animal farms exist. Could they meet the meat demands of the US? Popular consensus is no, and [0] lists many authorities who urge a reduction in meat consumption, but I'd be happy for you to convince me otherwise.
It implicitly distorts the contribution of agriculture to greenhouse gas emissions relative to other sources. And it ignores the health effects of going meatless.
My BS-O-metre just went off big time. First off, this is an extreme generalization that does not pick up local differences. Take the Northeren hemisphere for instance, where meat is in many instances the most effective way to utilize our growing conditions to produce edible food. [1] It's just not possible to efficibely use our climate to make sustainable production of vegetables, so meat is in fact a better way to make the most of our growing conditions.
The alternative would be to let tons of cultured pastures go to waste, and instead develop extremely expensive and wasteful greenhouse altnernatives that would suck our energy reserves dry. That is why meat production is in fact preferrable in the North. It's just not feasible to produce enough food without spending a lot of resources on imports, due to growing conditions that favour greens that aren't edible for humans, so our best option is then meat for local and "short-travelled" sustenance. [2]
Second, there's obviously a place for meat eaters in this biodiversity. Of course, we're "too many" humans (who are of course meat eaters), but on the other hand we're sustaining our current population nicely with progresses made within both environmentally friendly transportation and not to mention advances within industrialized and automated farming. [3] Add to this that the population growth is in fact slowing down. [4]
Long story short, the world has a giant surplus of food. [5] The amount of food here isn't the problem. It's the adverse effects local politics, production and transportation that are the problems the grand level, and to that end you can't as a general rule suggest that veggies are the "best" option. Well, it clearly isn't in the northeren hemisphere.
In the end the moral question is, should we really force people to eat this, that or the other? I mean, there's obviously no harm in making suggestions, but when those suggestions aren't met with enthusiasm, then change isn't liable to happen without the use of force. And I think can all agree that we are nowhere near a Soylent Green situation, so we still have the option to give people a choice.
Personally, my bet are on those developing succulent and protein-rich meat alternatives. The second they can make a product that similar enough, but without the environmental overhead, then people will flock to it.
If you are interested in this, you might want to read the well-researched article of OurWorldInData on food production and its impact. Some things like producing meat locally are, maybe surprisingly, worse solutions than replacing it with vegetables even when these were shipped around the globe.
Transport has a low impact on the total emissions (and also producing beef is sooo bad) that you could e.g. ship a kilogram of peas several times around the globe and the peas would still win emission-wise against a kilogram of locally produced beef. If you pick another metric, like energy content ('calories') or compare emissions per mass of contained protein, beef is still worse.
What a coincidence: Max Roser, the founder of Our World in Data, shared an article [0][1] on Twitter about the importance of the choice of diet and local production a mere two hours after my earlier posting.
Don't you think it's a little unfair to compare peas to meat? First of all, most people aren't going to replace their meat with veggies, and most veggies already have to be imported anyway. Compared to importing other meats, it is of course much better to have the meat produced locally, especially considering that the land can't really be utilized well in other ways. Which is also a question of avoiding dependencies, btw. In any case, beef is just a part of what is produced, as mountaneous areas are for instance better suited to mutton. Then there's the question of sorely lacking amino acids in pea proteins, meaning that it's not really fair to make one-to-one comparisons. Even if there are benefits from replacing all meats with veggies, the taste and texture just can't compare to meat, which again means that very few are going to voluntarily make the switch even for conscientious reasons.
Not at all, the topic of ressource efficiency in the form of the trophic level of different foods was exactly how our sub-thread of the discussion started.
I have not argued about any other aspect of meat other than it being a pretty awful way of extracting ressources.
Being pedantic. If we eat the stuff they feed to the cows I eat we would die. Grass is not human digestible.
My point being the problem is not meat which is a natural part of our diet (and is traditionally raised on land not well suited to crops) but the crazy frankenmeat many are reduced to eating due to overpopulation.
All meats are causing much more greenhouse gas emissions than vegetarian food. Even cows only eating grass farts a lot, which is a significant contribution (not kidding).
Your phrase "each layer of indirection" made the following analogy pop into my head: eating meat is like using an electron app running in a VM. I suppose "bare metal" would be if we could ourselves photosynthesize, alas.
Isn't it rather exaggerated? Doesn't agriculture as a whole cause around 11% of emissions but car driving and heating/cooling causes around 30%?
So if we all stopped eating meat we could cut emissions but a couple of % but if we all stopped driving and turned our heating down/up we could actually make a real difference?
Wish there was a good tool to give you an answer on this, or a way to poke around and be curious.
http://energyliteracy.com/ gets close but it's USA only.
This article suggests livestock greenhouse gas emissions are equivalent to the entire transportation sector. Basically because methane and carbon dioxide have different effects on warming:
https://www.ecowatch.com/which-is-worse-for-the-planet-beef-...
Most I can tell your numbers are just entirely made up, I've never heard of any serious study ever estimating global green house gas emissions from agriculture under 10%.
>Globally, the primary sources of greenhouse gas emissions are electricity and heat (31%), agriculture (11%), transportation (15%), forestry (6%) and manufacturing (12%). Energy production of all types accounts for 72 percent of all emissions.
Please don't start on this theme again. Your posts are fine otherwise, and we value you as a user! But this was a big problem before and it's best if it doesn't start up again.
Quick googling: “ Livestock takes up nearly 80% of global agricultural land, yet produces less than 20% of the world’s supply of calories”
It’s not just about emissions. It’s also about the massive amount of land required to produce meat vs. crops for human consumption.
Re: cutting out meat vs. driving, only one of those activities is necessary to survive for the very high percentage of the population who don’t have access to public transit.
The article isn’t about vegetables being good “for you”.
It’s about a college cafeteria experimenting to reduce carbon emissions and the amount of land required to serve meals:
> Last year, University cafeterias (separate from the colleges) announced a 33% reduction in carbon emissions per kilogram of food purchased, and a 28% reduction in land use per kilogram of food purchased.
Something I dont think very many people realize is that cattle are raised on land that is unsuitable for practically any other purpose.
They aren't ranching in Manhatten. Leasing land for grazing brings in about $70 an acre while doing it for crops will bring in around $280 an acre. Development of course would bring in amounts that are several orders of magnitude higher. Where cattle are raised, raising cattle is the only purpose available. This is why ranches are out west in the US or in the outback in Australia.
If the world stopped raising cattle, a lot of steppes around the world would go back to being completely useless. We wouldnt free up valuable land.
Which is entirely irrelevant because 90%+ of cattle produced for meat do not graze, they are fed industrial produced corn and soy in crowded feedlots. We don't have the physical space on earth for all the cattle we currently produce to graze naturally.
That meat is bad for our health is a myth perpetuated by the health industry, as well as by bad research that isn't accounting for processed meat vs. high quality unprocessed meat, nor do the studies account for confounding factors like other unhealthy food that many meat eaters eat.
Dr. Georgia Ede is someone to look up on YouTube who's been spending her time debunking bad research on meat.
> but that of the planet, as livestock farming on a massive scale destroys habitats and generates greenhouse gases.
Monocultures are really terrible, and based on the latest thought leaders and their knowledge, the trend needs to move towards allowing animals to roam the land again - which helps aerate and maintain the quality of soil.
My guess for future is free-roaming animals in their natural habitat, and vertical farming for vegetables, etc.
Switching to "allowing animals to roam" doesn't seem remotely viable or likely path in the current state of the world. There just doesn't seem to be any incentive which can compete with the maximization of profit.
> “All cafeterias and restaurants have a design that ‘nudges’ people towards something. So it is sensible to use designs that make the healthiest and most sustainable food options the easiest to pick without thinking about it,” she said.
Hopefully such designs also produce lower quantities of the less desirable options, since food waste has a huge impact on climate change (according to drawdown’s list).
> “We know that information alone is generally not enough to get us to change damaging habits. More research is needed on how to set up our society so that the self-interested default decision is the best one for the climate.”
This I agree wholeheartedly with. Expecting people to change their behaviors is an exercise in futility. Defaults and convenience matter a lot more.
It's also why convenience stores turned into mostly low quality foods and sugar factories, higher profits, in part to subsidize ever increasing cost of rents to pay rent-seeking landlords; the problem persists to larger grocery chains for some degrees, however food overall would be cheaper if people didn't have access to so much "yummy" processed foods where people are habituated to sugary and saltier food.
How about they just go ahead and put a sign on the meat dishes saying "recently sneezed on by someone with Covid" to make the veggie option more appealing?
That bacon tray is always at the end of the buffet. You regret all the stuff on your plate. What am I doing with all this worthless fruit? I should have waited! If I had known you were here, I would have waited. I would eat only you bacon...
I'm curious if you've tried Beyond Meat? Not saying it is comparable, but it is quite good in my opinion, much better than the old veggie burger options. Just interested in subjective opinions of people of how close it gets to being a viable alternative to people who currently eat meat.
I've tried it (not OP), and as someone who loves meat (not fanatic though), if I'd been told it's a regular burger there's a decent chance I wouldn't have suspected. Don't remember if the nutritional content is similar to meat but taste-wise, for me, it's definitely a viable alternative.
I had the same experience. It wasn't a great burger, mind you, but it still tasted like hamburger. I was reminded of Burger King burgers.
But it also cost $15. I'd rather spend that kind of money on a really good portabello burger than something that tastes "exactly" like a fast food burger.
If you buy them from the store, it's about $10/lb. I usually make four 1/4 burger patties out of it.
Granted, that is still about 2x - 3x the cost of beef locally (depending on which quality level you want to compare it to). But the price also seems to keep coming down over time so I imagine it will eventually be competitive on price.
Comparing high quality meat with a highly processed "meat alternative" shouldn't be judge on taste, and they're not comparable otherwise.
Beyond Meat burger ingredients:
Water, Pea Protein*, Expeller-Pressed Canola Oil, Refined Coconut Oil, Rice Protein, Natural Flavors, Cocoa Butter, Mung Bean Protein, Methylcellulose, Potato Starch, Apple Extract, Pomegranate Extract, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Vinegar, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Sunflower Lecithin, Beet Juice Extract (for color).
Many of these things are not good for many people, and many if not the majority of people aren't connected to their body properly, conditioned by ego mind disconnecting them. Personally I can't do pea protein, canola oil, coconut oil, rice, bean, potato, apple, vinegar, lemon, or lecithin. Those all agitate my GI tract causing different levels of discomfort or pain.
What you find in meat however is the same as what's naturally in humans, it's the animal concentrating the plants they eat into nutrients, protein, etc - and high fat red meat like beef has exactly what your body and brain needs and in the right portions.
I'm not trying to argue it's not possible to make a comparable option, however it's highly unlikely. I do wonder if a cultured meat substitute is possible as well, as the highest quality meat are from animals in their natural environment under natural environmental stress conditions, it's more likely to create a comparable product though; getting cost down and texture will be the biggest challenges.
> Many of these things are not good for many people
Irrelevant. They are fine for the absolute majority of people. For almost everyone in the world, eating Beyond Meat burgers would be better than meat burgers.
You should eat according to your body’s needs, but just because you have GI issues does not devalue innovations in food technology.
Curious what your background and life experience is to make such statements? You're quite dismissive and claiming all of those foods are fine for the absolute majority of people is quite the grand statement, along with the statement that Beyond Meat burgers would be better than real meat burgers.
The temporal dimension is just as important as space. Adding a year between eating meat and a plant-based diet also makes the alternatives more appealing.
After being meat and dairy free for awhile my cravings changed. I guess our brains are plastic? I ate (and loved!) meat for 28 years, but today I don't even crave it, and can report I enjoy food just as much as I used to. If being plant-based required will-power, I don't think I'd be able to do it.
I think it's actually easier to go all the way, and avoid meat completely, than it is to cut back. If meat is a regular, if limited, part of your diet the craving never goes away.
I’ve found the opposite. I don’t buy meat or dairy groceries so the high majority of my meals are vegan, but if I’m out at a place that doesn’t have a vegan option I’m fine ordering a meat or vegetarian option.
I think going majority meat and dairy less without committing 100% would make a much bigger effect in aggregate. We don’t need everyone becoming vegan, actually we can’t even support that. But if having meat and dairy at every single meal wasn’t a requirement, then we’d make a lot of change.
Vegetarians and vegans who have meat/dairy rarely shouldn’t be shunned or considered “failed”.
I eat high fat, high quality steak and kale - that's all. It's pretty easy. I find it odd that meat is being described as or associated with a craving though. I've never craved plants or other foods.
I'm at 67 hours of a planned 72 hour water fast and I'm not craving food, nor hungry, it's easy once you get past the first day or two to continue for 5-10+ days so long as supplementing for electrolytes.
I'm curious what else you changed in your diet or eating behaviours when you stopped eating meat? Did you reduce your sugar and carbohydrates? The quality (processed or not, organic or not) and type of meat you eat as well - as people can have sensitivities and discomfort by eating specific types of meat; chicken and duck bother me some, pork bothers me more, beef is fine.
Did you have any trouble with a longer fast on your first attempt? I do intermittent fasting and have gotten to 24 bracketed by evening meals. I can’t seem to fall asleep when I am hungry but find it very easy to skip breakfast and lunch. It’s true for me that after like 12 hours the hunger goes away and it becomes easy to go past the 16 hours that’s prescribed for IF. But the problem is that I start to get jittery from the adrenaline which is what ultimately gets me to eat in the evening even if I’ve done for 20 hours leading into that and don’t actually feel hungry.
Any tips from others who have the same issue around hunger impeding sleep would be appreciated.
Hey, I have been doing OMAD since January. I usually eat around noon +-1h depending on meetings.
I faced the same issues and for me what really helped is drinking a lot of Camomille (0.5L) sweetened with sugar alcohols. I guess it does two things. Camomille has some calming effects, especially when warm. This immediately gets my stomach rumblings to stop. Secondly, the sugar alcohols might trick your brain in releasing some dopamine since it has a sweet taste (not sure, that's my theory). This helps me soldier through the adrenaline and hunger spikes.
My longest fast was 10 days. The first time I fasted what I discovered was it was my mind telling me I was hungry, not my body. There's a pizza chain where I live called Pizza Pizza, bright orange background with white lettering. It was a 3 day fast and on the second day as I was walking that big bright sign around dinner popped up into my head, and I was like "Oh, I'll have pizza tonight for dinner." And then I realized I wasn't hungry. It taught me that we develop mental triggers, reminders, for when to eat - and that's pretty much why advertising works to manipulate us, and it does it very well; many if not most people are driven by their ego mind constantly being on and are disconnected from feeling their body properly - signals like hunger, etc. We get trained young to eat foods that don't make us feel well, and the mind then over time pulls our attention and connection to our body away from us. You may have some of this ego mind thought patterns to clear, that's telling you very strongly that you need to eat "or else you'll die" - instead of being able to relax and trust that (unless you're underweight) that your body will simply switch to energy in your fat reserves.
When fasting what happens really depends on what your diet is beforehand. If it's ketogenic then you're not also having to deal with the transition to your brain burning ketones. What's your normal diet, and do you take electrolyte supplement? Perhaps too personal however I'm curious if you take any neurotransmitter altering medications that may be preventing your brain from shifting, transitioning as easily? Feel free to email me instead matt@engn.com or just not answer that but it potentially is a factor.
It's quite common for people's sleep to get greatly disrupted for at least the first few nights which is for a few reasons. It may be disconcerting to have sleep disrupted, with potentially very vivid dreams, and transitioning into a different sleep schedule that you're not used to. One reason is inflammation level is going down in your brain, and arguably it's functioning better - inflammation has a depressant effect, so when there's a numbing or "calming" of processes.
The difficulty you mention is more likely related to withdrawal/irritability from foods you're dependant on/addicted to than the increase in adrenaline and norepinephrine that your body produces when fasting - which will make your mind faster and sharper; makes sense for this to have evolved to be a thing so if you don't have access to food and need to have a sharp mind for hunting, etc. Similarly you burn more calories when fasting than you'd burn if eating food, once again - needing more energy so you can have more energy to find your next food supply. This increased drive could make withdrawal more irritating as well.
Do you eat wheat, dairy, soy, sugars and/or carbohydrates? Wheat for some people literal acts like an opiate, so you're literally going through withdrawal. The rest of the foods I mention are highly inflammatory, and through that depressant effect people are self-medicating to "calm" or suppress their nervous system. It's possible that there's underlying emotion, unhealed/unprocessed trauma, that wants to process but perhaps you don't have the insight or skill developed yet - or it's built up past a point you can tolerate processing it, and so using food as a suppressant; this is why people consider things like MDMA and Ayahuasca ceremonies as medicines because it helps a person more easily access and process deeply suppressed emotions and trauma that was too strong to process otherwise at the time it occurred, or over time perhaps different stresses built up while ego mind suppressed/repressed and/or found different healthy or unhealthy coping mechanisms - alcohol, tobacco, certain foods, etc.
> After being meat and dairy free for awhile my cravings changed.
I think this may work for any dietary change that you stick with consistently. I'm not a vegetarian, but I completely revamped my diet several years back, and at first I craved the old foods, but now I crave the new ones.
I'd bet part of it is as simple as being hungry, eating something, and then not feeling hungry anymore. Satiating your hunger is a good feeling, and over time you're going to learn to associate that good feeling with its causes, which are whatever you eat regularly.
I see a lot of these charts that a pound of beef vs carrots. Just seems dumb, I would have to eat far more than a pound of carrots to match the calories of a pound of beef. Most data/infographic stuff in a climate world bugs me because it's just not well presented. The overall conclusion is the same -- eating meat is a huge carbon footprint compared to vegetables. Climate change has a marketing problem.
The energy per calorie is a very good insight that I hadn’t considered. I do agree that beef is a significant culprit and I tend to eat it rarely. But the environmental concern isn’t a consideration in my diet because it’s not something I’m willing to compromise on. Not only because I like meat, but for the fact that it’s a nutritional powerhouse that would take too much effort to emulate with a vegetarian diet. I try to do my share with respect to carbon by driving a hybrid, and plan on using the most energy efficient options when I own a house.
Back to beef. My main reason for avoiding it is the cost. Especially with the more flavorful cuts being extra pricy. Perhaps the best way to lower consumption is a tax like what we have with cigarettes. But I can’t see any political will for this anytime soon in the US. It would be nice to see the more progressive countries in Europe lead the way, like they’ve done with other aspects of emissions control.
I think you saying it’s too much effort to replace beef is really just covering for you liking beef. Which is totally fine, but it’s really not much effort to replace beef out of your diet
I referred to not being willing to replace meat in general, not beef specifically, due to the difficulty in getting a similar mix of nutrients, not to mention things that you can't get from vegetables, period. Here's a small list [https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/7-nutrients-you-cant-ge...] but there are plenty more. Sure, some of them are non-essential but those are pretty damn useful for general health, cognitive performance, and athletics.
Moreover, some of us respond poorly to carbs in terms of weight management and general well-being. I have ADHD and and a carb-heavy diet really messes with my symptoms. There aren't really any plants that provide enough protein without including a significantly greater amount of carbs so getting all of my calories from plants is a non-starter.
I forgot to elaborate on the emissions/calorie issue in my comment (there's that ADHD). The link in the parent shows that many animal-based foods compare favorably with popular vegetables using the emissions/calorie metric. Direct link to the chart: https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1024w/2010-2019/Wash...
It feels good to see some vindication on the animal farming emissions issue. It's a huge positive that we can lower our emissions footprint without resorting to a fully plant-based diet.
The thing is, when switching from an omnivore diet to a plant-based diet, meat is not replaced by tomatoes and broccolis (or vegetables in general), it is replaced by tofu, beans, lentils, rice, nuts, etc. which are all at the bottom of the list your linked.
Calorie counts are better, but still gloss over all the nutritional differences between e.g. beef and carrots. Comparing ingredients piecemeal when they aren't nearly perfect substitutes doesn't make very much sense. If you reduced your meat intake by 1kg of beef per week or month, what would you replace it with to sustain your nutrition?
It seems like it would be a fairer comparison to drum up reasonable examples of complete vegetarian, vegan, and omnivorous diets and work out a carbon footprint (or whatever ecological impact measure you prefer) of each backwards, from the plated food back to the source. Then look at the complete diets that have the lowest impact. I would still expect that vegan, vegetarian and very low-meat diets would do better than the typical diet in the US.
To that point you could simplify since both diets would have a lot in common. A salad, steak, and potatoes meal becomes salad, mushroom, and potatoes. So it's important to talk about what "substitutes" are.
i'd be really curious to see a follow-up on this in a year - will this effect continue, or is it only occuring because the meat dishes being so far away is unexpected, and once people get used to the location of the meat dishes they'll skip to them.
The difference: almost a metre of added distance between the vegetarian and meat options, with an 85cm gap in the first college compared to a 181cm gap in the second
This just comes across as manipulative. Meat eaters don’t want to be “nudged” into eating less meat or becoming vegetarian any more than vegetarians want to be “nudged” into eating meat (even occasionally).
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[ 0.62 ms ] story [ 73.7 ms ] threadWell that's a bit over the top...
Seems like they could have stuck with the "vegetables are good for you" line and had just as relevant of an article.
In any case, sure, sustainable animal farms exist. Could they meet the meat demands of the US? Popular consensus is no, and [0] lists many authorities who urge a reduction in meat consumption, but I'd be happy for you to convince me otherwise.
[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat...
This source says methane is 84x the impact of carbon dioxide: https://www.edf.org/climate/methane-other-important-greenhou...
If we eat the stuff we give to cows (which is what vegetarians do) then we would need only 10% of the land to farm it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_level#Biomass_transfer...
The alternative would be to let tons of cultured pastures go to waste, and instead develop extremely expensive and wasteful greenhouse altnernatives that would suck our energy reserves dry. That is why meat production is in fact preferrable in the North. It's just not feasible to produce enough food without spending a lot of resources on imports, due to growing conditions that favour greens that aren't edible for humans, so our best option is then meat for local and "short-travelled" sustenance. [2]
Second, there's obviously a place for meat eaters in this biodiversity. Of course, we're "too many" humans (who are of course meat eaters), but on the other hand we're sustaining our current population nicely with progresses made within both environmentally friendly transportation and not to mention advances within industrialized and automated farming. [3] Add to this that the population growth is in fact slowing down. [4]
Long story short, the world has a giant surplus of food. [5] The amount of food here isn't the problem. It's the adverse effects local politics, production and transportation that are the problems the grand level, and to that end you can't as a general rule suggest that veggies are the "best" option. Well, it clearly isn't in the northeren hemisphere.
In the end the moral question is, should we really force people to eat this, that or the other? I mean, there's obviously no harm in making suggestions, but when those suggestions aren't met with enthusiasm, then change isn't liable to happen without the use of force. And I think can all agree that we are nowhere near a Soylent Green situation, so we still have the option to give people a choice.
Personally, my bet are on those developing succulent and protein-rich meat alternatives. The second they can make a product that similar enough, but without the environmental overhead, then people will flock to it.
[1]: http://www.fao.org/3/a-i3437e.pdf
[2]: Norwegian language source: https://www.agrianalyse.no/getfile.php/134664-1553523670/Dok...
[3]: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5...
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_grow....
[5]: https://www.dw.com/en/the-global-food-surplus/a-15452289
Transport has a low impact on the total emissions (and also producing beef is sooo bad) that you could e.g. ship a kilogram of peas several times around the globe and the peas would still win emission-wise against a kilogram of locally produced beef. If you pick another metric, like energy content ('calories') or compare emissions per mass of contained protein, beef is still worse.
https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food
[0] https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/1294928556036956162
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
My point being the problem is not meat which is a natural part of our diet (and is traditionally raised on land not well suited to crops) but the crazy frankenmeat many are reduced to eating due to overpopulation.
Either way, we can’t just “eat what the cows eat” directly and there are a lot more variables to consider.
What has been natural about our diets since the invention of cooking?
So if we all stopped eating meat we could cut emissions but a couple of % but if we all stopped driving and turned our heating down/up we could actually make a real difference?
Edited with real numbers from https://www.c2es.org/content/international-emissions/
This article suggests livestock greenhouse gas emissions are equivalent to the entire transportation sector. Basically because methane and carbon dioxide have different effects on warming: https://www.ecowatch.com/which-is-worse-for-the-planet-beef-...
If you have a good source I would be delighted to read it.
Among the most effective things you can do yourself with minimal impact of your way of life is choosing to eat less meat.
Edit: the numbers I remembered was for Europe. Globally food production is 25%
https://www.c2es.org/content/international-emissions/
>Globally, the primary sources of greenhouse gas emissions are electricity and heat (31%), agriculture (11%), transportation (15%), forestry (6%) and manufacturing (12%). Energy production of all types accounts for 72 percent of all emissions.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-shift-obes...
It’s not just about emissions. It’s also about the massive amount of land required to produce meat vs. crops for human consumption.
Re: cutting out meat vs. driving, only one of those activities is necessary to survive for the very high percentage of the population who don’t have access to public transit.
You can probably give corn to people instead of cows in the US (yay more HFCS!) but you can't ask the sheep and goat herders to graze themselves.
It’s about a college cafeteria experimenting to reduce carbon emissions and the amount of land required to serve meals:
> Last year, University cafeterias (separate from the colleges) announced a 33% reduction in carbon emissions per kilogram of food purchased, and a 28% reduction in land use per kilogram of food purchased.
They aren't ranching in Manhatten. Leasing land for grazing brings in about $70 an acre while doing it for crops will bring in around $280 an acre. Development of course would bring in amounts that are several orders of magnitude higher. Where cattle are raised, raising cattle is the only purpose available. This is why ranches are out west in the US or in the outback in Australia.
If the world stopped raising cattle, a lot of steppes around the world would go back to being completely useless. We wouldnt free up valuable land.
"Grazing systems supply about 9 percent of the world's production of beef"
The overwhelming majority of cows live on maize, soy, barley etc.
Article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_feeding#Grazing
That meat is bad for our health is a myth perpetuated by the health industry, as well as by bad research that isn't accounting for processed meat vs. high quality unprocessed meat, nor do the studies account for confounding factors like other unhealthy food that many meat eaters eat.
Dr. Georgia Ede is someone to look up on YouTube who's been spending her time debunking bad research on meat.
> but that of the planet, as livestock farming on a massive scale destroys habitats and generates greenhouse gases.
Monocultures are really terrible, and based on the latest thought leaders and their knowledge, the trend needs to move towards allowing animals to roam the land again - which helps aerate and maintain the quality of soil.
My guess for future is free-roaming animals in their natural habitat, and vertical farming for vegetables, etc.
Hopefully such designs also produce lower quantities of the less desirable options, since food waste has a huge impact on climate change (according to drawdown’s list).
> “We know that information alone is generally not enough to get us to change damaging habits. More research is needed on how to set up our society so that the self-interested default decision is the best one for the climate.”
This I agree wholeheartedly with. Expecting people to change their behaviors is an exercise in futility. Defaults and convenience matter a lot more.
But it also cost $15. I'd rather spend that kind of money on a really good portabello burger than something that tastes "exactly" like a fast food burger.
Granted, that is still about 2x - 3x the cost of beef locally (depending on which quality level you want to compare it to). But the price also seems to keep coming down over time so I imagine it will eventually be competitive on price.
Beyond Meat burger ingredients: Water, Pea Protein*, Expeller-Pressed Canola Oil, Refined Coconut Oil, Rice Protein, Natural Flavors, Cocoa Butter, Mung Bean Protein, Methylcellulose, Potato Starch, Apple Extract, Pomegranate Extract, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Vinegar, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Sunflower Lecithin, Beet Juice Extract (for color).
Many of these things are not good for many people, and many if not the majority of people aren't connected to their body properly, conditioned by ego mind disconnecting them. Personally I can't do pea protein, canola oil, coconut oil, rice, bean, potato, apple, vinegar, lemon, or lecithin. Those all agitate my GI tract causing different levels of discomfort or pain.
What you find in meat however is the same as what's naturally in humans, it's the animal concentrating the plants they eat into nutrients, protein, etc - and high fat red meat like beef has exactly what your body and brain needs and in the right portions.
I'm not trying to argue it's not possible to make a comparable option, however it's highly unlikely. I do wonder if a cultured meat substitute is possible as well, as the highest quality meat are from animals in their natural environment under natural environmental stress conditions, it's more likely to create a comparable product though; getting cost down and texture will be the biggest challenges.
Irrelevant. They are fine for the absolute majority of people. For almost everyone in the world, eating Beyond Meat burgers would be better than meat burgers.
You should eat according to your body’s needs, but just because you have GI issues does not devalue innovations in food technology.
Besides, how does your proposal not amount to a nudge?
After being meat and dairy free for awhile my cravings changed. I guess our brains are plastic? I ate (and loved!) meat for 28 years, but today I don't even crave it, and can report I enjoy food just as much as I used to. If being plant-based required will-power, I don't think I'd be able to do it.
I think it's actually easier to go all the way, and avoid meat completely, than it is to cut back. If meat is a regular, if limited, part of your diet the craving never goes away.
Paraphrased from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj-91dMvQQo
I think going majority meat and dairy less without committing 100% would make a much bigger effect in aggregate. We don’t need everyone becoming vegan, actually we can’t even support that. But if having meat and dairy at every single meal wasn’t a requirement, then we’d make a lot of change.
Vegetarians and vegans who have meat/dairy rarely shouldn’t be shunned or considered “failed”.
I'm at 67 hours of a planned 72 hour water fast and I'm not craving food, nor hungry, it's easy once you get past the first day or two to continue for 5-10+ days so long as supplementing for electrolytes.
I'm curious what else you changed in your diet or eating behaviours when you stopped eating meat? Did you reduce your sugar and carbohydrates? The quality (processed or not, organic or not) and type of meat you eat as well - as people can have sensitivities and discomfort by eating specific types of meat; chicken and duck bother me some, pork bothers me more, beef is fine.
Any tips from others who have the same issue around hunger impeding sleep would be appreciated.
I faced the same issues and for me what really helped is drinking a lot of Camomille (0.5L) sweetened with sugar alcohols. I guess it does two things. Camomille has some calming effects, especially when warm. This immediately gets my stomach rumblings to stop. Secondly, the sugar alcohols might trick your brain in releasing some dopamine since it has a sweet taste (not sure, that's my theory). This helps me soldier through the adrenaline and hunger spikes.
My longest fast was 10 days. The first time I fasted what I discovered was it was my mind telling me I was hungry, not my body. There's a pizza chain where I live called Pizza Pizza, bright orange background with white lettering. It was a 3 day fast and on the second day as I was walking that big bright sign around dinner popped up into my head, and I was like "Oh, I'll have pizza tonight for dinner." And then I realized I wasn't hungry. It taught me that we develop mental triggers, reminders, for when to eat - and that's pretty much why advertising works to manipulate us, and it does it very well; many if not most people are driven by their ego mind constantly being on and are disconnected from feeling their body properly - signals like hunger, etc. We get trained young to eat foods that don't make us feel well, and the mind then over time pulls our attention and connection to our body away from us. You may have some of this ego mind thought patterns to clear, that's telling you very strongly that you need to eat "or else you'll die" - instead of being able to relax and trust that (unless you're underweight) that your body will simply switch to energy in your fat reserves.
When fasting what happens really depends on what your diet is beforehand. If it's ketogenic then you're not also having to deal with the transition to your brain burning ketones. What's your normal diet, and do you take electrolyte supplement? Perhaps too personal however I'm curious if you take any neurotransmitter altering medications that may be preventing your brain from shifting, transitioning as easily? Feel free to email me instead matt@engn.com or just not answer that but it potentially is a factor.
It's quite common for people's sleep to get greatly disrupted for at least the first few nights which is for a few reasons. It may be disconcerting to have sleep disrupted, with potentially very vivid dreams, and transitioning into a different sleep schedule that you're not used to. One reason is inflammation level is going down in your brain, and arguably it's functioning better - inflammation has a depressant effect, so when there's a numbing or "calming" of processes.
The difficulty you mention is more likely related to withdrawal/irritability from foods you're dependant on/addicted to than the increase in adrenaline and norepinephrine that your body produces when fasting - which will make your mind faster and sharper; makes sense for this to have evolved to be a thing so if you don't have access to food and need to have a sharp mind for hunting, etc. Similarly you burn more calories when fasting than you'd burn if eating food, once again - needing more energy so you can have more energy to find your next food supply. This increased drive could make withdrawal more irritating as well.
Do you eat wheat, dairy, soy, sugars and/or carbohydrates? Wheat for some people literal acts like an opiate, so you're literally going through withdrawal. The rest of the foods I mention are highly inflammatory, and through that depressant effect people are self-medicating to "calm" or suppress their nervous system. It's possible that there's underlying emotion, unhealed/unprocessed trauma, that wants to process but perhaps you don't have the insight or skill developed yet - or it's built up past a point you can tolerate processing it, and so using food as a suppressant; this is why people consider things like MDMA and Ayahuasca ceremonies as medicines because it helps a person more easily access and process deeply suppressed emotions and trauma that was too strong to process otherwise at the time it occurred, or over time perhaps different stresses built up while ego mind suppressed/repressed and/or found different healthy or unhealthy coping mechanisms - alcohol, tobacco, certain foods, etc.
Have you tried ju...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-shift-obes...
It is amazing how fleeting our tastes are.
I think this may work for any dietary change that you stick with consistently. I'm not a vegetarian, but I completely revamped my diet several years back, and at first I craved the old foods, but now I crave the new ones.
I'd bet part of it is as simple as being hungry, eating something, and then not feeling hungry anymore. Satiating your hunger is a good feeling, and over time you're going to learn to associate that good feeling with its causes, which are whatever you eat regularly.
In case you're wondering about climate impact per calorie instead of per pound/kg, here's an interesting article from the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/vegetarian-or-...
I see a lot of these charts that a pound of beef vs carrots. Just seems dumb, I would have to eat far more than a pound of carrots to match the calories of a pound of beef. Most data/infographic stuff in a climate world bugs me because it's just not well presented. The overall conclusion is the same -- eating meat is a huge carbon footprint compared to vegetables. Climate change has a marketing problem.
Back to beef. My main reason for avoiding it is the cost. Especially with the more flavorful cuts being extra pricy. Perhaps the best way to lower consumption is a tax like what we have with cigarettes. But I can’t see any political will for this anytime soon in the US. It would be nice to see the more progressive countries in Europe lead the way, like they’ve done with other aspects of emissions control.
Edit: typo
Moreover, some of us respond poorly to carbs in terms of weight management and general well-being. I have ADHD and and a carb-heavy diet really messes with my symptoms. There aren't really any plants that provide enough protein without including a significantly greater amount of carbs so getting all of my calories from plants is a non-starter.
I forgot to elaborate on the emissions/calorie issue in my comment (there's that ADHD). The link in the parent shows that many animal-based foods compare favorably with popular vegetables using the emissions/calorie metric. Direct link to the chart: https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1024w/2010-2019/Wash...
It feels good to see some vindication on the animal farming emissions issue. It's a huge positive that we can lower our emissions footprint without resorting to a fully plant-based diet.
Plants have a lot fiber which counteracts carbs and creates satiation (displaces calories).
It seems like it would be a fairer comparison to drum up reasonable examples of complete vegetarian, vegan, and omnivorous diets and work out a carbon footprint (or whatever ecological impact measure you prefer) of each backwards, from the plated food back to the source. Then look at the complete diets that have the lowest impact. I would still expect that vegan, vegetarian and very low-meat diets would do better than the typical diet in the US.
The difference: almost a metre of added distance between the vegetarian and meat options, with an 85cm gap in the first college compared to a 181cm gap in the second