ITT: peasants attacking each other instead of the people responsible for gestures broadly all of this
My partner and I are flexatarians, it's lovely. The only downside is that it's hard to not eat carb heavy, which is also an issue with vegetarianism and veganism. I feel like a spy among vegetarians.
I really don't eat a lot of meat. When I do it's usually chicken, sausage, or broth. The latter two are great for using bits of the animal that wouldn't normally be consumed alone.
I feel very grateful that I grew up in a non-veg household that still ate tofu. And now I am a tofu fiend.
However, eggs are still far less impactful than beef, so, protein options still exist, not to mention all the nuts and beans out there.
Also, what about vegetables? Though I admit these should be part of a diet no matter what your diet is, so doesn't really count.
It's not all carbs in non-meat land, is all I'm saying.
Power to you for whatever works for you though, no judgement.
I eat pretty much the same, except almost zero carbs because of diabetes. But I've been eating like this for decades because my stomach just can't handle most beef or pork at all (except the sausage) ... it sits like a rock in my gut and takes almost a full day to start feeling normal again.
Ever since pandemic, meat has been doing the same to me. Muscle meat in particular, ground meats I'm more ok with.
How do you manage to avoid carbs? It seems like almost everything nonmeat is some form of carb, except for mushrooms, milk, and eggs
I try to keep my carbs under 30 grams per day. Above that I gain weight and feel like crap.
Very VERY limited wheat products like bread, pasta, etc (once per week if that). I used to use konjac noodles as an alternative but they've become very expensive.
Zero sugar (I use stevia instead, but it's an acquired taste).
I make protein shakes with 0% milk, real chocolate powder, collagen protein and stevia. I'll have 2-3 @ 16oz per day.
I also make my own soda/pop with club soda, lemon and lime juice, and stevia.
Drink about a gallon/4 litres of water per day.
And because of cost I eat a lot of frozen veggies vs fresh ... mixed with pasta sauce, melted cheese on top, or made into an omlet of sorts.
Homemade soups are also great, but I currently live in a rooming house so don't have access to a freezer anymore.
What about vegetables? If you are talking about plant proteins with not a lot of carbs go for TVP or vegan protein powders.
You may not have discovered TVP yet. You should do so.
I'm not looking to add protein, I'm looking to reduce carbs. They're in fucking everything from oat milk to fruit. At least, that's what my Endo told me.
unsweetened almond milk has minimal carbs, and not much you can do about fruit since its all pretty much all sweet but the fiber is good to make you feel fuller.
That's the big problem for our family. My wife has dietary restrictions from having a duodenal switch and ending up super malabsorptive even among DS patients because of it.
So she has a tiny stomach capacity and only absorbs a percentage of any nutrients in what she eats. Non-meat proteins tend to play hell with her stomach. She's gotta be careful about what protein shakes she has for her breakfast.
You know what would really help? More so then cutting actual food intake?
How about halfing the number of golf courses? Stop using grass and let more natural plants for lawns, stop the use of private planes and also just kill or reduce the Cruise ship industry to a miniscule amount. Plus other shit rich people use that has a disproportionate huge carbon footprint. Find it funny that I never see the news --or rich, holier than thou morons-- pushing for this.
Nah, they go after our food. Rich people do not care, they can eventually make beef the price of caviar per weight? Because fuck you and all of us. Why? Well they do not care. They can always pay. Easily.
For example: Bill Gates is the largest farm land owner in the USA now, he and his buddies and his rich clients will all get all the natural milk, beef, pork, chickens, lambs, veal they can eat. You? Eat lentils and maybe crickets or give his lab grown biomilq, to your kids or eat his lab meat, like a good and compliant serf. Don't think, just comply and consume. 'Cause I am sure he ain't touching the stuff himself or is his family. He is not going to be the long term guinea pig. I wouldn't either.
Carbon footprint of food production in the USA is 9% of total. Beef is about 3% of total. So 9 for both beef and crops.
Just the cruise ship industry, for example, is about 3.3% of the world's total carbon footprint. Let's kill that. Also private jet use. They can fly Business class, if they are not hypocrites.
I couldn't help but think there's no way luxury cruise ships is 3% of global carbon emissions
It says "cruise ships and other maritime vessels" which isn't cleared up anywhere in the article. You have to remember that if this includes container ships it's fully expected, we all buy shit from across the world all the time.
So either greenmatch is intentionally rage baiting everyone or they both emit 3% each, sus.
I really hate misinformation. It's very easy to rally and hate on the rich but it would be very funny to me if that 3% you said to "get rid of" means you would have to completey change your consumer habits and not only just affect "the rich"
But yes regardless don't mistake my comment for defending luxury cruise ships.
I mean, we can do all of those things and reduce our meat intake. They're not mutually exclusive. How about we encourage people to do everything they can, rather than gate-keeping solutions?
Considering every 100 pounds you add to your vehicle you reduce fuel economy by 2%, I wonder how much less CO2 we'd produce if everyone got to a healthy BMI.
Eating meat is not your religion. Why do you feel so offended?
At least for me these articles are a bit annoying since it seems that businesses world wide give a shit about the consequences of their actions but news outlets decided to pin the issue on the consumer.
Don't get me wrong. I think consumers are at least partially in charge when it comes to decisions about their consuming behavior. And reducing the meat intake is something that is not too hard and can improve the health for some people. But propagating this as the solution to our climate problem and on top not looking into the effect of lower income on nutrition / eating behavior makes me angry. The article just briefly mentions that the government has no success in influencing the prices through taxes.
At least here in Germany meat is so unbelievably cheap that it's very understandable people got used to eating it on a daily base. And it's hard to change this without businesses like supermarkets supporting this with price changes (meat up vegetables down) and an increase in minimal income since environmentally friendly food is currently more expensive than "garbage food".
I mean, to be fair, this isn't proposed as the solution to climate, but rather part of the solution. Your points about income and meat prices are totally valid, but they're things that we as citizens can pressure our governments to adopt as part of the encouragement of a reduced meat diet.
And it's hard to change this without businesses like supermarkets supporting this
A crazy amount of the EU budget goes towards subsidizing farming. Enough of that goes towards the meat industry. It's not supermarkets that enable this to be cheap. It's loads of things. Huge subsidies, regulations enabling intense farming, governments giving subsidies in various ways, then there's also a bit about supermarkets.
Yeah, let's f stop those subsidies for instance. I don't see why taxes should be used to destroy the environment in such a clearcut way.
The type of golf course matters. Where I live, a lot of golf courses are public, packed with big trees, surrounded by bushland, act as a green space and native animal refuge among the suburbs, some of them protect wetlands, and are local government owned. While they do use up a lot of water, its still probably less tgan if it was all just paved with suburban housing and their shit lawns. And all the trees would be gone.
We need a total shift. All those things are things we should do too. It's no doubt that rich people produce more emissions.
But you're just trying to avoid shouldering any responsibility yourself for something were all responsible for.
This is something you can do, right now, to decrease your carbon footprint.
Btw, if you're living in the west with constant access to Internet, and got a free education...you almost certainly are one of those rich people.
Personal carbon credits would make it very easy to solve all of that.
I've been on this diet for 5 years, I call it the "only meat on sale" diet
Aldi on Thursday morning for me.
Why thursday morning? What country?
I don't know if it's the same everywhere, but at least in the US, Aldi offers some meat at a reduced price on wednesdays and I assume on thursday morning they discount even more to clear out unsold stock.
I'm watching the new climate town video as I see this.
Glad the media is still telling us it is our fault as consumers while industry and governments actively work against us.
Yes eating plants is better for the environment and your body. Yes I try to eat mostly plants and I encourage you all to try it, but Capitalism is what is killing us and eating a salad isnt going to fix it.
The article literally says producers, consumers, and government are all part of it.
We've gotten to the point that any mention of what an individual can do to reduce their carbon impact is met with "stop blaming us!"
The reality is that we are all responsible and we all have to change, including individuals. You just don't want to change, you want everyone else to. You are just like the rich person that says they care about global warming, as they turn around and jump on their private jet.
I agree it is all connected.
I guess my complaint is the degree at which we as individuals make an impact vs Corporations and the Government. I could go completely carbon neutral tomorrow. Sustainably farm in the woods and never leave, but that wouldn't touch the 6 million tons of Methane leaked from Natural Gas infrastructure this year.
Pretty much everyone and everything can point to a bigger polluter. The reality is that we all have to change. If every time we are given ways to change, we instead whine that there are worse than us...well, then, we're just fucked.
Actually, quite the opposite. As long as you buy beef, cattle will continue to be a major driver of climate change. Under capitalism, it only gets produced because you buy it
isn't it heavily subsidized? I appreciate that you're using a textbook definition of capitalism but that's not how anything actually works.
Indeed! I would add to this, we also heavily subsidize corn and wheat production as well. We waste an inordinate amount of what should be prairie land just so we can put up a bunch of beyond inefficient farms so that the rich can continue making money off of what theyve already been profiting off of.
Id also like to remind everyone that this sort of farming killed our prairies. In effect, this puts us at risk of another dust bowl due to the difference in size of root systems between corn/wheat and prairies tall grasses, and exacerbates the climate crisis further as prairies are incredibly efficient at pulling carbon out of our atmosphere.
And it isn't just the plants. It is the centuries of plants that have lived and died to build the soil. Modern practices burn up the old plants (often, though no till and no burn practices to exist and are growing in popularity) making the soil consistently lose fertility. Also we cover them in pesticides and herbicides and monocrops.
Fun fact: The guy in the "It's not much but it's honest work" meme was a pioneer in no-till agriculture, and helped to research methods and popularize the practice. He did tremendous work in helping to reduce runoff and save our soils.
Honest work, indeed.
Worldwide? Not necessarily, no. Most of the growth in beef demand in particular is in developing nations. Subsidies increase access, but they don’t create demand in and of themself
In my country meat is heavily subsided and if was put to market at true price less people would buy it.
They don't remove them because It would piss off a lot of business to remove the subsidies overnight and many would lose jobs. But I say fuck them, it'll work out in the long run
Subsidies increase access, but they don’t create demand in and of themself
If something is significantly lowered in price, wouldn't that affect demand? If not, why would it suddenly work differently?
You should also see how much of the EU budget directly goes to farming. That's just direct subsidies, there's also loads of indirect ones.
Yes you are right, but we don't live in a truly free market. There are all kinds of shenanigans that happen to make our decisions have less impact. Also advertising has to be accounted for. Corporations use neuroscience to convince us to do things against our best interest. How can we account for that?
Ya know what would also limit it: Actually stopping like the top 5 companies causing like 60% of all pollution.
Just stop doing carbon credits because it's a literal scam and just shut down any factory that pollutes more than an allowed amount until they get it under control.
These companies are producing products you consume. What would really limit the emissions is reducing the human population to under 1B worldwide.
This has already been debunked elsewhere in the comments
That article doesn’t back up your claim at all. It talks about an industry.
Also, GHG metrics by volume distort the picture when CO2, by volume, is like 25x less potent than methane
That seems to put the carbon produced on the buyer of a product, not the company that produced the item. It mentions electricity as one and its not like you choose how your electricity is generated. Others being land use and food production which again you can't control because large corporations do that, not individuals.
If there were no buyers, there would be no producers. It is always on buyers.
And yet it's easy to stop the production while it's nearly impossible to stop the consumption.
Lol what?
It's nearly impossible to remove people buying something while it's very easy to stop a company from producing something.
Lol what? Do you even understand that a company only produces something because people are buying that thing?
Tobacco companies are selling and advertising vapes for children. Do you think children should just stop smoking or should they not be allowed to do that?
Is this actually news? Seems old to me, thanks OP though for bringing it up again.
The term flexitarian is new to me anyway. Happy this concept is getting more press anyway
Well... Raping is wrong, right? Say there is this guy, he doesn't always rape, just sometimes when he's in the mood. But not always. Should we applaud this flexi-rapist for doing something aweful a little less?
You're not technically wrong, but you'll never convert anyone with your attitude. You're doing veganism a disservice. Please stop.
Just planting seeds, some like it, some don't. I'll be a little less harsh next time.
Eating meat is not inherently wrong, raping is.
Life consumes other life to live. Humans have evolved to eat meat, we are living beings, a part of this planet just like a lion or hawk.
The lives we must take to live, whether they are plant, animal, or both, were not decided by us but by nature. Killing and eating to live is the only moral reason one has to harm another living being. This is not nice, it's just nature. Does the wild boar chased to it's death by a tiger not suffer a cruel death? Does that make the tiger evil?
Animal Agriculture and Massive Human Populations
Our modern animal agriculture industry is what's wrong, it is disgusting and evil and treats conscious beings as objects indifferent to their suffering. But feeding 8 billion people can only be accomplished using an industrial food industry.
The answer is not trying to turn 8 billion people into vegans, that is simply not going to happen. Rather, we should be striving to reduce our numbers and change culture to respect animals and their sacrifice for our food.
One of the more effective ways to do that are to eat like a "flexitarian" and reduce the amount of dependence on the animal agriculture industry. The other key way to reduce animal suffering is not something an individual has control over -- to have a human population that is not grotesquely oversized for the environment.
Our species has no entitlement to grow to maximum size and kill other beings to support this unnecessary growth. The Haber-Bosch process effectively caused human eutrophication, an imbalance, and like the overgrown algae causing fish kills in lakes, our numbers are causing the unnecessary death of a great many species in our environment and will lead to ecological failure if not taken care of. The solution to eutrophication in a lake is stop the overflow of nutrients.
While it's possible in modern times for a person to live on a vegan diet, it's not a normal, not healthy without significant effort and education, or more moral.
There will never be a time when no humans eat meat. Therefore, we should strive to reduce the suffering required to sustain our own life. Eating flexitarian is a highly practical way to do this. If an individual is willing to sacrifice their health and/or work to gain the knowledge required to be healthy without consuming animals at all (i.e. be vegan) then good for them, but this cannot be expected to occur globally.
...my wife eats meat: you know what she eats a heck of a lot less of since moving in with me?..you know what she'd've eaten a heck of a lot more of if i weren't tolerant?..
...don't make perfect the enemy of good; you'll do a heck of a lot less good and be surprised when you learn that your perfect isn't...
I'm vegan a long time now, sometimes I lose my patience because it feels like I'm talking to 8 year olds all the time. Carnism ia real, the fragile meat-egos, the bullshit bingo, the same lame arguments make me loose my patience sometimes. But obviously you have a point.
In my note app I've saved my old replies I'm fairly confident of regarding research, impact and links to sources and fire them up against the standard arguments. It's cheap but it would be madness to answer the age old cliches popping up in mass under a controversional vegan post with individual new answers. The definition of Sisyphus work. I refine the posts to take deviations from standard arguments into account. I don't spam them in a thread of full of the same cliche answers but tactically under one of them with a lot of upvotes/likes. This saves me some headaches and at least I know I countered the disinformation at least once and will maybe make some people see that the most regurgitated answers are not per se the most correct just because of their prevalence.
Damn, I am still sisyphussing!
Well rape is illegal, but honestly I see the equivalence, morally. That's the age old question posed by harm reduction, and I think, answered by it too. And this hardline viewpoint may work on some people, so it's a good one to bring up.
My take is that it's got nothing to do with rewarding less bad behaviour, but about reducing the amount of harm in the world. AFAIK there's no evidence that encouraging someone to be partially vegan actually props up modern horror farming any more than arguing for pure veganism.
Further, I think you can argue for both. Treat one as a gateway to the other.
The fact is we're unlikely to see animal eating outlawed in our lifetime, so we've got to work within the confines of rhetoric, or I guess terrorism.
Yeah I agree. Usually I am more patient and understanding as well, but today I decided to be a little confronting. There is no right way, as long as we do anything at all, I guess.
Here's an idea, maybe the affluent and ultra rich can stop their decadent luxuries before us peasants give up the few pleasures in life left to us.
You mean eating meat?!
Me, I just like to rape, don't take that peasure from me. Go for billionaires first!
You’re fucking annoying
Why?
Do you truly lack that much awareness? If I didn’t already understand your point you would be the last person to teach me anything. You’re far too aggressive and as an abuse victim myself I don’t appreciate you using rape to make your point. I’m reading discussions and suddenly your comments pop in to completely derail it.
It seems like you're willfully ignoring their point to attack them on tone. I think the parallel is that both comments are saying something of the form "I enjoy doing something that harms others, therefore it's justified."
Did you watch the video? I'd maybe approach with caution if not, because it deals with topics like sexual assault, but it really makes this point clear.
If you are going to use sexual abuse to make a point you better be concise or the very least be funny. So yah, tone would make sense to comment on as if that was the only thing. You want to lead someone to that video, the way they are going about it is piss poor. You think that video is something new? that i haven't heard it before, get out of you bubble. If you can't phrase it as well or better than the video, maybe let the video talk for itself.
They could at least try to bring their point respectfully, instead of derailing and pushing gore into peoples faces.
We don't need to tolerate their behaviour, let alone give their argument even an inkling of thought.
This kind of stuff is what gives an otherwise noble goal a bad name. It is counter-productive. I know plenty of people who would start eating more meat just to not be associated with those people.
You ticked some boxes off the Vegan Bullshit Bingo there. Plus I didn't post gore (even though I could have, milk and meat production are incredibly violent and you know it).
It's a short film of three people talking, you should watch it.
And people like you are the reason veganism has a bad name
We would have more people going meatless if people like you didn't exist.
Maybe I’m being too pessimistic, but feels like this is yet another study to add to the mountain of evidence that people will ignore because they’ve deemed the taste of meat worth an impending global calamity. When will the average persons tipping point be? When oceanfront property is available in Tennessee?
When will the average persons tipping point be?
When its too expensive to buy meat. Its not like this is new either. Here's meat consumption over the last 100 years in the USA:
It tracks decently with the rise in GDP in the USA:
If you could graph sentient creatures' collective agony I'm sure that would line up pretty well too
Plants react to stimulus as well. The smell of freshly cut grass for instance is chemical signaling -- typically they'd be losing their plant matter to insects eating them, so they release chemicals to attract other insects which prey on the ones eating them.
Is the grass in agony? It responds to harm with a chemical response aimed at stopping the harm.
Where do we draw the line? Do we starve obligate carnivores so their prey lives?
I think you're getting a little too philosophical. Why not start with mammals with whom we share much in common? They exhibit levels of cognition far above what people like to believe. They mourn, have cultures, traditions. They feel fear, and that fear looks like ours, so it should be something we all can understand.
I'd also extend the same protection to fish and other complex organisms.
If it was really up to me, nothing would ever suffer, whether an earth worm or a human. But realistically we can stop eating the things with brains and friends and that'd be a boon for our climate, environment, and our health.
I would never starve animals in nature. My dog eats meat too because that's what he is made to do. I don't, because I don't have to. Nature is cruel, but we don't control that. We can easily control our nature and what we eat (or factory farm).
Individual people choosing to "do the right thing" is never going to work. It doesn't matter if any individual chooses the right food, or kind of car, anything else.
Blameing people for not cutting their meat intake, is misplaced.
The government needs to change the market by subsidizing "good" things and taxing "bad" things. That's the only way to change behavior at scale.
Ok but remember when Republicans made up that Biden was going to "outlaw burgers" with the Green New Deal? And how even the made up idea that the govt would stop subsidizing meat caused half the nation to flip their shit, while the other half went "no don't be silly, we would never ever touch your precious tendies."
Appealing to individuals is important because without shifting the public's perception of meat as it relates to climate change, the government will be too terrified to enact those kind of changes for fear of getting voted out by the angry, barbecue-loving mobs.
Until flexitarians, vegetarians, and vegans (I'm vegan btw, just need everyone to know that) become a sizable enough percentage of the voting population, these systemic changes are never going to even be considered by our leaders. So we should keep pressing the importance of these changes to collectively move ourselves closer to that tipping point.
The government needs to change the market by subsidizing “good” things and taxing “bad” things.
Or at least start by ceasing to fucking subsidize the bad things!
That would be a good first step they could try.
Capitalism is so funny like that. Everything has a price to everyone, you need to find a threshold (tax %) to tip the scale.
You're completely right because right now in UK meat has FAR MORE subsidies than vegetables and meat alternatives.
Most people alive today will be dead before anything affects them. My parents have that attitude to global warming so fly out on holiday 2-3 times a year.
This change needs to happen from the top to force everyone's hands, you can't rely on the goodness of individuals because we're all selfish fucks
I think "anything" is a huge stretch.
There are going to be noticeable effects, even in the first world, in the coming decades. Definitely half a century from now.
You know what could also limit global heating? If the fucking wealthy stopped flying in their private jets and stopped cruising in their yachts and stopped buying their 3rd house. Focus on the solutions. Subsidize green energy, tax the oil companies, ban private jets, etc. You know, things that would have an actual impact.
Yep, sick of being told I'm the problem and should change my way of living when a single private flight dumps more CO2 into the air than my car puts out in half a year, not to mention the fuel usage.
A person in their private jet is selfish and inconsiderate. They believe they are entitled to it and thereby destroy our livelihoods. They should not fly privately just because they can. They should voluntarily stop, and if they don't, it must be prohibited.
A person who still eats meat is selfish and inconsiderate. They believe they are entitled to it and thereby destroy our livelihoods. They shouldn't do it just because they can. They should voluntarily stop, and if they don't, it must be prohibited.
The only thing that will really fix the issue is if we stop breeding like rabbits. It doesn’t matter if we reduce the ecological footprint of individuals if we keep growing the population.
You're wrong! Population growth is not an issue, it's our western lifestyle, like eating meat and flying in airplanes. Our planet can easily feed 10 billion people healthy food. But not if we don't quit meat.
We could also reduce our population and keep eating meet and doing other things that make life enjoyable. Besides, who wants to live on a planet that crowded?
It isn’t that crowded. If you live in a city center it’s easy to assume everywhere is the same but that is cognitive dissonance. Many buildings are empty because of short term renting (which could easily house the homeless) and way too expensive for what it should be
much land that would be considered for food crop is taken up with concrete which actually increases the temperature of the earth making things much worse.
The need for grain and water to feed for meat production is 10 x more than what human would consume so there already is more than enough food for humans.
You’d still need humans to manufacture and distribute food to exist.
So Cutting down the human population to contain The very life style you want is still a problematic lifestyle to be sustainable
How would one reduce earths population?
You know how people have unprotected sex? Stop doing that so much.
Look at the link I posted. It's simply not true anymore. We will hit 10 billion, but because of things that already happened. Overpopulation is not the issue anymore. Our lifestyle is.
I think we should do the extreme opposite of breeding like rabbits to the wealthy instead. Like the polar opposite of creating life.
Except there is a decline in population growth as numbers stop seeing family life as an option because of demographic transition. You do not remain able to reproduce your whole life and as new generations come up to the reproductive age they face a very different life to what it once was such as what the baby boomers were going through (hence the name). This is not meaning to pick at the boomers but to point out that the name was coined for a reason.
Except there is a decline in population growth
You’re talking second derivative here. It’s still growing, it’s just growing a tiny bit slower than it used to.
That is how decline works, yes.
Does "flexitarian" mean "eat less meat", basically?
I refuse to click the link because I hate the guardian.
Yes.
The best thing you can do to limit global warming without political power is to not reproduce. The next best thing is to quit eating meat. The less meat you eat the better. And as a bonus it’s highly unlikely to be as much of a sacrifice as not having a wanted child.
The best thing you can do to limit global warming without political power is to not reproduce
This relies on some assumptions that I question. Each person doesn't contribute a fixed amount to emissions, and it's not even a bell curve distribution. The rich contribute orders of magnitude more to the problem than the poor. The top 1% contributes almost twice as much as the bottom 50%..
And with birth rates where they're at, at different levels of income/wealth, I'm thinking that plenty of childless people can contribute more to the problem than an entire bloodline of people who have huge families.
That's complete bullshit as the article is based on complete bullshit.
Iirc, there's a population of livestock that can be sustained without feed crop (instead living off of by-product and untillable pasture), and reducing it past that is less sustainable overall. So while it's true that we eat way too much meat, it's not a great idea to get rid of it entirely in the context of sustainability. There are other arguments regarding the ethics of the meat industry, but that goes beyond the scope of the discussion.
Yeah my attitude is to carbon tax it and stop subsidizing it. If meat is a luxury it’s not something people bitch about accidentally not having in their dinner.
I think that's a splendid idea.
Global warming isn't from cow farts ffs. Container ships etc though
The methane production from bovine rumination absolutely has an impact. As does the massive supply chains and absurd amount of agriculture necessary to feed those cows.
Look up the number of buffalo circa 1800
Look up the main cause of the deforestation of the Amazon. Look up the number of cattle alive today compared to any other point in history.
North american cattle population is roughly equal to buffalo population of 1800. Maybe i had looked this up long before you suggested it. Whining about cattle is an entirely different issue than just stopping deforestation, which is more for palm oil in the region you speak of anyways.
FFS it's not only the methane. It's all the GHG sinks we destroy to let cattle graze and feed other animals caught in CAFO. In addition it's the whole infrastructure around the system
Half of habitable land is used for agriculture (5x the USA). 2/3 of that is grazing land. 1/3 crop land. One half of the 1/3 crop land is used for plants that are directly consumed by humans. The rest is animal feed and stuff like biofuel.
Crop land and grazing land for animals combined make up 80% of all farmland. Meat, dairy and fish combined make up only 17% of all calories and 38% of protein.
If everyone went plant based the global farmland use would be reduced from 4 billion to 1 billion hectares and therefore crop death would be dramatically reduced. The land could be rewilded and natural GHG sinks could be established again.
Everyday 5000 soccerfield sized areas of amazonas rainforest are razed to the ground for cattle,
leather, soy (for animal feed ofc) and palm oil. Mafia like cartels of cattle breeders threaten and murder indigenous people and activists there and implemented a complicated system of cattle laundering to hide that they burn intact rain forests (green lung of the earth) there. The 10.000.000 anually slaughtered cows there are also exported to US meatpackers. The leather ends up in european car seats. Via container ships.
Exactly, in the last decade or so I went from pescetarian to vegetarian to vegan and for the last few years I have been "flexitarian". My own adoption of it is different to others in the sense that most of what I eat at home is still vegan but on average I probably have 1-2 vegetarian meals at home a week and I don't have many issues eating vegetarian (sometimes meat) outside of the house.
I still avoid a lot of meat, especially things like veal, but I find being "flexible" also helps talk to people about it. It is much less intimidating asking someone to try having 2 veggie meals a week than telling them they need to universally drop all animal products from their diet.
My spouse is vegetarian for health reasons, so there are always vegetarian options at mealtime.
I eat primarily vegetarian, but I don't go out there and say "I am vegetarian." I found it easier to go to restaurants and merely say "I am not eating meat today" if I need to order something odd.
I suppose that I have been a flexitarian for a while, then.
Man "carnivores" have vegetarian meals all the time. This internet discourse is worth less than used toilet paper.
I think it's more about knowingly switching out a meal rather than just patting yourself on the back because you eat mac and cheese twice a week. For every conversation we have online there are a few people that learn something from it, myself included, I think the thread is interesting!
Its mostly horseshit.
I suppose that is meat free and you’d have to extraordinarily flexible, but sure, go for whatever works fr you
Basically. We have a couple no meat meals per week and we have cut back the amount of meat per recipe as well. Not for the environment so much but we have just naturally drifted away from eating so much meat.
Or we could eat like 3 billionaires.
I don't think 3 billionaires emit in their combined lifetime as much as 100 BILLION farting chicken in a day.
i cut down my meat consumption to almost zero. maybe some beef pho on the weekend sometimes..... but i HATE the term flexitarian.... i refuse to call myself that...
Ehh, what you call yourself isn't important. The point is you're still eating a diet that's compatible with not fucking the environment
what you call yourself isn’t important.
yeah, i agree... that's why i hate labels.
diet that’s compatible with not fucking the environment
and for health, and for a bunch of other reasons... but we don't need another label for it.... my choice of food is simply my choice of food... it doesn't need to be categorized
Half-vegetarian is another term
Plant forward is how fine dining advertises this concept. I tend to prefer that term over anything as vegetarian/flexitarian tends to have a stigma attached.
I think "plant forward" is actually a reasonable term.
I guess I'm essentially a flexitarian at this point, though I have never labelled myself as such. I tend to opt for non-meat options but am nowhere near vegan as I only learned after my daughter started dating one. What an incredible minefield it is! You have to sit around and analyze absolutely everything. Like can you believe pepsi is vegan but not diet pepsi?!? But diet coke is. I don't know about coke zero and am frankly afraid to ask…
Wait what did they put in the diet pepsi?
I think it’s a trade secret. Probably something like how Guinness used to use fish bladders as a filter
For me being flexible help ramp down my consumption of meat. Each day without was a win. These days it's very rare that I eat any meat. It's become boring compared to the fun of a meatless diet.
I guess I've been a flexitarian since 2016ish. I have a few vegetarian days a week for environmental reasons.
My first goal was to preferably have 2 meaty days a week and leave the rest meat free. After about three years I got to the point where I realised I hadn't eaten meat in a while. I simply forgot to.
Now I just eat meat when I visit friends and family, or to keep my iron levels in check. It's surprisingly doable.
Yeah if you're flexible (I get it now) you can totally get free meat on the regular. Plus my dad goes on Costco runs and just gives me spare meat. I haven't really had to buy any in a while and like you don't really notice when I don't have any for weeks. The real thing for me is the odd hotdog or whatever craving, that's when I actively seek it out.
I keep drifting back and forth between whole food plant based and vegetarian for about the past 13 years. I got no beef with meat eaters but I couldn't imagine putting that into my mouth and the process of masticating it. Although on St Patrick's Day looking at the corned beef sandwiches took me back in time for a brief moment.
I hate animals, that's why I'm a vegetarian.
Care to explain the joke?
That's not a joke. I don't like animals, they drive me crazy, and I think they're disgusting. Since they're disgusting I don't want their flesh in me.
The virgin vegetarian because I love animals vs the chad vegetarian because I hate animals
I view vegans like party clowns view mimes.
Upvoted for making me re-read this several times and contemplate the statement.
I think they’re disgusting. Since they’re disgusting I don’t want their flesh in me.
Isn't this the basis behind some religions' prohibition against eating pigs? Basically that they are disgusting and disease-ridden.
It was the historical reason for this rule, yes. In the time people eating pig meat were getting sick, so they put a rule into their religion as a countermeasure.
Vegan agriculture kills more animals less humanely than .... oh he's serious. That's even funnier.
That’s the joke I thought he was trying to hint at lol
Interesting to note that the study has been funded by the Rockefeller foundation. Eating less meat is one piece of the decarbonization puzzle but I feel that the language of this article and the study implies that we need to focus mostly on this and turn a blind eye to the other ways we're feeding into climate change.
You do realize the younger Rockefeller died like 70 years ago, right? That's not the discrediting factor you think it is.
Are we doing this again?
The are 100 companies are responsible for 70% of global emissions. States can test nuclear weapons in the Pacific Ocean; nah eat a salad for lunch.
And what do those companies produce? A lot of them make food. They don’t give a fuck as long as people keep eating insane amounts of meat.
But if it makes you feel better, abdicate your personal responsibility and point the finger. But no matter how you vote, it won’t save the world as long as meat production is going up. They don’t raise the cows if you don’t buy the beef
Ah yes concrete manufacturers, one of the largest producers of greenhouse gasses, are only doing it because of meat eaters. Fun fact, the number one producer of greenhouse gasses in France isn't an entire industry, there's a single concrete factory that outweighs every other greenhouse gas producing industry in the country.
“He killed 5 people, I only killed 1!” Is not a valid defense of criminal activity. Nor does “concrete is worse than our food chain” mean we shouldn’t fix it
I never said that we shouldn’t fix anything, I was refuting your point that we only produce so many greenhouse gasses because we eat so much meat when that just isn’t the case.
It’s totally the case. Beef is one of the worst products out there because it produces methane, one of the worst GHGs pound for pound.
There’s also incredible inefficiencies with beef, since it takes more calories to raise than any other type of meat (or, god forbid, just growing plants and eating them). This isn’t really a matter of opinion, it’s just the reality of climate change
Please just read what you’re responding to properly. I KNOW CATTLE FARMING PRODUCES GREENHOUSE GASSES. You were saying that if people stopped eating meat then almost all of the carbon emissions would stop but like I said that isn’t the case because some of the worst producers (like concrete manufacturers or fossil fuel companies) don’t care what you eat. Even if everyone stopped eating any form of animal products and we just culled all of the livestock worldwide, unless you want to revert to buildings from the 1600s those companies are still going to be emitting insane amounts of greenhouse gasses.
States can test nuclear weapons in the Pacific Ocean
The Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), formally known as the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, prohibited all test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those conducted underground. It is also abbreviated as the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) and Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (NTBT), though the latter may also refer to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which succeeded the PTBT for ratifying parties.
Not everyone is a signatory -- China, France, and North Korea are notable exceptions.
But even if they could, how would that relate?
Global warming isn't a function of nuclear weapon testing.
Global warming isn’t a function of nuclear weapon testing.
This reminds me of something I learned in climatology. Those who did pioneering work studying ocean circulation which became instrumental later in formulating the general circulation models used today discovered they could measure the currents by tracking radioisotopes from open air nuclear tests done back in the 60s. So ironically, nuclear weapons testing has furthered our understanding of climate and global warming.
50% of all green house gases come from animal agriculture, so yeah...
Also torturing other animals for your taste buds is not okay.
I see, so doing something about it is the responsibility of consumers, not the companies who do it.
Both. But one you can change right now. At your next meal just choose vegan.
Which means either be rich or live a life eating nothing but beans and rice.
Beans, rice, tofu, lentils, mushrooms, chickpeas, nuts, seeds, many options and they're all cheaper than flesh, and healthier for you and better for the environment.
Choose one of those, and use the extra money to donate towards something that will undermine those capitalist trash.
Extra money. Donate. Must be nice to be rich. By the way, people who aren't rich can often work two jobs. When do you think they have time to cook?
Veganism is a privilege that many people cannot have.
What's your point? Arguments for veganism only apply to those who can eat vegan. They obviously don't apply to those that can't. You concern re. food deserts is a very valid one but that isn't a criticism of veganism, it's benefits or its impact on the environment. Working to eliminate food deserts and improve nutritional options for everyone is a part of tackling climate change. For those Americans that do have access to some vegan options (about 80% of the population) going vegan or at least 'flexitarian' is cheaper, quicker, healthier and better for the environment.
In edition, your point about families having time, whilst valid, is again not a criticism of veganism, it's a criticism of a multitude of wider societal issues.
Moving the goalpost much? First it is not the consumers fault, then it is too expensive and now you do not even have time to cook?
Yes. All of those things. And it's not about me, it's about the single mother working two jobs trying to keep their kids fed with something and living in a food desert where they can't even get things like tofu. It is not their fault because it is too expensive and they don't have time to cook and also they might not even be able to get it.
Until you fix those problems, it is not the fault of consumers.
It is about you though. I was talking to you.
Not some hypothetical person who you can hide behind.
Okay, but I never said what my diet is. If you're curious, I don't have one.
Eating beans, rice, lentils, peas, etc. is way cheaper than meat. A 4 lbs bag of chickpeas is $6 and provides 6,500 calories of mostly dietary fiber and protein.
Cooking is something you have to do, just like laundry and washing yourself. I’m not sure if this is a western thing or what, but for most people in the world, the less money you have, the more you cook. Eating prepared foods and meat is expensive.
You can complain all you want about how poor you are that you can’t eat beans and lentils, but the entire world outside of US, Canada, and Western Europe is proof of the contrary.
It takes 20 minutes to cook lentils and rice. 30 to cook beans if you have a pressure cooker. These foods are dirt cheap, shelf stable, and sold everywhere. My local gas station sells Goya beans.
I’m sorry about your situation, but cooking and feeding yourself is just part of living whether vegan or not. This widespread idea in the US that being poor means you should be eating expensive unhealthy prepared meals is strange. It will only make your situation worse.
This isn't about my situation. Did you even read those links?
Yes, and I addressed them. And frankly, I’m getting a little tired of people in the wealthiest countries in the world complaining that they don’t have time to cook beans, so instead they’re going to buy a beef cheeseburger cooked and assembled for them for $2.
I have lived in bad neighborhoods. I’ve worked shit jobs. I’ve bought bags of Goya green lentils from a gas station.
If you don’t want to, you don’t have to, but stop with this “poor people can’t afford to eat anything but McDonald’s and frozen dinners” thing.
Capitalism means companies aren't gonna do shit, but you've got a choice to not participate in a flawed system.
I'm not one to tell people what to do, but pretending that someone else doing a bad thing justifies another bad thing...
Go ahead and refuse to participate. There's nothing wrong with that. Just don't expect it to have a significant climate impact.
"I alone can't change anything" is a hastily spoken excuse to shift responsibility onto others. But you are responsible for your life and your actions.
Nothing I personally do will have an effect on climate change. If you want to argue for people to not eat meat, fine. But blaming them for the climate worsening because they eat meat is placing the blame on the wrong party and is not going to convince people. There are other and better arguments.
I can blame more than one party, no problem! Politics must change, the economy must change, and society as well. Since you and me are part of the population, let's please change too! Politics will follow suit if we are serious.
Politics will follow suit if we are serious.
Like how abortion is legal in the U.S. because the majority is in favor of it, right?
Throwing one piece of trash out the window also won't have a significant impact.
When it comes to climate change, throwing things away is not a major issue, so that's not really a good comparison.
I think it's important to make an honest assessment of what is, and what isn't, under control of consumers. Reducing meat consumption is something that consumers actually can control, unlike say the massive environmental destruction caused by military.
Corporations and other entities doing bad stuff does not absolve us of our own responsibility.
Yeah, apart from transportation it is really the easiest way to have a personal impact on carbon dioxide emissions. If you rent, you can't exchange your heating system, if you use electricity you have no impact on where it comes from and so on.
It says 50% instead of 70%. Fine. It also doesn't say how much consumers are at fault. Probably because it isn't much. But sure, keep recycling those plastic bottles if it makes you feel better.
I keep proposing the adoption of personal carbon credits, it would not be difficult to implement.
US Army: ** is biggest CO2 polluter in the world **
Media: "You should eat more vegetables to save the planet"
Even funnier to me are vegans that argue with people about how animals are killed and how bad it is for environment to eat meat. While the military kills millions of innocent people for oil and burns a record amount of fossil fuels in the process.
Yeah, somehow I don't think we are focusing on the right problems.
Well, you can be against fossil wars AND against the exploitation of billions of sentient beings as well. I'm pretty sure most vegans are.
And while you can not stop the US army from murdering children in the middle East, you CAN actually stop paying for slaves to murder our fellow earthlings in an instant. And you'd immediately save two-thirds of land, water, and CO2 emissions by doing so.
who are these pro military vegans? are they in the room with us right now?
All this pussy shit about changing our entire eating schedule to reduce emissions by .01% is fucking dumb. The main problem is western habits and our dumb intake of everything! If the entirety of the US and EU disappeared overnight then emissions would drop by more than 75% even though the West doesn't even make up 10% of the world population.
All this pussy shit about attacking one of the worst emitting industries on the planet? Ig im a huge pussy because I love fighting climate change
Beef itself isn't the part that's emitting. It's all the transportation and handling and resources the beef needs. You can stop buying beef to lower emissions sure but you can't replace eating beef with just eating more other shit that might also emit just as much.
This is a red herring but you know that grass fed cows don't produce as much methane right? You know there is a considerable amount of energy used to maintain the cow right? This is energy that would be used almost regardless if we are to increase consumption of grains rather than cows which is the problem. We are going to get fatter as a civilization if we start eating less meat.
We will replace meat with palm oil and corn.
So tell me, where are you going to get all that grass to feed all the cows with?
Russia. We send them all to Russia and they can have all the cow villages they want.
ITT: peasants attacking each other instead of the people responsible for gestures broadly all of this
My partner and I are flexatarians, it's lovely. The only downside is that it's hard to not eat carb heavy, which is also an issue with vegetarianism and veganism. I feel like a spy among vegetarians.
I really don't eat a lot of meat. When I do it's usually chicken, sausage, or broth. The latter two are great for using bits of the animal that wouldn't normally be consumed alone.
I feel very grateful that I grew up in a non-veg household that still ate tofu. And now I am a tofu fiend.
However, eggs are still far less impactful than beef, so, protein options still exist, not to mention all the nuts and beans out there.
Also, what about vegetables? Though I admit these should be part of a diet no matter what your diet is, so doesn't really count.
It's not all carbs in non-meat land, is all I'm saying.
Power to you for whatever works for you though, no judgement.
I eat pretty much the same, except almost zero carbs because of diabetes. But I've been eating like this for decades because my stomach just can't handle most beef or pork at all (except the sausage) ... it sits like a rock in my gut and takes almost a full day to start feeling normal again.
Ever since pandemic, meat has been doing the same to me. Muscle meat in particular, ground meats I'm more ok with.
How do you manage to avoid carbs? It seems like almost everything nonmeat is some form of carb, except for mushrooms, milk, and eggs
I try to keep my carbs under 30 grams per day. Above that I gain weight and feel like crap.
Very VERY limited wheat products like bread, pasta, etc (once per week if that). I used to use konjac noodles as an alternative but they've become very expensive.
Zero sugar (I use stevia instead, but it's an acquired taste).
I make protein shakes with 0% milk, real chocolate powder, collagen protein and stevia. I'll have 2-3 @ 16oz per day.
I also make my own soda/pop with club soda, lemon and lime juice, and stevia.
Drink about a gallon/4 litres of water per day.
And because of cost I eat a lot of frozen veggies vs fresh ... mixed with pasta sauce, melted cheese on top, or made into an omlet of sorts.
Homemade soups are also great, but I currently live in a rooming house so don't have access to a freezer anymore.
What about vegetables? If you are talking about plant proteins with not a lot of carbs go for TVP or vegan protein powders.
You may not have discovered TVP yet. You should do so.
I'm not looking to add protein, I'm looking to reduce carbs. They're in fucking everything from oat milk to fruit. At least, that's what my Endo told me.
unsweetened almond milk has minimal carbs, and not much you can do about fruit since its all pretty much all sweet but the fiber is good to make you feel fuller.
That's the big problem for our family. My wife has dietary restrictions from having a duodenal switch and ending up super malabsorptive even among DS patients because of it.
So she has a tiny stomach capacity and only absorbs a percentage of any nutrients in what she eats. Non-meat proteins tend to play hell with her stomach. She's gotta be careful about what protein shakes she has for her breakfast.
You know what would really help? More so then cutting actual food intake?
How about halfing the number of golf courses? Stop using grass and let more natural plants for lawns, stop the use of private planes and also just kill or reduce the Cruise ship industry to a miniscule amount. Plus other shit rich people use that has a disproportionate huge carbon footprint. Find it funny that I never see the news --or rich, holier than thou morons-- pushing for this. Nah, they go after our food. Rich people do not care, they can eventually make beef the price of caviar per weight? Because fuck you and all of us. Why? Well they do not care. They can always pay. Easily.
For example: Bill Gates is the largest farm land owner in the USA now, he and his buddies and his rich clients will all get all the natural milk, beef, pork, chickens, lambs, veal they can eat. You? Eat lentils and maybe crickets or give his lab grown biomilq, to your kids or eat his lab meat, like a good and compliant serf. Don't think, just comply and consume. 'Cause I am sure he ain't touching the stuff himself or is his family. He is not going to be the long term guinea pig. I wouldn't either.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/13/biomilq-artificial-breast-milk
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bill-gates-backed-lab-grown-195311408.html
Carbon footprint of food production in the USA is 9% of total. Beef is about 3% of total. So 9 for both beef and crops.
Just the cruise ship industry, for example, is about 3.3% of the world's total carbon footprint. Let's kill that. Also private jet use. They can fly Business class, if they are not hypocrites.
I couldn't help but think there's no way luxury cruise ships is 3% of global carbon emissions
Was this your source? https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/maritime-sustainability
It says "cruise ships and other maritime vessels" which isn't cleared up anywhere in the article. You have to remember that if this includes container ships it's fully expected, we all buy shit from across the world all the time.
This article says the shipping industry is 3%: https://sinay.ai/en/how-much-does-the-shipping-industry-contribute-to-global-co2-emissions/
So either greenmatch is intentionally rage baiting everyone or they both emit 3% each, sus.
I really hate misinformation. It's very easy to rally and hate on the rich but it would be very funny to me if that 3% you said to "get rid of" means you would have to completey change your consumer habits and not only just affect "the rich"
But yes regardless don't mistake my comment for defending luxury cruise ships.
I mean, we can do all of those things and reduce our meat intake. They're not mutually exclusive. How about we encourage people to do everything they can, rather than gate-keeping solutions?
Considering every 100 pounds you add to your vehicle you reduce fuel economy by 2%, I wonder how much less CO2 we'd produce if everyone got to a healthy BMI.
Eating meat is not your religion. Why do you feel so offended?
At least for me these articles are a bit annoying since it seems that businesses world wide give a shit about the consequences of their actions but news outlets decided to pin the issue on the consumer.
Don't get me wrong. I think consumers are at least partially in charge when it comes to decisions about their consuming behavior. And reducing the meat intake is something that is not too hard and can improve the health for some people. But propagating this as the solution to our climate problem and on top not looking into the effect of lower income on nutrition / eating behavior makes me angry. The article just briefly mentions that the government has no success in influencing the prices through taxes.
At least here in Germany meat is so unbelievably cheap that it's very understandable people got used to eating it on a daily base. And it's hard to change this without businesses like supermarkets supporting this with price changes (meat up vegetables down) and an increase in minimal income since environmentally friendly food is currently more expensive than "garbage food".
I mean, to be fair, this isn't proposed as the solution to climate, but rather part of the solution. Your points about income and meat prices are totally valid, but they're things that we as citizens can pressure our governments to adopt as part of the encouragement of a reduced meat diet.
A crazy amount of the EU budget goes towards subsidizing farming. Enough of that goes towards the meat industry. It's not supermarkets that enable this to be cheap. It's loads of things. Huge subsidies, regulations enabling intense farming, governments giving subsidies in various ways, then there's also a bit about supermarkets.
Yeah, let's f stop those subsidies for instance. I don't see why taxes should be used to destroy the environment in such a clearcut way.
The type of golf course matters. Where I live, a lot of golf courses are public, packed with big trees, surrounded by bushland, act as a green space and native animal refuge among the suburbs, some of them protect wetlands, and are local government owned. While they do use up a lot of water, its still probably less tgan if it was all just paved with suburban housing and their shit lawns. And all the trees would be gone.
We need a total shift. All those things are things we should do too. It's no doubt that rich people produce more emissions.
But you're just trying to avoid shouldering any responsibility yourself for something were all responsible for.
This is something you can do, right now, to decrease your carbon footprint.
Btw, if you're living in the west with constant access to Internet, and got a free education...you almost certainly are one of those rich people.
Personal carbon credits would make it very easy to solve all of that.
I've been on this diet for 5 years, I call it the "only meat on sale" diet
Aldi on Thursday morning for me.
Why thursday morning? What country?
I don't know if it's the same everywhere, but at least in the US, Aldi offers some meat at a reduced price on wednesdays and I assume on thursday morning they discount even more to clear out unsold stock.
I'm watching the new climate town video as I see this.
Glad the media is still telling us it is our fault as consumers while industry and governments actively work against us.
Yes eating plants is better for the environment and your body. Yes I try to eat mostly plants and I encourage you all to try it, but Capitalism is what is killing us and eating a salad isnt going to fix it.
The article literally says producers, consumers, and government are all part of it.
We've gotten to the point that any mention of what an individual can do to reduce their carbon impact is met with "stop blaming us!"
The reality is that we are all responsible and we all have to change, including individuals. You just don't want to change, you want everyone else to. You are just like the rich person that says they care about global warming, as they turn around and jump on their private jet.
I agree it is all connected.
I guess my complaint is the degree at which we as individuals make an impact vs Corporations and the Government. I could go completely carbon neutral tomorrow. Sustainably farm in the woods and never leave, but that wouldn't touch the 6 million tons of Methane leaked from Natural Gas infrastructure this year.
Pretty much everyone and everything can point to a bigger polluter. The reality is that we all have to change. If every time we are given ways to change, we instead whine that there are worse than us...well, then, we're just fucked.
Actually, quite the opposite. As long as you buy beef, cattle will continue to be a major driver of climate change. Under capitalism, it only gets produced because you buy it
isn't it heavily subsidized? I appreciate that you're using a textbook definition of capitalism but that's not how anything actually works.
Indeed! I would add to this, we also heavily subsidize corn and wheat production as well. We waste an inordinate amount of what should be prairie land just so we can put up a bunch of beyond inefficient farms so that the rich can continue making money off of what theyve already been profiting off of.
Id also like to remind everyone that this sort of farming killed our prairies. In effect, this puts us at risk of another dust bowl due to the difference in size of root systems between corn/wheat and prairies tall grasses, and exacerbates the climate crisis further as prairies are incredibly efficient at pulling carbon out of our atmosphere.
And it isn't just the plants. It is the centuries of plants that have lived and died to build the soil. Modern practices burn up the old plants (often, though no till and no burn practices to exist and are growing in popularity) making the soil consistently lose fertility. Also we cover them in pesticides and herbicides and monocrops.
Fun fact: The guy in the "It's not much but it's honest work" meme was a pioneer in no-till agriculture, and helped to research methods and popularize the practice. He did tremendous work in helping to reduce runoff and save our soils.
Honest work, indeed.
Worldwide? Not necessarily, no. Most of the growth in beef demand in particular is in developing nations. Subsidies increase access, but they don’t create demand in and of themself
In my country meat is heavily subsided and if was put to market at true price less people would buy it.
They don't remove them because It would piss off a lot of business to remove the subsidies overnight and many would lose jobs. But I say fuck them, it'll work out in the long run
If something is significantly lowered in price, wouldn't that affect demand? If not, why would it suddenly work differently?
You should also see how much of the EU budget directly goes to farming. That's just direct subsidies, there's also loads of indirect ones.
Yes you are right, but we don't live in a truly free market. There are all kinds of shenanigans that happen to make our decisions have less impact. Also advertising has to be accounted for. Corporations use neuroscience to convince us to do things against our best interest. How can we account for that?
Ya know what would also limit it: Actually stopping like the top 5 companies causing like 60% of all pollution.
Just stop doing carbon credits because it's a literal scam and just shut down any factory that pollutes more than an allowed amount until they get it under control.
These companies are producing products you consume. What would really limit the emissions is reducing the human population to under 1B worldwide.
This has already been debunked elsewhere in the comments
Edit:
You heard him, @FluffyPotato@lemm.ee, it's been debunked somewhere 🤣
No, it literally hasn't.
That article doesn’t back up your claim at all. It talks about an industry.
Also, GHG metrics by volume distort the picture when CO2, by volume, is like 25x less potent than methane
That seems to put the carbon produced on the buyer of a product, not the company that produced the item. It mentions electricity as one and its not like you choose how your electricity is generated. Others being land use and food production which again you can't control because large corporations do that, not individuals.
If there were no buyers, there would be no producers. It is always on buyers.
And yet it's easy to stop the production while it's nearly impossible to stop the consumption.
Lol what?
It's nearly impossible to remove people buying something while it's very easy to stop a company from producing something.
Lol what? Do you even understand that a company only produces something because people are buying that thing?
Tobacco companies are selling and advertising vapes for children. Do you think children should just stop smoking or should they not be allowed to do that?
Is this actually news? Seems old to me, thanks OP though for bringing it up again.
The term flexitarian is new to me anyway. Happy this concept is getting more press anyway
Well... Raping is wrong, right? Say there is this guy, he doesn't always rape, just sometimes when he's in the mood. But not always. Should we applaud this flexi-rapist for doing something aweful a little less?
You're not technically wrong, but you'll never convert anyone with your attitude. You're doing veganism a disservice. Please stop.
Just planting seeds, some like it, some don't. I'll be a little less harsh next time.
Eating meat is not inherently wrong, raping is.
Life consumes other life to live. Humans have evolved to eat meat, we are living beings, a part of this planet just like a lion or hawk.
The lives we must take to live, whether they are plant, animal, or both, were not decided by us but by nature. Killing and eating to live is the only moral reason one has to harm another living being. This is not nice, it's just nature. Does the wild boar chased to it's death by a tiger not suffer a cruel death? Does that make the tiger evil?
Animal Agriculture and Massive Human Populations
Our modern animal agriculture industry is what's wrong, it is disgusting and evil and treats conscious beings as objects indifferent to their suffering. But feeding 8 billion people can only be accomplished using an industrial food industry.
The answer is not trying to turn 8 billion people into vegans, that is simply not going to happen. Rather, we should be striving to reduce our numbers and change culture to respect animals and their sacrifice for our food.
One of the more effective ways to do that are to eat like a "flexitarian" and reduce the amount of dependence on the animal agriculture industry. The other key way to reduce animal suffering is not something an individual has control over -- to have a human population that is not grotesquely oversized for the environment.
Our species has no entitlement to grow to maximum size and kill other beings to support this unnecessary growth. The Haber-Bosch process effectively caused human eutrophication, an imbalance, and like the overgrown algae causing fish kills in lakes, our numbers are causing the unnecessary death of a great many species in our environment and will lead to ecological failure if not taken care of. The solution to eutrophication in a lake is stop the overflow of nutrients.
While it's possible in modern times for a person to live on a vegan diet, it's not a normal, not healthy without significant effort and education, or more moral.
There will never be a time when no humans eat meat. Therefore, we should strive to reduce the suffering required to sustain our own life. Eating flexitarian is a highly practical way to do this. If an individual is willing to sacrifice their health and/or work to gain the knowledge required to be healthy without consuming animals at all (i.e. be vegan) then good for them, but this cannot be expected to occur globally.
...my wife eats meat: you know what she eats a heck of a lot less of since moving in with me?..you know what she'd've eaten a heck of a lot more of if i weren't tolerant?..
...don't make perfect the enemy of good; you'll do a heck of a lot less good and be surprised when you learn that your perfect isn't...
I'm vegan a long time now, sometimes I lose my patience because it feels like I'm talking to 8 year olds all the time. Carnism ia real, the fragile meat-egos, the bullshit bingo, the same lame arguments make me loose my patience sometimes. But obviously you have a point.
In my note app I've saved my old replies I'm fairly confident of regarding research, impact and links to sources and fire them up against the standard arguments. It's cheap but it would be madness to answer the age old cliches popping up in mass under a controversional vegan post with individual new answers. The definition of Sisyphus work. I refine the posts to take deviations from standard arguments into account. I don't spam them in a thread of full of the same cliche answers but tactically under one of them with a lot of upvotes/likes. This saves me some headaches and at least I know I countered the disinformation at least once and will maybe make some people see that the most regurgitated answers are not per se the most correct just because of their prevalence.
Damn, I am still sisyphussing!
Well rape is illegal, but honestly I see the equivalence, morally. That's the age old question posed by harm reduction, and I think, answered by it too. And this hardline viewpoint may work on some people, so it's a good one to bring up.
My take is that it's got nothing to do with rewarding less bad behaviour, but about reducing the amount of harm in the world. AFAIK there's no evidence that encouraging someone to be partially vegan actually props up modern horror farming any more than arguing for pure veganism.
Further, I think you can argue for both. Treat one as a gateway to the other.
The fact is we're unlikely to see animal eating outlawed in our lifetime, so we've got to work within the confines of rhetoric, or I guess terrorism.
Yeah I agree. Usually I am more patient and understanding as well, but today I decided to be a little confronting. There is no right way, as long as we do anything at all, I guess.
it's pretty crazy that no one in this thread has mentioned that going vegan would have a larger impact.
Being vegan would have a much larger impact!
I am vegan and I would say that but it would result in a big circle jerk as always of "hurr durr bacon".
Of course.
But don't let perfection be the enemy of good.
Here's an idea, maybe the affluent and ultra rich can stop their decadent luxuries before us peasants give up the few pleasures in life left to us.
You mean eating meat?!
Me, I just like to rape, don't take that peasure from me. Go for billionaires first!
You’re fucking annoying
Why?
Do you truly lack that much awareness? If I didn’t already understand your point you would be the last person to teach me anything. You’re far too aggressive and as an abuse victim myself I don’t appreciate you using rape to make your point. I’m reading discussions and suddenly your comments pop in to completely derail it.
It seems like you're willfully ignoring their point to attack them on tone. I think the parallel is that both comments are saying something of the form "I enjoy doing something that harms others, therefore it's justified."
Did you watch the video? I'd maybe approach with caution if not, because it deals with topics like sexual assault, but it really makes this point clear.
If you are going to use sexual abuse to make a point you better be concise or the very least be funny. So yah, tone would make sense to comment on as if that was the only thing. You want to lead someone to that video, the way they are going about it is piss poor. You think that video is something new? that i haven't heard it before, get out of you bubble. If you can't phrase it as well or better than the video, maybe let the video talk for itself.
They could at least try to bring their point respectfully, instead of derailing and pushing gore into peoples faces.
We don't need to tolerate their behaviour, let alone give their argument even an inkling of thought.
This kind of stuff is what gives an otherwise noble goal a bad name. It is counter-productive. I know plenty of people who would start eating more meat just to not be associated with those people.
You ticked some boxes off the Vegan Bullshit Bingo there. Plus I didn't post gore (even though I could have, milk and meat production are incredibly violent and you know it).
It's a short film of three people talking, you should watch it.
And people like you are the reason veganism has a bad name
We would have more people going meatless if people like you didn't exist.
Maybe I’m being too pessimistic, but feels like this is yet another study to add to the mountain of evidence that people will ignore because they’ve deemed the taste of meat worth an impending global calamity. When will the average persons tipping point be? When oceanfront property is available in Tennessee?
When its too expensive to buy meat. Its not like this is new either. Here's meat consumption over the last 100 years in the USA:
It tracks decently with the rise in GDP in the USA:
If you could graph sentient creatures' collective agony I'm sure that would line up pretty well too
I hope things get better
This is a very sobering read: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/9/27/23893028/farmed-animals-animal-welfare-human-progress-poverty-climate-change-environment
Endless nightmare indeed
Plants react to stimulus as well. The smell of freshly cut grass for instance is chemical signaling -- typically they'd be losing their plant matter to insects eating them, so they release chemicals to attract other insects which prey on the ones eating them.
Is the grass in agony? It responds to harm with a chemical response aimed at stopping the harm.
Where do we draw the line? Do we starve obligate carnivores so their prey lives?
I think you're getting a little too philosophical. Why not start with mammals with whom we share much in common? They exhibit levels of cognition far above what people like to believe. They mourn, have cultures, traditions. They feel fear, and that fear looks like ours, so it should be something we all can understand.
I'd also extend the same protection to fish and other complex organisms.
If it was really up to me, nothing would ever suffer, whether an earth worm or a human. But realistically we can stop eating the things with brains and friends and that'd be a boon for our climate, environment, and our health.
I would never starve animals in nature. My dog eats meat too because that's what he is made to do. I don't, because I don't have to. Nature is cruel, but we don't control that. We can easily control our nature and what we eat (or factory farm).
Fair enough, that's a very good argument.
Individual people choosing to "do the right thing" is never going to work. It doesn't matter if any individual chooses the right food, or kind of car, anything else.
Blameing people for not cutting their meat intake, is misplaced.
The government needs to change the market by subsidizing "good" things and taxing "bad" things. That's the only way to change behavior at scale.
Ok but remember when Republicans made up that Biden was going to "outlaw burgers" with the Green New Deal? And how even the made up idea that the govt would stop subsidizing meat caused half the nation to flip their shit, while the other half went "no don't be silly, we would never ever touch your precious tendies."
Appealing to individuals is important because without shifting the public's perception of meat as it relates to climate change, the government will be too terrified to enact those kind of changes for fear of getting voted out by the angry, barbecue-loving mobs.
Until flexitarians, vegetarians, and vegans (I'm vegan btw, just need everyone to know that) become a sizable enough percentage of the voting population, these systemic changes are never going to even be considered by our leaders. So we should keep pressing the importance of these changes to collectively move ourselves closer to that tipping point.
Or at least start by ceasing to fucking subsidize the bad things!
That would be a good first step they could try.
Capitalism is so funny like that. Everything has a price to everyone, you need to find a threshold (tax %) to tip the scale.
You're completely right because right now in UK meat has FAR MORE subsidies than vegetables and meat alternatives.
Most people alive today will be dead before anything affects them. My parents have that attitude to global warming so fly out on holiday 2-3 times a year.
This change needs to happen from the top to force everyone's hands, you can't rely on the goodness of individuals because we're all selfish fucks
I think "anything" is a huge stretch.
There are going to be noticeable effects, even in the first world, in the coming decades. Definitely half a century from now.
Don't know about you guys, I'll be dead by then
You said "most people alive today", not "I"
You know what could also limit global heating? If the fucking wealthy stopped flying in their private jets and stopped cruising in their yachts and stopped buying their 3rd house. Focus on the solutions. Subsidize green energy, tax the oil companies, ban private jets, etc. You know, things that would have an actual impact.
Yep, sick of being told I'm the problem and should change my way of living when a single private flight dumps more CO2 into the air than my car puts out in half a year, not to mention the fuel usage.
A person in their private jet is selfish and inconsiderate. They believe they are entitled to it and thereby destroy our livelihoods. They should not fly privately just because they can. They should voluntarily stop, and if they don't, it must be prohibited.
A person who still eats meat is selfish and inconsiderate. They believe they are entitled to it and thereby destroy our livelihoods. They shouldn't do it just because they can. They should voluntarily stop, and if they don't, it must be prohibited.
The only thing that will really fix the issue is if we stop breeding like rabbits. It doesn’t matter if we reduce the ecological footprint of individuals if we keep growing the population.
You're wrong! Population growth is not an issue, it's our western lifestyle, like eating meat and flying in airplanes. Our planet can easily feed 10 billion people healthy food. But not if we don't quit meat.
We could also reduce our population and keep eating meet and doing other things that make life enjoyable. Besides, who wants to live on a planet that crowded?
It isn’t that crowded. If you live in a city center it’s easy to assume everywhere is the same but that is cognitive dissonance. Many buildings are empty because of short term renting (which could easily house the homeless) and way too expensive for what it should be
much land that would be considered for food crop is taken up with concrete which actually increases the temperature of the earth making things much worse.
The need for grain and water to feed for meat production is 10 x more than what human would consume so there already is more than enough food for humans.
You’d still need humans to manufacture and distribute food to exist.
So Cutting down the human population to contain The very life style you want is still a problematic lifestyle to be sustainable
How would one reduce earths population?
You know how people have unprotected sex? Stop doing that so much.
Look at the link I posted. It's simply not true anymore. We will hit 10 billion, but because of things that already happened. Overpopulation is not the issue anymore. Our lifestyle is.
I think we should do the extreme opposite of breeding like rabbits to the wealthy instead. Like the polar opposite of creating life.
Except there is a decline in population growth as numbers stop seeing family life as an option because of demographic transition. You do not remain able to reproduce your whole life and as new generations come up to the reproductive age they face a very different life to what it once was such as what the baby boomers were going through (hence the name). This is not meaning to pick at the boomers but to point out that the name was coined for a reason.
You’re talking second derivative here. It’s still growing, it’s just growing a tiny bit slower than it used to.
That is how decline works, yes.
Does "flexitarian" mean "eat less meat", basically?
I refuse to click the link because I hate the guardian.
Yes.
The best thing you can do to limit global warming without political power is to not reproduce. The next best thing is to quit eating meat. The less meat you eat the better. And as a bonus it’s highly unlikely to be as much of a sacrifice as not having a wanted child.
This relies on some assumptions that I question. Each person doesn't contribute a fixed amount to emissions, and it's not even a bell curve distribution. The rich contribute orders of magnitude more to the problem than the poor. The top 1% contributes almost twice as much as the bottom 50%..
And with birth rates where they're at, at different levels of income/wealth, I'm thinking that plenty of childless people can contribute more to the problem than an entire bloodline of people who have huge families.
That's complete bullshit as the article is based on complete bullshit.
Iirc, there's a population of livestock that can be sustained without feed crop (instead living off of by-product and untillable pasture), and reducing it past that is less sustainable overall. So while it's true that we eat way too much meat, it's not a great idea to get rid of it entirely in the context of sustainability. There are other arguments regarding the ethics of the meat industry, but that goes beyond the scope of the discussion.
Yeah my attitude is to carbon tax it and stop subsidizing it. If meat is a luxury it’s not something people bitch about accidentally not having in their dinner.
I think that's a splendid idea.
Global warming isn't from cow farts ffs. Container ships etc though
The methane production from bovine rumination absolutely has an impact. As does the massive supply chains and absurd amount of agriculture necessary to feed those cows.
Look up the number of buffalo circa 1800
Look up the main cause of the deforestation of the Amazon. Look up the number of cattle alive today compared to any other point in history.
North american cattle population is roughly equal to buffalo population of 1800. Maybe i had looked this up long before you suggested it. Whining about cattle is an entirely different issue than just stopping deforestation, which is more for palm oil in the region you speak of anyways.
FFS it's not only the methane. It's all the GHG sinks we destroy to let cattle graze and feed other animals caught in CAFO. In addition it's the whole infrastructure around the system
https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture
Half of habitable land is used for agriculture (5x the USA). 2/3 of that is grazing land. 1/3 crop land. One half of the 1/3 crop land is used for plants that are directly consumed by humans. The rest is animal feed and stuff like biofuel.
Crop land and grazing land for animals combined make up 80% of all farmland. Meat, dairy and fish combined make up only 17% of all calories and 38% of protein.
If everyone went plant based the global farmland use would be reduced from 4 billion to 1 billion hectares and therefore crop death would be dramatically reduced. The land could be rewilded and natural GHG sinks could be established again.
Everyday 5000 soccerfield sized areas of amazonas rainforest are razed to the ground for cattle, leather, soy (for animal feed ofc) and palm oil. Mafia like cartels of cattle breeders threaten and murder indigenous people and activists there and implemented a complicated system of cattle laundering to hide that they burn intact rain forests (green lung of the earth) there. The 10.000.000 anually slaughtered cows there are also exported to US meatpackers. The leather ends up in european car seats. Via container ships.
Exactly, in the last decade or so I went from pescetarian to vegetarian to vegan and for the last few years I have been "flexitarian". My own adoption of it is different to others in the sense that most of what I eat at home is still vegan but on average I probably have 1-2 vegetarian meals at home a week and I don't have many issues eating vegetarian (sometimes meat) outside of the house.
I still avoid a lot of meat, especially things like veal, but I find being "flexible" also helps talk to people about it. It is much less intimidating asking someone to try having 2 veggie meals a week than telling them they need to universally drop all animal products from their diet.
My spouse is vegetarian for health reasons, so there are always vegetarian options at mealtime.
I eat primarily vegetarian, but I don't go out there and say "I am vegetarian." I found it easier to go to restaurants and merely say "I am not eating meat today" if I need to order something odd.
I suppose that I have been a flexitarian for a while, then.
Man "carnivores" have vegetarian meals all the time. This internet discourse is worth less than used toilet paper.
I think it's more about knowingly switching out a meal rather than just patting yourself on the back because you eat mac and cheese twice a week. For every conversation we have online there are a few people that learn something from it, myself included, I think the thread is interesting!
Its mostly horseshit.
I suppose that is meat free and you’d have to extraordinarily flexible, but sure, go for whatever works fr you
Basically. We have a couple no meat meals per week and we have cut back the amount of meat per recipe as well. Not for the environment so much but we have just naturally drifted away from eating so much meat.
Or we could eat like 3 billionaires.
I don't think 3 billionaires emit in their combined lifetime as much as 100 BILLION farting chicken in a day.
i cut down my meat consumption to almost zero. maybe some beef pho on the weekend sometimes..... but i HATE the term flexitarian.... i refuse to call myself that...
Ehh, what you call yourself isn't important. The point is you're still eating a diet that's compatible with not fucking the environment
yeah, i agree... that's why i hate labels.
and for health, and for a bunch of other reasons... but we don't need another label for it.... my choice of food is simply my choice of food... it doesn't need to be categorized
Half-vegetarian is another term
Plant forward is how fine dining advertises this concept. I tend to prefer that term over anything as vegetarian/flexitarian tends to have a stigma attached.
I think "plant forward" is actually a reasonable term.
I guess I'm essentially a flexitarian at this point, though I have never labelled myself as such. I tend to opt for non-meat options but am nowhere near vegan as I only learned after my daughter started dating one. What an incredible minefield it is! You have to sit around and analyze absolutely everything. Like can you believe pepsi is vegan but not diet pepsi?!? But diet coke is. I don't know about coke zero and am frankly afraid to ask…
Wait what did they put in the diet pepsi?
I think it’s a trade secret. Probably something like how Guinness used to use fish bladders as a filter
For me being flexible help ramp down my consumption of meat. Each day without was a win. These days it's very rare that I eat any meat. It's become boring compared to the fun of a meatless diet.
I guess I've been a flexitarian since 2016ish. I have a few vegetarian days a week for environmental reasons.
My first goal was to preferably have 2 meaty days a week and leave the rest meat free. After about three years I got to the point where I realised I hadn't eaten meat in a while. I simply forgot to.
Now I just eat meat when I visit friends and family, or to keep my iron levels in check. It's surprisingly doable.
Yeah if you're flexible (I get it now) you can totally get free meat on the regular. Plus my dad goes on Costco runs and just gives me spare meat. I haven't really had to buy any in a while and like you don't really notice when I don't have any for weeks. The real thing for me is the odd hotdog or whatever craving, that's when I actively seek it out.
I keep drifting back and forth between whole food plant based and vegetarian for about the past 13 years. I got no beef with meat eaters but I couldn't imagine putting that into my mouth and the process of masticating it. Although on St Patrick's Day looking at the corned beef sandwiches took me back in time for a brief moment.
I hate animals, that's why I'm a vegetarian.
Care to explain the joke?
That's not a joke. I don't like animals, they drive me crazy, and I think they're disgusting. Since they're disgusting I don't want their flesh in me.
The virgin vegetarian because I love animals vs the chad vegetarian because I hate animals
I view vegans like party clowns view mimes.
Upvoted for making me re-read this several times and contemplate the statement.
Isn't this the basis behind some religions' prohibition against eating pigs? Basically that they are disgusting and disease-ridden.
It was the historical reason for this rule, yes. In the time people eating pig meat were getting sick, so they put a rule into their religion as a countermeasure.
Vegan agriculture kills more animals less humanely than .... oh he's serious. That's even funnier.
That’s the joke I thought he was trying to hint at lol
Interesting to note that the study has been funded by the Rockefeller foundation. Eating less meat is one piece of the decarbonization puzzle but I feel that the language of this article and the study implies that we need to focus mostly on this and turn a blind eye to the other ways we're feeding into climate change.
You do realize the younger Rockefeller died like 70 years ago, right? That's not the discrediting factor you think it is.
Are we doing this again?
The are 100 companies are responsible for 70% of global emissions. States can test nuclear weapons in the Pacific Ocean; nah eat a salad for lunch.
And what do those companies produce? A lot of them make food. They don’t give a fuck as long as people keep eating insane amounts of meat.
But if it makes you feel better, abdicate your personal responsibility and point the finger. But no matter how you vote, it won’t save the world as long as meat production is going up. They don’t raise the cows if you don’t buy the beef
Ah yes concrete manufacturers, one of the largest producers of greenhouse gasses, are only doing it because of meat eaters. Fun fact, the number one producer of greenhouse gasses in France isn't an entire industry, there's a single concrete factory that outweighs every other greenhouse gas producing industry in the country.
https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/10/3/43
https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/13/meat-greenhouses-gases-food-production-study
“He killed 5 people, I only killed 1!” Is not a valid defense of criminal activity. Nor does “concrete is worse than our food chain” mean we shouldn’t fix it
I never said that we shouldn’t fix anything, I was refuting your point that we only produce so many greenhouse gasses because we eat so much meat when that just isn’t the case.
It’s totally the case. Beef is one of the worst products out there because it produces methane, one of the worst GHGs pound for pound.
There’s also incredible inefficiencies with beef, since it takes more calories to raise than any other type of meat (or, god forbid, just growing plants and eating them). This isn’t really a matter of opinion, it’s just the reality of climate change
Please just read what you’re responding to properly. I KNOW CATTLE FARMING PRODUCES GREENHOUSE GASSES. You were saying that if people stopped eating meat then almost all of the carbon emissions would stop but like I said that isn’t the case because some of the worst producers (like concrete manufacturers or fossil fuel companies) don’t care what you eat. Even if everyone stopped eating any form of animal products and we just culled all of the livestock worldwide, unless you want to revert to buildings from the 1600s those companies are still going to be emitting insane amounts of greenhouse gasses.
They generally can't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_Nuclear_Test_Ban_Treaty
Not everyone is a signatory -- China, France, and North Korea are notable exceptions.
But even if they could, how would that relate?
Global warming isn't a function of nuclear weapon testing.
This reminds me of something I learned in climatology. Those who did pioneering work studying ocean circulation which became instrumental later in formulating the general circulation models used today discovered they could measure the currents by tracking radioisotopes from open air nuclear tests done back in the 60s. So ironically, nuclear weapons testing has furthered our understanding of climate and global warming.
Politifact | No, 100 corporations do not produce 70% of total greenhouse gas emissions
100 companies are responsible for over 70% of global warming.
But sure, blame the mother who buys ground chuck for her kids.
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change
50% of all green house gases come from animal agriculture, so yeah...
Also torturing other animals for your taste buds is not okay.
I see, so doing something about it is the responsibility of consumers, not the companies who do it.
Both. But one you can change right now. At your next meal just choose vegan.
Which means either be rich or live a life eating nothing but beans and rice.
Beans, rice, tofu, lentils, mushrooms, chickpeas, nuts, seeds, many options and they're all cheaper than flesh, and healthier for you and better for the environment.
Choose one of those, and use the extra money to donate towards something that will undermine those capitalist trash.
Extra money. Donate. Must be nice to be rich. By the way, people who aren't rich can often work two jobs. When do you think they have time to cook?
I don't know where you live, but in the UK at least going vegan is cheaper than eating meat: https://www.kantar.com/uki/inspiration/consumer/how-popular-is-veganism-in-the-uk so if saving money is your (understandable) concern then swapping to 'beans and rice' as you put it is worth it.
Same for the USA as well: https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/eating-vegan-diet-reduces-grocery-bill-16-savings-more-500-year-finds-new.
In fact it's almost a global solution: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-11-11-sustainable-eating-cheaper-and-healthier-oxford-study
They're also quicker to prepare as well: https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2020/12/18/Vegan-meals-cheaper-and-quicker-than-meat-or-fish
It might be cheaper if you don't live in a food desert and have time to cook.
Neither of these are reasonable for many Americans.
https://theconversation.com/time-to-cook-is-a-luxury-many-families-dont-have-117158
https://www.aecf.org/blog/exploring-americas-food-deserts
Veganism is a privilege that many people cannot have.
What's your point? Arguments for veganism only apply to those who can eat vegan. They obviously don't apply to those that can't. You concern re. food deserts is a very valid one but that isn't a criticism of veganism, it's benefits or its impact on the environment. Working to eliminate food deserts and improve nutritional options for everyone is a part of tackling climate change. For those Americans that do have access to some vegan options (about 80% of the population) going vegan or at least 'flexitarian' is cheaper, quicker, healthier and better for the environment.
In edition, your point about families having time, whilst valid, is again not a criticism of veganism, it's a criticism of a multitude of wider societal issues.
Also, please bear in mind that the US is not the be-all-and-end-all when it comes to familial trends. In the UK for example, people are actually cooking at home more: https://brandclock.co.uk/scratch-cooking-in-the-uk-increasing/
Even in the US approx 64% of the population home cook: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/survey-reveals-81-of-consumers-now-cook-more-than-half-of-their-meals-at-home-302007657.html
Didn't this start with someone saying everyone should go vegan?
This particular thread started with your comment here: https://sh.itjust.works/comment/10351315
Moving the goalpost much? First it is not the consumers fault, then it is too expensive and now you do not even have time to cook?
Yes. All of those things. And it's not about me, it's about the single mother working two jobs trying to keep their kids fed with something and living in a food desert where they can't even get things like tofu. It is not their fault because it is too expensive and they don't have time to cook and also they might not even be able to get it.
https://theconversation.com/time-to-cook-is-a-luxury-many-families-dont-have-117158
https://www.aecf.org/blog/exploring-americas-food-deserts
Until you fix those problems, it is not the fault of consumers.
It is about you though. I was talking to you.
Not some hypothetical person who you can hide behind.
Okay, but I never said what my diet is. If you're curious, I don't have one.
Eating beans, rice, lentils, peas, etc. is way cheaper than meat. A 4 lbs bag of chickpeas is $6 and provides 6,500 calories of mostly dietary fiber and protein.
Cooking is something you have to do, just like laundry and washing yourself. I’m not sure if this is a western thing or what, but for most people in the world, the less money you have, the more you cook. Eating prepared foods and meat is expensive.
https://theconversation.com/time-to-cook-is-a-luxury-many-families-dont-have-117158
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert
You can complain all you want about how poor you are that you can’t eat beans and lentils, but the entire world outside of US, Canada, and Western Europe is proof of the contrary.
It takes 20 minutes to cook lentils and rice. 30 to cook beans if you have a pressure cooker. These foods are dirt cheap, shelf stable, and sold everywhere. My local gas station sells Goya beans.
I’m sorry about your situation, but cooking and feeding yourself is just part of living whether vegan or not. This widespread idea in the US that being poor means you should be eating expensive unhealthy prepared meals is strange. It will only make your situation worse.
This isn't about my situation. Did you even read those links?
Yes, and I addressed them. And frankly, I’m getting a little tired of people in the wealthiest countries in the world complaining that they don’t have time to cook beans, so instead they’re going to buy a beef cheeseburger cooked and assembled for them for $2.
I have lived in bad neighborhoods. I’ve worked shit jobs. I’ve bought bags of Goya green lentils from a gas station.
If you don’t want to, you don’t have to, but stop with this “poor people can’t afford to eat anything but McDonald’s and frozen dinners” thing.
Capitalism means companies aren't gonna do shit, but you've got a choice to not participate in a flawed system.
I'm not one to tell people what to do, but pretending that someone else doing a bad thing justifies another bad thing...
Go ahead and refuse to participate. There's nothing wrong with that. Just don't expect it to have a significant climate impact.
"I alone can't change anything" is a hastily spoken excuse to shift responsibility onto others. But you are responsible for your life and your actions.
Nothing I personally do will have an effect on climate change. If you want to argue for people to not eat meat, fine. But blaming them for the climate worsening because they eat meat is placing the blame on the wrong party and is not going to convince people. There are other and better arguments.
I can blame more than one party, no problem! Politics must change, the economy must change, and society as well. Since you and me are part of the population, let's please change too! Politics will follow suit if we are serious.
Like how abortion is legal in the U.S. because the majority is in favor of it, right?
Throwing one piece of trash out the window also won't have a significant impact.
When it comes to climate change, throwing things away is not a major issue, so that's not really a good comparison.
I think it's important to make an honest assessment of what is, and what isn't, under control of consumers. Reducing meat consumption is something that consumers actually can control, unlike say the massive environmental destruction caused by military.
Corporations and other entities doing bad stuff does not absolve us of our own responsibility.
Yeah, apart from transportation it is really the easiest way to have a personal impact on carbon dioxide emissions. If you rent, you can't exchange your heating system, if you use electricity you have no impact on where it comes from and so on.
por que no los dos
Politifact | No, 100 corporations do not produce 70% of total greenhouse gas emissions
It says 50% instead of 70%. Fine. It also doesn't say how much consumers are at fault. Probably because it isn't much. But sure, keep recycling those plastic bottles if it makes you feel better.
I keep proposing the adoption of personal carbon credits, it would not be difficult to implement.
US Army: ** is biggest CO2 polluter in the world **
Media: "You should eat more vegetables to save the planet"
Even funnier to me are vegans that argue with people about how animals are killed and how bad it is for environment to eat meat. While the military kills millions of innocent people for oil and burns a record amount of fossil fuels in the process.
Yeah, somehow I don't think we are focusing on the right problems.
Well, you can be against fossil wars AND against the exploitation of billions of sentient beings as well. I'm pretty sure most vegans are.
And while you can not stop the US army from murdering children in the middle East, you CAN actually stop paying for slaves to murder our fellow earthlings in an instant. And you'd immediately save two-thirds of land, water, and CO2 emissions by doing so.
who are these pro military vegans? are they in the room with us right now?
All this pussy shit about changing our entire eating schedule to reduce emissions by .01% is fucking dumb. The main problem is western habits and our dumb intake of everything! If the entirety of the US and EU disappeared overnight then emissions would drop by more than 75% even though the West doesn't even make up 10% of the world population.
All this pussy shit about attacking one of the worst emitting industries on the planet? Ig im a huge pussy because I love fighting climate change
Beef itself isn't the part that's emitting. It's all the transportation and handling and resources the beef needs. You can stop buying beef to lower emissions sure but you can't replace eating beef with just eating more other shit that might also emit just as much.
Source?
from: https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/making-cattle-more-sustainable
This is a red herring but you know that grass fed cows don't produce as much methane right? You know there is a considerable amount of energy used to maintain the cow right? This is energy that would be used almost regardless if we are to increase consumption of grains rather than cows which is the problem. We are going to get fatter as a civilization if we start eating less meat.
We will replace meat with palm oil and corn.
So tell me, where are you going to get all that grass to feed all the cows with?
Russia. We send them all to Russia and they can have all the cow villages they want.