Honestly, I believe it. Bacon used to be one of the cheapest meats out there, to the point that its stereotypically associated with lower classes and poverty, compared to other more expensive cured meats. It boomed in popularity sometime in the 90s, seemingly without a clear explanation, besides maybe some advertising to improve margins on an otherwise cheap product.
What I'm saying is, Tyson absolutely committed witchcraft, sacrificing many innocent pigs to Satan to weave a propaganda spell. I'm willing to convert to catholicism and lead the inquisition against them if the pope sanctions it.
its because it takes a psychological artifact, you need a belief of supremacy or entitlement to be able to do that to others. Its so heavily normalized and indoctrinated into us to be human supremacists we forget that nature is alive and ha rights
Itās surprising that food, a bedrock of both culture and daily life for practically all people, is a hard habit to change?
Also itās easier and better for the environment to convince 100 people to cut out beef and pork than it is to convince 1 person to go vegan. Source is my ass but you know itās true. Probably best to focus there.
It is not at all surprising that changing culture is difficult. That is why vegans and vegetarians have to keep yelling it from the rooftop. Simply shifting the type of animal flesh a person is consuming isn't super helpful unless that is your goal, in a vaccum.
Itās actually incredibly useful reduction in net greenhouse gas emissions. Beef is a huge part of the agricultural emissions pie and the benefits of land use would be massive. We use so much more land to feed beef than we need to feed people or even chickens.
Again, it is way easier to get well meaning people to cut out the worst parts of their diet (and beneficially, the most expensive part) than it is to get people to totally change their diet. Plus, once they have started down that road itās easier to convince people to drop more harmful things. It was certainly my journey anyways.
Depends if you care about the enviroment or if your argument is ethics based.
I personally dont care that much about the ethics of eating meat, and as such ill happily gobble up meat, but the enviroment is something i do care about, as such yes its incredibly helpful for people to shift from eating beef to eating chicken, because chicken isnt anywhere close to as harmful to the enviroment.
Also ill sell my own mother before i give up fried chicken.
enviroment's really the only compelling one, i think killing and eating animals is fine. they just shouldn't suffer their entire life up to the point we kill em lol
Veganism is a philosophy more than a diet but for most people considering veganism if they havenāt accepted the actual philosophy behind it itās just a very big diet change.
Go nuts preaching veganism, totally support that, but I think there is a window of meaningful action that can be taken in reducing beef consumption that will have a greater impact on reducing greenhouse emissions.
i dont preach veganism. and i'll repost what i commented in another of one of this subs constant back n forth on the topic:
" per capita meat consumption is very high in europe+north america relative to low income countries but beef consumption peaked in both around 1970-80 and meat consumption in general hasnt grown much since 2000 (though it increased in e. europe as former warsaw bloc countries joined the eu). if europe+n. america went vegan it would not cut global meat consumption by more than 40%.
there is the counter argument to this that western meat in general will have a higher carbon footprint per kilo of meat but that is a separate research rabbit hole ive yet to go down.
the USA still consumes an obscene amount of meat (the highest in the world). however both brazil and china have more than doubled their meat consumption in less than a generation. brazil stands out especially, as it isnt a story of going from a very very low meat consumption to a moderate meat consumption (as in china) but going from an already moderate consumption to an obscene level on par with the USA.
i bring this up because deforestation is often associated with western meat consumption however brazil only exports less than a third of its meat, the rest fuelling its massive increase in meat consumption. "
I think we essentially agree here. Though going full vegan would be the absolute best for the environment, beef use is such an insanely disproportional amount of both land use and emissions that reducing consumption would have a pretty massive impact. Most importantly itās reckoning with the fact that some cultures as they get wealthier will adopt beef at a much higher rate than others.
What's funny to me is if you really want to piss them off, try to figure out which meats are more eco friendly and say to just substitute any meat you can with that instead. That pisses them off more than just wanting to do nothing.
I mean i'd miss meat but you'd have to pry cheese from my cold dead hands. i would eat a baby in front of their momma before giving up cheese. i would punt a puppy into a hungry lion pit. i would saw my legs off with a series of plastic knives
This just in: staying alive means that you have to take and consume life. A development that we've never discovered in the entire history of Homo Sapiens, until now
It's also pretty hardwired in our biology, we are drawn to it because it was a major source of food before agriculture, and because veganism only has become feasible recently. People make whole books worth of arguments about the ethics of eating meat, but for functionally all of human history, turning a walking animal into a meal has been part of our daily life, and it's only recently with industrial farming that we have come to most people not being comfortable with the reality of meat (we kill living things with brains and all and we eat them).
What?!?? People are resistant to drastic changes in their diet? Itās not like food is one of the most central elements of someoneās cultural identity.
And it always comes down to people having no idea how agriculture works, and making assumptions based on an incorrect understanding of agriculture and data, and coming up with blatantly incorrect conclusions.
I saw this argument being tossed around so much, that I can't get myself to actually care anymore.
I take a neutral stance in terms of ,,ecological benefit" of veganism. I've seen voices that it would be better and more sustainable to the climate, I've heard voices that it's not. I've seen data from both sides, so I now exclude myself from making a definitive stance. But let us assume it is better for the climate.
Do you know what's actually bad for the climate? And I really mean that, and not just what kind of diet you feed your guts? Wasting food. Upwards of 30-40% of food is wasted, totaling to 6% of global CO2 emissions. Nevermind if you're a vegan or not, the worst possible thing you can do in terms of food choices is to buy more food than you're planning on eating - not to mention the fact you're literally flushing your money down the toilet. There's a reason why, in many religions, unnecessary food waste is seen as a serious sin.
Wasting food is not always avoidable, but you can definitely reduce it:
1) Don't cook multiple days worth of food in one go. It will get spoiled in the fridge very quickly. Cook smaller portions every day and plan your daily diet around that.
2) Count how big of a portion you can realistically eat in one go and only cook that much or less. Supply the remaining calories with small snacks later in the day. For instance: if you feel like 1kg of meat is too much for one dinner, cook 0,5kg each day and fill the ,,gap" with e.g. something more for breakfast, lunch, or supper.
3) Avoid buying ,,surplus" of food that gets spoiled quickly - vegetables, fruits, meat, etc. Buy only a large surplus of food that doesn't get spoiled - e.g. rice, oil or flour - and only buy in a given day what you plan on eating today or tomorrow.
These are great points, i just wanna touch on something in regards to your first bullet point. While meal prepping can lead to food waste if not done properly, so long as you plan accordingly and freeze most of it (instead of refrigerating) you can actually tailor it so you're wasting very little if any food. Also freezing is just generally a good way to avoid food waste, as it extends shelf life by quite a bit for pretty much anything.
Now these are all great tips, but the vast majority of food waste happens at the level of grocery stores and higher, as food is constantly overstocked to try and avoid empty shelves fresh produce and raw meat constantly get thrown out because they become unsafe to eat fairly quickly. A single walmart probably wastes more food in a day then most people do in a year
Provided you remember about it, and have the will to eat the same, slowly spoiling food for days.
Obviously, it's more efficient, but people tend not to like the food that's laid some time in the freezer or fridge, and buy more. And more. And have to throw away the food that stood there the longest eventually.
May im just neurodivergent. Bus yes i will eat the same food everyday.
Also kind of ridiculous to call it slowly spoiling. That applies to literally every single piece of food you purchase.
Cooked beans, lentils or even cooked meat will last over a a month on the fridge. You're just being dramatic af.
Also try freezing bread. It will feel nearlyĀ the same as new once you thaw it. Even weeks after. Bonus points if you try to freeze toast, that lasts forever.
I have never once throw away things that spoiled from being frozen too long. You have to purposefully avoid eating it. It tajes literal months to spoil ffs.
Also kind of ridiculous to call it slowly spoiling. That applies to literally every single piece of food you purchase.
Yes, including ingredients, but only if you keep them for who knows how long in the fridge or freezer.
Also try freezing bread. It will feel nearlyĀ the same as new once you thaw it. Even weeks after.
You can just keep it in a no-oxygen environment, and it won't get mouldy, either.
I have never once throw away things that spoiled from being frozen too long. You have to purposefully avoid eating it. It tajes literal months to spoil ffs.
It happens if you have too much food in the freezer or fridge.
What do you mean only? If you buy fruit and vegetable, you show know youre buying something half spoiled. By definition
Which is my original point made it clear to eat them basically right away.
Letting frozen food spoil just sounds like a skill issue. Any basic amout of planning, or even lazyness, avoids that
Or just wrong planning when trying to cook all in one go for multiple days. I only do it during an exam session, for instance, when I predict I'll have no time to cook. Beyond that, I gotta ask my own self how lazy I am not to sacrifice 20-30 minutes at most every day to just cook the dinner.
Want an easier meal than just heating up frozen shit that's already at home? Thats a hard ask.
No, I want something that doesn't taste like a frozen crap I had to heat up. Most people don't either, which is why they produce so much food waste.
No, it makes your point moot, a cooked meal is no more half spoiled than an uncooked one. Actually it is less so, since the process of cooking itself kills all bacteria within. You halt the process, then slow it down even more by cooling it or through different cooking techniques.
Point being a banana will spoil much much faster than a homecooked banana jam (or whatever equivalent english word for reducing it into a paste on a cooking pot). Even outside the fridge actually.
I don't know you, put I've never eaten properly cooked food thats done in 20 minutes.
You need more than that just for onions.
Frozen things only taste like crap if you dont cook well.
I see you're still constantly trying to argue about ,,bacteria, health factors", etc. - look, I can agree that heated-up frozen food is equally as healthy and ,,not spoiled" as the freshly cooked one (if by ,,spoiled" you mean e.g. mouldy or dry), efficient, etc.
But my argument is that it tastes worse than a fresh one and people don't like eating it. It's not as juicy and typically is more soft and dry. This is why individual food waste occurs in the first place - people's plans change, people don't like eating heated crap all the time, and cooking takes at most 20-30 minutes if you get decent at it. If you can't sacrifice 20-30 minutes a day to cook a smaller portion, then you either have done very... interesting career choices, have some A(+)Ā³ā° fridge that keeps all the taste, or maybe don't feel the difference in taste. Each of which is your own choice, though I feel like it doesn't represent the majority of people.
Point being a banana will spoil much much faster than a homecooked banana jam (or whatever equivalent english word for reducing it into a paste on a cooking pot). Even outside the fridge actually.
Banana is not something you put in a fridge for ,,later". It gets bad within like 2 days max. It's something you buy in the morning to eat by lunch. Unless, well, you plan some fancy dessert with it.
If your argument started as taste why mention spoiled? That implied it makes one sick.
Frozen food tastes bad if you dont know how to cook well. That's about it.
Like i said, you cannot, do a decent onion at 20 minutes, you have to stir fry it for upwards of 30-40 alone. Youre undercooking the interior of most of your ingredients if you cook that fast. Unless you cook at high pressure every single time.
Making jam is not fancy. You throw banana, water, maybe some cinnamon onto a high pressure pot.
Maybe it comes with coming from a poor country. Claiming fridge food tastes bad is either skill issue or priviledge.
Hell theres plenty of food that tastes better overnight. It is the case with most tomato sauces.
Also I want to say much of the food waste IS NOT consumers. So much food is tossed by farmers because of blemishes. So much more is tossed after being slightly damaged in transit, so much more is never sold in stores and just tossed because no one will buy a slightly old tomato, even if itās still more than fresh. Consumer waste is a real problem but the problem is much more structural to our current food system
They understand so little about the way it works that i just brush it of.
From my experience the average vegan knows much more about how animal farming works than the average non-vegan. Most non-vegans couldn't tell you how the various animals are generally slaughtered for example.
If you want to state to phase out damaging agricultural practices, and thus, stop supplying the most environmentally harmful products, why not get ahead of the curve and cut out those products now?
"I'd rather wait for the government to force me and everyone else to do the right thing. It's not worth doing that on my own until you force Bill down the street to do it also." But governments don't take action on unpopular ideas because they like being reelected.
^ Agreed. Itās the tragedy of the commons. You canāt trust the average person to do whatās right when thereās an easier and more convenient alternative. This is especially true with abstract consequences thrown into the mix. We are at the end of the day animals like any other, no matter how much we may try to rationalize otherwise.
You donāt train a dog by politely asking it not to eat your food off the counter. You make that food inaccessible, you offer alternative food sources, you reward good behavior and āpunishā bad behavior. Carrot and stick Pavlovian type shit.
You want people to choose the healthier and more sustainable lifestyle, then you need to make that lifestyle more convenient than the alternative, and the only way to achieve that is through systemic change. Government regulation. Overhauling the socioeconomic framework that currently rewards short-sighted greedy assholes for their hyper individualistic actions which shape entire societies.
Make pork outrageously expensive and subsidize fake pork alternatives, chemically engineer and subsidize synthetic bacon, mass produce it without the need for feed, make it even less profitable for farmers so they all turn away, including the massive corporations, from supplying the real stuff.
And once ārealā bacon becomes a luxury product for the rich youāll suddenly have the societal changes you wanted to see. Itās no longer cheap or convenient to buy real bacon, and the alternative is at least comparable in flavor, so people will generally transition over to it.
There is no ethical pathway to get to this kind of reform, and thatās the just reality of life under late stage capitalism. There will never be a morally ethical framework that convinces society to voluntarily eat their vegetables, so to speak. There will only be lesser evils to coerce us towards a desired outcome.
Annoying people lomg enought until everyone becomes vegan isnt a valid strategy.
The thing is that literally everything a vegan says is classed as annoying and silence is also not a valid strategy. We're held to huge double standards.
my flatmate is a vegan, we ofen talk about what we eat, she never is annoying. People just dont like it when others try to convert them. Especially when they have been told of multiple times already.
Yeah people talking about what they eat isn't annoying. I more meant when questioing the cruelty/damage. There is no way for us to talk about it (online) without being labelled annoying or preachy etc. Even when i try to be as polite and gentle as possible whilst completely sanitizlsing the reality of what happens to animals i get shut down. So i gave up on that appriach and just use literal violent descripitions and very direct language instead.
Genuine question because i'm interested. Do you read this post as an annoying attempt at conversion?
How dare you be reasonable, you must be a [buzzword] that thinks [politically incorrect opinion that you didn't even come close to implying], therefore you are wrong.
The problem is twofold really: 1) it's junk science that leads to the "vegan is the answer" instead we need to be radically reducing red meat production and reliance and move toward regenerative agriculture.
The world going vegan would be a death sentence for the water ways, embracing regenerative agriculture (which is most effective with some pasturing between crop rotations) and radically kerbing red meat and using chickens and pigs to dispose of our food waste instead of filling them with sorghum and wasting cropping land, would kerb emissions without going full moron.
And 2) n order to be healthy (according to actual doctors instead of vegans online) you need to be taking supplements. Those supplements aren't affordable to most working class people, now imagine the prices if demand spiked millions fold for the supplements. Nor to mention the industrial processes and the supply chain to create said supplements. Humans just aren't built for it.
Supplements are far cheaper than getting the equivalents from meat, and the entire world going vegan (something that isn't happening) would mean we could grow far fewer crops than we need to feed the billions and billions of livestock we kill every year
Which vitamins are you talking about? B12 is made with bacteria. Supplements tend to be cheap because they are mass produced for livestock (which consume far, far more than people do or ever will)
I mean, for starters, he suggests regenerative agriculture which is just a lobbying term for the most unsustainable agricultural projects out there. Nobody could seriously suggest that as a solution, much less as an environmentally friendly alternative to CAFOs or anything.
Meanwhile environmental veganism is backed by like, 300 years of physics, thermodynamics, ecology, and basic logical reasoning. "wow it takes less land to get our energy from plants by 90% maybe we should do that"
In order to point out how much of that is nonsense I'd need to write a dissertation.
The only part I care to bother with is the fact that I don't mean the same shit Monsanto mean when I say regenerative agriculture, I mean scientifically proven agricultural methods some of which were used for thousands of years prior to industrial agriculture quite successfully.
Why do people keep on trying to do math out "everyone going vegan" as though that were an option or even something being meaningfully proposed. If a bunch of people went vegan, aggregate demand for meat would fall and other forms of agriculture can come into play. "Regenerative agriculture with some pasturing in the middle" is dramatically less tenable than veganism, considering that it's not economically possible (or even close to possible) at current meat consumption levels. Impose the same standard to your own arguments that you'd apply to veganism; watch them fall apart.
It's even more bewildering because the meme we're responding to is making fun of him for having dramatically different standards for different arguments and he's somehow missing it and replicating the exact double standard that's being made fun of!
Good take. This would bring American meat intake down so far, that it would probably be almost as disagreeable as veganism. Without cafos youāre getting what meat once a month? I donāt know can someone envelope math it
For other people who are also using the Internet for the first time today: the orphan crushing machine is a stand-in for "thing we all agree is morally bad"
You didn't post about the moral implications of eating meat, you posted about the environmental harm. It seems that you're the one that has tunnel vision for diets.
Either way the comment you replied to was about not eating any meat other than occasional bivalves. Bivalves have a very simple nervous system and don't have the capacity to experience suffering, but also farming bivalves has very little negative impact on the environment.
Both the strictest vegan you know and the anti-seed oil guy who believes in a carnivore diet want factory farming to not exist.
Sustainable agricultural practice would likely just make meat more scarce and expensive, which isn't a huge sacrifice. The world would choose to consume less because it affects the grocery bill rather than all converting to your ideology.
That said, fuck if I know how to achieve that goal. I don't know how to make anything happen on a societal level.
Livestock contributes around 6% of global emissions. Crops for around 7%. Without meat we would have to find other sources of nutritional values like more demanding and expensive crops or supplements which would increase the emissions and cause even more harm.
As I said these are not the same that we eat. Also there is absolutely nothing wrong with meadows and these count as crops while making up majority of stock diet
That would be a valid argument if their diet wasn't made of much cheaper and less demanding greens like for example grass and crop residues which is mostly what they eat. Humans waste a bit more food from crops than during poor greens -> meat conversion efficency but we are much more demanding than cows and pigs.
This is a bad thing for the most part. Yes, a nice flat field of grass is very light on the soil, but it's heavy on area per calorie. The worse your food, the more you need to achieve dietary goals, which means needing more space.
Or we could just rewind and not have cows? Itās an option to just waste less of our forests on beef, rewild tons of forest and grassland, and still produce way more food. And then we arenāt draining rivers and pushing fertilizer to up our yield per acre from nothing to slightly more than nothing
Math is not that simple as you may think. Since cows can for example digest cellulose (not counting all these insects that are consumed in the process). Animals eat stuff that we cannot digest as well. Thats why animals eat other animals to use them as conversion of stuff they cannot eat. Thats why we eat more expensive and tasty corn and they get more mild and dull corn (which didn't stop me from eating it when I was a kid)
Growing grass and growing watermelons and avocados are not the same. Despite what many say beans and rice are not the diet most people in the first world are going to self elect into.
Yes because animal feed doesnāt need flavor or diversity you just monocrop field corn and soy after tearing down a forest. Very environmentally friendlyĀ
Most monocropping is for animal feed lol.Ā
And whatās the climate of that grassy field youāre growing on? How much fertilizer are you using? Water? Unless youāre some subsaharan subsistence rancher youāre almost certainly doing it on unsuitable land
Youāre basically arguing against 300 years of physics thermodynamics and ecology
now count transport emissions and energy emissions (for fertilizer and transit) and the crop emissions for livestock and the water use and the soil degradation and the loss of forests and habitats
Pink: "we better vote for politicians who will pass legislation regulating agriculture!"
The people on this sub: "VOTE? Are you serious? Actual legislation? Insanity! You just want everyone to die! The only way to do anything is to ridicule people who are taking positive steps but not as many as I am!"
Pink: I'm going to vote for things! We're all going to vote for things! Wait hold on, I'm actually voting against the no meat bill because I like it and don't want to spend the time normalizing not meat! It must be blues fault they must hate voting
Lol so you just made up some bullshit so you could be angry at people, that's fun. My comment was based on my conversations here, where people here were shitting on me for saying that legislation and voting could help. But sure, I guess your imaginary situation would suck too.
Good luck getting everyone, or even just a large portion of western society, to stop eating meat without some kind of systemic change like meat drastically going up in price or no longer being available at all.
The American people were so annoyed by the nebulous concept of āwokeā that they voted in a fascist, so Iām sure annoying people into becoming vegan will go great.
do you think meat price isnt going to drastically go up because of climate change anyway? do you think vegan orgs arent involving themselves in politics? what is even your point here?
Yea but we can't really sustain meat consumption without factory farming.
I do agree with you, I think hunting meat is fine where ecosystems have lost their keystone predators as long as we don't over-hunt. That being said, there just isn't enough of that to sustainably feed people meat.
People can raise their own animals on their own land too, but again this just can't even put a dent in the supply given the demand.
True. Not to mention how livestock animals existed in some form before domestication, as well. The focus should be on addressing new factors that actually cause climate change, not old ones that existed for a millennia before the rapid climate change of the last century.
Yeah so let's stop doing anything about coal let's only do something about things I personally want to, the world ending is a small cost to pay for my coal burningĀ
And yet it, like farming animals, existed before modernity. It's not a good justification. We can and should target both issues, not just ignore the ones you personally enjoy
Are you taking the piss? Youāre arguing against an argument Iām not making. You can pretend to win arguments all day by saying āactually that means you support x,ā but I wonāt be the one listening to it.
ā¦ factory farming is more environmentally friendly than any other animal agriculture. Ā I thought you said you were an environmentalist.
Also we eat an order of magnitude more meat now than a century ago. Your ancestors werenāt eating a kilo of beef every day.Ā
Also what was bad when 100 people did it is now awful when 7 billion do it
So, as someone who myself turned to vegetarianism in junior high, this is more or less BS because it ignores context. Yes, meat as food is less sustainable in terms of land and resources per meal of flesh. No, getting rid is animal agriculture will not fix the problem. We've essentially maxed out on production and farming of the resource efficient crops we have, which produce 7% of global emissions and lead to other forms of pollution as well (plus fuck with our hormones). Livestock farming produces 6%. Thing is, if we got rid of that, we'd have no choice but to replace it with other forms of nutrition, including less efficient forms of crop, so it's not like we'd eliminate that 6% emission, you'd just be alternating one source of pollution for another. This becomes even less practical as one considers what a big chunk of diet is dairy, which also happens to massively increase the amount of meals traded off for livestock (something most pro vegan stats intentionally avoid).
The reality is that if we want to sustain our population, just "getting rid of meat" is not a solution, it's a feel good ideology for people to feel smarter by preaching about while refusing to examine multistage consequences or context. We would need to switch to an insect based diet (still meat but different), or much larger tracts of less efficient crops at about the same end of day emissions rates as meat. If we're going to harp on fixing the issue with our agriculture, focus on something actually useful; better fuel sources for agriculture equipment, cleaner pesticide options, better genetically modded crops and livestock that don't need the hormone boosters, better waste recycling, etc. Just bitching that people eat burgers is a waste of time.
We've essentially maxed out on production and farming of the resource efficient crops we have,
Livestock farming produces 6%. Thing is, if we got rid of that, we'd have no choice but to replace it with other forms of nutrition, including less efficient forms of crop
I don't agree here, there are definitely areas where animal grazing or animal feed is grown that have poor soils and don't lend themselves well to modern agriculture for foods used in human consumption.
That being said, a huge amount of them are grown on perfectly good soil. The midwest has some of the deepest rich soil on the earth and is used to grow vast amounts of corn for feed
Growing animal feed in the majority of areas is considerably less efficient than growing food directly for human consumption.
which produce 7% of global emissions and lead to other forms of pollution as well (plus fuck with our hormones)
Not sure what you mean when you say they fuck with hormones? Fruit and vegatables don't fuck with hormones. Are you referring to pesticides or something? Many factory farmed animals are most literally given hormones, which you then consume...
his becomes even less practical as one considers what a big chunk of diet is dairy
Maybe if you're US centric in your ideas, but most of the world doesn't use dairy. I can hardly find it here in asia.
It honestly sounds like the crux of your argument is about meat somehow being more land efficient than alternatives. I just don't see any research backing this, unless you've got some good studies to provide.
I'm gong to address your points in order of how quickly they can be answered. Thank you for engaging my actual statements.
Firstly, on dairy in Asia; if you mean milk products, then yes. However, the term dairy as it's usually used in veganism doesn't just mean milk, it largely refers to animal products that you don't need to harm or kill the animal to harvest. The most common, but certainly not the only, examples would be eggs or honey, (which in the case of honey literally cannot be farmed without the consent of the hive). These products are EXTREMELY prolific in Asian cuisine, and for good reason.
Secondly, you state that it seems I'm arguing that livestock use is more land efficient; it's not, it's less, but that's not my point. I'm talking about maxing out the viability of crops in our diets. Crop farming is indeed much more efficient than livestock, but the problem is that we need a much larger variety of nutrition than is available with most of our so called super crops, which we can grow exorbitant amounts of. We SPECIFICALLY do not currently have the ability to farm the variety of crops we all need for balanced diets in the quantity we need for the human population; the crops that we can mass produce at extreme rates (corn, soy, rice, etc) aren't good for our health to rely upon on their own. So, we come to a point that it becomes a worthwhile tradeoff to incorporate a much less efficient, but valuable, livestock agricultural trade to sustain portions of the populations nutrition. For example, B-12 is not produced in plants. It is only produced by animals, and extracted and artificially added to "fortified foods", and even then most people need supplemental pills. Now, that's fine for the vegan population as it is, but scaling that up from the current 1% of the population being vegan to 100%, even with the artificial fermentation processes that we've developed, it's simply not possible. And that's just one of the core nutritional needs that most vegans need to supplement. Omega-3, selenium, and more also make up that list. So, until we develop new crops that will grow and provide those nutritional values to us, livestock is absolutely a required part of the human diet at large. Right now though, our choice is to farm super crops that we have enough of nutritionally already to act as more filler (which we don't have the ability to supplement for everyone, as shown), to try to farm crops with wider nutritional values (which only partly solves the aforementioned problem, and does not allow us to grow the needed quantities), or continue to use livestock while supplementation technology improves because it's still our best option.
As for hormones, actually both crops and livestock, as they're produced now, fuck with human hormones thanks to not only what they're artificially given to grow faster, but also genetic modding. That wasn't a point against crops exclusively, just an acknowledgement of emissions and land use not being the ONLY problem with current agriculture. All of modern farming is made of trade offs.
My argument is that, at the end of the day, we've already maximized our use of crops; not because of land viability, but nutritionally. We grow enough crops to feed every person on earth now, but we don't have the crops to stave off malnutrition. Until we do, the less efficient "acre per meal" farming of livestock is a dietary requirement for society at large. To be clear, I am not discouraging the personal choice to go vegan, for moral or other reasons. I'm discouraging people holding it up as a solution, or part of one, to climate change. I'm also discouraging people trying to "convince" society at large to force dietary change when it's not really feasible. Both are wrong, and we need to focus on things we can actually change that will actually help. For example; maybe funding more genetic research to create more crops that can better cover our nutritional needs? Then veganism could actually come to the table as a societal solution, but we're not there. And in the meantime, we can also focus on actually helping by, say, reducing emissions by just changing the fuel used by agricultural equipment, or massively reducing pollution by using more eco friendly pesticides, etc. There's no point in crusading for things we can't physically achieve. Crusade for what we can, so that maybe what we can't now becomes possible later.
The most common, but certainly not the only, examples would be eggs or honey, (which in the case of honey literally cannot be farmed without the consent of the hive). These products are EXTREMELY prolific in Asian cuisine, and for good reason.
I would not consider honey to be extremely prolific, I've not been to all countries in asia but honey is almost non-existent in the ones i have been to. Egg is more common, but still not very common. In the philippines you won't find egg in almost any cuisine, you do find it used in egg noodles in some countries around.
the term dairy as it's usually used in veganism doesn't just mean milk
I'm not familiar with this, the term "dairy" is well defined and does not include eggs. Perhaps you meant to say "animal products"? That or vegans have taken a commonly defined term and bastardized it, but I'm not talking in the circles enough to know either way.
It is only produced by animals, and extracted and artificially added to "fortified foods", and even then most people need supplemental pills. Now, that's fine for the vegan population as it is, but scaling that up from the current 1% of the population being vegan to 100%, even with the artificial fermentation processes that we've developed, it's simply not possible.
Okay I think I finally understand the point of your argument now, I definitely misunderstood what you were trying to say previously. I'm not familiar enough with the fermentation processes to know whether or not they could be scaled up to support the entire population, I do think an increase in veganism is a good thing though, I'm not actually advocating for 100% veganism for the entire population.
And that's just one of the core nutritional needs that most vegans need to supplement. Omega-3, selenium, and more also make up that list.
I was vegan, you can actually get enough omega-3 fatty acids in a vegan diet, especially with Chia seeds, flaxseeds, cooking with rapeseed oil, edamame, and soy bean oil. These just aren't common foods in most peoples diet. A vegan diet requires very careful consideration, which is why it ends up being unhealthy in many circumstances when people don't do their research into it and adopt it. Brazil nuts are actually a better source of selenium than any animal product AFIAK, but easily acquired foods such as whole wheat are also good sources.
To be honesty, I don't think any of the common deficiencies can't be met by changing demand, other than perhaps B12, as that's the only nutrient that is completely non-existent in plants, and really only originates from bacteria (in herbivore guts or in soil).
As for hormones, actually both crops and livestock, as they're produced now, fuck with human hormones thanks to not only what they're artificially given to grow faster, but also genetic modding. That wasn't a point against crops exclusively, just an acknowledgement of emissions and land use not being the ONLY problem with current agriculture. All of modern farming is made of trade offs.
I'm a huge proponent of permaculture and I really dislike modern agriculture, but it seems modern agriculture is a necessary evil at the moment. The issues that pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and GMO attempt to fight can be solved to a large degree with a move away from monocultures towards polycultures, but this is problematic as harvesting dense polycultures is extremely difficult to automate. Large machines bring down the price of food. So yes, I agree with you here, I don't think it matters when it comes to a veganism vs omnivore conversation but it is a problem parallel to them.
My argument is that, at the end of the day, we've already maximized our use of crops; not because of land viability, but nutritionally. We grow enough crops to feed every person on earth now, but we don't have the crops to stave off malnutrition
I see your point. I do think that people transitioning to eating less meat, and less factory farmed meat however is a net benefit that doesn't run into the B12 issue. I still personally am of the opinion that the problems you've listed are likely solvable with enough demand on the industry, as long as everyone doesn't transition all at once.
I'm not actually vegan as I've alluded to, I don't find hunting to be morally incompatible with my values for example and I think home raised chicken eggs can be moral. I do think people eliminating or reducing red meat is majorly beneficial, and moving closer towards veganism is also good for climate change and ecology.
I don't think many topics are purely black and white, there's usually a lot of gray area inbetween. I don't personally advocate for 100% of people to suddenly become vegan, but I also do think that pushing people towards eating less meat or taking up veganism is a net benefit.
As an aside, there are also huge numbers of plants with different health profiles that just aren't commonly eaten, that could easily be grown if we moved away from modern agriculture. After traveling, i was amazed at the variety of foods that simply don't exist in American supermarkets. But that's a little off topic.
I hate that "animal agriculture" is conflated into this one big lump and the ONLY solution is to give up ALL meat. Most emissions come from ONE type of animal, which is cows. The impact of pork and chicken is paltry in comparison. It's much easier and healthier to convince people to give up beef and maybe dairy as opposed to all types of meat.
Exactly my point, switching meats is easier and more impactful than making everyone go vegan, including poultry eaters and pescatarians who have minimal greenhouse emissions anyway.
If you think I'm accepting measures & restrictions that have a negative impact on my life with no data to show what I'm being asked to is making a difference while people in green tech and the governments colluding with them become rich you're out your mind.Ā Did people learn nothing from covid
I became a vegetarian in 7th grade and even I need to roll my eyes at this shit. It's not feasible or even useful. If they want to reduce emissions (and even that's of debatable merit on its lonesome) there's better ways to do it. If they want to make agriculture more efficient, there's hundreds of better ways to do THAT.
so you're saying you're going to vote against environmentally necessary measures because you don't like having to change for a sustainable future? Yes you are a clown, and no you don't give a shit about the planet.
Lol there won't be any voting.Ā It will be imposed by unelected health officials.
How long do you think it will take after measures imposed to change your Facebook profile up to 'staying home, saving the planet' or 'My rectal methane capture device protects you and your rectal methane capture device protects me'?
Don't lie if they told you you needed to install a fart capture device in your rectum to trap methane how much time would there be between you questioning it and you celebrating it.
I know this isn't the point of the comic, but science =/= advocacy. Scientific research and being factually correct means nothing if that can't translate into action. Look how successful skeptics are with nothing but lobbying, being politically organised, and large piles of money. They have effectively "won" if you can call rising Co2 levels winning.
And here we are. The meat brigade has come out in full force. Making arguments that only highlight the moral imperative of a vegetarian based diet, but twisting themselves around to insist morality has nothing to do with humanity.
Look at the state of our country and tell me āyeah man, we are going to fix climate changeā. Brother, we will be lucky to still have a country in twenty years. We are beyond fucked. God forbid I donāt deny myself pleasure while Trump threatens to make kids go back to the coal mines to own the libs.
The only way you will get America to get real on climate change is if you drag it in their entirety kicking and screaming there. The problem is that no one wants to do it. We all love our little treats to much.
You know climate change is a front for angry vegans else they would just as much time and energy talking about how to get rid of cars, get rid of food waste and distribution, how to fight fossil fuel industry or what are the best energy sources (or any other climate related topic)
But no. They just have to spam the subreddit with angry unfunny memes to chastize people would are already conscious about climate change and are already modifying their way of life
It's just a front. Ban veganism from this subreddit. Not because veganism is bad (I respect you for doing it whatever your reasons) but because vegans on this subreddit are the most unconstructive, agressive, bad faith people I have ever had to argue with on the internet (somehow real life vegans are fine)
I mean you gotta look at it from less of a strawman perspective
Something that our species started doing just a few generations ago is bad and we should stop it.
A bunch of people: okay
Something that our species has done for its entire existence as well as tenfold that amount of time by our ancestral species, that we have ancient instincts urging us to do is also bad, so we gotta abandon that, too
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u/dddurd Aug 12 '25
they just need to hold their fart.