Beef is the biggest mass consumed culprit. I think mutten might be worse, but it isn’t eaten nearly as much.
My point is, if you struggle to reduce meat consumption, just reducing beef consumption would make a big difference. Next time you are out, get a chicken sandwich instead of a burger. It’s that simple.
This is the actual reason I default to chicken and sometimes opt for fish. And oat milk. It’s not everything, but it’s a hell of a lot better than eating beef five nights a week and barely required any effort on my part.
Next time you are out, get a chicken sandwich instead of a burger. It’s that simple.
I wish it was that simple, but it isn’t. If consumers replace chicken with beef, chicken will get more expensive and beef will get less expensive. Maybe some factory farmers and slaughterhouses will change species and ranchers will hire a PR firm to start a “eat more beef” add campaign. A new equilibrium will be reached with no significant impact on animal welfare or the climate, because the meat industry is well aware that consumer preferences shift over time and is happy to accommodate those shifts as long as consumers keep eating meat.
What sends a message is vegetarianism or veganism. And, to a lesser extent, buying your meat from a local cooperative or raising your own. Taking money out of the pockets of the factory farm industry as a whole saves animals and sends a message. Just eating less beef doesn’t.
It isn’t about sending a message, it is about reducing GHG emissions.
As far as prices, maybe. I don’t know the ins and outs of raising animals for food. I don’t think meat prices are entirely supply and demand due to different costs in raising different animals.
your link is new to me, so i dug through it a bit, checked some references, and i’ve decided the methodology is bad, and the authors either know this or they should have known this. the primary source for the LCA comparisons says, in plain english, in the introduction that LCA’s should not be used for comparisons due to a lack of control for the data gathering procedures. the actual paper’s purpose was to, i shit you not, ignore this guidance, average every datapoint they could find for any food type, and then stock them together in one paper… to let you compare LCAs. this is shoddy work.
i didn’t bother to go digging into the tertiary sources on which your link relies, but i will say i did some of the reading into the sources for other papers on the impacts of animal agriculture, and i have yet to find any investigation that doesn’t attribute to livestock all of the impacts of everything in their diet. that seems reasonable: if a cow eats it, then it should be counted. but that falls apart under scrutiny. my primary example is that, in the united states, many cattle are fed cottonseed. cottonis not a food crop, though. it’s a textile. the cottonseed is a byproduct, and whether we feed it to cattle or press it for oil, any such use is actually reclaiming resources. how should that be counted? it’s not as though cottonseed is an essential part of cattle diets, it’s only through the happenstance of its availability and relative price point that it’s in there at all.
and this just points at a larger problem: everything in our agricultural sector is so intertwined and interdependent that the impact of anything is a mercurial notion, that changes on a seasonal basis dependent on the weather, technology, and people’s feelings.
i don’t believe beef can’t be raised sustainably (which is to say, indefinitely on a given plot of land, given sufficient sun and rainfall). i’m open to data about this, but cattle were among the first domesticated animals, and we’ve seen all kinds of climate change since then, so cattle can’t be the problem in-and-of themselves.
About half of the emissions from cattle are from methane; methane has about 80x the warming impact over 20 years that CO2 has.
Beyond that, cattle are slaughtered at 1 to 2 years old, while meat chickens are slaughtered at around 2 months. Cattle have worse feed conversion rates because they live longer.
as I said above, it’s almost impossible to actually quantify the effects of any agricultural activity due to the interdependencies and variances in the industry. show me the source for you “half of the emissions” claim, and I’ll show you a flawed methodology and a counterexample to the claim.
According to www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/2/2/127/htm conventional feedlot beef produces 501,593 kg of methane per 1 million kg of beef, mostly from both burps and composting manure. So that’s about .5 kg of methane per kg of beef.
1 lb of methane is 84 kg CO2e; that is to say over 100 years 1 kg of methane warms the planet the same as releasing 84kg of CO2. So every kg of beef produces 42kg of CO2e, regardless of any quibbling about the CO2e of agricultural waste fed to cows.
By contrast, googling quickly the quoted CO2e emissions per kg of chicken is 18.2. Which is, of course, subject to the same quibbling.
i will be digging into the methodology in a little while, but I found this part of the summary might indicate it’s not as bad as it is sometimes made out to be.
All beef production systems are potentially sustainable
That’s what happens when you add in sales taxes, which are applied to everything. It’s not going to happen so long as it looks like a backdoor way to increase the tax over time.
Have you met a rich person who can’t avoid taxes? No but seriously even if every steak cost them $1000 it would not deter them because of the current wealth concentration.
Do you think it will never happen or that it’s gonna take a lot of time and education? There seems to be a trend that societal change that reaches 3,5% take over an manifest themselfs. (bbc.com/…/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-…)
There is a distinct racist history to how overpopulation is discussed. High-birth-rate countries tend to be low-emissions-per-capita countries, so overpopulation complaints are often effectively saying “nonwhites can’t have kids so that whites can keep burning fossil fuels” or “countries which caused the climate problem shouldn’t take in climate refugees.”
Very interesting. Exactly the type of information I was looking for, thanks for providing. I do wonder why the question was down voted. That doesn’t seem like a productive way to achieve the desired result if the desired result is to convince more people that giving up beef is the lowest hanging fruit on the path to fighting climate change.
If anyone who down voted me reads this, please tell me why you did so that I may better understand how to communicate effectively.
I think it got downvotes because the people pushing the question tend to be promoting the idea that we could have a wonderful pure environment if only we killed off all the brown people.
Oh yes, I wasn’t pointing a finger at you specifically. Rather, I thought your response was excellent! I’m more just pointing out the civility of our discourse so that other people can learn effective communication strategies, and better my own as well. Thank you for your reasonable responses.
Hmm… I understand the desire for reducing the spread of damaging theories, but there also seems to be an element of burying one’s head in the sand to that approach. Wouldn’t it be more productive to explain logically and dispassionately what the problems with the thought processes are rather than ignore the problem?
How does that approach build consensus to effect meaningful policy change?
Simply ignoring the person’s position doesn’t convince them to vote differently.
No! Make them eat MORE meat. All meat all day, 5x a day. +meat snacks.
Clog those arteries as fast as possible and we are finally rid of these idiots who think meat is an essential ingredient to their masculinity.
This is why they need viagara!
And someone send them some cigarettes, unfiltered.
My recommendation is learn to love lentils. Replace the beef in your spag bol with them. So good and so much cheaper. Also beans, there are so many good things you can do with them.
This, I basically never buy any ‘vegan’ products. I just sub mince with red and yellow lentils and barley, it’s great and cheap. Add lots of veggies and you’ve got a delicious meal.
Lentils r amazing, although they severely lack protein. Plus, they alone do not have all 9 required amino acids. To get them, u need to consume lentils AND beans.
The daily RDA for me is around 56 grams of protein. If I had to meet this demand via lentils and beans alone, then I would need to consume around 460 grams of lentils and beans DAILY. Yeah… Imagine the AMOUNT of gases after that lol.
HOWEVER, there still is a solution that I found. Say hello to “TVP”, ie., “Texturised Vegetable Protein”. This basically concentrates all this protein, while having all 9 required amino acids. To meet my RDA, I would need to consume just 120 grams.
I still do have lentils and beans sometimes. However, TVP is still always present in some form.
And imagine how many carbs you’re getting with your lentils. If you’re on a diet, getting your protein from lentils is pretty much impossible. Also, plant proteins are not as digestible as animal protein, so you need to add another 10-15% to your lentils to make up for that.
TVP is awesome. I pad out my meat with it. It’s a great way to cut down on your meat and really doesn’t distract from the meatiness at all. Beans and lentils have a texture, flavour, and mouth feel that is quite overwhelming and is really inescapable if you’re having any reasonable quantity of them.
@UraniumBlazer@Nonameuser678 56 grams of protein from all sources. There is protein in almost everything you eat, and it combines to reach that goal. You don't have to get all 56 grams from just lentils and beans
Also, it's rice or some other grain you want to pair with lentils to achieve a complete protein, not beans -- beans are legumes, and most legumes have a similar amino acid profile
Well wheat and rice have like under 4 gm of protein per 100gm. Vegetables are even less than this. I would have to eat kilos and kilos of stuff to meet my RDA this way.
Also, it’s rice or some other grain you want to pair with lentils to achieve a complete protein, not beans – beans are legumes, and most legumes have a similar amino acid profile
Oh yeah, I looked this up. I don’t see the beans lentil thing that I mentioned anywhere. So ig u’r right. I think I saw this in some YouTube video.
Well wheat and rice have like under 4 gm of protein per 100gm. Vegetables are even less than this. I would have to eat kilos and kilos of stuff to meet my RDA this way.
That is why I promote replacing beef, the biggest problem with anything else. It isn’t realistic to expect massive amounts of people to make such drastic changes to their diet in any reasonable time frame. We CAN drastically reduce GHG, especially methane from beef production by replacing it with a less harmful alternatives, and from there gradually scale back meat production as a whole.
Another issue is production. There needs to be time for food producers to change what they are producing. It takes time for plants to grow and animals to mature. If we all just ate rice and beans starting tomorrow, does the world even have enough to feed everyone? We can’t just eat a bunch of corn like cows do. We would have to get corn farmers to grow something else.
Considering the nutrition and production hurdles, I promote just reducing beef consumption right now. If that ever succeeds, I’ll move on to reducing meat consumption in general, giving time for viable alternatives to mature.
Suuuure… However, it’s not that difficult to replace all meat entirely, rapidly (around a decade). This is where TVP tech comes in, which I stated in my original comment.
TVP is tremendously cheap, contains as much protein as meat and is even easier to prepare than meat. It’s like vegan vibranium. Check it out.
Absolutely amazing when made properly. U need to soak it for like 15 min before cooking, then squeeze the brownish water out. Refill and squeeze immediately (u don’t need to soak for 15 min again ofc). The goal is to remove the brownish water (which contains the cardboard like flavor). Also, if you’re boiling it, remember to add salt to preserve the texture.
Yes. If every human stopped eating beef and meat from sheep, we would need 50% of the agricultural area compared to now. And if everyone became vegan, we would only need about 25-30% of the area. There will never be a food shortage because of plants replacing meat in food.
we would need 50% of the agricultural area compared to now. And if everyone became vegan, we would only need about 25-30%
Yes, that is true. That isn’t what I am talking about.
I am talking about what is currently being produced right now. My gut tells me if everyone literally went vegan tomorrow, there wouldn’t be enough food to go around.
Reducing meat consumption does need to happen, but it will realistically take at least a few years, if not a decade to transition food supply chains. At minimum, it will take at least a few growing seasons to transition from animal feed crops to food crops.
Yes, it will definitely take years for such a transition. But since most people will not change their eating behaviour quickly and radically anyway, that will not be a problem I think.
Sure, 100 grams of raw spinach has only 2.9g of protein. But spinach cooks down a lot.
And remember, if you’re trying to get to 50g of protein a day, you add everything together. Was your breakfast a slice of toast and some berries? You might have eaten like 5g of protein there, and you haven’t even had an egg or anything that’s a real protein. If you add an egg, that’s 12g of protein at breakfast.
Ate a pb&j for lunch? That might have been another 10g of protein in that sandwich. Add a small side salad with some chickpeas and you’re easily at 15g of protein.
Then for dinner, a serving of lentils is like 13g. Suppose you ate that with some raita and spinach, and you’re easily at like 20g of protein at that meal already.
So that’s like 47g of protein. Eat a handful of nuts or two oranges and you’re at 50g of protein.
A reminder that oil companies invented “carbon footprint” to distract you while they continue to pollute. Form unions and solidarity networks to overcome harmful systems. Don’t argue over hamburgers.
Reminder that this doesn’t absolve you from your personal responsibilities. You do need to be making choices that move the world towards a better future.
Besides that the number one reason for land loss, the loss of biodiversity, nitrate pollution, and methane production is still the bio-industy. Let alone the ethical implications of killing billions of animals a month.
You can do both. No, you’re obliged to do both. Stop supporting bio-industy and fight for rights.
In my country, the standard argument against climate action is “well China isn’t going to stop polluting so why should we?” This stock argument ignores the following facts:
Our per capita emissions have always been worse than China’s
China is already beginning to outpace us in green technologies
Even if China were behind us, our positive actions would still save lives because climate collapse affects us by degrees
I have no idea why the fuck all these “patriots” are opposed to the idea of us being better than China. I’d love to be better than China, and I think our government is illegitimate. Why the fuck am I a bigger patriot than these losers?
Apparently, the mainstream animal-abusing left gets their whataboutisms from the same place as my racist uncle, because now it’s capitalism’s fault that people have no obligation to do good things ever.
So, if you think of yourself as a leftist but you eat meat and drive a car, I’d just like to remind you that you chose to pay a killer to kill for you, and you chose to worsen the flooding and draughts in poor countries, and no, a corporation did not put the money in your hand and force you to do this.
It’s not only cars, there are power plants running on oil, nearly every “small” backup generator runs on diesel. Also logistics, trucks, trains and ships needs boatloads of diesel.
The good news is that the methane emissions are so damn bad that it also means that relatively modest reductions (in global percentage) will go a long way toward the problem.
Meat got expensive AF for me and my family. I’m actually surprised how easy it was to switch.
A lot of vegetarian alternatives are now catering towards former meat eaters, so the taste lines up better. And I also found a secret weapon. Asian mock meats is really really good.
Once in a while, I treat the family to those beyond meats, which taste pretty real. But they’re also expensive so…
I really think that, if we are to get this to work, we must start with the ranchers as well. I live on one of those 'more cows than people' areas, and I don't think any rancher is going to hang up that income opportunity until they have a viable alternative. Some of them have already diversified to meet ends, but I think most have not.
Some people unfortunately do not have access to good vegan options. That being said, people can reduce their consumption of red meat significantly and make an impact.
@hansl@ElcaineVolta most people have access to beans, rice, and canned vegetables. If you can find nutritional yeast, then you're really in business
Vegan food is not some special, hard-to-access category of food, it's just food without animals. A lot of what you already eat is probably accidentally vegan: https://www.reddit.com/r/accidentallyvegan
vegan options? like produce, grains, and legumes? are you in a food desert yourself?
the "vegan options" you're referring to are at the supermarket, and they are the cheapest items in there.
I have plenty of friends who are vegans. I also have a few who tried it and failed because it’s not a switch you just turn off.
Giving the advice “just go vegan” is bad advice and counterproductive. There should be research into what it means and how to eat healthy vegan meals. You don’t just turn off the meat, which is what a lot of people assume they should do.
As a matter of fact I’d give the advice “go vegetarian, keep the milk eggs and fish, and if you like it and want to go further look into replacing those with some good vegan options.” It should be a process. Unless you start buying Soylent (the product not the movie), but that’s disgusting.
Oh no, I’m so sorry for your poor friends. It must have been so hard to not abuse animals. I understand, not abusing animals is hard. When I stopped beating my dog with a rolled up newspaper every day, I was so depressed. I’m sure your friends are going through the exact same thing as me now that they aren’t paying for companies to put animals in cages and kill them.
yea. but the people doing the caging and killing are paid before that meat ever lands in a supermarket or restaurant. and they’re usually paid by the people who own the facility.
No, we just established that’s true. The farmers and slaughterers are paid by the grocery store, which is paid by the meat eaters. That’s where the money to abuse and kill animals comes from. If you don’t think they get their money from meat eaters, where do you think it comes from?
Do you mean to say that grocery stores are spending money from vegan sales on meat orders to subsidize an area of the business that isn’t making them any money?
Do you mean to say that grocery stores are spending money from vegan sales on meat orders to subsidize an area of the business that isn’t making them any money?
I’m saying grocery stores don’t keep a pile of money segregated that only-comes-from-and-is-only-spent-on vegan food. when the 4th of July rolls around, they stock up on hotdogs with whatever money is on hand.
I’m also saying your policy of not giving money to grocery stores just isn’t workable for most people.
But you get to influence which decisions are profitable. When you pay them money in exchange for dead animals, you create incentive for them to arrange for there to be more dead animals
Okay, let’s say there’s a serial arsonist who’s been burning down houses in your neighbourhood. Now he’s on GoFundMe asking for money to buy more gasoline. I like burned down houses, so I give him money with the knowledge he will use it to burn down your house.
Do I share any responsibility for what happened to your house?
Consuming meat doesn’t automatically make you have a balanced and nutrituous diet. If you cared about that, you should inform yourself even if your not vegan.
I went vegan on a random Thursday a few years ago after learning about the ethical reality here, that harming animals for pleasure or convenience is unjustified.
It didn’t happen all in one day (the learning that is), but I didn’t do any meal planning. Didn’t even order vegan food before I decided to go vegan. Next time I went to the store I only bought vegan things. Since then anytime I have the ability to buy vegan goods, I do (which has been 100% of the time because I live in the west in the 21st century).
If you’re homeless in the middle of Palestine being bombed relentlessly by a genocidal state, yeah I’m not going to complain about you eating eggs that were given to you from a homeless shelter. If you’re rich enough to drive to the store and buy groceries yourself in the U.S or Europe, you have no excuse.
cost, convenience, and culture are the three reasons im not actively vegan. i drink soylent and huel. i do (a lot of ) my own baking. i have lots of vegan friends.
but nothing quite hits the convenience/cost equilibrium like 2/$1 gas station hot dogs. 500 hot calories available 24 hours a day literally on my way anywhere to do anything.
and i’m a community organizer. part of that is meeting people where they are. if i refuse to eat what they’re eating, it sets me apart. so i can’t very well turn down culturally relevant foods like burgers or hotdogs or whatever is at the picnic.
these aren’t excuses. they’re reasons. to overcome them, you’ve got to beat gas station hotdogs on cost and convenience, and convince my region to go vegan. i’m not spending my time on that.
I understand the reasons why people aren’t vegan. I also understand the reason why slaughterhouse workers have far higher rates of violence (domestic and non-domestic). I understand why people do terrible things, people aren’t born evil. Even Nazis weren’t born with some disposition to be evil. It’s not like literally millions of Germans just had some natural predisposition to be unbelievably evil and that went away once they lost WW2.
These are learned behaviors. I understand the reasons. They’re still not an excuse. You’re failing to do what you need to do, and just because I understand why you’re failing doesn’t mean you’re not failing.
Maybe you don’t care, maybe you like animal abuse, maybe you know you’re doing something wrong and see yourself as a failure. No matter your own views, the mass torture/genocide is still happening, and you’re supporting it. Hopefully one day you grow enough as a person to stop.
I didn’t think it would work on me either then it did. You have to actually let time pass to see if you grow. Maybe you’ll be a piece of shit your whole life, we’ll see.
It is torture there’s no argument there. Genocide is always a weird one, people argue that what’s happening to Palestinians isn’t genocide etc.
There are definitions of genocide that it fits, and there are ones that it won’t. If you think systemic mass killing for pleasure doesn’t fall under the definition of genocide, cool. It’s still systemic mass killing for pleasure.
I’ve talked to literal fascists on the Internet who said the same thing, that my arguing with them “made them look into it” and they ended up “hating trans/Jews/Muslims more”.
Just because you have an inability to correctly process information doesn’t make it my fault you’re going to continue being a piece of shit.
Add comment