Takeaway: no more happy cow images on packaging from companies that might as well sell their produce as “torture meat.”
Good move, EU. Just this week, I bought “bio” meat, animal welfare index 3 out of 4. The fine print said “exterior climate” - aah, raised in a cramped meat production plant, but someone kept a window open.
Just subsidise rice and beans like governments do for meat and stores will be paying you to take those off their hands. People are too poor to be picky at this point, if meat is affordable then people will buy it.
I’m saying that they could go beyond free. Pay people to eat them. I’ve literally seen studies on paying people to eat a healthful diet… it’s not a joke.
Eating an animal is always going to be less efficient, because the animal has to eat food to live an most of that food energy will be used up day-to-day rather than staying in its meat.
Also, eating an animal requires that animal to be dead just for your pleasure. No way to get around that either - it will always be more cruel to eat meat than not.
I did read the article and it’s good that extra regulation could be used to make the packaging more truthful, but you can’t get away from these two claims. (also I happen to know someone who works in a meat packaging plant, and yeah… you can put whatever claims you want on the package and still corners get cut and animals are left suffering because money is the real objective for all companies under capitalism, not animal welfare)
The bigger the animal the less efficient too, since there’s more time needed for them to grow and they’re using more energy the entire time they’re growing since they’re bigger.
Lab-grown meat is certainly going to be less climate-friendly, less healthy, and more expensive than legumes, whole grains, and nuts (and most processed products made from these ingredients[1])—e.g. red meat is carcinogenic no matter what the source is. For the moment, lab meat is mostly a venture-funded pipe dream.
On the other hand, legumes, whole grains, and nuts are scaled, cheap, healthy, and proven in pretty much every way.
[1] There are pitfalls, of course, such as products that include things like carrageenan, saturated fats, artificial colorants, or too much salt. But you can check for those and skip the offenders.
I understand that veggies exist. That’s irrelevant to my desire to eat delicious meat that doesn’t come from conscious organisms capable of suffering. Avoiding meat is entirely ethically-based for me.
Coffee is carcinogenic. So are roasted veggies, as well as common food additives. There’s reasonable risk mitigation and then there’s unreasonable (and impossible) risk elimination. I balance health and quality of life.
I don’t think the climate impact of lab-grown meat (when, not if, it is perfected) would be anywhere near the emissions of CAFOs. That’s an absurd area to focus on in place of targeting CAFOs, car emissions, jets, etc. that actually are significant sources of emissions.
That really depends on how dark you need your veggies.
as well as common food additives.
And you can often avoid them easily. Granted, you may be US-based which may make finding good food harder.
I don’t think the climate impact of lab-grown meat (when, not if, it is perfected) would be anywhere near the emissions of CAFOs.
As yet, that’s entirely unclear. Right now, most of the companies in the space are pretty tight-lipped. We know that at scale, these companies will need a ton of electricity and they will also need input nutrients, aka perfectly human-edible plants. Some of the calories going in will be lost. How much, we don’t know, because right now these companies have no scale and are mostly in a transitional phase where they are replacing animal-based input nutrients.
That’s an absurd area to focus on
Going vegan is an immediate, effective, and cost-neutral climate-positive thing you can do individually. It can shave around 1 to 2t of CO2e/year from your impact and it also helps with a host of other issues (water, land use, species extinction, animal cruelty, …).
15% of global CO2e emissions are from agriculture, the vast majority is directly or indirectly caused by animal agriculture. That number is higher in countries with a high-meat diet.
Reducing land use actually allows for rewilding, thus allowing for offsetting additional emissions.
in place of
“I can’t do thing X because I am doing unrelated thing Y” seems like a logical fallacy.
targeting CAFOs,
The only thing to replace those at scale, right now, is plants. “Grass-fed” is sleight-of-hand bushlit. Lab-grown meats at scale are probably ten years out from now.
As usual, there’s no need for a complex technological solution that’s worse than the solution we already have.
I say “as usual” because there are a lot of these: public transit v/ self-driving/electric cars; packaging deposit systems v/ plastics recycling; just consuming fewer products v/ CO2-optimizing bullshit products; … The commonality between all of these examples is that the underlying conflict is public benefit v/ some investor getting rich.
car emissions, jets, etc. that actually are significant sources of emissions.
No doubt these need to be targeted as well — but for one, individually, you (probably) can’t do much about any of them. For two, if you can optimize or help influence decision-making, go for it.
And there were planes in the air last year too, despite me not using one. That’s proof that my actions count for less than nothing, thanks!
I said veganism is one effective climate-friendly thing you can do individually. I did not say that one person becoming vegan stops China or Brazil or anyone else in their expansion of animal farming. I did not say that you should stop advocating for change or stop making other changes to your life.
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