Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet
nature.com
nature.com
Fixing the corruption (both democratic and republican parties) in our our political would end up helping the environment a lot. That said, we have zero chance of fixing our corrupt political system. It will never happen, the elites have won that war.
One problem with reducing meat consumption is the general low skill level for cooking. Vegetarian food can taste better than meat dishes but you need skill and good ingredients. I have mixed feelings about Beyond Meat: my wife and I love the hot Italian sausage and burgers, but it is really not that healthy.
- which persuasively argues (with multiple sources) that the US meat industry depends upon massive labor exploitation of undocumented immigrants in order to 1) suppress wages and 2) maintain an otherwise intolerable working environment.
This shows that the problem is not simply corrupt legislation and lobbying, but a de facto symbiotic relationship between the meat industry, federal immigration authorities and border coyotes to maintain artificially low prices.
That's well-known about the meat industry. The problem with suggesting it as a reason to avoid meat in favor of vegetable-based food is the same is well-known to be true of agriculture generally.
On the other hand, slaughterhouses generally haven't seen any automation and other than size/scale mostly still resemble their counterparts from previous centuries.
I totally get this, and have similar feelings. But I try to remind my self what Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger are competing with: meat. They have similar saturated fat profiles to their "real" alternatives.
I look at these meat alternatives as mostly beneficial for:
1. Meat eaters looking to eat more sustainably, but continue eating burgers and sausages and whatnot occasionally
2. "Cook out" situations where you can bring a good veggie burger and not be a total social weirdo eating grilled corn by yourself. And it's a good conversation starter, and others are usually intrigued enough to try, and impressed after having done so.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3t902pqt3C7nGN99hV...
"The science on this is very tainted" isn't a particularly strong argument.
I'm not sure that a diet low in unsaturated fats can be conflated with one with high saturated fats. They tend to come from different sources (vegetables, nuts, and fish vs. meat, butter, and eggs, respectively).
Also, please do not make it this difficult to source your claims - the link you provide is to a homepage for an entire decades-long project full of results and reporting. This is incredibly annoying and unconstructive to the discussion.
[1] http://www.healthdata.org/announcement/improved-diets-and-in...
I suppose you’ll disagree with his analysis because the FDA say eat loads of carbs.
Moreover, if you keep your diet low in fried foods (which I do), this is not a concern, since you don't expose the oil to high heat.
Meanwhile, a good lentil stew is a much more involved project. Much less home-made veggie burger patties which have dozens of ingredients and elaborate preparation processes.
Going full vegan is even harder, because cheese is a pretty good shortcut to making hearty food.
Here are some examples.
I know it's a punchline these days, but i grew up in the 80s eating avocado toast. You want more flavor? Just spread some marmite or vegemite.
The Tex-Mex take is to smash that avo with corn chips and salsa. Miss the cheese? Put some silky tofu. Think of it like queso fresco. Hey, you can also slice it on tomato with vinegar to make caprese salad.
What about beans on toast? If you're not a bread person, something i used to cook in my student days is can of beans, can of creamed corn, garlic, chili, soy, the end. It's hearty. It only takes 10 minutes. I still cook variations on that, sometimes with no corn or different beans. I like using sesame seeds to thicken it up, or pumpkin seeds for a different texture.
I also leverage peanut butter when i am feeling lazy. Spread it on some seaweed rice crackers for savory. You can put it on bread with sliced banana for sweet.
Real peanuts are great too. They are literally the first thing i throw in the wok. Oil. Peanuts. Garlic, ginger, chilis. Then the vegetable or mushroom or tofu or whatever. Or not, because just seasoned peanuts will go fine on top of whatever other vegan thing where you feel you're missing some crispy, oily, goodness.
There really is so much, and i think a lot of it is stuff most people already eat. I think the problem is that people tend to think of incidentally vegan dishes as somehow not being "real" meals, but that's a cultural bias that can be unlearned.
Kenji of SeriousEats does a vegan-month every year and claims that he enjoys it because he focuses on dishes that taste exciting, but happen to be vegan.
A particular favorite of mine is this Mapo Dofu that he started out making with meat but migrated to silken tofu https://www.seriouseats.com/2013/02/vegan-food-mapo-tofu-veg...
Really? I never thought that to be the case. To me, making a stew of lentils is just as easy as cooking meat. Sure, depending on the type of lentils it may take longer, but then there is red lentils which takes 20 minutes of cooking. It really is simple, I do not see why people make it sound like as if it was magic. Also... what do these meat eaters eat their meat with? Or do they eat meat on its own?
Entirely anecdotal, but essentially cutting dairy entirely from my diet has done wonders for me and my wife in more ways that you can imagine. She literally cured her life-long respiratory allergies just from no longer drinking milk / eating cheese. Greek yogurt is fine, for some reason
If you do it long enough it gets way easier as your cooking skills and methods adapt.
Some tips I follow:
-I highly recommend a CSA for great vegetables, delivered if possible
-Start a small raised bed garden for greens, cilantro, cherry tomatoes, etc.
-Batch prep veggies and store in bulk (I use cheap rectangular stackable tupperware) for super easy access. Batch prep greens and legumes, store in the freezer, take from freezer to pan.
-When batch cooking, clean veggies with a water and baking soda soak in a large mixing bowl. Just soak for a few minutes and then rinse a couple times
-Using a rice cooker to make grains is much easier than stovetop
-Use walnuts and unsalted nuts (peanuts are great, despite not actually being a nut) with moderation to make foods more substantial, while avoiding processed nut butters and oils
-Use good non stick pans to cut down on oil and cleanup time
-In general, cut back on foods and condiments rich in salt, sugar, fats, and especially processed foods, as they distort your taste palette. It’s a lot like drug addiction...”when I’m not on heroine, life just seems bland!”
-You don’t have to cook veggie meals as thoroughly as meat, experiment with varied levels of freshness and eat raw foods more...less cooking
-simple root veggies are awesome, cheap, hearty, and easy to cook (potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, carrots...all can be boiled)
-Frozen organic blueberries, oatmeal, banana, sprinkling of walnuts, delicious :-)
Another way to say this is "eat bland food". Literally.
Salt, fats, sugars, and acids, are what make food taste good. These distort your taste palette? These _are_ your taste palette...
I lean toward the carnivore spectrum but there are a couple meatless soups that I enjoy:
* New England clam chowder
* Corn chowder
* Barley mushroom (though it’s even better with meat)
* Gazpacho
And while I’d never order it if given the option for a “real one”, vegetarian pho was surprisingly good.
Are clams not considered meat? Also any good New England Clam Chowder has bacon in it.
Not really an example of an easy to make recipe (lots of ingredients), but Yotam Ottolenghi's green gazpacho (made with green vegetables and walnuts rather than tomatoes) does really well when you are entertaining guests. It's listed in his Plenty. It's one of those cookbooks you can find in many homes around the globe due to its popularity — and it's all vegetarian.
Legumes tend to have a surprisingly balanced macronutrients at 21g carbs, 8g protein, 0.6g fat, vs a baked potatoes 37 g carbs, 4.3g protein, 0.2 fat.
Potatoes are also lower protein than a variety of grains and vegetables (which are low in macronutrients in general).
This way you are missing maybe 90% of the soups of the world. Maybe try some exotic spices - I used to hate tomato soup from our school canteen with passion, but once I tried a properly spiced variant in Nepali Himalayas, things were never the same again (for the better) and I love it these days (I mean the Nepali version)
If you're okay with seafood, my wife and I really like this[0] Lohikeitto recipe (Finnish salmon soup). If that seems a bit too heavy, I've made a variation where I reduce the butter, skip the heavy cream, and add harissa (or sub whatever combination of warm spices) for a lighter, spicier soup that tastes just as good.
[0]: http://cookingtheglobe.com/finnish-salmon-soup-lohikeitto/
I have found that with vegan soups, you have to change the way you approach making soup. You don't start with a heavy, umami stock and add a few things to it. Instead, you have to layer flavours. So, it's not necessarily harder, but you have to know how to do it.
One surprisingly ovo-vegetarian soup is garlic soup. There is a good description in Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Child, et al, but from memory: Boil a peeled head of garlic. Remove the garlic. Whisk in a home made aoli (sp? -- virgin olive oil mayonaise). Add salt. It's truly a surprisingly good soup. You could probably devise a vegan version, but you need to find a way to emulsify the oil.
A vegan soup that I often have with somen noodles (thin wheat noodles) is soy milk (yes, really) mixed half and half with a light vegetable broth, chili oil, and fried garlic (a trend?). Whisk in a light, sweet miso to taste (or you can use a naturally fermented soy sauce, but I like the miso better). You can also add a dash of sesame oil, or mix in defatted sesame hulls.
I'd write some more, but it's been quite a while since I did any vegetarian cooking and my memory is not that great! But, definitely there are lots of amazing vegetarian soups that are relatively easy to make if you know how.
https://ozlemsturkishtable.com/2010/11/hearty-red-lentil-sou... https://ozlemsturkishtable.com/2010/09/hearty-and-spicy-red-...
If you don't use chicken stock there isn't much of an umami component. That doesn't really bother me, but Better Than Bouillon or just a bit of Marmite can give it a little umami boost.
Indian dals can pretty easy as well (if you consider them to be soup). The simplest don't need much more than cumin and mustard seeds, which I wouldn't call exotic. There are a huge variety of them and obviously they can get much more complex.
On the slightly more complex side, I also like vegetarian chili and Tuscan white bean soup. I think chili tastes better using whole dried peppers, but if you have chili powder you can throw it together much more quickly.
Beyond Meat is competing with freezer aisle foodstuff and there it handily wins out in just about every category (price, taste, nutrition), even if objectively it's unhealthy for you.
There's a world of vegetarian options outside of the preprocessed fauxmeats (including the entire produce section).
Regular veggie burgers and other products (not trying to imitate meat) are usually really good. They should embrace the fact that they can include a vast array of vegetables and spices. Example: Morningstar farms has a chickpea burger I really like. Also it's much cheaper than Beyond products. I share your concern about the Beyond products (and other vegetarian products); if I want a ton of saturated fat, I'd just eat meat. Chicken and fish are healthier than Beyond.
A society that eats less meat (or none) is inevitable given time, for both moral and practical reasons of health, scarcity and environmental impact. We should teach people to cook healthy vegan food that they enjoy. Just providing food options people enjoy without meat will reduce meat consumption without pushing a moral agenda that often receives hysterical responses.
Disclaimer: I eat meat, though I've been eating less for the above reasons.
That just isn't realistic; you'll wind up with a lot of really unhealthy people eating food they hate. Not everyone is good at cooking, and one big reason veganism is so unpopular is because it's so hard to make anything that tastes good with it. Meat is easy to cook, even for people who aren't very good at cooking. And veganism is generally unhealthy, because most people aren't dedicated or good enough at it to get the proper nutrition, so they leave out critical nutrients, whereas with meat it's really easy to get everything you need (like iron).
Expecting the whole populace to get good at cooking vegan food is like expecting the whole populace to become very skilled at C++ programming (including template metaprogramming). It isn't going to happen.
If someone makes vegan pre-made meals that can just be microwaved, that would be different.
Cooking is a basic part of human life and has been for millenia.
Comparing it to C++ programming is absurd.
Once the true costs of meat are priced in, people will figure it out. They're not going to just starve, chucking a few things in a pot is not some great hardship.
The viewpoint that cooking is some super difficult thing seems to be prevalent on Hacker News.
If anything, cooking vegetables is far easier than cooking meat, because it's difficult to get it wrong. Meat can go bad far more easily, requires cooking properly, etc. By contrast most vegetables can be eaten raw, or 'chuck it in a pot and boil it and wait a bit'. Add spices and oil. Done.
What? I make stew of any legumes and it does not require more skills than cooking meat.
If there the case, I don't think you can convince people to not eat meat because it's like telling them to stop using makeup or stop making efforts to become mor handsome/beautiful
Food stamps are designed to raise the market clearing price of food as a subsidy to agriculture (they’ve since become a means-tested welfare program as well, while retaining the original purpose); they have fairly strong political support, which definitely shows a partisan divide.
The Dairy Price Support Program and other agricultural price support programs likely continue to exist despite having the sole purpose of raising the price of food; were raising the price of food the kind of third-rail you are trying to imply, there would be a bipartisan consensus against such programs that would make it impossible to retain them.
They served their purpose well, but now they're almost impossible to remove.
No, why? Not at all... My cooking skill level is knowing how to use a stove. What good ingredients do you mean? In my experience cooking meat is always the hardest part.
Unfortunately, in my experience when I bring this up the typical response us that I must be a socialist.
We do have a chance. It's not going to be long until a critical mass of individuals understand that democracy is a system that legitimizes coercion, and that taxation is theft and generates poverty. We just need one more generation until that happens.
When people reach that conclusion, they will move their money away from fiat currencies and they will move their information into distributed systems (eg. blockchains).
By consequence they will make states and coercion not viable. Without the ability to control currencies, states go bankrupt and can't even pay for people to steal your money.
Welcome to anarcho-capitalism, while I wait for the downvotes.
So, less anarcho anything. More jail time, and then forced labor, and then one again paying taxes.
Sorry.
"Animal agriculture is responsible for 13–18% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions globally, and less in developed countries (e.g. 3% in the USA). Fossil fuel combustion for energy and transportation is responsible for approximately 64% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions globally, and more in developed countries (e.g. 80% in the USA)."
I think in the USA, it would be more productive to address the 80% as higher priority than reducing the 3%. I think this veganism initiative is also more driven by morality and political partisanship than by an effort to find a realistic and practical solution to GHG emissions. And this can backfire: I believe that a reason why nearly half the country will not even openly admit there is a problem, is because they fear the consequences of political over-reaction more than the problem itself.
It's not the first time that I'm seeing reactions about this report to focus on veganism. I don't understand where it comes from: the word "vegan" is absent from the article and the IPCC report doesn't recommend a any diet.
I understand debate about this report and the impact of agriculture and breeding, but I don't understand why the debate is centered around veganism.
The Skeptical Science link doesn't seem to touch on water usage, only focusing on greenhouse gas emissions. Groundwater decline and depletion is another factor that should be kept in mind as people consider their food choices.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law#Serial_programs
At least in the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's Global Calculator[1], the food lever seems to be much more powerful than your comment suggests.
one would need to calculate both the carbon output of animal agriculture and - crucially - the carbon that will /permanently/ not be captured via loss of land that serves as a carbon sink (Amazon rain forest is the big one) that results as demand for additional animal agriculture increases.
If you really want to have an impact while still eating meat, just stop eating beef/lamb altogether
The amount of food and water needed to produce 1kg of beef meat is just insane
Eat poultry or fish instead
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio
>Cattle is the worst at something like 15:1. Aquaculture, specifically tilapia and catfish, is good at under 2:1
The current 'plant based' fad diet recommendations are backed up by some very poor science and may be seriously unsuitable for humans and for children in particular, nutrition-wise. Animal agriculture is not even a major source of human emissions so to call for changes to our natural diet seems very premature.
To really contribute, it would be nice if you came up with some citations to your claim.
"It is interesting to note that humans, uniquely among the primates so far considered, appear to have stomach pH values more akin to those of carrion feeders than to those of most carnivores and omnivores" https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
Our requirements for DHA and B12 indicate a diet rich in both - both found almost exclusively in animal foods
Evolution of the Human Brain: the key roles of DHA(omega-3 fatty acid) andD6-desaturase gene https://www.ocl-journal.org/articles/ocl/pdf/2018/04/ocl1700...
We wean our young for a very short amount of time compared to other apes.
"Our model indicates that carnivory has a specific and quantifiable impact on human development and life history and, crucially, explains why Homo weans so much earlier than the great apes." Impact of Carnivory on Human Development and Evolution Revealed by a New Unifying Model of Weaning in Mammals https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
I wouldn’t call the world consensus of the IPCC poor science. It is actually the opposite: the best science we have available.
The report goes into depth about the health benefits these diets have also.
> The current 'plant based' fad diet recommendations are backed up by some very poor science and may be seriously unsuitable for humans and for children in particular, nutrition-wise
Care to provide evidence to back that up? Your broad, evolutionary talking points and observations on stomach pH in your other response hardly backs up your strongly worded supposition.
Plant based diets have been practiced by not insignificant portions of the population beginning in the 6th-century BCE with Buddhism and Hinduism[1]. An estimated 20-40% of India is currently vegetarian[2]. Not sure "fad" is an accurate descriptor.
I'm sure you'd have a hard time refuting the unending amount of "poor science" that shows plant based diets are effective for longevity, treating obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure[3]. The AICR recommends a plant based diet to prevent cancer[4], and ten other major Nutritional Organizations recognize the health benefits[5].
"It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that appropriately planned vegetarian, including vegan, diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.
These diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes."[5]
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_vegetarianism#Ancie...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country#India
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662288/
4. https://www.aicr.org/patients-survivors/healthy-or-harmful/v...
In terms of human history, he's right. 6th-century BCE was not very long ago at all: that's less than a mere 3000 years. Humans have been around for over 2 million years.
Also, he's right about the skeletal record: archaeology shows that humans lost about 1 foot of height when they switched to agriculture. Yes, much of India is vegetarian, but Indians tend to be pretty short, but then when they emigrate to western nations and adopt more western diets, their kids end up dwarfing them.
When was the last time you had raw beef? for me, it was beef tartare a few years ago...
Raw grain? Nope, that's all processed, either by boiling, or grinding and turning into something else.
Homo Erectus was thought to have subsisted on raw meat. There's evidence of intestinal parasites that suggests such a diet.
Apparently, at some point, we decided to cook our meat, which reduced the parasite load and removed the need for low pH comparative to other carnivores.
But not too long ago, humans did eat some raw meats. Primitive hunters sometimes ate raw hearts, and drinking fresh blood was not unheard of. 1,000 years ago, the Mongols would sometimes nick their horses and drink blood to sustain them on long journeys.
Hmm... this is how you get into an argument where people talk past each other. You may be correct when it comes to that little nugget of information, but when it comes to the larger context, that piece of information will not make sense to someone who has other contradicting pieces of information. ( for example a vegan who thinks that humans ought to have huge canines to be a carnivore).
Anyway it's unfair of me to critique your style/content of your argument without offering an alternative. How about this?: Ask the person who is into the 'plant based' belief to conduct an experiment of eating only meat for 2 months and then report the results. i.e if both of you agree that most 'science' and 'research' is flawed. Of course it goes without saying that you too should have performed this experiment on yourself.
Side note - I have been carnivore for 6 years ( 99% of my diet is red meat, eggs and dairy ).
[1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
It took me at least one year to achieve this, because meat is so prevalent in our society. A friend of mine was in India recently and he said he did not miss meat at all since the non-meat dishes were so great. I think a lot of it is just how good the quality of vegetarian dishes is.
I believe restaurant options are very important since people learn from those and mimic them at home. We need restaurants to offer more vegetarian and vegan dishes for people to see that they can have a rich (IMHO richer) diet without meat.
I don’t know how to nudge the restaurants though. Lower tax on organic/sustainable food can be one thing, or even better subventions for such restaurants and produce. But most importantly the meat and dairy industry needs to get under real supervision. Governments all around the world have been looking away for far too long.
Visit and ask for vegetarian or vegan dishes. Move on if there is nothing worthwhile; let the staff know if you've liked a particular dish or find the selection too limiting. Demand drives supply.
In the Netherlands the vegetarian option used to be a boring salad with goat cheese. Nowadays not having decent meat-free options means you can't compete with the rest. This is something only the cheaper restaurants aimed at lower socio-economic classes can afford to do (but only for now). The reason for this discrepancy is that this class of people (mostly blue collar workers and their families) tends to lag behind the rest of society a bit as habits shift towards more healthy alternatives (smoking is another example).
(Not sure how famous Dr. George Washington Carver is outside the US. He was one of the first famous African American scientists and is known for discovering that rotating crops with peanuts will add nutrients back to the soil and then inventing about 300 uses for peanuts in order to convince farmers to plant them. However, despite popular belief, peanut butter was not one of the uses that he invented.)
Had I not known what I was eating, I wouldn't have known it was plant-based at all. The taste and texture was, at least in fast food terms, just a really good sausage.
I haven't been able to try the beyond burger Burger King is selling, but if it's on par with the beyond sausage, I can't see why I'd ever eat a meat-based fast food burger again. It was really that good, and an easy decision to make given the meat industry's impact on the environment.
People who diss those meat substitutes out of hand should try them with an open mind (i.e. not from a place of "you can't control me" or "I'll never stop eating meat".)
A&W and Carl's Junior are Beyond Burger joints.
I was feeling hungry about dinner time a while back, but I couldn't decide what to eat so I skipped. I woke the next morning and didn't feel hungry at all. That seemed odd to me. So I skipped breakfast and ate lunch only (same portion size as normal) and continued to do so for six weeks. I felt great. Workouts strong, focus and concentration improved. I saved a bunch of time and money.
After that did a 13 day fast (zero food). Day 3 sucked, but the 10 that followed where really eye opening in a wholly positive way. I do a lot of boxing, and I didn't stop during this fast. I thought it would suck but I had tons of energy and lots of speed. At the finishing lime, the first morsel of food (some roast pumpkin) was savored and tasted incredible. It gave me a new awareness and appreciation of what and how much food I need to maintain maximum performance.
I know i could eat a LOT less than I do in a year and be as or more healthy and contribute to a healthier environment. We just have to break the habit. That's really hard given the social culture of eating.
I've moved to a calorie-limited diet, myself, and the effects on my health have been dramatic. My acid reflux has subsided; it disappeared when I went low carb for a month and has not come back, even though I've added fruit carbs back in to my diet. I'm down over 20 pounds, and hoping to lose another 20 or so, while at the same time working out and replacing fat with muscle mass.
We can be healthier, if we try. Unfortunately, our modern societies, especially here in North America, encourage excessive eating with all of the sad results that are evident if you go out in public and observe the clinical obesity that is commonplace.
I think this says it all. The consumption is not as much of a problem as production. They don't mention how much forest is also cut to build farms and it's not like plant growing industry is any better in terms of emissions [1] and water / land poisoning with pesticides and GMO plants. Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against GMO that is done well, but the current direction that's only serving corporate greed instead of bettering farming industry is just disgusting. Without animals we are just as equally doomed as we are with them [2]. I also have a feeling that they're trying to optimize the 1% instead of tackling real problems caused by coal energy, cars, airplanes etc.
[1] https://agreenerworld.org/a-greener-world/it-wasnt-the-cows-...
Animal agriculture is enormously more resource-intensive than plant agriculture:
https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1159831081798864898...
How are we still having this debate?
Cows aren't the problem. Pigs aren't the problem. Chickens aren't the problem. Mankind's industrialization of cows, pigs, and chickens is the problem.
So, for me, that's why we're still having this debate.
Like a few years back when HN was going on about how the whole world would now stop eating regular food, and consume some powder mixed with water, I think it was called Soylent or something. That didn't happen.
If anything, I will only be eating more meat, better quality, but not less and this is probably also the case for millions of other people.
Having you eat even more meat makes you indirectly responsible for people’s death. It might not be right. But in the near future (2-3 years) you might feel ashamed of what you said right now.
I believe I'm healthier eating meat than not eating meat. My blood tests, blood pressure, and weight corroborate that. For whatever reason I could never find a vegan diet that didn't balloon absolutely everything while also sating my unreasonable appetite. I'm not saying this is a good thing (eating meat or eating junk food that happens to be vegan and thinking it'll be appropriate), but I am saying that no amount of quinoa or lentils ever hit the spot or made me feel full, not even when I was legitimately so full I wanted to throw up from all the food in my stomach. I was mentally ravenous, and it was turning me into a vicious beast. I could _nominally_ stay vegan if I ate deep fried _anything_, but that's clearly madness (which, again, showed itself pretty convincingly by all measures available to me).
I'm not going to kill myself to save the environment. I wouldn't expect you to, either. But at the least I can not have children - surely avoiding 1..N generations of 1..M descendants per generation is of FAR greater positive impact than eating burgers and steaks.
All of that said, I'm really holding out hope for lab grown meats, and I only eat meat when my body begins to demand it. It doesn't have to be an always food, is what I'm saying.
Particularly the nuclear power option. That one makes no sense.
Concrete is a major source of CO2 emissions. In some places, it contributes more than agriculture. Why isn't that being targeted for scientific studies on its impact, and recommendations from the UN on practices? Or has it, and those are just not newsworthy enough to make the BBC take notice?
I'm probably being cynical, but it all smells of hidden agendas.
You’re not going to guilt people into changing their behavior.
A carbon tax fixes this.
I'm not willing to agree that it would reduce emissions more than ending meat consumption. It would help, however.
Like most problems, there is not just one solution. Multiple modest to moderate changes in behavior can make a big difference.
- redesign cities to include more and better public transport (less car/truck traffic)
- reduce general product consumption (less global shipping) - we all know there's a lot of worthless stuff that gets manufactured and shipped, such as the low-end products you find in Walmart which break or fail after a short period of time
- create permaculture food forests in and around cities (reducing global shipping of produce)
- eat less meat (reducing production and transportation emissions)
To put it into perspective, it's a bit like getting fit and losing weight. Yes you can radically change your diet, or you can do crossfit every day, but those narrow+deep efforts are usually very unpleasant and unsustainable (in terms of a human's ability to keep with the changes). Instead, some diet changes, some consistent exercise, some lifestyle changes (walking/biking in place of some car drives) tends to result in lasting health benefits.
> A carbon tax fixes this.
Not really. A carbon tax encourages projects like mass forest planting of monocultures. That will result in some problem down the road.
Not really.
You're conflating the tax with spending the tax revenue. You don't need to spend any of the revenue on carbon sequestering projects. Just implementing a carbon tax that pushed the price of things like air travel up to the reflect the real cost would do a huge amount to reduce the amount people pollute.
If the price of a flight doubled then fewer people would fly.
Concrete is a massive source of CO2 emissions. Rebuilding cities is really, really not going to help.
Animal agriculture is responsible for 14~18% of greenhouse gas emissions [0]; aviation only ~5% [1].
[0] - https://skepticalscience.com/how-much-meat-contribute-to-gw.... [1] - https://www.transportenvironment.org/news/aviation-2-3-times...
Uhm... how about stop travelling for business in the world of instant communication?
A challenge to get right for sure, but it could have significant positive impact.
Also it’s not just that can’t guilt people into changing behavior, I don’t think we should. Humanity moves forward by solving our problems not through everyone magically changing how they act.
This would likely best be achieved through slowly dropping tax incentives, and transferring them over to alternatives so that people have something equally economical to today's meat.
People do not traditionally eat that much meat because meat used to be expensive and its supply limited.
This is still the case in poor countries.
In developed countries, people started to eat more and more meat as they got richer because we naturally like meat and because of clever marketing.
We now eat too much meat, and also consume too much dairy (adults don't need to drink any milk and many don't digest it well, by the way). If people just stopped eating meat at every meal or every day, consumption would drastically drop without too much of a change in daily life.
One solution would be measures to increase prices but that is a political minefield.
In cities meat was more available as workers typically earned more. Option to eat meat each day was considered a luxury.
Never understood the obsession with drinking milk on its own (though I never liked the taste of it myself either). There's plenty of calcium to be found in other sources: kale, leafy greens, almonds, fortrified grains, beans/pulses etc.
Maybe a solution would be to tax food based on how long it was shipped but to exempt fruits and vegetables from the tax.
How much is "too much"?
We don't need to drink tea or coffee either; do you propose getting rid of those too?
For those of us who have no problems digesting it, what exactly is the problem with eating yogurt or drinking milk? Sure, consuming too much of those probably isn't good, but you can say that about literally any food.
For people who don't digest it well, then of course I'd suggest not drinking it. The same goes for any other food: if you're allergic to peanuts, don't eat them. If you're allergic to shellfish, don't eat them. If you're allergic to bananas, don't eat them. If you're lactose-intolerant, don't drink milk unless you really like the taste and want to add lactase enzyme.
I do agree that Americans in particular eat way too much red meat, but I think some people give dairy a hard time when I don't think it's that much of a problem compared to many other things. Most adults don't drink a lot of milk anyway; usually "dairy" for adults means eggs, cheese, yogurt, etc. I don't see the health problems with dairy the way I see with red meat either. For improving public health, we should instead be reducing how much red meat people eat, plus also reducing or eliminating stuff like HFCS, refined sugars, refined flour, alcohol, etc.
>One solution would be measures to increase prices but that is a political minefield.
What they should do is just eliminate the tax breaks that unhealthy industries enjoy.
It's only a political minefield because of corporate influence (dictation?) in politics.
Sounds like a win win to me.
This seems like the best strategy: If you force people to become vegan by law without giving good alternatives, you just make them angry at people who want to stop climate change. If you nicely ask them, some will switch but most won't. So I believe the best way forward is to invest into meat alternative startups and help them make their product as widely used and as cheap as possible.
Illuminating the moral quandary of meat consumption helps. It worked for me. Nobody had to ask me nicely, they just needed to help me to think about it and be self-reflective.
Even if you believe there to be ethical meat consumption (a notion I find dubious in modern life), people can reduce consumption and have a big impact. Modern commercial meat and dairy production is a horrible process and most people are so insulated from it that you get used to thinking meat is just this product that comes from a factory.
Millions of people are already voluntarily reducing their consumption and now virtually every restaurant in the UK has vegan options, making it easier for more people to switch.
I live in the outskirts of a relatively small, low-income industrial city and there are signs outside small shops and restaurants everywhere promoting their new vegan menus. A traditional pub near me has no fewer than 14(!) plant-based main courses.
I'd love to see tax incentives that reflect the damage that the meat and dairy industry are doing (ending the massive government subsidies would be a good start), however the changes I've seen in the UK give me hope that the grassroots level can sway public opinion without forcing people to change via legislation.
A few back to back meat recalls in the US got me to try vegetarianism 8 years ago. The animal welfare element only developed after I started learning about the new diet I was on.
It also helps to promote stories of very healthy vegetarians (especially pro athletes). My favorites were Carl Lewis, Herschel Walker, and Venus Williams. There are many more out there.
The key is to find decent, not too complex recipes. Dropping a slab of meat on the grill is so easy and results in such a tasty primary component of a meal; but making an interesting vegetarian meal requires more effort (at first). Once you know some good recipes, you get to the point where the only time you miss meat is when you're at a festival and you smell barbeque :).
Also, good meat is expensive and cheap meat taste like shit so it's a good move for your wallet.
[0] growing amount of people saying "I want to fight climate change but can't do anything myself"
Wonder why people have such negative views of environmentalists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_vigilante_violence_in_Indi...
The govt's behavior is not motivated by climate.
Industrial farming is the main problem here. We're literally eroding farmland by growing mono cultures (using pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, etc) whose primary function is to feed cattle that spends all its life indoors turning this farm produce into manure. That in turn gets mixed with urine to produce a chemically very active mix that produces all sorts of nasty stuff. It's stupid and massively wasteful. It's only cheap because doing that is being subsidized and stimulated by governments. Stop doing doing that and the price of meat goes up and people adapt their behavior. Unsustainably produced cheap meat is the problem.
It's not the only way to produce meat but the it is the cheapest one and it's only cheap unless you also factor in the cost of destroying this planet. There are forms of farming that are effectively carbon negative (i.e. they capture more co2 than is released) that still produce meat and other produce. We can actually start undoing a lot of the damage already done simply by farming more smartly. This starts by stopping to reward harmful behavior with subsidies. Lots of farmers are already switching to more sustainable production methods because it makes business sense. Removing subsidies for their unsustainable competitors will help them.
Even industrial beef cattle follow these stages (most companies target a single stage though your smaller boutique producers tend to tackle all three or at least the last two):
1. Cow/calf operations. These are all pastured (grass fed). At weaning they are sold at auction. 2. Backgrounding. The calves are brought up to finishing weight. This is typically a grass fed stage. Once they reach market weight, they are sold at auction. 3. Finishing. Most are finished at feedlots, which are generally outdoors but extremely crowded. This is where the nasty industrial farming stuff is concentrated.
Pasture finished beef is the way to go.
The netherlands also has more pigs than people and these certainly don't go outside except to travel to slaught houses.
Indeed, in fact the report's authors are keen to stress that this is not the case.
Eating less meat just means more waste. We need to stop talking about climate change as a problem individuals can solve with ecological lifestyle choices. We need international economic planning and the seizure of carbon extracting industry.
It sounds like what you mean is that you want some government or government like entity to take down big beef/pork/chicken.
What the actual version of that would be is some government-esque entity taking over a bunch of farms and murdering their cows/pigs/chickens and forcibly unemploying large groups of people.
Alternatively that might mean some government-esque entity invading a bunch of foreign farms owned by small Central and Southern American ranchers who aren't exactly rolling in cash with their occupation despite releasing a lot of carbon into the atmosphere.
Let's maybe not call for large government/government-esque orgs to go around seizing anything. That sounds very drastic and bad for a lot of mostly innocent people who do a lot of hard work to raise cows for not very much pay.
If grocery stores can't sell a certain amount in a couple days, and if this trend continues, they will reevaluate and buy less
And that makes sense to me. It's not as if we're killing 3 billion animals per day just because we can, we're doing it because there's such a huge demand for it.
Producing less will make it more expensive at least
Hate to be cynical but there is 0% chance of this happening.
Climate change will never be "solved" because nobody truly cares. For the vast majority of people the consequences are too abstract and they like their current lifestyle too much.
People would rather pretend that using a paper straw will make the world livable for the next generation than face reality.
The point at which we ask people to do the right thing is long gone. We need swift, definitive action that takes the hammer to the nail and closes those gaps for good. The only way I am aware of that happening is regulation. Yet, we have massive corruption and money dictating favorable outcomes so I don't know how anything will change. We need someone with brains and balls to say no to a political career and just do what's right no matter the personal consequences. This person would need to be extremely intelligent, eloquent and convincing enough to get other world leaders to get on board and implement a policy that EVERYONE has to abide by. This needs to happen practically over night. All seemingly impossible feats, but this is what we are up against now.
That would reduce meat consumption a lot. All other food consumption, too.
Do we want to reduce meat production or do we want to reduce the negative climate impact of meat production?
It matters because the correlation is not straight forward. Different types of meats produce different environmental harm. Each meat type can be produced with different climate impact depending on production methods.
So the best policies would be centered around reducing (proportionally to other industries) environmental impact of meat production. So things like emissions tax, climate-friendly land use rewards make sense, while putting taxes on all meat production makes less sense.
Finally, by taxing (not banning) undesirable externalities governments spur technological development - people/companies can invest money into figuring out how to get the same result ("eat steak") with less of a climate impact (e.g. by feeding seaweed to cows), resulting in a win-win.
When talking about meat and damage to the environment, the only relevant figures are the ones associated with animal feed (e.g. water consumption per kg of meat).
Pastured animals, by definition, don't eat feed coming from the monoculture industrial agriculture that is depleting the soil and consuming all those resources, and which is also used to feed humans, sadly.
This would also create incentives to cut down forests to create more "pasture", and that would be pretty terrible.
Cows fart.
Not saying we should not eat less meat or anything, just saying there might be more we could be doing if our governments weren't corporate/billionairs puppets mostly.
As far as I can tell they've cashed in on the buzz generated by impossible foods, who genetically engineered yeast to produce a plant heme so their meatless meat products taste and cook more like meat.
Beyond Meat just appears to have come to market first, and such gotten more attention. I've tried it a couple times, it was just ok, and not much better than most other decent veggie burger patties. Not groundbreaking and not worth more money than any others.
I haven't tried impossible foods yet. Looking for them.
Or is this for « everyone else »?
And in any case, it's likely the scientists putting out climate reports aren't the people running the cafeteria.
ETA: btw great job making effort to partly cut out meat from your diet. I myself want to become vegan, but I just can't switch immediately. IMO there is nothing wrong with gradual approach.
P.S. sorry for my broken English.
Can anyone point me to examples where my thinking is wrong, where changes came from the demand side?
It seems to me that for those considerations, bringing new perspectives to consumers to try and influence their choices at the store is one of the only practical options for now.
The restaurant industry reports that profits are up for restaurants serving plant-based meat options, so more restaurants are trying it.
Every meal is a vote.
Meat consumption seems like one of the easiest things governments could change to tackle climate change. Unlike cars and travel it's hard to make the argument that humans depend on access to meat so making it 700% more expensive via tax would effectively shift consumption patterns with few if any downsides. If anything it would probably have the excellect side effect of improving public health.
The problem is that no politician (perhaps outside green parties) wants to do this, because of the fear of becoming unpopular. We simultaneously need a shift in people's attitudes towards meat.
I have been a vegetarian since I was 17 (I am 37 now). It has always fascinated me that becoming a vegetarian was only very little effort, but somehow people are extremely attached to meat. I never talk about being a vegetarian, but when people find out that I am a vegetarian, they often acts as being offended and having to defend themselves.
We need to show people that there is a middle way where you can still eat meat (e.g. maybe once a week) but still drastically decrease their footprint.
Meanwhile, there are about 120 million cattle in the U.S. and Canada (over a billion worldwide). It's possible that cattle therefore have a larger impact on the ecology than did the buffalo, but there were always large grazing herds in the world, and far more numerous prior to the Industrial Age. It's possible that there are in fact fewer ruminants today than in pre-industrial times, if the great herds of millions of reindeer and similar creatures that once roamed the plains of North America and Siberia are taken into account.
Last year I began bow-hunting for deer in my part of New England, where there is an excessive population that damage forests, endanger drivers, and spread disease. I'm also hoping to raise meat chickens and egg laying chickens in the near future.
Hunt for your own meat and stop buying factory meat that has been pumped with all sorts of hormones and antibiotics. I love a good beefsteak and I do hope such will continue to be available, but harvesting your own meat is probably the best thing for the planet and gives you a much stronger connection to (and respect for) the game animals that we eat!
at any rate i hope to see some scales for this sort of thing.
As long as we fail to solve it, as in, correctly predict the short, medium, and long term effects on heath and well being for people across all variations of genome and microbiome, not to mention activity level and medical conditions, people need to evaluate their food intake individually.
Guilting people away from “taking care” of themselves based on a subset of the medical and nutritional literature to achieve some global carbon emissions target is not a reasonable strategy, in my opinion.
I try to buy grass fed and pasture raised but I’m definitely not perfect since the nearest decent butcher is about twenty minutes by train.
I guess the alternative would be an ask for great vegetarian cookbook recommendations.
American food tends to revolve around meat, whereas food in other cultures treats meat as more of a side dish (if it is eaten at all). Indian/Bengali food, Middle Eastern food, (authentic) chinese food...pretty much anything besides American food is very easy to "veganize", since vegetables and legumes are centered more in the meal.
I like this blog for ideas - https://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/south-indian-breakfast-rec...
Jill McKeever has fun videos, including some plant-based meatloaf and others https://simpledailyrecipes.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSpglxHTJVM
Produced by James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan it follows several top level athletes and investigate the myth about the need for animal proteins
No need to worry!
I'm vegan btw.
We are eating more meat today (at least in the industralised nations of the "West") than in any other time in human history thanks to intensive farming practices. People seems to think that this is the natural state of affairs and that's how we've always consumed meat. But go back a few decades and meat was never available in such abundance and at such cheap prices.
The ugly truth is we're simply too comfortable in our current lifestyles to make any changes that might challenge that comfort. Whether it's flying less (or even stopping altoghther) or eating less meat, the reaction is always resistance and sometimes even anger and outrage.
I've said this before: we love to point accusatory fingers at others for taking too little action over climate issues but never lift a finger ourselves. Are we all a bunch of hypocrites and simply not willing to admit it?
1) reduce meat consumption especially from cows 2) use public transportation whenever available instead of a car. 3) consume less new stuff
Cholesterol has also a mission in our bodies. Protecting us from cold, and being a necessary precursor of male hormones. Identify green with healthy and meat as unhealty is a myth.
Try to eat 1 Kg of persil a day and stay alive. Many green things are pretty good making poisons that can do horrible things to our body. Mammals and birds instead are pretty safe in this aspect.
The real problem is not eating meat, is being served an oiled whole cow each day in your restaurant. A partial solution could be as simple as standardize (and reduce) the humongous USA rations.
Biggest issue for me, imo.
Otherwise it is just a liberal green leftist report sponsored by the the meatless meat industries who are encouraging this.
I see a parallel between a sudden rush of beyond meat served in restaurants and this report. Like a concerted effort at play.
It's way worse than beef.
One kg butter blasts 24kg CO2 into the air before it gets to you, with beef it's around 13kg.
I mean how can we can really pinpoint the political issue here? It seems crony capitalism is at the root of inequality and global warming, yet rent seeks are still being left alone. It seems so difficult to have something in between.
Today we're giving crumbs to the poor in exchange of co2 emissions. We can't do anything right.
I'm fairly certain socialist states polluted just as bad as capitalist states. As far as I'm aware they also did so in a more wasteful way, i.e. they produced less goods and services for the same pollution.
I mean, if you must be a film and TV dystopian bad guy, Thanos' idea doesn't work.
Really we should be ensuring access to birth control and education in developing countries along with improving medical services to cut infant mortality (so that parents can be sure their young will reach old age and don't need to play it safe and have many young).
We are getting there slowly, but we could do more.
I grew up in Central Europe and in a very meat heavy society. When I grew up I would have had three proper meals every day with meat in them. Meat was THE main component of every meal. A sandwich without some ham or bacon? Unimaginable! Lunch without meat in sauce, or steak or some ribs or some chicken? I would have taken this as an insult. Are we beggars now or what? Dinner... same story.
In my early twenties I was convinced that meat is part of a well balanced diet. People who don't eat meat are weak. They get ill and they certainly won't have much muscles. I was an ignorant prick, let's put it this way.
When I was ~25 I met my wife whilst travelling. She's British Indian and grew up her entire life on a Vegetarian diet. We got together and so on, but the point is I was confronted to compromise with a Vegetarian person from one day to another without any warning.
Initially I continued to eat the way I always did, just taking her preferences into account and try to be the loving supporting boyfriend/husband that we all want to be. I'd cook my meat in a separate pan and I'd use different knives and forks to handle meat and the veg in the house. My wife asked me for only one favour: If I could not buy beef and store it in the house then she'd be super grateful. I was okay with that, I thought cooking a good steak takes some skill anyway and I can happily just eat steak outside and cook other meats at home.
7 years later and I am 99% Vegetarian. The other 1% is sea food. I look back at myself and think how stupid was I. I feel healthier today, get less ill and feel physically in a pretty good shape. I don't take any protein shakes, supplements or other crap. I actually prefer to eat veg over meat. It all started with me trying some meat replacements like Quorn when making a stir fry, or Quorn mince pieces when making spaghetti. Then I'd start cooking more beans, lentils, chickpeas and other high protein ingredients. The taste is amazing and our meals are rich in nutrition, vitamins and carbs.
I was the guy who would have sworn that I could never become Vegetarian and today I'm almost the opposite. I don't like the look, smell or consistency of meat anymore. I don't like that it's so easy to get seriously ill from meat when not cooked properly, or the utensils which were used for preparation were not cleaned sufficiently.
Long story short, if I was able to make such a drastic turn around on make meat intake then I know that anyone can. It just takes a strong incentive to implement change. For me that incentive was being in love with a girl, but for others it might be something else. Tax, regulation, laws are an effective tool. Personally I believe that nobody will miss the meat in 20 years time if implemented by a government. It's just too difficult for people to imagine that is true and I consider myself lucky to actually have experienced this myself so I can say this today.
The alternative is local regenerative agriculture [4], which the Rodale Institute [5] and a recent Quantis (non-peer reviewed) studies [6] point to being potentially carbon net negative due to carbon soil sequestration via regenerative grazing. It also appears to be more economically sustainable [7][8] and can provide competitive yields [8].
For those interested in reading more, I found a couple pretty lengthy (peer-reviewed) academic reviews on the topic to be pretty fascinating:
Rhodes, Christopher J. “The Imperative for Regenerative Agriculture.” Science Progress 100, no. 1 (March 1, 2017): 80–129. https://doi.org/10.3184/003685017X14876775256165.
Teague, W R. “FORAGES AND PASTURES SYMPOSIUM: COVER CROPS IN LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION: WHOLE-SYSTEM APPROACH: Managing Grazing to Restore Soil Health and Farm Livelihoods1.” Journal of Animal Science 96, no. 4 (April 2018): 1519–30. https://doi.org/10.1093/jas/skx060.
Pretty, Jules. “Agricultural Sustainability: Concepts, Principles and Evidence.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 363, no. 1491 (February 12, 2008): 447–65. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2007.2163.
Pearson, Craig J. “Regenerative, Semiclosed Systems: A Priority for Twenty-First-Century Agriculture.” BioScience 57, no. 5 (May 1, 2007): 409–18. https://doi.org/10.1641/B570506.
[1] https://www.wur.nl/en/show/Can-conventional-agriculture-feed...
[2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-...
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/business/worldbusiness/26...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_agriculture
[5] https://rodaleinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/rodale-white-...
[6] https://blog.whiteoakpastures.com/hubfs/WOP-LCA-Quantis-2019...
[7] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5831153/
[8] https://rodaleinstitute.org/science/farming-systems-trial/
Now they are asking us to stop meat consumption, but the if number of people keeps increasing, what will they ask us to stop next instead of addressing the real problem?
Clearly the real issue is having too many people. Birth control is the proper way to tackle the problem.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...
Such messages only cause people to postpone the need to take real action. And we need to take real action now if we even want a chance to dampen the effects of climate change (let alone reverse it).
I agree with you that governing bodies should be putting more pressure on the excesses of the wealthy and on industry, but changing industry practices and consumer behaviour are not mutually exclusive, especially when we should be doing everything we can on all fronts to overcome this crisis.
In fact your defensive reaction is much more representative of the problem: that people find it so hard to accept that in order to avoid their children's lives being significantly worse than the lives we enjoy today, they may have give up a few fking burgers
1. UN officials are traveling by private jet
2. Private jets are worse for the environment than the meat industry
I presume you have evidence of the above that lead to your suggestion?
Ok, let's assume that people do indeed eat too much meat and that we halve our current consumption. Population grows until it has doubled and the meat consumption is then back to the same level as to what it is now.
Eventually we can all be eating grass and rocks and there'd still be too much demand on nature crated by the existence of humans.
The only real long term solution is start limiting population growth drastically. Any crutch trying to limit energy and material consumption will not solve the root cause. (Ofc it still makes sense to cut off the excess and not be wasteful or a resource hog)
Personally I'd like to have only enough people on this planet, so that everyone can be fed and educated and have access to health care, sanitation and all the basic needs.
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-by-income-region: "When aggregated in terms of income, we see in the visual below that the richest half (high and upper-middle income countries) emit 86 percent of global CO2 emissions. The bottom half (low and lower-middle income) only 14%. The very poorest countries (home to 9 percent of the global population) are responsible for just 0.5 percent. This provides a strong indication of the relative sensitivity of global emissions to income versus population. Even several billion additional people in low-income countries — where fertility rates and population growth is already highest — would leave global emissions almost unchanged. 3 or 4 billion low income individuals would only account for a few percent of global CO2. At the other end of the distribution however, adding only one billion high income individuals would increase global emissions by almost one-third."
What we are currently seeing in absolute numbers is a huge number of people with a lower growth rate out-reproducing a lower number with a higher growth rate in the past.
Education, available contraceptives, low child mortality (yes, low mortality as that makes having children less of a gamble and therefore you can get away with having fewer) automatically lead to lower fertility rates.
This is a very strange assumption as UN Population Division predicts peak population at 12B, that is, the current world population will never double. That is business as usual without any intervention. Do you have specific reasons to disagree with UN Population Division?