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Comment by rmdashrfstar | Hacker News Reader

How does one do so without missing essential nutrients that are only found in meats, if we're requiring realistic quantities for daily consumption, and not an absurd volume of food.

For instance, there are certain things you find in large quantities in meat or fish, where the non meat aubsistute would require completely unrealistic amounts to be consumed to receive anywhere near the same amount.

If this could be concretely addressed, I think that'd convince a lot of people on the fence to switch.

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The only nutrient that can not be found in plants is B12 which is easily supplemented. The official position of the American Dietetics Association is that diets completely free of animal products are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27886704

We're killing ourselves and the planet just because we like the way animals taste.

We are not killing the planet, but we are putting ecosystems under pressure.

And evolution has given us tastes for things that are highly nutritious but were difficult to come by. Shall we deny ourselves these pleasures because they become problematic at scale? If so, what else should we ban by the same logic?

Perhaps the main problem is that there are too many of us. Or maybe we should be putting more effort into growing meat in vats.

Whatever we end up doing, I doubt it'll end in some kind of sustainable balance. Rather, we'll continue to multiply and consume as much as our technology allows and the environment can bare.

Have you tried eating raw pig or cow meat?

What gives meat the taste are the spices and the way we prepare it.

We now have great plant based alternatives (Impossible Food, Beyond Meat, and more coming on the market) that are getting better and better and which are less harmful to our biosphere. But even without those alternatives, there are so many great dishes that don't require meat and they are delicious and nutritious. Just have to have an open mind and explore what's out there.

RE: Shall we deny ourselves these pleasures because they become problematic at scale?

There are so many studies (some of which I posted further above). Science confirms that our current way of life is not sustainable.

So what is more important?

A) That we don't put our ecosystem under immense pressure as we are doing now

B) The pleasure you derive from eating chopped up animals

EDIT: formatting / typos

>>> Shall we deny ourselves these pleasures because they become problematic at scale? If so, what else should we ban by the same logic?

Yes.

Anything that has an environmental externality. Not necessarily ban, but definitely reduce the use, possibly by making it more expensive, or just stop subsidizing it.

What about animal fats?

Animal fats are not essential nutrients afaik.

It’s totally possible and is half as hard as you think. Some concrete example, this is the diet of 6 time world F1 champion Lewis Hamilton: https://www.businessinsider.nl/lewis-hamilton-diet-everythin...

You do need to take care in having good diet, like taking care of protein intake, B12, omega-3. I personally prefer a flexitarian diet, where meat is rare, mostly vegetarian and vegan when I want to. Thing is, you don’t need meat every day, and just halving it makes a great difference already with minimum effect on your health.

Being less vague about which nutrients you're talking about would be a good start.

A good first step is reducing meat consumption. Americans eat about 100kg of meat per year. Europeans eat 30% less. Indians eat only 5kg per year.

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