Amazon soya and beef exports 'linked to deforestation'
bbc.com
bbc.com
Why not stop eating beef?
your response might be a knee-jerk "but I really like it!". Everyone knows the huge environmental costs we are responsible for when eating meat. But it's really interesting to pursue the tension in your own personal logic-brain vs lizard want-it-brain.
I've stopped eating most refined sugar and massively cut down on meat in the past few years. But the mental battles I had with myself in the process were surprising.
Chicken is about 1/3rd the water footprint, and IMO it's a lot easier to get good texture when cooking it.
It's a good idea to be aware in general, but local under-supply isn't necessarily a helpful metric, I think. We've had the argument in Northern Germany that we should use less water, and it often went along with reports about droughts in Spain. But we're not Spain, we have plenty of rain (though it's not always equally distributed over the year).
Needless to say that we're not building a pipeline to transport the saved water to Spain. At the same time, we now have to regularly flush the sewers because we don't have enough "natural" flow and we have more issues with rising ground water damaging building foundations.
I'm on a diet, please don't put words into my mouth. There are months that we have too little rain, but we're far from continuous drought conditions. We're still getting 50+ liters/sqm per month.
The surface water strongly affects farms and forests, but we won't change that by using less ground water (unless the hope is to have the ground water climb to -1m everywhere, at which point we're living in a bog). Additionally, rising ground water might have nasty side effects for plants, as salt in the earth will also be transported up.
Surface water retention is about management, not about offsetting that with savings. We do get plenty of surface water, but much of it will be "wasted" because it'll cause floods. Aggressive diking and straightening of rivers does play a part there, and we'll be wise to adapt to changing weather patterns and climate.
If it’s grazing on natural pastureland vs irrigated vs animal feed and what the water lifecycle looks like. The water doesn’t disappear but it can have impact if it’s drawn out from limited aquifers that don’t get replenished quickly.
In the usual resource lifecycle of a cattle farm, that water goes right back where it came from - 99% is “green water”.
>you wouldn’t have a farm away from a water source.
That's sort of the problem actually. Many aquifers are tainted to various levels because of farming. We need clean water, not cow piss.
https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexisten...
Also tbqh I'd prefer some trees chopped off than to quit eating steaks.
I don't know how to put it in words exactly, but "future is doomed" is somehow "everyone knows" one way or another (at least I am going to die before doom happens and a single individual cannot be held responsible for the doom anyways).
And then we also have the factories polluting the environment where we can debate on how useful the end product is, but when it comes down to a person eating meat the discussion just never would convince meat eaters in my opinion. Meat eaters could say "who's ultimately benefiting from the factories polluting environment" and the answer would more or less be some corporation. Why should they have all the fun ?
Because there's a lot worse coming in a few decades.
There's a lot of road left before this line of thought stops though. Why have any nice food instead of nutrient-rich tasteless slime? When you argue that it's about the most efficient resource usage, there's really no reason to stop at beef, or meat in general. So we could feed 15bn (or whatever number) if we quit meat? We could feed 30bn if we switch to soylent!
I don't believe that individual sacrifice is the answer, and in my experience, it's usually somebody who, for some reason or another doesn't eat meat who says that "we" don't need it. Much like somebody who is rich and earns their money via capital gains might argue that it's really not a problem if income tax gets increased.
Don't try to boss people around because I'm not buying. Thanks to people like you, I can finally enjoy beef without guilt. Keep up the good work.
But IMHO any belief is worth challenging. 'Bad' beliefs should be pushed back on, 'good' beliefs should stand more than surface leven scrutiny.
In particular, as a gym-goer I want my protein, and if soya is out too, then it's quite a bit more difficult. Excuses, I know.
Cereals (expecially in the form of bread and pasta) and vegetables used to be staples that accounted for most of our food intake.
While we probably eat too much meat in general, going vegetarian/vegan is going from an extreme to the other. I'm sure most 'normal' people can cut their meat consumption by half without noticing it too much.
Globally the issue is that people are starting to be wealthy enough and we are probably too many.
Also, relying on ready-meals in general is not a good idea for both health and environment.
It's very easy and quick to make tasty dishes with no meat, even just salads. Plenty of possible variations on the theme: pasta salads, rice salads, potato salads, for example. Of course there are also plenty of hot dishes to cook with potatoes, tomatoes, etc.
Curries are also an endless source of tasty dishes that do not need to include any meat.
(I eat meat including beef, but try to stay aware of red meat consumption.)
The big loss is food culture. It revolves around meat and animal products.
For example to hit 190g of protein a day, eating vegan my carbs would be way up compared to my current diet. At the moment I’m trying to drop body fat and from dexa scans/metabolic test they recommend I keep my protein high, increase fats and try to reduce carbs. I’ve tried doing the macros on a few vegan recipes but struggled to get the numbers right without increasing calories which I can’t do when trying to drop body fat.
When I have more flexibility in calories i.e bulking some of the vegan recipes look quite good as calorie dense when you add beans, lentils, nuts, oils etc. I reckon I’ll do better on this than when I was eating 5kg of beef a week as the dexa scan then was terrible with high visceral fat.
Definitely seems like you're not in at least one of these sets, though, so definitely not going for a "I know more about a healthy diet for you than you do", because hahaha no I don't. Mostly just posting to emphasise to casual readers that they (likely) don't need to target 190g protein per day.
I’m on 2.5g protein per kg body weight which is high as I’m trying to maintain muscle while on a calorie deficit.
If I didn’t need to be in a deficit on lower carbs it does look like I could achieve the macros I need from vegan meals. It’s not I need 190g protein right now, it’s I need to aim for 190g on about 2300-2500 calories with a bias towards gaining those calories from protein/fats. Hitting 190g protein would take me above 2300-2500 calories due to the amount of carbs consumed from vegan protein sources.
Wheat protein based shake - 120 calories, 25g protein
Two soy coffees - 300 calories, 16 calories.
Those 3 proteins complement the amino acid profiles of each other. I typically only aimed for around 130g, so with two protein shakes daily and those other foods I'm very close after only 1000 calories.
I also prefer real whole food over shakes as it keeps me from getting hungry as doesn’t digest as fast. Right now I eat 6 times a day and only my late afternoon snack is a shake with a rice cake, 20g almond butter and banana.
If you don't want to eat vegan food, the only excuse you need is "I'd rather eat meat 6 times per day". The vast majority of western people could eat bodybuilder vegan diets if they needed to. If it is something you're interested in then there is a TON of vegan bodybuilders. Google Nimai Delgado or Torre Washington, for example.
I don't eat out a lot. A 450 calorie bean burrito that I make (zero soy) has about 28 grams of protein. A wheat protein based protein shake is 25 grams of protein for 120 calories. Two shakes and 1 burrito and I'm already on 78 grams of protein off 700 calories for the day. A couple soy based coffees pushed me near 95g for 1000 calories. All 3 protein sources here have complementary amino acid profiles.
Plenty of options for 'protein'
In your example of people not caring about their health: the environmental impact of diet is in a different ethical class for me. If you choose to ignore your own health that's your deal, but if you make choices that negatively impact the lives of millions I think the ethics are different.
The impact of any individual unit of meat consumption by an individual is incredibly marginal. The standard society generally uses to determine whether an individual has harmed another is way higher than that. The satisfaction an individual gets from eating meat might well be greater than the dissatisfaction that instance causes others, and indeed since there's no objective standard it's impossible to measure exactly.
That goes on and on. You may draw a line somewhere and declare "no, from here on it's nonsense", but there's no objectivity, there's no reason why the line should be exactly there, and not, say, on the other side of eating meat.
Empathy for who/what exactly? Eating a steak is not going to cause anybody any measurable pain. Empathy means feeling what somebody else is feeling.
Guests of who, exactly?
Looking at "who was there before and will be after my visit", then human civilization outlives each and every one of us.
And how do we weigh the satisfaction of potential future people against people currently existing? It's not easy; if we assign some value to future people, then that implies we should try to have more children, to maximise the sum total of future people's satisfaction.
>Looking at "who was there before and will be after my visit", then human civilization outlives each and every one of us.
Metaphysically speaking, it's quite possible that every moment of human experience is going to happen anyway, regardless of what we do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain.
Not quite. While it would be true (The Repugnant Conclusion) if every future person had positive quality of life, there can be a point where adding new people pushes everyone's quality of life into negative.
> Metaphysically speaking, it's quite possible that every moment of human experience is going to happen anyway, regardless of what we do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain.
My point was more that the purpose of life could be seen as sustaining the continuity of this civilization. Presumably, Boltzmann brains would not correspond to any civilization more often than any other, so they don't take anything away from the value of a life and the duty to preserve resources.
It sounds silly but I'm not kidding. If I could vote to reduce the global production of beef by one average person's consumption, I would do so immediately. I would probably continue to eat it though. I'm aware that many people would make the same choice, and this will result in raising prices and harder availability of beef, but that's fine with me.
Can't eat less beef? Donate to a climate org, volunteer, switch to solar, drive your car less, do some political canvassing, etc.
None of us will do all of that. Everyone has their subset of things they can do.
In theory, you could find someone who normally eats meat and offer them some amount of money per day to be vegetarian/vegan (or, find two people and pay them to halve their meat intake, or whatever). This might satisfy a moral obligation while costing you in a currency that you're happier to spend.
The obvious argument is "why not buy offsets and then also not do the bad thing for 2x effect". I don't think anyone's morally obligated to buy carbon offsets arbitrarily even if they're not flying, and similarly, maybe people aren't obligated to not do the bad thing either? But this gets into the weeds of moral obligation in general, which is probably a complex topic. Suffice to say, while buying an offset might cost some amount of money, not eating meat is ~free, and that's a trade some people may be willing to make if they're feeling obliged to reduce meat production too.
I know that this was likely meant for an internal thought experiment, rather than everyone who reads it responding. But personally: I eat beef as part of ~1.5 meals per week. I could cut this down to one meal every two weeks, with a bit of effort. Eliminating it entirely would mean eliminating certain food products that I enjoy that don't have a comparable vegetarian alternative. Reducing chicken or pork would be more difficult, particularly because there is very poor availability of tofu at my local grocery stores.
The most interesting thing I identified from the thought experiment: my eating habits have changed pretty dramatically from the pandemic. I've gotten in the habit of eating homemade food for about 19 out of 21 meals per week (i.e. i never buy lunch out), which results in far less meat consumption. And far higher egg consumption
Side story: I have relatives that raise their own beef, in very small amounts (one per year) as a side-effect of running a dairy farm. Their farm is small scale, about 40 milking, with surface treatment of manure runoff (constructed wetland). No water supply issues where they are. Poor quality land (very shallow topsoil) wouldn't be any good for commercial crop production. They are pastured most of the summer, all hay/silage is harvested on site, with additional feed/salt provided in the other months (I should ask them where their feed comes from). The reason they are able to stay in business is because there is a stable price for milk in Canada (supply management), which results in mildly higher consumer cost for dairy products, but a ridiculous amount of political controversy from right wing political parties.
My parents had only two children, same as my grandparents. My family isn't growing and taking up an exponential amount of resources, so I do not personally feel responsible for unsustainable population growth. Therefore I will not sacrifice my health and well-being in order to satisfy some resource quota being morally applied. Meat production isn't even a proportionally large source of energy use compared to transportation and electricity, so being asked to give up eating it to increase sustainability before larger slices of the pie are confronted really smacks of dogmatic imperialism.
I think the discussion would fare far better with people who think along lines that I do, if you focused on 'how can we make meat production more energy and land efficient' instead of 'you are sinful for eating meat, give it up.' More efficient grazing patterns and breeding animals to better digest alternative food sources like kelp, for example, are promising. I'm sure there are many other avenues yet thought up.
You can get all the nutrients the body needs from plants - read articles by the Physicians Committee of Responsible Medicine.
Finally, how do you justify the high cost of your pleasure of eating meat. The cost is not just the environment, it's also that our demand for meat keeps people employed in this horrific industry (slaughterhouse workers experience PTSD) and the fact that an animal has to suffer immensely, so that you can get a piece of its flesh.
>keeps people employed in this horrific industry
I am for reform of the industry and personally buy in bulk from local farmers. Factory farming is horrible, I will not argue with that.
>and the fact that an animal has to suffer immensely, so that you can get a piece of its flesh.
Moral grandstanding. You don't care about the environment or health, you wish to impose your view of the world and personal choices on others. Your pretention of care for sustainability is a tool not a real concern. I'm willing to bet you have never met or talked to a beef farmer or slaughterhouse worker.
I appreciate it's a long article. The study went into more though, here is an articles that summarises the main points
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding...
Also, it said what the best thing is an individual can do to reduce their footprint. Giving up meat & dairy is a practical thing we can do today - no need for policy changes etc.
RE: Moral grandstanding. You don't care about the environment or health
Can you explain this further? How do you know what I care about? And I can't impose anything, I can only share information.
As far as I know what differentiates us from other animals is that we have moral faculty. Isn't it our responsibility to point out things that are wrong? And after looking at various studies - supporting the large scale meat industry is wrong, because of the damage to our biosphere.
We are not hunter gatherers anymore, so we in modern society don't need animal flesh anymore to survive.
The only reason we keep doing it is mainly because of taste - which you've hinted at already.
Hence the question - does your demand for mouth pleasure justify the death and suffering an animal has to go through?
And you don't need to speak directly to slaughterhouse workers. Again look at studies and what that kind of work does to ones psyche.
Look at farmers who cry when they have to explain what happens to a dairy cow (this was in BBC documentary called 'Dark side of dairy). Our demand for these products creates those situations.
Humanity is about moving forward - doing things in a better way.
I completely cut my soya some times ago on health considerations: phytoestrogens and poor fat quality of soya.
I had a scare with a autoimmune problem, but luckily it was benign. However I learnt that estrogens weaken the mechanism by which the body learns to avoid fighting itself, and that it was explaining why women had a lot more of some kinds of autoimmune diseases than men. And the missing puzzle piece was when I understood that my autoimmune problem started a few years after I discovered Japanese food culture, and as I had always been in fond of soy drinks, soy creams, tofu, etc, when I was in Japan I was drinking/eating/dreaming soy every meal of every day (this for a few years).
Are you sure about they are lowering estrogens level?
To draw you the picture, I was drinking tonyu (soy drink) all the time so there always was some in my stomach (except when I was sleeping). Maybe the mechanism by which phytoestrogens lower blood level estrogens works only when you give it time to overcompensate after your last intake.
After reading the article, it turns out not all phytoestrogens have this estrogen-lowering property: this is a particularity of soy's phytoestrogens.
Beer for example has different phytoestrogens and they are not good.