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Comment by tashoecraft | Hacker News Reader

Part time is great. I'm part time vegan (probably 90% of my meals), but I still rarely have meat, dairy, everything. I dislike the idea that if you aren't always vegan/vegetarian you've "failed". Like it's some religion that if you ever strayed you have some mark against you. It's so much easier to go 90% than 100, and I bet many more people would be willing to go 90% than 100%. We'll make major strids to improving the environment, improving our populations health, and improving the well being of animals if a majority of people have a goal of 90% rather than full removal.

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Even just getting people to go mostly chicken over beef has a big impact. This also creates a way to ease into a more plant based diet.

Personally I've found the 90% aspect easier. I don't have to worry if my vegetarian meals have something like chicken stock in them. It is about eating healthier and a lower carbon diet than being 100% perfect. Just needs to be good enough.

Depends on the reason behind being vegan / vegetarian. If it's to reduce animal suffering, eating chicken is almost certainly causing a greater amount of animal suffering than if you eat cows.

https://reducing-suffering.org/how-much-direct-suffering-is-...

I find the approach of the cited web page very strange. Basically, it says, the longer the animal lives, the more it suffers. Throws in some arbitrary multipliers, divides by mass, and voilà.

I would not call healthy animal life as suffering. Details matter. We all have seen peaceful cows and healthy fish. What counts, IMO, is fear, stress, pain, and the way animals are dying. That's not accounted in the article.

One may argue that the number of lives taken counts too. And then eating beef or whale meat will kill fewer animals than eating chicken or insects (of we don't count what whales eat). But in my opinion eating insects would cause less suffering.

Overall I think that eating smaller animals more frequently is more natural and oppotunistic. And eating cheaper meat will reduce overall carbon and water footprint.

From the welfare perspective, if the cows are just out in a large pasture, they will likely have net-positive experiences across their lives. But there are animals that have overwhelmingly negative experience throughout their lives (pigs confined to a cage where they can't turn around). As for chickens, >99% of which grow up in cramped conditions, with no access to the outside, with selective breeding causing them to grow so fast they often can't move, it is better to never have been (their lives are a net negative experience).

It's unfortunate, with respect to emissions, cows are worse than chickens, but with respect to suffering on sentient creatures, chickens are worse than cows.

Great news! There's a solution: eating fewer of both.

What about pescatarian (sp?)? I like the idea of ditching dependence on land based animals. Is sane tilapia farming sustainable? I have a fairly strong intolerance for beans and pulses and getting enough protein to deadlift from other sources is hard. The best my blood work has ever been was me eating about 1.3lbs of grassfed beef a day plus greens and 4 sweet potatoes. Thats great, but not sustainable for our whole population.

Commercial fishing at modern scale is not sustainable. Fish farming, especially for valuable species, still has a huge carbon footprint, requires a non trivial amount of agricultural land, and often uses wild-caught fish to feed the farm. So we're back to square one.

Not saying that the issues can't be solved, but pisciculture is not a free lunch from the sustainability point of view.

> Fish farming, especially for valuable species, still has a huge carbon footprint, requires a non trivial amount of agricultural land, and often uses wild-caught fish to feed the farm. So we're back to square one.

Isn't most of that only true for carnivorous or omnivorous fish? I knew there were problems with finding small fish to feed the bigger fish, but I was under the impression that herbivores and filter feeders could be raised sustainably. I.e. farming tuna would be extremely difficult and costly to the environment, but you can farm things like tilapia and catfish fairly sustainably.

They aren't fish that a lot of people are excited to eat, unfortunately.

My favorites are baitfish like herring and sardines does that change the sustainability? If not, should I just go back to beef, or is it at least better?

Tilapa are herbivores, and some setups grow all the fishes food in the tank. Whether that is scalable is another matter.

I'm an omnivoire, but can't you get a lot of vegan protein from chickpeas and soy? Soy does have the obvious huge downside of containing a much higher amount of estrogen and causes havoc in some people, but Chickpeas aren't hard to make delicious. Ditto for lentils as well

> Soy does have the obvious huge downside of containing a much higher amount of estrogen and causes havoc in some people

Do you have a study that confirms this? As far as I know this is a myth. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoestrogen#Effects_on_human...

Another downside of soybeans is that its production causes deforestation and other environmental changes in areas like Amazon. See e.g. https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/the-story-of-soy

That said, soybeans are mostly used to feed livestock, so if you just eat meat instead of soy, that's likely not any better for environment.

> Chickpeas aren't hard to make delicious. Ditto for lentils as well

Yes. Check out my other comment about beans in this thread. All the dishes I mentioned there are pretty tasty. And so are lentils, if by that you meant masoor or masoor dal, or even if you meant tuar dal). And all those are high in protein as you say.

I love Indian curries, but one serving obbeans or pulses will haunt me for a couple days. I don't know if it is sibo related, but I do have that. Cauliflower, blackberries, and mushrooms destroy me too.

Tough luck. Maybe some people are more prone to such issues.

>sibo

A typo? An acronym?

Small intestine bacterial overgrowth. Often due to overuse of antibiotics in childhood. I'm not complaining, probably would have died without them.

Had not heard of SIBO. Good to know. Wonder if yogurt and other fermented foods that increase good gut bacteria can help.

They said they don’t tolerate beans and pulses well. Chickpeas, soy, and lentils all fall into that category.

And honestly, animals will play an important role in sustainable agriculture, so animal products will still be part of our lives. I was watching a presentation about soil health by a farmer. They don't use fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation, etc because of a system of cover crops, free range animals, and mob grazing(a dense herd moved through the field quickly to trample and poop all over) to build healthy soil. The problems we have are from factory farms, monocultures, and destroying old growth ecosystems so more people can consume in excess, instead of moderation.

> I dislike the idea that if you aren't always vegan/vegetarian you've "failed".

In the case you're vegan because you think it's unethical to kill for food, why should you get a break here? I can't think of other ethical issues where you wouldn't be looked down for going against your firmly held beliefs.

"Mostly plant-based diet" sounds like a better term if you're less concerned about the animal suffering aspect. Vegan would also include not wearing leather for example so it might be a case of you not using the right word.

There are strong arguments for this. Alcoholics have support groups to keep themselves accountable, but also when they do relapse to help get them back on track. Having a firmly held belief doesn't mean you're immune to temptation or are unforgivable if you have a lapse. Moreover the kind of criticism and shaming that comes from not giving people "a break" does two things 1. It lowers the power of the shamer to make real change in a persons life and 2. It can cause exactly the kind of depression that leads to more of the undesirable behavior.

If you really think killing animals for food is wrong (if that's the reason you're vegan), doing it just a little bit shouldn't be okay to you and shows you weren't really that serious in the first place.

I wouldn't try to shame someone with a drug addiction but I don't think this is anything similar. What would you say to someone who said they were going to give up plastic straws but gave in and still used them once a week for example? There's certain cases where strong disapproval is more valid and you can't blame lack of self control so much.

I'd argue giving people too much of a break doesn't help either.

I think a big part about why people can't give up meat is that they're surrounded by people telling them it's okay. There's people that know meat is bad for climate change and know killing animals is wrong but won't reduce their meat eating because they see people around them are complacent too.

I'd be interested to see some evidence that promoting the "baby steps" approach is the right one because it could easily be making it worse.

And I disagree with the leather part because leather production isn’t causing animals to be killed. It’s a by product of the, mostly beef industry. It would take a massive decline in beef production to cause cows to be killed purely for their leather. Leather goods also last decades.

I believe more in a overall balance. You can’t get everyone to be vegan, the earth simply can’t support that.

You can’t get everyone to be vegan, the earth simply can’t support that.

Genuinely curious, why can't Earth support everyone eating vegan? I thought it took more land, water, soil, and resources in general to produce meat? Is it about transportation, or Arctic climates where fresh fruit and veg is not available?

It's always going to be more efficient to feed grain, soy etc. directly to humans than it is to feed those crops to cows then feed cow meat and milk to humans (you lose about 90% of the crop calories creating beef: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio). People arguing the opposite are usually under the false impression that cows are only fed grass (there's no enough room for this for the amount of cows we need) or arguing corner cases.

> It’s a by product of the, mostly beef industry.

You're supporting and putting more money into the beef industry by buying leather though. You don't kill cows directly by buying milk either, but the milked cow will eventually be slaughtered for meat too and its male offspring used as veal.

> I believe more in a overall balance. You can’t get everyone to be vegan, the earth simply can’t support that.

Fair enough, but "vegan" isn't the term to use to describe your beliefs then.

And the alternatives to leather are mostly various plastic products, which have a much lower lifespan and much higher pollution footprint in general.

This is a fantastic way to look at it. It feels like a perfect application of the 80 / 20 rule -> with 20% of the effort, you can get 80% of the benefits of being vegetarian / vegan.

Veganism is not so much about soil health but to put a stop to animal suffering. Once you consider animals as beings who deserve to live, pareto rule does not apply.

Definitely. Not the OP you were replying to, but I love meat of all types. I also love vegetables. I also really like some vegetarian foods. Actually, I just like food, but I can't each much of it at one sitting.

I think the other proposition is that, for whatever reason, there's this push to market vegetarian foods as substitutes to lure in traditional meat eaters rather than putting effort toward convincing them that they're alternatives that taste just as good.

Like bean burgers. I absolutely love bean burgers because regular burgers just don't sit right with me half the time. But I don't treat them as a substitute--I treat them as an alternative that is delicious and unique in its own right AND to be enjoyed as such. I mean, let's be honest: There's so many different varieties of beans, and so many things you can do with them, that even speaking as a meat eater, it's almost impossible to get bored with how many different dishes you can make (with no meat)!

One example that comes to mind that's semi-vegetarian is a black bean enchilada recipe I make from time to time. Just beans. Only non-vegetarian item is the cheese (and sometimes the corn tortillas because of lard, if you get them fresh). Doesn't feel heavy, tastes amazing, and it's super filling. Have a side of refried beans (I like beans)[1], Spanish rice, a salad, and it's like a restaurant-style meal.

Err. Didn't mean to make this reply so long. Sorry. I guess I just love cooking, too.

And yes, it's not that much effort to at least cut out red meat from your diet. Way healthier too.

[1] The people around you probably won't like the side effects.

If by your [1] you mean flatulence, Indians (and some other Asians) eat many kinds of legumes (including many kinds of beans, like rajma, lobia, French beans, etc.), on a regular basis, and I, at least, have not heard of flatulence as a common thing among them due to that. Only if you indulge a bit too much in say chana (chickpeas, as in chana masala or puri chole or bhature chole), do you sometimes get gas. Possibly the Indian masala's spices used in those dishes help with digesting the beans, in fact they probably do, since they are the common ones used in Indian cooking, some of which have known digestive benefits, such as cumin, ginger, coriander, asafoetida, etc.

(BTW, tip: just a pinch of asafoetida a.k.a. hing, really improves a dish; the zing of hing :)

Also, I saw a video about nutrition by some scientist, who said that peoples (i.e. nations) who eat beans regularly, develop, over time, the ability (maybe via better gut flora) to digest them more easily, without gas being generated.

I suspect your points (all of them!) probably harbor some degree of truth--in particular the latter. I don't eat beans quite often enough to notice any long term benefits, but I do know that if I eat certain fibrous foods with increasing frequency, the effects become milder over time. So I would imagine the gut flora adapts to your diet, if you're willing to work at it.

I may have to try the suggestion of different spices. I'm exceedingly fond of cumin and season my bean enchiladas accordingly, but I've never thought to try an experiment involving consumption of the same amount of beans with or without. This may warrant further investigation.

I appreciate the feedback. It gives me some things to try since, well, I just love all manner of seasonings. Thank you so much for that!

You're welcome. Glad you think the points are worth checking out. I too love many seasonings. Good luck!

> Glad you think the points are worth checking out.

Well, of course! Physiological "hacks" like that which are largely something already known in other cultures and subsequently re-discovered in the West always fascinate me. It's a good reminder that there are a LOT of things we don't know (or think we do).

Plus, I enjoy the conversation even if the topic (flatulence) is somewhat less appealing (or amusing). I've always had some digestive issues with too much fiber and certain foods, but it never really bothered me all that much until the last few years. Onions, for whatever stupid reason, seem to bother me the worst. Which is a shame, because I love them.

But, I'm definitely going to try your suggestions. Plus I've been itching to try cumin in something new, AND you've given me a list of other things to add to my arsenal. Living in New Mexico, there's only so many things you can do with hot peppers before you start to look toward other cuisines (kidding; I love them as well!). :)

You also reminded me of something. When you mentioned a slow tolerance toward certain foods, I'd forgotten that a few years ago I went through this phase where I was eating steel cut oats every day. I tried it again recently and they absolutely bothered me to no end (err, phrasing), yet I don't remember that being an issue when it was a regular part of my diet. I know it's only anecdotal evidence, but I swear they didn't bother me before. Of course, this comes on the heels of discovering that an Instant Pot is absolutely beautiful for cooking them consistently.

Anyway, thank you so much for the advice--and the conversation. I'm sorry I hadn't replied for close to 2 weeks!

I appreciate you!

You might want to investigate Dr Vasant Lad's videos (2 in number, IIRC) on Ayurvedic cooking in particular, and the principles, or at least techniques, of (spices and masalas used in) Indian cooking in general. All with a view to improved digestion. He is a senior Ayurvedic doctor and the founder of the Ayurvedic Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. There is also a book about this subject (the cooking), by some woman, IIRC, but sorry, cannot remember the name.

>Onions, for whatever stupid reason, seem to bother me the worst. Which is a shame, because I love them.

Surprised to hear that. Tough luck. I love onions (and peppers) too.

You're welcome, and no problem about the delay. Thank you!

Enjoyed the conversation too, thanks.

IME, flatulence is 90% attributable to eating more than the digestive system can comfortably handle at a time, also some questionable food combos and gut flora may be involved, but mostly the former. Glossing over specifics, a conservative well digestible meal size would be up to 300g or 1/3 l, no less than 3h apart, no fruit, sugary drinks or milk. Gradually relax constraints and monitor side effects.

Of course, YMMV.

Interesting points, thanks. Related to meal size, yoga (via a book by The Yoga Institute) says at the end of a meal, your stomach contents should be one half food, one quarter water and one quarter air, for good digestion, which seems to make sense, intuitively, because if it was all food, it would be a tight fit, so would not move around and through the digestive system easily, and the same (though less so) if full with only food and water, hence the air bit too.

The Yoga Institute may be the oldest commercial yoga center in the world.

https://theyogainstitute.org

Re [1]. Same with me. On the input side, I could exist solely on rice and beans. However, on the output side, my body just won't cooperate and generates a very foul output. So meat and veggies it is. :-(

Judging by the sibling comments, it would appear there may be more natural ways around that which seem to improve digestion. I'm going to have to try their suggestions at some point.

But I don't know. Could it be a physiological thing? Maybe. I know that I have a bit of, err, sensitivity to certain foods that seem to transform me into a source of natural gas.

Thanks! Yeah my wife and I stared over a year ago. If you had told me 2 years ago if I would be mostly vegan I would have laughed.

80/20 is a great way to look at it. It cuts out all of the food where you just get chicken or beef and it doesn’t actually add to the meal. Now I opt for vegan choices, but if I’m in a place that makes really great meat options, usually with high quality product, I’ll get one and really appreciate it. Makes meat an actual treat. Though the less meat I have the less I actually want it.

I have a friend that is mostly a vegetarian because he thinks a) the meat industry is often cruel. b) very destructive environmentally.

I'm okay with that. I don't eat veal or fish for the same reasons[1]. Veal is cruel. And fishing is horribly destructive. Where someone draws a line isn't as important as they do.

[1] Don't get me started though with Hippie Brahmans that won't eat chicken or beef but eat fish for 'heath reasons'

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