Cows and livestock eat plants and convert into meat. It’s natural and organic and proven process that’s been around for thousands of years.
Ground up plants with food colorings and odd shapes are not meat.
Ground up plants with food colorings and odd shapes are not meat.
Which is a good example how "natural" and "been around for thousands of years" does not equal "is good for the environment".
The question then is more about how much we eat, what do we consider « ok » to eat, how many are we, and how do we farm to sustain all this.
The problem is the scale, which is also a problem with the industrial growing of crops and industrial fishing.
In rich countries we probably eat too much meat both for our health and for the impact on the environment, but the bottom line is that feeding 8 billion people and counting, who are getting richer globally, is going to hit the environment hard.
IMHO, the best way to reduce meat consumption is to ban subsidies and to increase regulatory quality standards, which would make prices go up significantly. But that's politically unpalatable.
Not to mention how terrible plant-based “meats” are for your health.
They don't have to be good, just less bad than producing meat. It is almost impossible to create any food that has a larger impact than beef [1].
The question is more around the « too much » than around what we do.
Eating cow and livestock meat is better for people and environment.
Seriously, this amounts to nothing more than a Naturalistic Fallacy.
People should demand and buy better meat from better farms with better practices.
Cows require orders of magnitude more land to be devoted to them than plant based food, simply due to the inefficiencies of the sunlight -> plant -> meat -> food production process. If you cut the middle-man out (meat), then the process becomes orders of magnitude more efficient.
This reminds me that if by "better farms with better practices" you mean free-range type farms, then they are actually far worse for the environment because they are less efficient. Eg, you need more land per pound of meat produced.
Cows also produce vast quantities of methane, which is a leading greenhouse gas. The quickest way to slow down global warming would be to cease livestock farming entirely.
Watch the documentary "Cowspiricy" (https://www.netflix.com/title/80033772)
Or for a shorter view, Mark Rober's "Feeding Bill Gates Fake Burger (to save the world) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k-V3ESHcfA
Unfortunately it’s apparently way more trendy to become vegan than to say we’re simply too much.
Every study I've seen on the Earth's carrying capacity came to the conclusion that we could support at least a few more billion humans. So why you believe it's more correct to say we have a population problem than a consumption problem?
I chose the other direction which is to eat very very good meat, but way way less, because that’s goddamn expensive and because we can’t produce it that much. Just like good wine.
The very big issue with meat is that you have a shit ton of farm raising some thousands animals in very precarious conditions for people eating garbage. That’s harsh, but that’s the sad truth.
The conclusion to this should not be to stop meat but to stop garbage. Just like everything in food by the way, you can eat 100% vegan 100% garbage 100% detrimental for the environment.
The issue with studies is that it’s basically impossible to just prove that we « could support at least a few more billion humans ». It’s just too big of a study. I’m actually pretty sure that with the way we live (independently of the question of meat) we should already be way less than we are. It’s quite obvious but I don’t have any « studies » at end, because it’s way easier for everywhere to just « prove » we can continue as we do (if we all become vegan of course, because that’s really the heart of our issue).
I’m not saying it’s a population problem and not a consumption problem. I think it’s both. And I think the vegan trend is absolutely part of the consumption problem because it’s hiding the source of the issue. You just have to look at how it’s so easier for people to tackle The source of the issue is that we should seek good instead of quantity or easiness.
We have replaced the supposedly old problem of meat by the new supposedly non-problem of food in a plastic bag with a vegan sticker on it.
However please don't compare the modern industrial meat production with anything like farming from, say, 500 years ago, or with ancient hunting. Modern meat production is brutal (for necessary cost reasons) and hugely destructive to the environment.
They will be much better off eating good quality meats from reputable sources.