While dairy is not strictly necessary for grown ups, I recognise that it will be present for some time so we should care about how it is produced. Dairy should be more expensive than it is now, similar to what happens to meat.
Basically, low quality food is flooding the market, and getting purchased by the poorer population, that don't feel they have a choice in what they eat, because they eat whatever is necessary to fit in their budget.
Meanwhile people that CAN afford to buy high quality food from family farms, don't, because of activism convincing them that doing so is evil, specially any farm that has anything to do with animals, this results in things that are actually really bad, like climates where wool is an excellent product have the farmers fail due to lack of demand, and instead people start buying plastic-based clothes, that contribute to plastic pollution.
Or in Brazil: people love to blame the animal industry there for the fires, but it is not so simple, the massive areas being deforested ilegally are often used to produce soybeans, that are on an evergrowing demand due to two sources of demand compounding:
1. As family farms die, cattle instead of eating grass (something that in Brazil and some other countries was important, as some places only grow grass, and not other plants more useful for direct human comsumption), people switch to factory animal farms, that require rations, that are often made of soybeans.
2. Meanwhile the upper strata of society is switching from high quality meat (that would eat grass) to eating soybean-based products (like soybean milk, soybean-based meat, etc...)
I think many activists have their heart in the right place, but they don't understand they are causing more problems than fixing them, the soybean industry is massively destructive, incentivizing it is extremely bad idea.
final note: Remembered other major source of soybean usage... when in the 60s and 70s there was this massive media campaign against usage of animal fats for frying, people switched to soybean oil to fry instead, Brazil also produces massive amounts of that, and I know many people that personally use soybean oil because they honestly believe it is healthier to them and better for the environment than using butter, pork fat, etc...
Doesn't really undermine your point, except that if you want to save Brazilian rainforest by reducing meat consumption, you'll need to take it up with the Chinese.
You're going to have to provide some substantial evidence to back that up. In reality, family farms are actually being destroyed by factory farms[1][2]. This is the case with most industries - smaller operations cannot compete or get bought out by larger players.
> massive areas being deforested ilegally are often used to produce soybeans
If you are concerned about deforestation due to soy production, pointing to vegans as the main culprit is misguided at best and misleading at worst.
If you care about preventing deforestation from soy, then you should know that around 70-75% of the world’s soya ends up as animal feed for cows, pigs, chickens and farmed fish[3] "In 2017, Brazil produced 16.3 million tons of soymeal for its domestic market, and more than 90 percent of that became animal feed, with 50 percent used as chicken feed, 25 percent as pig feed, and 12 percent for beef and dairy cattle feed."[4]
1. https://sentientmedia.org/family-farms-and-the-rise-of-indus...
2. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/09/american...
3. https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/publication...
4. https://news.mongabay.com/2019/01/brazilian-hunger-for-meat-...
On Brazilian soybeans. Most of the soybeans produced there are actually used to feed livestock. American vegans will be eating American Soybeans not Brazilian ones, so there's no real connection there. Even if there are a ton of Brazilian Vegans, it will take a lot fewer soybeans to feed them directly than it would feeding them via meat anyway. Same for vegans anywhere, surely you must know this?
I'm not even a veggie, but I can't deny the environmental argument is very strong.
This has everything to do with capitalism and large corporations selling 99c (meat) burgers with fries and cola with hardly anything healthy in them at the cost of the environment, workers, and other aspects. It’s not a recent phenomenon either. So your starting claim about activist veganism causing problems and continuing to this paragraph immediately after doesn’t make sense.
Then better quality farmers have two choices: becomea competitor for mass-quantity farmers and rely on practices like feeding animals with soybeans, or focus on the high end market...
But vegans convinced people on the high end market, to not buy those products.
The article we are commenting on, already explained all the other reasons for death of the small dairies, I just added one more, it felt to me the article done enough to talk about government regulation and whatnot, and I didn't need to repeat it.
Considering the replies I had here, maybe I was wrong on that.
https://ourworldindata.org/soy
Livestock farming is terrible for the environment and has a huge carbon footprint, partly due to the extreme amount of land it uses.
Dairy and meat is part of a healthy diet. While not impossible to do without, health problems often develops with time. That's why most people (84%) who adopts a vegan diet at some point in their lives, returns to eating meat and dairy again. The first years on a plant diet are usually great, almost everyone feels better than ever. Then after 5-10 years many will experience a steep decline in health, both physical and mental that is resolved with returning to animal products. Of course eating too much animal products and not enough plants will also make you sick, that goes without saying.
So yes, agree very much that we should care how it is produced.
Not actually true. For centuries, the traditional Chinese diet did not include dairy and minimised meat consumption too. The oft-trotted-out trope of calcium in dairy is misleading (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/calcium-and-milk...) and even relatively small amounts of meat and dairy increase the possibility of prostate cancer (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18398033)
Speaking as a vegan of over 10 years, who is mentally sharper and healthier than I was a decade ago, I also don't agree with the "steep decline in health, both physical and mental". I do agree that certain nutrients, such as B12, need to be supplemented, but the Institute of Medicine recommends that everyone over the age of 50 supplement B12 whether vegan or not.
From your link:
While calcium and dairy can lower the risk of osteoporosis and colon cancer, high intake can increase the risk of prostate cancer and possibly ovarian cancer.
It increases the probability of developing some diseases and lowers that of developing others.
In India it is estimated that 23-37% of the population is vegetarian or vegan [1]. In a country of 1billion, that's like an entire vegetarian United States. It is absolutely fine to live a life as vegan/vegetarian.
Also interesting you don't seem to have done any research on the health issues caused by eating red meat and dairy. Want to give that a go?
How did you come to that conclusion and what data do you have to support it? The overwhelming majority of ex-vegans I know did so because of either convenience or missing specific foods.
I beg to differ here. I'm allergic to all dairy products (protein allergy), and I haven't had any problem keeping a healthy diet.
Dairy isn't at all necessary for survival after you're able to eat and digest solid food. In fact, most mammals and 65% of humans develop lactose intolerance by adulthood.
Meat? That's a bit more difficult to replace in a completely vegan diet without vitamin supplements.
Re: health without meat & dairy: B12 and other vitamins missing in vegetables are also missing in our meat, which is why all chicken, pigs, and cows are fed B12 vitamins in their feed.
If you stop eating meat and dairy all together, you have to supplement B12 - but most Americans are B12 deficient either way, similar to vitamin D.
Finally - eating meat and dairy also leads to health problems, see: heart disease. I know it's complex, but dairy is definitely not a required part of a diet, and is why humans don't feed their young human milk after infancy.
In all seriousness, the conditions under which bull calfs for veal production is abhorrent, and I have great difficulty in balance sympathy for the plight of dairy with the practices of the industry. While the article mentions CAFOs, which are the largest contributors to veal production, I'd been hard-pressed to find a family run dairy farm in my home, midwestern state, which didn't at the least sell their bull calfs to outfits that do produce veal.
Next time you see that on the menu, take a moment to think about where it's coming from and how it's made.
To you!
To me (also vegan) any animal in a cage is abhorrent. I want to be free and wild and I also want all others to be free and wild. Maybe some humans deserve to be caged for their behavior. Animals can never be guilty...
> Next time you see that on the menu, take a moment to think about where it's coming from and how it's made.
Exactly. Was someone (NOT something) caged? Was a baby taken away from a mother, right after birth, in order to steal (=take what is not given) the milk that mum produces for baby?
And after this consideration: go for one of the plant options on the menu!
If "someone's preference" - a completely subjective thing - is objectively less efficient and more harmful than doing something else, we can and do intervene to discourage such practices. No one should have to apologize for promoting something clearly better.
If you love meat and are willing to burn the planet down so you can keep eating it, fine. But don't pretend it's a choice without consequences or that it's necessary.
It is possible our taste for (cooked) meat gave us an evolutionary advantage that made us who we are today:
However, accessing more calories was not the primary reason our ancestors decided to cook food. “Scientists often focus on what the eventual benefit is, rather than the immediate mechanism that allowed our ancestors to make the choice. We made the choice because of deliciousness. And then the eventual benefit was more calories and fewer pathogens.”
Human ancestors who preferred the taste of cooked meat over raw meat began to enjoy an evolutionary advantage over others. “In general, flavour rewards us for eating the things we’ve needed to eat in the past,” said Dunn.
In particular, people who evolved a preference for complex aromas are likely to have developed an evolutionary advantage, because the smell of cooked meat, for example, is much more complex than that of raw meat. “Meat goes from having tens of aromas to having hundreds of different aroma compounds,” said Dunn.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/07/how-early-hu...
Every declaration you made in this sentence is incorrect.
I said co-domesticated and I mean it: a substantial number of humans of European and Nilotic descent have a mutation which makes them able to digest raw milk well into adulthood. I have to rely on the cultural technology of fermenting milk with lactobacillus, sadly.
It's not a personal choice (preference) when it cause another being to suffer (caged, artificially inseminated (raped), babies taken away, fed horrible food, etc.)
Thinking that it IS a personal choice, to me, puts one on borderline insanity: total disdain for other forms of sentient life.
I hope the taste of that meat/dairy/eggs makes it all worth it for you. I cannot imagine taste bud pleasure trumps ethics.
You are putting a morality spin on something that has a biological basis. Humans like the taste of meat because it is a very good source of necessary nutrients. It is possible that our preference for meat and dairy (in particular, fermented dairy, like cheese) has provided us with an evolutionary advantage that has made us who we are today:
Human ancestors who preferred the taste of cooked meat over raw meat began to enjoy an evolutionary advantage over others. _“In general, flavour rewards us for eating the things we’ve needed to eat in the past,_” said Dunn. (My underlining)
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/07/how-early-hu...
My question is therefore: were you unaware of this, or do you prefer the disappearance of (e.g.) cows over their captivity?
These domesticated cows aren’t necessary for keeping the ecosystem in balance, and any cow we don’t breed into existence won’t suffer. There aren’t a group of unborn cows being sad that they never got a chance to exist.
There isn’t a strong reason to support cow breeding for the sake of cows existing.
So you support genocide ;)
For a somewhat malicious counter point... if the entire world stopped using dairy and beef, the cow as we know it would quickly go extinct. They have no natural habitat, they can't take care of themselves, and they make really lousy pets.
It is a somewhat similar story with elephants. They make lousy pets as well and selling ivory is illegal. So the best they get is being shoved into smaller and smaller chunks of dedicated public land.
So what? Why should the cow exist for the sake of existing?
Lots of animals are not used for meat and dairy and are not extinct. Sure, numbers of cows would be massively reduced but that also frees up pasture. Pasture could be converted to habitat for wildlife and support a more diverse set of species.
I can only speak for myself, but I don't care if the number of cattle are reduced to a tiny fraction of the population they once were, if it means more biodiversity.
Reframing factory farming as a conservation measure is a very cyncial view. That's top notch spin doctoring and worth a long career in lobbying.
I don't think you understand what vegans (typically) actually object to.
Wheat, soybean, avocados, palm oil and more are just as bad for the environment and animal life due to commercialization. Monoculture industrial farming is inherently unsustainable. High density growing of a single type of organism that requires outside resources to be brought it. Artificial fertilizer production isn't ecological either. The pest control required, and I'm not talking about bugs, I'm talking about rodents, birds, boar and deer, is pretty harmful for not just the animals, but for the regional ecosystem.
"Let's just make food more expensive for people! I decide what people should eat and when even though the purchasing power of the average individual is shrinking as is!" As an omnivore, I have to tell you, "slow down there Stalin". Then again, you're not wrong. You need less farmland if you starve enough people to death. Guess you're a fan of population control? Historically speaking, on average, anyone that advocates for the limiting of general food distribution to everyday people don't become well known as humanitarians or "good people".
You choose to be vegan, good for you. But don't pretend industrial farming of soy, peas and avocados don't have blood on their hands. The only vegans who can lay claim to the moral high ground are the ones that permaculture grow their own food. They get my respect, big time, since they're not virtue dieters.