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Comment by jschveibinz | Hacker News Reader

We eat way more than we used to, and there are more people doing it.

Per capita meat consumption in the US (poultry, beef, pork) in 1960 was about 170 lbs per year. Now it’s closer to 220 lbs per person per year. Cheese consumption has almost tripled since 1970.

https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/st...

Let’s all be heroes: Eat less (including meat and cheese), buy less, save money, improve your health, create less waste, drive less, walk more, save water and use less energy. And be a role model for the next generation.

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> Let’s all be heroes: Eat less (including meat and cheese), buy less, save money, improve your health, create less waste, drive less, walk more, save water and use less energy. And be a role model for the next generation.

Yes, let’s all be heroes but at the same time let’s acknowledge the fact that as long as the incentives of the system remain the same, the trend will continue. This rhetoric reminds me of the rhetoric around plastic consumption; the big producers of plastic push the message that it’s on all of us to reuse, recycle, and so on. Let’s instead capture the cost of the externalities in the actual prices of meat production and consumption — prices then should be higher and demand at that price point will be less. Let’s make it easier to be heroes by changing the system.

This comment is a perfect example of a person shifting systemic problems onto individual consumers. If we just all do our one little part, it makes a better world, right?

Except then you get situations like the great recycling crisis, where individual consumers do their part to recycle and then we "realize" that recycling has been a giant scam for decades.

What would the scam be behind eating less meat?

A system that relies on your consent to operate can be modified by withdrawing your consent; if individuals coordinate, systemic change is possible. Gandhi and his non-violent resistance to British rule in India is a good example.

Wow. 275g per day is a huge average. Do you happen to know the median?

I cannot agree with the cheese part, though. I think if you replace half of that meat consumption with cheese, it would be net positive for your health and the climate.

Also one should not consider poultry equivalent to beef.

> 275g per day is a huge average

Including food waste it's fairly reasonable. Commercial restaurants waste an amazing amount of food everyday.

It's really not reasonable, even if you consider 50% waste. There's no reason for a sedentary person to eat even close to that much protein.

I think he's referring to g of meat and not pure protein. I'd say that the number is pretty close or maybe even low. I mean it's not just steak /chicken /burgers, Bacon, lunch meat, sausage etc all adds up.

The majority of food waste however is fruit and vegetables (about half), some meat is still wasted but is among the lowest category in food waste.

Can a restaurant really afford to waste huge amounts of expensive meat every day? I thought their entire margin was based on minimizing expensive waste.

Chains like McDonald's do in fact waste large quantities of food (in absolute terms). I think this is largely caused by the even larger quantities they sell. But to a certain degree it is down to completely artificial and arguably pointless metrics:

1. They produce (or used to, this practice has been removed in Germany, I think) a large amount of food on stock and kept it warm. If it isn't sold after a few minutes (15?) it gets trashed. This is to optimize the speed of sales.

2. They hand out bizarrely large quantities (especially soft drinks, but also cheap stuff like fries) that often the customer won't eat completely. This is for a reason that I don't understand. Might be a US thing, though.

Considering we could not get people to wear masks to curb far more immediate problems, I find it difficult to take the initiative.

It does feel like an overwhelming task, but individuals can come together and our own actions do matter. We ended slavery: we can create huge positive change.

> We ended slavery

With at least one famous and bloody civil war in what is now a nuclear power. I’d rather not have one of those again, even though I’m increasingly of the suspicion that {the poorly specified concept named variously “sentience”, “ability to suffer”, or “consciousness”} is likely found in many more species than just humans.

Emit less. The mode of transport matters, not just whether you do something less. Sometimes buying more is better. LED bulbs cost (very slightly) more money but consume far less power. Same for electric cars, heat pumps, solar roofs, insulation, etc.

People also grow more since then and diets change.

I'd love for the industry to remove sugar and therefore unnecessary cravings for a lot of people.

In theory: smaller humans would be the ultimate solution. But that's not going to happen anytime soon.

Perhaps a way more efficient digestion system?

The fallacy of the op is to exercise more ( = use human energy for transportation) and eat/drink less. That's not how the human body works...

Given the obesity crisis, I doubt a more efficient digestion is going to actually help.

I'd love for the industry to reduce sugar would be appropriate then

( It was mentioned)

It seems like the market compensates for individual action in a way that diminishes its effect.

The market compensates the future for real consumption?

Or are you thinking in purely abstract models?

I’m more of a physical sciences type. I feel no obligation to coddle completely made up, self re-enforcing garbage.

How is the market compensating for the real impact facing the future of the species?

Hint: it’s not. Everyone in power will simply be dead by the time the bill comes due.

“Trickle down economics” is a meme intended to mock the rubes. “Fuck them kids” is similarly something we uncomfortably laugh at as a joke while behaving with real indifference.

I don't see you proposing a solution.

Individual action isn't it. It is a red herring.

Government policy is the only way forward.

I did not see you propose a solution so much as regurgitate one.

We are also healthier then average in 1960. We are more fat, but also less likely to miss one of important nutricients.

I'd love to see how you characterize Americans being healthier today than they were in 1960. Maybe you mean that life expectancy has increased from about 70 years to 78 years. However it looks like a lot of that is attributable to reduced infant mortality.

In 1960, 0.91% of Americans had Type II Diabetes. In 2015, 7.40% of Americans had Type II Diabetes: https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/statistics/slides/long_term_tre...

Obesity has also skyrocketed: https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statisti...

You literally picked exactly one disease and used it as argument why we are less healthy. And obesity is not even disease on itself. To can be obese and healtht. It just happen to have to do with the exact same disease you picked.

OK, don't take it from me, then:

When we look at this year’s report, we see that we are living longer, but with an increasing burden of preventable chronic illness. In particular, our nation’s health is persistently compromised by risk factors such as sedentary behavior, obesity, and diabetes.

http://cdnfiles.americashealthrankings.org/SiteFiles/Reports...

So again: how do you define "healthier then average in 1960"?

Well, look at workplace accident rates, injury rates, lead poisoning in the house & at the pump (before petrol was de-leaded), smoking normalized across the board, cities filled with smog (pre-EPA).

If you want numbers, there was a 3x decrease in mortality from heart/cardiovascular disease, 5x decrease in mortality from cerebrovascular disease (1960s were actually one of the most unhealthy decades to be alive in):

https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2016/1/25/morta...

Sedentary behavior, obesity and diabetes are more signals of stress rather than our current environment - look at the top 10% by income - those risk factors are nowhere to be found in that subgroup.

I say don't save money but eat a lot less meat. Buy only local organic meats. This way you can actually enjoy a good piece of meat and also appreciate it.

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