Look at the research.
> the Beyond Burger generates 90% less greenhouse gas emissions, requires 46% less energy, has >99% less impact on water scarcity and 93% less impact on land use than a ¼ pound of U.S. beef.
https://css.umich.edu/publication/beyond-meats-beyond-burger...
The environmental destruction wrought by gigantic, inhumanely scaled monocrop farming is direct, immediate, obvious, and worthy of huge mobilization to resolve.
Instead, we hear, as you say here, that if the carbon emissions are low, it's Great For The Environment!
And what do you think the animals are fed with?
If you're going to have 8 billion people eating meat do you really think there's going to be less environmental impact growing the food for the animals + the impact of the animals themselves compared to just growing vegetables?
I feel like meat scales even worse due to efficiency losses
My cows are fed exclusively grass, right to finishing.
My pigs and chickens are fed mixes of locally-sourced corn, oats, barley, peas, and lentils from organic growers. And they supplement with grasses and broadleafs because we raise 'em on pasture.
Well-raised, environmentally reasonably-fed animals cost lots of money.
Meat is basically the healthiest thing people can eat.
If you just take the pasture-raised cows alone, the grass grows itself and large herbivores are a natural part of the environment here--the environment and its polyculture would be harmed by their removal.
I hope it will outcompete cheap, monoculture-soy fed, medicine pumped, densely grown and factory slaughtered cheap meat.
The second is far more common than the first. As you said, good meat from well-raised animals is expensive.
So not the awesome and expensive steak you may eat from time to time, but the cheap meat in fast-food, the chicken-wings, burgers, lasagnas, pizzas, tacos, currys and more.
Soy and corn is mostly grown in the Midwest, using aquifer water that is being rapidly and permanently depleted. Not only is monocropping as a strategy for feeding the nation unwise on its face, but it will ultimately lead to food insecurity In 30-50 years as desertification of the Midwest starts to be a thing.
The monocrops you mention as a problem are largely used to feed cattle today: about 80% of land used for agriculture produces feed for livestock, most of it single crops like corn and soy – despite only contributing to about a fifth of the calories we consume. And it's not like we can greatly expand production either, we already use about half of all habitable land for agriculture.
The tail wags the dog in the thinking here. “Scaling” fast food price hamburgers is the problem.
It’s a problem on a bunch of levels. It’s not scalable because we’ve changed the definition of food. The best farmland in the world lay fallow because we’ve committed to growing vegetables in the desert and raising ruminants in pens, because it’s more efficient to the small cartels of processors who drive the status quo.
Why are we subsidizing soy crops anyways? Soy is terrible for your health. It contains loads of phytoestrogen and allergens. We are reliant on exporting the crop because it's not a part of the typical american diet. It's just bad news altogether.
However, I am skeptical of all of the claims about soy particularly if you eat it as only part of your diet.
That said Beyond Meat doesn't contain soy. Impossible does though.
I'm not proposing all production in the US switch to soy crops, and your argument seems pretty disingenuous to me
Impossible Foods is a drop in the bucket compared to tofu, but, there are too many calories of soy grown in the US to feed them all to humans. That's also true for corn.
I am not convinced that this is true because it necessitates raising an animal for the sole purpose of slaughtering it. Though I realize that many will have a different measure of "ethical", I would say that these products are most certainly the way for me.
I believe that most artificial meat consumers would argue that it's impossible to kill and eat animals ethically. After all that's why they choose to eat the more expensive artificial meat instead of the real deal or no meat at all.
I’d be very interested to hear how you use your axioms to argue the opposite. I’m happy to share mine but don’t want to taint your thought process before you’ve had time to fully consider the problem.
Have you ever seen how many foals are chewed up in a combine?
IMO much more ethical to directly kill an animal vs. indirectly destroy its habitat or kill it accidentally (and then fail to use the carcass).
I know we must engage in good faith but the soy scaremongering sure does seem coordinated.
I'm going with zero.
Where do you live that stray horses or donkeys are roaming into crop fields at harvest time?
But I think intent makes a difference.
Mice killed by farm equipment are accidental side effects with some ethical implications which most of us choose ignore.
Livestock raised for slaughter is a different ethical question entirely.
(Meat eater here. I do find it to be the natural order of things, but I am aware that I could justify slavery and sexual exploitation by the same logic, and that makes me pretty sure I'm giving myself a pass on the meat thing.)
I eat meat, too. I'm... mostly okay with that. But I'm told that pigs are smarter than cats, and that makes me a bit squeamish. Natural order sure is a slippery slope. It is human nature, I hope, to aim to be better than our nature.
Thank goodness for that!