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Comment by chitowneats | Hacker News Reader

I was totally with you until: "We have access to plenty of what we need to thrive via plants without bugs".

Has there ever been research done on this? Historically humans depended on animal protein for essential amino acids. It seems far-fetched to suggest we could scale up quinoa to 7+ billion humans given current global realities.

Humans naturally consume animal protein out of biological necessity. This has only changed for people who have the necessary resources to follow incredibly regimented and expensive vegan diets.

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India has 1.4 billion people, and on average, they only consume 3.6 kg of meat per year. That said, they do consume a lot of dairy, so I'm not sure they're that much better from a greenhouse gas perspective.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_co...

I was actually thinking of places like India in my original comment. Dairy is how those billion nourish themselves. Not just amino acids but important vitamins and minerals as well.

A world where "we have plenty for what we need with just plants" may be a possible world, but it's not the one we live in now. It seems like it would require immense effort to get there.

To be clear I'm not saying: don't eat meat.

What I'm saying is you don't need to eat it 2-3 times per day. I don't eat meat by choice.

> Historically humans depended on animal protein for essential amino acids. It seems far-fetched to suggest we could scale up quinoa to 7+ billion humans given current global realities.

I'm curious how you think we're feeding those 7+ billion today? If you're saying that animal production globally is efficient with respect to natural resources and waste, well that's even crazier than growing plants via alternative farming methods.

> Humans naturally consume animal protein out of biological necessity.

This is where the argument is lost on me. I'm not sure what point is being made here but it reads as if you're saying prehistoric humans got their protein through animals and animals only. This just isn't true and some research has stated only 40-50% of protein was acquired via animals. But the real problem here is that sales and marketing has led us to believe that we need more protein. Way more than we actually need. So much so that we're polluting via urine because of overconsumption of protein [0].

[0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eating-too-much-p...

There are certain amino acids that are almost exclusively found in animal protein. That's why I made the comment about quinoa. Getting complete nutrition exclusively from plants just isn't something that humans evolved doing.

I eat meat only a few days a week, and typically only for dinner. So we are in agreement there.

I don't even have the same concerns about a vegetarian diet. Dairy and eggs have everything you need and in large quantities.

Veganism is a luxury lifestyle in 2022. If you aren't meticulous about your shopping, cooking, and consumption, it will make you profoundly ill given enough time.

> Getting complete nutrition exclusively from plants just isn't something that humans evolved doing.

Agreed. I haven't eaten red or white meat for over 5 years now. I'm not strict about animal oils / fats tainting my food intake. I also still consume eggs/dairy/fish. The difference being I consume very little of those things. I may eat fish 2 times per week at the most. I eat maybe 2-4 eggs per week (both cooked and used as an ingredient). Dairy I don't consume other than as an ingredient or the very occasional dessert (ice cream).

I've only improved my health during that time. And as you get older it's interesting to see peers continue to overconsume and pay the price accordingly.

We don't need to be vegans to make a significant improvement on our planet. But what's considered "normal" from a dietary standpoint today is nowhere near a truly healthful diet nor is it treading lightly on our ecosystem.

The "normal" American diet is a complete disaster, absolutely. Conspicuous overconsumption of meat is also a luxury lifestyle. That will become more clear to more people in the coming decades as the rest of the world increases its meat consumption to match that of more developed countries.

For the overwhelming majority of history, the overwhelming majority of humans have gotten most of their nutrients from plants.

There are tens of millions of healthy vegans. Not everyone can be healthy on a pure vegan or even vegetarian diet, but very nearly everyone can do just fine on a couple of meals a month that involve cows, chicken/duck once a week, and an egg every day or two.

If you need large amounts of non bean/grain/hemp protein for some reason then chicken is still vastly better than beef, and insects are totally an option.

>For the overwhelming majority of history, the overwhelming majority of humans have gotten most of their nutrients from plants.

If you are going to make a claim about the overwhelming majority of anything it should come with a source.

Statements like "Humans naturally consume animal protein out of biological necessity. This has only changed for people who have the necessary resources to follow incredibly regimented and expensive vegan diets." as a justification for eating >100kg of meat a year require sourcing when india and china exist. Even extant hunter gatherer societies from warm areas rarely derive more than half of their calories from meat.

Well, sure, the other commenter should reference as well, but this is whataboutism. Another commenter not using a source does not exclude you from providing evidence for your claims.

Please provide evidence that less than half of caloric intake for hunter gatherers came from meat instead of making additional claims without reference.

Yeah, some people can't afford rice, beans, and peanut butter, so they have to eat steak instead :(

https://tools.myfooddata.com/protein-calculator/174914-17429...

Straw man argument. I'm talking about mixing in dairy and eggs, not exclusively eating steak, the most extreme example of carbon intensive food production.

There is quite a happy medium out there between veganism and a Jordan Peterson-style carnivore diet.

Wait, hold on.

Do you actually believe that humans can function optimally on only rice, beans, and peanut butter?

Hemp seeds contain all essential amino acids and are famously easy to produce.

How many grams of hemp seeds would you have to ingest to receive the same amount of amino acids in weight compared to a beef steak?

And how much phytate does hemp seed contain? 4g/100g. Good luck with mineral absorption.

Proportion of amino acids isn't the only important metric.

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