Nearly 2M metric tons of wild fish used to feed Norwegian farmed salmon annually

Soy protein for example is particularly low in Methionine and Cystine. If your goal is to get enough of those, you might have to eat three times as much soy as for example egg whites (by weight). But similarly soy protein has more Tryptophan than beef. "Completeness" is a binary that is not quite sufficient to describe protein quality.

There is a reason whey and egg proteins are more popular among strength athletes for example, as they are richer in leucine, which seems to be the limiting amino acid in muscle building.

I still think we should eat way less meat and soy is a very high quality substitute for it.

Reminds me of a statistic that most people still like to eat food even though they could satisfy their protein requirements with a nutritional slurry at 34% of the cost with a 96% reduction in fueling times.

The dynamics of global soybean trade remain heavily influenced by China, which accounts for about 60% of worldwide soybean imports. China’s soybean imports are driven by demand for animal protein and edible oils, two essential components of a diversifying Chinese diet that reflects rising living standards. China predominantly sources its soybean supplies from Brazil and the United States. For many years, the United States was the top supplier, but in the last 15 years China has depended more on imports from South America, especially from Brazil. From 2019-2023, 73% of Brazil’s exported soybeans have headed to China, versus a 51% average for the United States (see Figure 2).

Source: https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2024/02/the-united-states-....

People enjoying this experience are clearly morally corrupt lumpenproletariat deserving to be shamed and cowed by the self flagellating self appointed protectors of the summum bonum.

I live not that far from some fish farms (Mowi), and the wild fish around the farms are also inedible. Large fat bodies that taste weird.

Most people here would never eat the farmed salmon either.

That's (hopefully) for future generations to pay for.

The issue is not the absolute number but that you are using more to produce less. Off course as someone else mentionned not all those fish might be ready for consumption.

But at the same time Norway toot Salmon farming as efficient but are all externalities really taken into account ?

Those limits would have to be enforced useing armed boats however - else I don't know if there would be an effective way for those huge swimming fish factories to just catch everything until the ecosystem collapses.

Then you'd also need a mechanism so make it socially balanced, or we'd pretty much ban low-incoming fishing societies from consuming their own product.

My humble opinion, not an expert.

> Even if there is a solution would it be enforced off the coast of Africa?

I guess look into whatever we are doing to deter poachers of farm animals (especially for open grass land farming, the strategies used to protect barn animals might not work)?

Not fish-farming salmon?

I make a sardine equivalent of a classic British bacon sandwich with salty crispy skin, lots of butter and soft white bread. My dad, as typical an Englishman as you might find, loves it.

I don't understand this. Is this based on CO2? Because I feel worse about pigs being killed, they are smarter than cows, and so subject to even more psychological horror in the factory farm. And lamb is horrible because a lamb is just a baby sheep. Sheep naturally live something like 8 years, but a lamb is a sheep that was killed at less than one year old.

Seriously, vegetables, soy beans, and lentils are suuuper tasty.

Veganism in the form of religion that thou must not deviate from is entirely counterproductive, IMO

If most of us just limit our meat intake, that will have a huge impact. Going from 7 days meat per week to 3 or 4, and maybe reducing the portions can easily halve your impact.

My wife is vegan and we eat a lot of plant-based food. The kids and I still have some meat, and some milk and eggs. As a whole, we've probably halved our animal based food intake without giving up a lot.

There's plenty of great tasting vegetarian/vegan dishes out there.

I don't think I could do a fully vegan diet easily, but I lean more heavily into plant based food, I still think that Michael Pollan's advice holds true:

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

That said, it feels like the governments around the world are subsidizing the production of meat perhaps a bit too much, which is why people don't have to deal with the true cost of meat production and therefore opt for it disproportionately often, alongside cultural habits.

Meat is tasty, yes, but to me feels like something that should be enjoyed maybe once or twice a week, instead of every day. I say that as someone who has helped my dad hunt wild animals, remove the guts from the carcasses, bring them home, skin them, de-bone the meat and perhaps has a bit more understanding of what it takes to get to a tasty meat meal than the average person. Very humbling experience, presumably a little bit similar to working on a farm.

That said, chicken meat feels way better than something like beef when it comes to the environmental effect and is both versatile in what you can put it in, as well as is really tasty, so for many that would be a workable option too, for more frequent consumption!

Pigs especially were a significant urban technological advance, good at turning most kinds of organic matter into usable food. They played a big role in the rise of many civilizations.

If we ate less meat overall, we could absolutely produce it in ways that were environmentally friendly.

There's some irony that the proud meat eater that often replies to such comments feels more prevalent these days the pushy vegan/vegetarian straw man they'll often rant about.

> Maybe by eating less of it you can also afford to also raise the quality.

Economics makes that easy, Here in Australia "cheap" beef in particular just leaves me feeling so cheated I avoid it out of that principle alone, why bother when it actively detracts from the meal. Would much rather get the good cut occasionally and actually enjoy it.

Also worth checking for sustainable local sources; I often eat Kangaroo instead which hits the same itch and dramatically better for the environment (in fact it's a net positive removing them).

It is not about food type, it is about how it's produced.

> And if you really want that hamburger, enjoy it without any guilt!

That's very gracious of you, to allow this.

Why? Yours is not a fanatical take. You’re just explaining how we can contribute in a more positive way by putting the planet before our taste buds.

Of the currently known methods for producing proteins, the one that has the potential to be significantly more efficient than raising chicken or insects is the culture of genetically-modified strains of the fungus Trichoderma, which produce either ovalbumin (the main protein of egg white) or beta-lactoglobulin (the main protein of whey).

These egg-white proteins or whey proteins are identical to those of chicken eggs or cow milk and they have an excellent amino acid profile.

They could easily satisfy all the protein needs of a human. Such proteins are water-soluble powders, looking the same as the whey protein concentrates that can be bought now.

Used alone, they would be bland, but they can be an essential ingredient for cooking various kinds of tasty food, from savory dishes based on various vegetables to sweet creams, e.g. with cocoa or vanilla.

I am currently using whey protein concentrate for cooking and I would like very much if a fungus-produced alternative would become available at a decent price. I prefer very much such a protein powder, which can be used to enhance both the taste and the nutritional value of any food, instead of fake meat.

AFAIK the black soldier fly (BSF) larvae and the yellow mealworm are the two species which are in focus. For BSF larvae I believe they have some extremely convenient biological urge to migrate once they have reached maximum size, so it's possible to set up systems where they "collect themselves" at the optimum size for processing into meal.

But I don't want to characterise myself as knowledgeable on this topic, so this isn't the answer you and instead something which you can hope will provoke somebody to give you the real answer.

Btw, shrimp are fairly popular, and they aren't that different from insects.

The probably is accurately knowing in order to make an informed choice.

Naively I assumed certain species were likely to be farmed. But nowadays the advancements in aquaculture mean that more and more species can be farmed. Even Tuna and Cod can be captured small and grown to a larger size in captivity.

My main concern is the health unknowns around feeding incenerated fish carcasses to fish that should be eating bottom of the ocean sealife and vegetation. It intuitevely takes me back to the 'mad cow disease' epidemic, with cow feed made out of slaughter house carcasses.

>Why would you do that?

Because farmed salmon is better so pretty much every sushi restaurant uses it. Wild salmon is super lean and doesn’t produce that nice buttery texture

If you go to a sushi place you're eating farmed fish 100%, if you have eaten some salmon roll, you're eating farmed fish.