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Comment by curun1r | Hacker News Reader

And, as a result, we've created the nightmare situation where we fill the animals we eat with antibiotics since we feed them foods that they're not adapted to eat. Not only are we helping to create antibiotic-resistant superbugs but the antibiotics in food also reduce the beneficial gut bacteria that we need to be healthy.

There was a time when people didn't eat meat with every meal...many people believe it's actually healthier. If people can't afford to eat grass-fed meat with every meal, the simple answer is to not eat meat with every meal...poor people can eat vegetables too and will probably be healthier for it.

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> There was a time when people didn't eat meat with every meal.

Yeah. There was also a time when 8-year-olds did a full day's work in the mines and malnourishment was the norm.

You should think about the complexity involved in eating a healthy vegetarian diet before you start being dismissive of it. Meat is easier in some significant ways.

You're putting words in his mouth. He never said to not eat meat. He said not to eat it at every meal. You don't need to eat sausage and bacon at breakfast, a rack of ribs and half a chicken at lunch, and a 1/2 lb steak at supper to get your daily intake of meat-provided nutrients. The sad truth is that far too many people eat meat at every single meal, and it's just not natural for us. Balance.

Don't confuse availability with what is "natural". Eating (lean) meat at every meal is quite natural and has been common in some societies where it was plentiful.

You should think about the complexity involved in eating a healthy vegetarian diet before you start being dismissive of it.

Lets not blow the difficulty of being a vegetarian out of proportion. Eating a healthy vegan diet is still difficult. Eating a healthy vegetarian diet is not. There are plenty of cook books describing varied and balanced vegetarian meals. There are plenty of restaurants that serve good vegetarian meals and many supermarkets (at least in Western Europe) also provide the necessary ingredients.

(I have been a vegetarian for 16 years now, almost half of my life.)

And there's plenty of people who live in places where it's impossible to get any fresh vegetables, much less enough of a variety to provide all the amino acids necessary for someone who isn't eating meat.

The US is not one of those places, I would hope.

It definitely is. http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/usda-defi....

I would imagine that the antibiotics in cattle issue is far more closely related to factory farming in confined quarters than anything to do with what kind of food they are primarily eating.

There's a class of antibiotics (ionophores) that are used in cattle feed specifically to manage issues with grain feeding. They reduce incidence of "bloat", and increase feed efficiency. They are also used with other feeds, but the purpose is still to manage digestion issues.

I think there is more use of other antibiotics to treat sickness in feedlots though.

(as an aside, this pdf has an amazing and disturbing illustration of severe bloat on the third page: https://www.animalsciencepublications.org/publications/jas/p... Warning: it shows material ejecting from a medical opening in a rumen.)

The two are not mutually exclusive; each carries a significant tax on the animal's health and immune system.

Humans are fairly unique in our dietary flexibility; most other animals are evolutionarily adapted to a narrow range of foods. Corn provides caloric energy, but little more; a cow needs to eat grass, and move around, in order to be healthy.

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