The cognitive dissonance has been getting strong. I love meat SO MUCH. My grandmother used to call me Elizabeth the Carnivore. But I can't eat so much beef with a clear conscience anymore. Time to be more serious about the flexatarianism. Side note: while it's great we're all trying in North America and it's definitely the way to go, I have trouble finding a trash can around Asia. Not holding my breath (or as my mom said once, I'm not holding my breasts) about recycling, let alone vegetarianism anytime soon :(
ghostoffuffle Devac ButterflyEffect lets step back here and ask a more fundamental question: Why do we eat food? 1) Because were hungry 2) Because we enjoy eating good food the process itself is pleasurable 3) Because we need nutrients/energy to do what we do You guys are all addressing problem #3 Need for nutrients. Generally in the western world we dont actually eat food to address #3 unless we are working out really hard. We eat food to address #1 and #2. That's why I end up eating a lot of meat because meat is very efficient at addressing hunger for a long duration and because I enjoy meat so that covers #2. Need for nutrients doesn't really fall into the equation. I could reduce my meat consumption but then I would have to find something equally as effective at addressing hunger and tasting good. I love starches I could eat a lot of rice and potatoes to cover that hunger deficiency that comes from eating less meat but that would mean that in order to keep my hunger at the same level I would end up consuming more calories and I would get fat. So I have a choice of either being more hungry or being fat. Both of which I would negatively impact my quality of life. I could theoretically replace all meat with Tofu but tofu has no flavor on its own and I am not very proficient at cooking with it. Also its a single flavor of protein where as there are lots of possible meat flavors and verities. In order for me to switch I would have to learn how to cook well with tofu and learn a bunch new recipes. The time and effort barrier to entry is just to high for it to be a good solution. Thats why in my mind synthetic meat is the only practical way to solve this problem.
Hm. Well, for starters, points 1) and 2) are effectively the same. We get hungry because we need nutrients. So you're down to two points. Beyond that, to imply that westerners don't eat food primarily to live is... an odd assertion. Everybody eats food to live. We in the West can AFFORD to eat what we like (excepting, of course, people in lower income brackets, and people living in food deserts, and people with certain dietary needs and..), but that comes secondary to eating food to live. Which again, primary reason to eat. So between the two points provided: 1) "we eat because we get hungry/need the energy" and 2) "We eat because we enjoy eating," point one is clearly more valid than point two. Following that, part of the implication of the supplied article is that if we continue on our current trend, not even we in the West will be able to afford to eat what we want. So in the spirit of preserving our freedom to choose, we should just choose less when we can. After that... I really don't know how to address your point. Not because it's unassailable, but because it's just really, really singleminded. If I'm reading you right, you're saying first and foremost, "I eat meat because I like meat, and I find it easy to eat meat." Which, yeah, fine. and then you jump to "because I like meat and find it easy, I shouldn't be called upon to change my eating habits." Which again, your choice, although it's a lazy choice in the context of this discussion. Then you seem to make a dubious leap in logic to "no other nutrient source would keep me from getting fat." Also: "the only protein I could substitute for meat is tofu." And then straight to "ergo, synthetic meat is the only way to go." Hey look, if your point is "I love meat," well fine. In the context of another discussion, that's a great place to land. I love meat, too! Let's have a meat party. But in the context of this discussion, which to reiterate is about balancing meat consumption against environmental impact, "but I love meat" isn't really a valid or constructive argument. It's in fact the exact viewpoint that the article hopes to undermine. And the reasons you've supplied for eating more meat are arbitrary and based on no evidence that I know of.
...so...instead of taking a look at the link I provided which references a study that contradicts your fat claim, you end up writing four more paragraphs on the same topic? (And start by saying we're focusing on nutrients, and then spend a lot of time talking about that?) It's possible to have a very balanced, varietal, and tasty diet while eating little to no meat. Why do you think the barrier is too high? Have you attempted this before? Do you primarily cook your own meals using food that isn't heavily processed?
Quick read here http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1900694. Basically high crabs are bad for weight loss and heart disease. I think there have been a number of recent studies that say the same thing. And long read here http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin basically saying that fat is not as bad as we thing sugar is a problem though. How does this all come back to our meat discussion? Well what is high in fat low in sugar and is a large portion of a meal. If you eliminate it you need to replace it with something else. For most people that something else would be a carb and carbs are high in starches that quickly break down into sugars. Now you say just dont eat the carb vegetables eat more beans and Legumes but its not very easy to pull off. For one you have to spend more time cooking and 2 you have to learn new recipes and change your taste pallet. Right now I cook by walking the outside of the grocery store, buying meat and raw ingredients and then cooking a meat and a vegetable for most meals. I might supplement with occasional starches like bread but I do my best to avoid them. All the bones an extra bits that are getting old get turned into stock and reincorporated into next weeks meal. When I try to change that to go all veterinarian I really struggle. I either need to use some sort of weird processed shit like tofurky, or I need to crate a rather complex stew like meals. I cant just cook a Chunk of meat and steam some broccoli and be done in about 15min.
Take a cooking course, consult friends who don't eat much meat, utilize the countless number of online resources for nutritious and delicious meatless meals, while avoiding the "weird shit". Honestly, your entire argument comes across as being born out of laziness and saying this is harder than it actually is. It's not easy, don't get me wrong, but it's not insurmountably difficult.
People still aren't going to change their lives at a high enough rates to have an effect on the economy. We aren't moral like that without some huge event with clear and obvious damage to make a significant impact on culture. Subsidies for farms aren't ending anytime soon, and people are so used to and happy to continue eating meat that I can't see things changing in the future near enough to actually have an impact on climate change. What we need is a continued push for green technology and efficient use of resources, not for people to cut back on/change their lifestyles. It takes the CFL bulb and easy-to-install, cheap, insulation to reduce electricity usage, not people turning their lights off. The problem with global warming at the end of the day is net emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere. Make the fertilizer needed without fossil fuels, make our use of land more efficient, and the net emissions in the long term from cows is not going to be significant. We should focus on doing those things, not trying to convince people to stop eating meat.
I don't see why people can't spend effort trying to do all of the above. It's a systemic issue with no single full solution. But there are a significant number of partial solutions, many of which you touched on.
I was going to reply to your other comment calling me lazy but bioemerl already beat me to it. Partial solutions are just workarounds. They are inconvenient and people will not bother to implement them without a good incentive to do so. If meat was significantly more expensive then I might be forced to implement change. I have already switched from beef to pork in some of my meals due to price. We as a specifies respond way better to economic incentives than we do to guilt about a nebulous and still relatively controversial issue such a climate change. It’s unreasonable for you to expect people to put in a lot of time an effort to completely rethink their dietary routine just because it causes excess climate change.
For you and bioemerl: What does that look like to you? What kind of major shift would need to happen for a change to occur, in your mind?
Im pretty price driven so for me it wouldn't take that much. If meat went much past the $10/lb range I would eat a lot less of it. At the current price of chicken that would mean 5-10X price increase. If prices were to stay the same then its a much bigger hurdle. I would need to learn more easy/med difficulty meal recipes and change the my taste pallet. I don't think vegetarian meat substitutes are something I want to put in my body (Vegie dogs/burgers/tofurky) therefore I'd be looking for recipes for foods that have always been vegetarian and can be made outside a lab. If i knew more recipes that I like, were easy to cook, and were filling without loading up on carbs I think that would go a long way. It would help if someone wrote a cook book of Of this quality and covered techniques and science of vegetarian cooking. Better availability would also help. Fresh veggies are really expensive at the supermarket , I know that they can be about 3x as cheap because that's what my local ethnic food shop sells them for but its kind of far away and is inconvenient to get to. Veggies are also very seasonal so when they are ripe I eat a lot but most of the year ripe vegetables are impossible to obtain. Interestingly enough even in peak season I often still cant get ripe vegetables at the grocery store. I have to either go to the Health food store or farmers market because having a local supply chain is too much work for chain grocery stores.
I already mentioned what needs to happen for meat carbon neutrality to exist. For society at large we need to move away from all forms of burning/reacting carbon-based resources for energy, production of materials, and so on. Where we do absolutely require carbon-based resources that carbon should be extracted from the air as much as it is from the ground, to ensure carbon neutrality in the long run. This means solar power, alternate plastics, and a whole host of other things. In the short term we need research on the engineering of the environment, things like blocking out part of the sun to cool the earth and offset the global warming that has happened. Using systems that exist purely to pull carbon out of the atmosphere paid for by taxes and damages from the companies/consumers that use things that release carbon. Ultimately, I don't think we need to do anything, because I view human society as a very large, very intelligent, very quirky decision making system. I trust that, in the long run, the decisions society makes are far more reasonable than the decisions I can make, and are based on thousands and thousands of little systems, ideas, and thoughts all working together to form an emergent machine that spans our entire planet. In this way, society will solve the issues it faces as time passes, and we just have to do our best to do what we think is natural for that to happen. If you believe we should stop eating meat, do it. If you do not, don't. Society will take your decisions and actions and at the end of the day come to the decision that is correct even if we may not agree or see that for years to come.
What if we twist the values of children so that they do not make decisions based on the natural opinions of the world around them, but instead a government program intended to get them to think, act, or be a certain way? Bad things. Bad things will happen if we do this. We have done this, and are somewhat doing this now, and it is presently already a bad thing. We shouldn't encourage more of this sort of crap to happen. If people naturally think the environment is important, and teach their kids along those lines, than that's all there is to it. You can't make something like that happen though.What about educating people as kids about importance of it?
I remember being lied to and told that marajuana was a horrible evil thing that always ruins lives and makes us all evil people, that doing any form of drug is horribly wrong and that to do anything but be sober is a horrible sin. Kids don't absorb complex information at the level needed to teach them in a way that is nuanced and good for society in the long run. That's information, and that's fine. You aren't advocating for education, you "are" (I assumed your post was) advocating to push the viewpoint "using things that pollute is bad, and we shouldn't use things that pollute". There is a massive difference between the two, and a school that teaches this subject properly will have students coming out with views that are not "we shouldn't pollute no matter what". Should we educate kids on all the topics you mention? Yes! Should we "teach" them that drugs are bad, recycling is good, diet is good, and so on? No! The former, the dispersal of topics, discussion, and honest flow of opinions between people is healthy and good for society. The latter is setting the stage to tell people what they should think is right or wrong, rather than allowing them to come to their own decision on the matter. This is propaganda, the pushing of a viewpoint. If it was "Meat substitutes exist, and are said to be good for X reasons, and have Y consequences" I am perfectly good with it. The way you phrase it crosses the line. I was in high school not long ago. It was a fucking breeze, and I had massive amounts of free time to research and learn what I want. Will some kids have a tougher time? Probably, but your description of this world where people are incapable of learning, incapable of learning things of their own volition, is absurd. The notion that we should teach them the right ideas because of that is just plain wrong. Will some people not bother to research, study, and so on? Yeah, but that ignorance is their choice to make, not ours to make for them. I live for these sorts of conversations. The idea of you being angry at me doesn't really matter. I do not care who you are, what you feel about me, or what you think of me, so long as you are honest and willing to try and discredit what I am saying without being concerned if I think you dislike me because of it.Don't you remember all of the "Drugs are Bad" and tons of other campaigns like that?
That aside, and excuse snide tone earlier, what's wrong with guiding? What's wrong with telling kids (of appropriate age, I don't want that twisted) the dangers, consequences or in some of the cases the benefits of
I would not mind a few hours of "kids, that might not be as tasty as meat, but this is important for X, Y and Z reasons and each of you can chip in and help the climate!"
Or is this that twisted learning that students should find, deduce, research and decide on their own… in-between loads of homework and trying to actually have some life.
I don't mean you as much disrespect as you will likely read from my words, especially if its caused by misunderstanding my previous post and taking it in such radical direction, but I don't get how you got that idea.
If I agreed with you (or just don't want to bother with a response to a section) I won't reply. No reason to say anything when there is nothing to say. Is your argument here really going to rest on "I don't really care if it's propaganda"? I don't even have to say anything outside of just repeating your argument here. Propaganda is not a good thing, and if you are exposed to it, or are exposing people to it, you should attempt to end that thing. It is a stain on the ability for people to think freely and develop their own opinions, ideals, and so on. It doesn't matter if you care, what matters is the people who will be hurt, the ideas that die, when propaganda is accepted and freely spread. Unless you are willing to argue that propaganda doesn't do this, or that what you mention is not a form of propaganda, then you have no valid argument. So your opinions and thoughts of highschool being super busy are based on your very unique situation?while you might live for that type of conversations to me it seems like you are going to go for contrarian angle no matter what I will say.
I live and had a quality lessons on the above topics. Propaganda? Perhaps, but I don't really care. Just like I don't care for illicit drugs.
On the other hand I was in school where I didn't even realize that I'm attending AP everything sans history and maths on a level that ended around calc II for CS majors.
Don't present argument, present researched and understood fact. This is how they do it in every other classroom from evolution to astronomy. "The earth has seen X degree rise due to warming in the last year" "It is suspected by these institutions that this X degree rise will cause Y effects." "These activities are known to release X amounts of carbon dioxide." It's that simple. No statements about what you should do, or what you should think, just the facts and definitions that are required to come to your own conclusion on the topic.3. Presenting at least two sides of argument
People can spend effort doing that sort of thing, but in the long run people act in a way that makes these efforts die out. Consider that, as people stop demanding something the price goes down, and those who were unwilling to use that thing thanks to price now get to use more. It takes a major cultural shift where everyone agrees to do something at once in order to make an impact, and unless the change is fundamentally better than the previous way of doing things than that shift isn't going to happen. We can do everything, but that just isn't feasible.
I eat lots of meat because I can and because it's healthier then the alternative. Our bodies are too good at converting sugars and starches into fat and food is so available that we need less effective calorie source not more. Meat is a great food source because it's both filling and were not all that good at converting it so we really need to be eating more meat we just need to figure out a more effective way to produce it. For me the climate change argument is easily overcome by the health benefits of a high protein diet. There is lots of data out there linking high starch and grain diets to obesity and diabetes. So there really needs to be better alternatives before we can reduce our meat consumption.
Protein is easily replaceable by things such as beans, yogurt, tofu, dairy, and more. Unless you have other dietary restrictions it's not very hard to avoid protein deficiencies. Eating less meat or no meat doesn't mean eat more grains and starch, there is a lot of food out there and a lot of ways to have a diverse diet. Saying I eat meat because I can and don't care about the environmental impact is incredibly selfish. Regarding eating meat being patently healthier, that's not necessarily true either.
Was about to say the same. You do have to worry a little more with plant/legume based proteins about mixing and matching complementary proteins to make sure you're getting all the essential amino acids that you'd otherwise get from a serving of meat, which is considered a complete protein. That said, it's still relatively easy to do. On that note, re snoodog's comment- suggesting that we're not good at converting animal protein to useable energy/nutrients, and thus should consume more animal protein, is flat out wrong. If anything, we should be eating way less animal protein than we currently do in the west, given that we're more equipped to derive sufficient protein and nutrients from small amounts of meat without taking on the risks related to high fat/cholesterol intake that come with consuming large portions of the same. Last I checked, there have also been a series of studies linking high intake of certain meats with increased risk of certain cancers. Think red meat is still linked to gut cancers, and a recent study suggested that consuming a given amount of processed meat (eg bacon, sausage, salami, baloney, etc) presents a cancer risk akin to smoking cigarettes. Discard the environmental argument if you will (although I don't really understand why you would), but don't assume that more meat = better lifestyle. Current data doesn't support it, and basic nutrition supports the opposite.
I agree. It would be great if articles such as this provided information related to the average energy cost of producing a pound of each kind of meat, and other environmental impacts of a per pound basis. Including transportation, refrigeration, etc. To take that a step further, a comparison of mass-production to local-production would be interesting. All of this information is out there, however, many articles don't dive into that side of things.
...I'm not defending the article for what it isn't. It's very clear that it's not a reference and data heavy article, and was agreeing with the points you raised. There are pros to each, and this article was based around people's perception of what impacts climate change, showing that many people don't have an understanding of it. The point wasn't to say "here's all the data you need" it was to say "most people don't even know what data they should be looking at".
It's all good, we seem to agree on the importance of data to back up these kind of claims. You could do the same kind of modelling with water usage (reducing by N units saves O units of water).
I think that The End of Food and The Limits to Growth are a great start!