[dohboi]

Nicely put, SG.

[dohboi]

Juan wrote:

"I eat beef a couple of times a month"

I think the world could just about handle that level of near-vegetarianism.

What it can't handle is the US (and some other country's) very high level of industrial beef (and pork/chicken/lamb...) consumption.

[KaiserJeep]

KJ the deficiency argument is myth. Google "Vegan diet deficiency myth" & read, I'm not going to bother arguing with stupid.

To the contrary, the American Medical Association has endorsed the list of missing nutrients in Vegan/Vegetarian diets. Before we spend time in yet another rathole, we need to define terms. Here are the Mayo Clinic definitions:

Types of vegetarian diets
When people think about a vegetarian diet, they typically think about a diet that doesn't include meat, poultry or fish. But vegetarian diets vary in what foods they include and exclude:

*Lacto-vegetarian diets exclude meat, fish, poultry and eggs, as well as foods that contain them. Dairy products, such as milk, cheese, yogurt and butter, are included.
*Ovo-vegetarian diets exclude meat, poultry, seafood and dairy products, but allow eggs.
*Lacto-ovo vegetarian diets exclude meat, fish and poultry, but allow dairy products and eggs.
*Pescatarian diets exclude meat and poultry, dairy, and eggs, but allow fish.
*Pollotarian diets exclude meat, dairy and fish, but allow poultry.
*Vegan diets exclude meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy products — and foods that contain these products.

Now note that ALL variations of Vegan/Vegetarian diets are deficient in essential nutrients. Note also that ALL such deficiencies can be compensated for by taking dietary supplements in the form of pills and powders. However, as you descend the scale above these supplements become more expensive and harder to afford. In fact a truly nutritious, truly Vegan diet - the last alternative above - costs about 2.5X what the normal US diet of meats/dairy/vegetables costs. If as MOST Vegans do, one eats the diet and fails to add the expensive dietary supplements that an omnivorous ape needs, then a number of deleterious effects happen, prime among them being brain damage.

I know people who indulge in small portions of meat/fish/poultry once a week. Even that is enough to provide the B vitamins, D vitamins, and the essential amino acids that one can get only from animal proteins or dietary supplements, especially if one also takes a simple daily multi-vitamin/mineral supplement capsule. It is a cheap way to be "almost" Vegan, and get the benefits without the health problems.

Consider this and decide if we are actually disagreeing or not. Because I know many people here in California in particular who have been practicing extreme Vegan diets for years without supplements. That includes practicing Hindus who display swollen bellies and emaciated bodies, and silly Middle Class people of all nationalities. There are also, I admit, a few famous Vegans who are the CEOs of major Silly Valley corporations, and wealthy enough to have personal trainers and nutritionists.

That latter group is the only one that I think actually carries off Veganism without compromising their health. Some of them also display borderline beliefs in non-mainstream philosophies such as Scientology, for example. I actually don't know whether such folks are skipping their pills and supplements, either. Nor do I know whether they were free from mental disease before they began Veganism.

Considering all of these things, maybe we are not disagreeing.

[ROCKMAN]

Might as well throw some facts into the discussion. Where does the global calorie intake come from?From the folks at National Geographics:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/what-the-world-eats/

9% comes from meat And beef consumption has been gradually declining for some time while pork has be booming. BTW cattle graze…pigs don’t.

56% from grain and produce. IOW almost all of the deforested land has been turned to growing crops and not grazing cattle.

[pstarr]

Level 5 Vegan. ... A Level 5 Vegan is defined as someone who never eats anything that casts a shadow.

[Tanada]

Level 5 Vegan. ... A Level 5 Vegan is defined as someone who never eats anything that casts a shadow.

So they only eat mushrooms grown in caves by blind folks who don't need lights to do their work?

[pstarr]

Level 5 Vegan. ... A Level 5 Vegan is defined as someone who never eats anything that casts a shadow.

So they only eat mushrooms grown in caves by blind folks who don't need lights to do their work?

Blind cave salamanders can be roasted.

[SeaGypsy]

LOL, taking dietary advice from the same idiots who presided over the antidepressant & opoid epidemic. May as well ask my local crack dealer what to eat.

[onlooker]

4 Environmental Activists Are Killed Every Week So We Can Have Snacks, Meat And Coffee

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/en ... 86f48f2fb6

[dohboi]

“What we eat can save the world, and ourselves.”

Billions of farm animals deserve a day of rest too — keep them off the grill and off your table on Labor Day

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la ... story.html

[KaiserJeep]

....or you could have an animal feast and temporarily reduce the number of meat animals, for the sake of the planet.

Chickens and beef and pigs are likely to never be endangered, because they taste good.

[vox_mundi]

[Newfie]

Sine the rich are only 1% of the population this will be a short trend. Unless we change it to “Eat the richEST”, then it will take care of some for a long time to come.

[jawagord]

I'm wondering how many of the Beliebers are going to forgo meat and start eating insects to stave off climate change? It's the mother of all existential threats to humanity, right? Probably about the same amount that will stop using airplanes, cars, trucks, trains and buses. Remember this is the science of stupid, Bon appétit!

Reducing our meat intake is crucial to avoiding climate breakdown, since food production accounts for about a quarter of all human-related greenhouse gas emissions, and is predicted to rise. In western countries, this means eating 90% less beef and five times as many beans and pulses.
Edible insects have been hailed as a solution to both global food shortages and reducing emissions from animal agriculture, but despite the industry’s best efforts, our response when faced with a cockroach is disgust. Even in London edible insects are seen as nothing more than a gimmick, .....


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... sty-trendy

[pstarr]

Good luck satisfying caloric needs from the shrubs around your apartment. If we succeeded in commercializing bugs, then Perdue would jump in the game and go industrial. Same problems.

[Outcast_Searcher]

I'm wondering how many of the Beliebers are going to forgo meat and start eating insects to stave off climate change? It's the mother of all existential threats to humanity, right? Probably about the same amount that will stop using airplanes, cars, trucks, trains and buses.

Or maybe there's a middle ground. I eat about a third the meat I used to, as, simply, I feel better with smaller portions of meat, and it helps me maintain my weight, now that I'm past middle age.

I used to somehow not feel "satisfied" after a big meal with no meat. Maybe having a smaller appetite now helps.

But I have to agree with you that given human nature re consumption (spending all they can earn AND borrow), and especially re the trend of the first world becoming a bunch of fatties -- no, people won't give up what they want in the main, until and unless circumstances force them to.

And one of those forces apparently won't be the politicians, seeking re-election above all else. And of course, politicians getting re-elected by pandering to the "needs" and woes of those who borrow themselves into penury is now great sport -- only feeding the ability to consume too much.

[KaiserJeep]

I wish to re-state the obvious. Firstly, I completely understand how eating veggies and bugs and slugs has less impact on the planet than chowing down on an aged Porterhouse that is too big, too fatty, and just too delicious. Secondly, that allows us to replace one meat eater with three vegetarians, and that is NOT a good thing.

Eat the vegetarians, they taste better. Predators eat herbivores, it's nature's way.

[onlooker]

Since this thread is now bordering on the absurd, so let us restate some basic facts. Meat eating takes up huge amounts of land that equates to less trees, more nitrogen runoff, more synthetic fertlizer use and pesticide use, more use of mechanized vehicles, more GHG emissions, less biodiversity. All facts and all by most measures negative outcomes. Nutritional arguments are a sidetrack to the main premise of the original post

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/scie ... 85071.html

[pstarr]

Since this thread is now bordering on the absurd, so let us restate some basic facts. Meat eating takes up huge amounts of land that equates to less trees, more nitrogen runoff, more synthetic fertlizer use and pesticide use, more use of mechanized vehicles, more GHG emissions, less biodiversity. All facts and all by most measures negative outcomes. Nutritional arguments are a sidetrack to the main premise of the original post

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/scie ... 85071.html

That is not true. There are some basic misunderstanding here regarding meat production.

Dairy cattle (not meat cattle) are penned for much of their lives, eating fodder. Dairy cattle spend hours, twice every day in milking parlors and pens, awaiting milking. Dairy cattle are off pasture in the winter and must be fed. Milk production is energy intensive. Not meat cattle production.

Meat cattle (unlike dairy cattle) spend their lives (all season out West and deep south) on pasture and range, grazing on grasses. Free pasture. Not irrigated. Not fertilized. Meat cattle only go into pens for a few week for grain fattening. Meat cattle production is less energy intensive than milk production. Milk is relatively bad. Steaks are good lol

Meat cattle now graze where bison grazed. No net gain or loss of methane emissions.

Humans slaughter cattle humanly. Wolves slaughter bisons with undo nastiness.

[KaiserJeep]

Everybody's avoiding the obvious, which really is what this thread is about.

There are multiple threads with the phrase "killing the planet" in them. The premise with all of them is fundamentally the same, that being that we should encourage low impact behaviors and discourage high impact behaviors.

Such behavior changes allow us to pack more consumers onto the planet before we again approach whatever natural limit we were banging up against before.

However, we have been in human overshoot for 200+ years. The sustainable number of humans is somewhere around 1 Billion, which was exceeded long before any of us were born. We have lived our entire lives in a dying world.

It seems to me that the "proper" and desirable behavior under these conditions is to do anything and everything that we can possibly do to reduce the number of humans on Earth to a Billion or less.

In times past, there was more honesty about such things. Such as when Andrew Jackson, founder of the modern Democratic Party, offered a Federal Bounty for Indian scalps ($40 for males, $20 for females/children). But he was not the first, there was already a long record of paying for Indian scalps that stretched back as far as the French and Indian wars, before the USA existed.

The difference being, when Jackson did it, the Indians were "protected" by the US Constitution.