• zlatiah
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      11 months ago

      Thanks! Wowzers I’ve never heard of Nature Food, didn’t realize this journal had such a high impact factor. A few things of interest to me from the article…

      • Vegans are one standard deviation younger than heavy-meat-eaters and eat fewer calories… although they should have adjusted for the difference
      • This didn’t show on the fancy Monte Carlo simulation they did, but vegans emit much, MUCH less methane than any other group
      • Literally any group is significantly better than heavy meat-eaters, especially low meat-eaters or below

      The questionnaire they used to determine categories:

      • Do you eat any meat (including bacon, ham, poultry, game, meat pies, sausages)? (Vegans, vegetarians and fish-eaters respond ‘No’.)
      • Do you eat any fish? (Vegans and vegetarians respond ‘No’.)
      • Do you eat any eggs (including eggs in cakes or other baked goods)? (Vegans respond ‘No’.)
      • Do you eat any dairy products (including milk, cheese, butter, yoghurt)? (Vegans respond ‘No’.)
        And meat-eaters are divided by grams of meat eaten per day: <50 g/d, 50-100 g/d, >100 g/d. Apparently one patty from McDonald’s (Big Mac has two) is like 45 grams of beef so…

      I mean the conclusions aren’t anything surprising, cows are literally one of the major sources of environmental damage… But it does provide some way moving forward I suppose. I suspect banning steakhouses would have a much better impact than forcing everyone to be vegan lol

  • Jaysyn
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    1711 months ago

    There sure is a lot of effort currently to distract from the fact that most greenhouse gasses are created from industrial sources & not individual diets.

    • blazera
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      4311 months ago

      This is an industrial source, the meat industry.

      • @[email protected]
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        1711 months ago

        I still don’t understand this logic. Every single product made is consumed by an individual or a business in a chain that eventually sells products to individuals.

        Industry exists to supply consumption, and the only customer is humans.

        • @[email protected]
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          711 months ago

          but when you dont regulate corporations they will exploit and destroy anything and everything to monopolize and capitalize to the fullest extent. its not that the consumption of meat is bad, from a responsible regenerative agroforestry standpoint raising animals can help your regenerative agriculture system. it is monoculture and monopolization of the industry, pushing out responsible small scale community providers etc. that produce in a more ecologically responsible way. not to negate that populations consuming a lot of meat daily do end up becoming a market for irresponsible producers that “need to keep up with demand” to continually profit.

          • @[email protected]
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            711 months ago

            Meat is in fact bad, you have to grow plants to feed animals and the ratio of feed to meat produced is really really low, around 1:10 If you use those plants to instead directly provide nutrition to humans the ratio is 1:1

            Responsible meat production uses orders of magnitude more land, which there simply isn’t enough of if we wanted to replace our current meat consumption levels.

            Either we can reduce consumption, keep polluting, or look at some of these alternative technologies like lab grown meat.

  • @[email protected]
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    1311 months ago

    i actually kinda like the impossible burger/beyond meat burger. But… somehow, plain old ground beef is like 1/5 the price. Seriously. The technology is supposed to use less farmland and produce less waste and all that… but it’s literally 5x the price at the supermarket.

    • @[email protected]
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      211 months ago

      Lentilles. Don’t use them to substitute ground beef, learn to use them and you’ll gladly reduce your ground beef consumption

    • Boz (he/him)
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      11 months ago

      1/5 the price of branded stuff, but very similar to the price of dry TVP, which replaces ground beef very well in casseroles or chili (properly seasoned, and with oil added to the recipe to make up for the near-total lack of fat in TVP), and is workable in more exposed applications like meatloaf. Also great for sausage, in my opinion, though strictly speaking that’s a case of replacing pork or turkey.

      (If you’re curious, the trick is 1 tsp seasoning blend added to 1 cup TVP while dry, then soaked in 1 cup hot water (vegetable stock is better, but not essential), let it sit for about 15 minutes, and, hey presto, you just skipped the part where you dump a pound of raw meat in a pan, brown it, and drain off the fat preparatory to adding it to a recipe. Add oil during cooking as appropriate, or don’t, and a little soy sauce is always good to add umami, but I find it’s enough to get some herbs and spices in at the start, and just adjust seasoning in the final recipe if necessary. It will be chewy, and it will stay chewy no matter how you cook it, which I like, but be aware. I find it way easier and more fun to cook with than meat).

      (I know this sounds like an infomercial, lol, but I was initially intimidated by TVP since I didn’t know what to do with it, and now it’s a staple in my kitchen, so I thought others might want to know).

    • @[email protected]
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      111 months ago

      I hope it is only to pay off R&D and marketing using current monopolistic position. Also not having big market.

      We will see in five years.

  • @[email protected]
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    611 months ago

    Scientists: massive, massive reductions from Veganism

    Spencer: I’d like to see genetically modified cows

    Scientists:

  • @[email protected]
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    11 months ago

    I think it’s closer to 90%, but 75%, for sure. Livestock farming is hugely more resource intensive than crop farming. And there are good plant based substitutes for the nutrition you get from livestock products.

    The environmental impact is what motivates me to eat plant based food over livestock based. Also the cruelty in industrial livestock farming. There are positive health benefits in removing livestock based food from your diet, but that’s actually a lesser motivator for me. I’m not strict about it by any means, but I take any opportunity to avoid livestock products when I can.

    • @[email protected]
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      611 months ago

      When we include refrigerating and preparation needed for meat, it probably goes well over 90%.

      Water usage is also big part of the problem.

      I get it that not everyone has to be vegetarian, but at least reducing meat consumption is important.

      • @[email protected]
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        311 months ago

        They haven’t even got into the micro-footprints found in the huge variety of food crops available across the world with a plant based diet. It’s the opposite of hunting. The more we plunder, the more successful that plant becomes.

  • @lath
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    211 months ago

    Doesn’t matter, simply won’t happen because pro-vegan supporters pay less than pro-meat supporters. Unless we’re talking Mosanto level, in which case they’re as dirty as the meat industry.

  • Franklin's Beard
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    -511 months ago

    I’m not changing my diet just so the rich can keep polluting more than I ever will in my lifetime

    • blazera
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      1511 months ago

      Dont sell yourself short, you pollute way more than you think.

        • @[email protected]
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          811 months ago

          Cruise ships make up such a tiny percentage of overall emissions. They’re horrible on a individual level, but there just aren’t that many of them compared to other sources.

          Meat production on the other hand makes up something like 17-18% of ALL global GHG emissions.

          • PenguinJuice
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            -311 months ago

            I heard cruise ships and freighters are the biggest offenders. Nearly 40-50% of emissions.

            • @[email protected]
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              511 months ago

              Throwing freighters in there like that is a bit sneaky lol The amount of freighter traffic must dwarf that of cruise ships. Anyway, people on cruise ships are mostly not particularly rich. They’re pretty much just water-borne holiday camps.

    • nickbrum
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      611 months ago

      But you will have a shorter life span and that will make up for it

    • @[email protected]
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      311 months ago

      Each of us has an individual responsibility to making the world a better place and apathetic inaction like this is what allows the rich to flourish. You have more power than you think.