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Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

nature.com

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Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#171

Post by hannob »

CommieDetector wrote: post #59
Nyandalized wrote: post #2

I don't think people will stop consuming meat if you ask them nicely. You have to make decisions that will hurt the meat industry and make it infeasible. This would likely best be achieved through slowly dropping tax incentives, and transferring them over to alternatives so that people have something equally economical to today's meat.

What gives you the right to control what people eat?

We already do that.

You can't legally eat the meat of other humans in most (all? not sure) countries. You're not allowed to buy the meat of certain animals in certain countries, due to cultural norms (dogs) or due to protection of certain species.

It's an absolutely normal thing that laws regulate or forbid things that have negative effects on society.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#172

Post by hannob »

elktea wrote: post #98
jdc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Methane tax IMO

"Combining isotopic evidence from ground surface measurements with the newly calculated fire emissions, the team showed that about 17 teragrams per year of the increase is due to fossil fuels, another 12 is from wetlands or rice farming, while fires are decreasing by about 4 teragrams per year. The three numbers combine to 25 teragrams a year -- the same as the observed increase"[1] The 'cows farting' story is not a…

What you're citing here is numbers for previously unexplained emissions, not total emissions.

I.e. there was major uncertainty that scientists were measuring more methane than they expected, and these scientists tried to figure out where it comes from.

The only thing your argument says is that for methane emissions from meat production apparently scientists had a pretty good idea about the numbers.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#173

Post by close04 »

lol768 wrote: post #77
mytailorisrich wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no need to go from one extreme to the other. This is about eating "less" meat. People do not traditionally eat that much meat because meat used to be expensive and its supply limited. This is still the case in poor countries. In developed countries, people started to eat more and more meat as they got richer because we naturally like meat and because of clever marketing. We now eat too much meat, and also co…

>adult don't need to drink any milk and many don't digest it well, by the way Never understood the obsession with drinking milk on its own (though I never liked the taste of it myself either). There's plenty of calcium to be found in other sources: kale, leafy greens, almonds, fortrified grains, beans/pulses etc.

You're missing one solid reason to drink milk: some people like it. Most of the stuff we eat today is actually not about nutritional needs.

And your argument can always be reshuffled. Swap milk with any one of the items you listed and one by one you can disqualify all of them from consumption. Variety is a good thing, meaning something should be eliminated because it's no good, not because there are alternatives.

There's no requirement or recommendation to cover your daily needs with the least varied diet.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#174

Post by jobigoud »

mklarmann wrote: post #90
perlpimp wrote: post #74

There are depictions of cows and mention of amazon forest. Could this be about fast food industry ? Also need scales of damage for poultry, swine etc, not sensational articles about going from one extreme to the other. I don't eat much beef but do love steak twice a month, is it alot? I don't think so, mostly have chicken bc it is easier to prepare and it seems to be easier to digest. at any rate i hope to see some s…

Springman, as cited in the report did a lot of calculations around this. He ended up with the minimal requirement for the average earth citizen with one portion of red meat per week. Check his definition of a flexitarien diet.

Minimal requirement? Millions of vegetarians don't eat that "one portion of red meat per week" and do just fine.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#175

Post by harimau777 »

I think this is a situation where we need a Dr. George Washington Carver that not only recognizes that we need to eat less meat but also develops alternatives that the general public will accept.

(Not sure how famous Dr. George Washington Carver is outside the US. He was one of the first famous African American scientists and is known for discovering that rotating crops with peanuts will add nutrients back to the soil and then inventing about 300 uses for peanuts in order to convince farmers to plant them. However, despite popular belief, peanut butter was not one of the uses that he invented.)

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#176

Post by rowanG077 »

_0w8t wrote: post #167
est31 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Few years back I bought some tofu sausages to try out how they taste. They tasted interesting but not like real sausages. Definitely not a good replacement. Even if I made myself eat them because of moral reasons, ignoring how they taste, many people would still avoid them. As long as meat tastes better than its alternatives, people will use it. We need to bring good meat alternatives to the masses. The theo…

Meat taste comes mostly from salt and souses. People who tried home-made sausages or grilled meat without any of those complained that it tasted like nothing. The problem with tofu sausages is that one just cannot add that much salt as to meat without making it feel too salty. That acquired taste can be reset if for 2-4 weeks one avoids any product with added salt or sugar. Then tofu and many other products including…

This is simply not true. I often it "raw" meat without adding salt or any sauce. There are some meats which taste pretty to close to nothing but this isn't even close to the case for most meats.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#177

Post by fulafel »

est31 wrote: post #30
Nyandalized wrote: post #2

I don't think people will stop consuming meat if you ask them nicely. You have to make decisions that will hurt the meat industry and make it infeasible. This would likely best be achieved through slowly dropping tax incentives, and transferring them over to alternatives so that people have something equally economical to today's meat.

I agree. Few years back I bought some tofu sausages to try out how they taste. They tasted interesting but not like real sausages. Definitely not a good replacement. Even if I made myself eat them because of moral reasons, ignoring how they taste, many people would still avoid them. As long as meat tastes better than its alternatives, people will use it. We need to bring good meat alternatives to the masses. The theo…

Tofu sausages are indeed terrible. Try seitan, quorn or some other kind that has a bit more effort put into it.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#178

Post by throwaway3627 »

Nyandalized wrote: post #2

I don't think people will stop consuming meat if you ask them nicely. You have to make decisions that will hurt the meat industry and make it infeasible. This would likely best be achieved through slowly dropping tax incentives, and transferring them over to alternatives so that people have something equally economical to today's meat.

Never going to happen without leadership to force people to change. People are too stuck in their ways, even though meat agriculture is terrible for these reasons:

- antibiotic resistance

- air, water and soil pollution

- climate change

- inefficient calorie, phosphorus and land utilization

- pandemic evolution

- and of course cruelty to animals

Eating meat is a choice to doom yourself, everyone else and the planet. No amount of gradual incrementalism, hand-wringing incentives or rationalizations/self-delusions can substitute for vital action.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#179

Post by nickik »

dragonwriter wrote: post #71
CommieDetector wrote: post #56

Let's open an history book an review what happens when the government controlls the food production.

Er, the results on that are rather mixed and ambiguous and depend more on other factors; but then again, controlling food production and distribution was the main role of most governments in most of history; it wasn't really until the agricultural revolutions that were a key factor in the feudal economic system starting to be replaced with capitalism that some governments could really afford (even in the short-term)…

> controlling food production and distribution was the main role of most governments in most of history;

I would say this is simply wrong. Government often capture food production and use it to enrich themselves. Some historical places certainty had a function in distribution as well but this is not the common case.

The waste majority of history, government were primary involved in food production and distribution beyond capturing as much as possible and distribution it to its own armies.

Most of history food for the most part was produced and consumed fairly locally without much involvement of government.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#180

Post by harimau777 »

lol768 wrote: post #77
mytailorisrich wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no need to go from one extreme to the other. This is about eating "less" meat. People do not traditionally eat that much meat because meat used to be expensive and its supply limited. This is still the case in poor countries. In developed countries, people started to eat more and more meat as they got richer because we naturally like meat and because of clever marketing. We now eat too much meat, and also co…

>adult don't need to drink any milk and many don't digest it well, by the way Never understood the obsession with drinking milk on its own (though I never liked the taste of it myself either). There's plenty of calcium to be found in other sources: kale, leafy greens, almonds, fortrified grains, beans/pulses etc.

This is a very niche reason, but one of the classic diets for beginner weight lifters who want to gain weight is to add a gallon of whole milk a day to their existing diet.

For people that are trying to consume more calories and protein, I don't know of an alternative that combines comparable calorie & protein density, low cost, ease of consumption, and zero preparation time.

More generally, I think that one of the big challenges with plant based diets is a lack of easily available calorie and protein dense foods. (I'm not saying its impossible to get enough calories and protein as a vegan, even as a bodybuilder. Just that it is not nearly as easy.)

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