Live data from Hacker News

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

nature.com

211–220 of 577 posts

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

#211

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.

Got it - when democratic means don't work, switch to coercion and extortion.

Wonder why people have such negative views of environmentalists.

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

#212
post #8

I have become an 80% vegetarian - meaning I try to avoid meat completely, but I am not "strong" enough and end up eating a (usually small) piece of meat, once every week/second week. It took me at least one year to achieve this, because meat is so prevalent in our society. A friend of mine was in India recently and he said he did not miss meat at all since the non-meat dishes were so great. I think a lot of it is jus…

I saw a quote I liked recently (on a different topic but applies here too): We don't need a few hundred thousand perfect vegetarians, we need billions of imperfect ones.

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

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A challenge that I could see with convincing people to adopt a more plant based diet is that there is a carbon cost associated with shipping food across the country, but in many parts of the US a plant based diet might be much less appetizing if it is restricted to local crops. For example, much of the country wouldn't have access to citrus fruits, bananas, pineapples, or avocados. Maybe a solution would be to tax fo…

Na, that's a red herring. We can reduce our meat consumption and not replace it with anything. Americans are over consuming food, we can definitely reduce meat intake without needing to replace it with foods shipped in from out of county. Also, most of the US population is around the coasts. Shipping a bit of food inland to the people there isn't that big of an impact.

Eh, best to start with stop wasting food, then go with proper calorie count diet. Food waste in America is pretty bad. The gov already does PSAs to try bringing attention to the matter.

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

#214

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 don't think people will stop consuming meat if you ask them nicely.

Illuminating the moral quandary of meat consumption helps. It worked for me. Nobody had to ask me nicely, they just needed to help me to think about it and be self-reflective.

Even if you believe there to be ethical meat consumption (a notion I find dubious in modern life), people can reduce consumption and have a big impact. Modern commercial meat and dairy production is a horrible process and most people are so insulated from it that you get used to thinking meat is just this product that comes from a factory.

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

#215
post #77

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.

People aren't obsessed with it, it's just good. You ever had a cold glass of whole milk with a slice of chocolate cake? It's good for your soul.

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

#216
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the unfortunate truth and it's particularly bad beause the rich western countries that contribute the most to climate change will, in many instances, be the last to feel the effects. This in combination with decmoractic elections has the consequence that iniatives aimed at tackling climate change, all of which will have a negative impact on people's lives(percieved or not), will never be viable politics for a…

Actually in recent decades its rapidly developing countries like China and India that have seen massive increases in meat eating.

That's to be expected with increasing wealth in those countries and while I said a lot of western countries need to make adjustment it's also true for growing economies like China and Indias as well.

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

#217
post #182

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…

My grandmother told me that before the second world war for a typical peasant family in Belarus the meat meant a single chicken 2-4 times in a month for the whole family. Only on big celebrations few times in a year people could afford to slaughter a pig or a caw. Even eggs were considered expensive. Milk was more available as most families had a cow. The real staple food was potato and bread. In cities meat was more…

Its interesting to hear anecdotal stories like these because they contradict the conventional wisdom nowadays that says you have to eat meat as protein every day - clearly that wasn't the case in prior centuries.

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

#218
post #77

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.

One of the strangest things to me about lunch in the Netherlands: adult men drinking milk with their meal, this meal sometimes consisting of a chocolate hundreds and thousands sandwich O_o

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

#219

We're creatures of habit. The pattern of breakfast, lunch and dinner means I'm usually "hungry" before breakfast, lunch and dinner. I was feeling hungry about dinner time a while back, but I couldn't decide what to eat so I skipped. I woke the next morning and didn't feel hungry at all. That seemed odd to me. So I skipped breakfast and ate lunch only (same portion size as normal) and continued to do so for six weeks.…

I'm a faster too and have more energy as well. No more energy drain after a big meal. Another advantage of fasting is that you spend less time on food. Our western society involves a lot of time on food(breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks).

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

#220
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 b…

I got a free sample of pea protein powder with some whey one time. It was truly disgusting!
Post reply on HN