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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

#241

Post by Frondo »

harimau777 wrote: post #175

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 soi…

I was in Canada recently and tried one of the Tim Hortons "beyond sausage" sausage, egg, and cheese sandwiches. From the "beyond meat" people.

Had I not known what I was eating, I wouldn't have known it was plant-based at all. The taste and texture was, at least in fast food terms, just a really good sausage.

I haven't been able to try the beyond burger Burger King is selling, but if it's on par with the beyond sausage, I can't see why I'd ever eat a meat-based fast food burger again. It was really that good, and an easy decision to make given the meat industry's impact on the environment.

People who diss those meat substitutes out of hand should try them with an open mind (i.e. not from a place of "you can't control me" or "I'll never stop eating meat".)

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

#242

Post by radicalbyte »

growlist wrote: post #218
lol768 wrote: 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.

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

At least that's better than drinking buttermilk and a cheese sandwich :)

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

#243

Post by corodra »

nkozyra wrote: post #214
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 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 me…

But most people don't see a general ethical issue with eating meat. We are omnivores after all. Hell, our hunter gatherer ancestors ate more meat than we do. Though, higher quality. It's the same with seeing a wolf eat a deer. Think they care? Same with a chimp finally catching a monkey and eating it (now those are horrifying videos to see, especially since chimps love eating monkeys). Snake to a mouse. Fox to a hare. Cat to a bird. Shark to a seal. Cheetah to a gazelle. Osprey to a fish. At that, a lot of herbivores also kill and eat other animals (ground nesting birds being the popular victim). Mostly for the calcium in their bones. But still.

But if broccoli could scream would you stop eating it? Circle of life. Just the way it is.

However I do agree, there are a lot of commercial farming practices that need to be ended. Even if it means higher prices.

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

#244

Post by academic_nimrod »

throwaway3627 wrote: post #178
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.…

What you mean by "vital action"? Sounds authoritarian. Shouldn't people vote on these sorts of things, with democracy and all?

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

#245

Post by LegitShady »

pawanrawal wrote: post #15

I am excited about the work Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat are doing in this space. Creating alternatives with same nutrient content and similar taste but 1/10th the land usage and consuming less of other resources.

beyond meat doesn't seem to be doing anything interesting aside from having a slightly better burger recipe than the last guy.

As far as I can tell they've cashed in on the buzz generated by impossible foods, who genetically engineered yeast to produce a plant heme so their meatless meat products taste and cook more like meat.

Beyond Meat just appears to have come to market first, and such gotten more attention. I've tried it a couple times, it was just ok, and not much better than most other decent veggie burger patties. Not groundbreaking and not worth more money than any others.

I haven't tried impossible foods yet. Looking for them.

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

#247

Post by goatinaboat »

blunte wrote: post #221
jnwatson wrote: post #206

If everyone stopped traveling for fun, that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions even more. You’re not going to guilt people into changing their behavior. A carbon tax fixes this.

> If everyone stopped traveling for fun, that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions even more. I'm not willing to agree that it would reduce emissions more than ending meat consumption. It would help, however. Like most problems, there is not just one solution. Multiple modest to moderate changes in behavior can make a big difference. - redesign cities to include more and better public transport (less car/truck traff…

redesign cities to include more and better public transport

Concrete is a massive source of CO2 emissions. Rebuilding cities is really, really not going to help.

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

#248

Post by ccffph »

elorant wrote: post #232
jnwatson wrote: post #206

If everyone stopped traveling for fun, that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions even more. You’re not going to guilt people into changing their behavior. A carbon tax fixes this.

If everyone stopped traveling for fun the worldwide tourism economy would collapse. There are whole countries that rely on tourism to make it through.

Why is the tourism economy more important than the livestock economy?

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

#249

Post by Frondo »

elktea wrote: post #92

There's a good case to be made for humans being primarily meat eaters for much of our history and only eating plants as an alternative to starving - we certainly haven't had time to evolve to eat a vegetarian diet. Agriculture has only been around for a small fraction of our history and the skeletal record clearly shows how disasterous it was for our health. The current 'plant based' fad diet recommendations are back…

From an evolutionary perspective, we have evolved: we use tools and process nearly anything we eat anyway. Plants are the only thing we eat with minimal preparation, and only some of those.

When was the last time you had raw beef? for me, it was beef tartare a few years ago...

Raw grain? Nope, that's all processed, either by boiling, or grinding and turning into something else.

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

#250

Post by radicalbyte »

_0w8t wrote: post #185
rowanG077 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is a famous recipe of winning a cocking competition. Just add more salt and sugar. So for quite a few people that defines a taste. But if for some reasons one do not exposed to that, then I suppose food without salt or sugar tastes normally.

I know this saying. It also includes fat: butter for sweet and lard for savory.
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