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

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

#301

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.

Absolutely! I think you hit the nail on the head. I went to an Israeli restaurant the other day, and (I'm guessing?) all the meat was kosher (read: expensive). Their menu prices seemed to be exactly how they should be. Vegetarian options were in the ~$7 range, and meat dishes were in the $35 range. This kind of pricing still makes meat dishes accessible to anyone that wants them, but gently nudges behavior in a more sustainable direction.

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

#302

produce less meat Eating less meat just means more waste. We need to stop talking about climate change as a problem individuals can solve with ecological lifestyle choices. We need international economic planning and the seizure of carbon extracting industry.

Temporarily maybe, but consumption pulls production, production follows consumption, not the opposite

Producing less will make it more expensive at least

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

#303

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 believe you're right. We didn't evolve to eat regular meals, but rather to gorge when there was abundance, then starve/fast during the in-between periods. Probably water was the one thing that we had regularly from day to day. I've moved to a calorie-limited diet, myself, and the effects on my health have been dramatic. My acid reflux has subsided; it disappeared when I went low carb for a month and has not come ba…

Congrats on shedding those pounds! Must be feeling great. I always found it a pain to consume enough vegetables. Then I had my wisdom teeth removed and couldn't eat for a week. I blended a ton of good veggies into a mash to get some nutrients. Even now (many years later) I still blend those veggies. Nutrition hacks! :)

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

#304

At least in the USA, this could in principle be fixed by ending the corporate welfare state. Old news, but All major industries like the beef industry get huge tax breaks, free water and other giveaways at the general taxpayer’s expense. Fixing the corruption (both democratic and republican parties) in our our political would end up helping the environment a lot. That said, we have zero chance of fixing our corrupt p…

We've been trying to cut our meat consumption, but the cooking complexity is exactly my issue. We're lazy but healthy eaters, meaning our regular entrees are a meat and a couple veggie sides. We also do low carb, mainly because it's just easier to limit calorie intake that way. Most of the dinner work is usually cutting and preparing vegetables. When we cut meat, it cuts the main portion of the entree, which can sometimes be filled with baked potato, corn on the cob, some quinoa thing, but it's not as satisfying and gets boring. We don't like buying processed foods, and soups without meat are nearly a no-go for me. But hey, I'm limiting consumption so I guess I'm doing my part.

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

#305

produce less meat Eating less meat just means more waste. We need to stop talking about climate change as a problem individuals can solve with ecological lifestyle choices. We need international economic planning and the seizure of carbon extracting industry.

> the seizure of carbon extracting industry It sounds like what you mean is that you want some government or government like entity to take down big beef/pork/chicken. What the actual version of that would be is some government-esque entity taking over a bunch of farms and murdering their cows/pigs/chickens and forcibly unemploying large groups of people. Alternatively that might mean some government-esque entity inv…

> Let's maybe not call for large government/government-esque orgs to go around seizing anything.

Agree.

I'm adding a reminder here for anyone whos intrigued by this to read up on Soviet history, Kmer Rouge and Maos China. (Of course make sure to read up on UK, Belgian and Dutch colonies as well. And American imperialism. Lots of ugly stories there as well.)

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

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neat for you, but probably not scalable. Hunting and gathering always had that problem. For the other 6 billion people on the planet, big Ag is all that's going to feed them.

Not scalable to 7b people, but maybe applicable to a few more millions of people in North America, for example, where meat consumption per capita is very high. Imagine the impact on the meat industry if one million more households in North America decided to keep chickens in the back yard, for example.

They'd buy 1 or 2 fewer chickens per year. I don't think it'd register. You vastly underestimate the Big Ag chicken infrastructure. E.g. when McD's started serving chicken McNuggets years ago, they contracted for Every Chicken In Canada to supply the demand. Currently Americans eat 8 billion chickens a year, not to even mention egg factories. A million chickens from back yards is literally 'chicken feed'.

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

#307
post #185

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.

you can repeat it as often as you want, its not true. You're pretending meat is water and doesn't have anything of its own to flavor it, and that's just not true.

You won't convince people by lying to them about the flavor of things you want them to buy. They'll label you a liar and move on.

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

#308
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 think you are referring to Mark Rippetoe’s suggested diet in his book Starting Strength. In which case, it is worth mentioning that this is suggested for skinny, 18 year old males and to be followed for the duration of the training program (months)

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

#309

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…

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…

This isn't exactly true. The greenhouse gas emissions from shipping, say, bananas, pales in comparison to emissions from even local grass fed beef.

Shipping things that spoil quickly or need refrigeration, obviously, will be less efficient. But on average, plant-based food sources will be significantly more efficient, even if shipped further, than meat ones.

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

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A lot of people have a problem with eating dog meat. Wolves that eat deer don't also breed them to the point where they contribute to climate change. Hunter gatherer folk don't breed them to a point where they are a significant factor in climate change. As carnivores wolves don't really have a choice to not eat meat. You do, though. With a couple of different choices at the supermarket or simply ordering different ch…

To be fair, a lot of western civilizations consider dogs to be a higher life form than people.

Hunter gatherers ended up doing that once they figured it out. Civilization didn't magical come about. Hunter gatherers decided to start animal husbandry as a way to keep a surplus food supply. Then they became "civilized".

I heard that choice arguement before. No. I've done the vegan diet for about 1.5 years. That's when depression, anxiety, bone and muscle problems popped up. My bloodwork was shit and I felt like doom and gloom. I snuck off from my girlfriend, who forced me into it, with a friend and he peer pressured me to drink a glass of milk and eat a steak. I did shit myself silly that night, but it felt like I was actually awake and the brain fog was gone. We broke up a few months later because I made a lovely red thai curry with murdered chicken instead of tofu.

By the way, look up how many ground nesting birds and rabbits die during grain and soybean harvesting. Those combines are just pure murder.

Don't you think the current age of high depression and high anxiety is oddly correlated to the recent rise of "meat bad, tofu good", is a bit interesting? So no, I don't have a choice. From personal experience. Difference is, I never made existential excuses for the depression, anxiety, fatigue and brain fog. I did it for tail...which really wasn't worth it.

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