Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

Frankly, yes, they do fix themselves. You'd be utterly shocked at what landscapes look like if we leave them. Having been part of forest regeneration efforts across the UK for the past 8 years - from southern heathlands to rocky Welsh and Scottish outcrops, good for "nothing but sheep" - I can say with all certainty that every part of the country except the most extreme alpine regions is suitable for reforestation or some form of plantation dense rewilding, mooring, wild flower meadow, etcetera. The same can be said of much of Canada and America, with my peers over there having the same results when grazing stops. Hell, the Mongolian steppes are turning to results of goat herding, and the Gobi desert is though to have been cause by the same.

In the UK for example, people are completely ignorant to how the place looked before we levelled it for grazing, viewing the 70% ecologically barren agricultural land (of which 80% of that is used for grazing or agriculture to feed cattle) as the norm and the 2.5% old growth forest as a more novelty, and something strangely "unique to that area". The country was 60-80% temperate rainforest before human habitation, depending on what research you go by.

This video is especially poignant, and really shows the dramatic impact simply doing nothing has: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VZSJKbzyMc

> Let people who are used to meat/dairy diets adopt plant-based diets and I wouldn't be surprised if this leads to more of them becoming overweight.

I think that the exact opposite is true. Most new vegans lose weight quickly.

There are no overweight fruitarians (imho - not my cup of tea). And not many vegans. But there are many ways how to do things - if you're eating a lot of fats, processed foods, junk food ... you'll be overweight, vegan or not.

Also, you can't replace meat/dairy with single protein source (e.g. tofu) and think that you're ok. That's not the way it works with the plants.

For me vegan diet means whole foods, minimum fats, as diverse diet as possible, almost no junk/processed food, 30-50% raw vegetables. It's not easy to gain weight this way.

> Imo it's a good thing when people try to eat less meat/dairy but they shouldn't think it's an easy thing to do that comes without caveats.

You're making it sound scary :) It is easy, certainly not hard, but you're right, new vegans have some things to learn.

The only supplement you'll certainly need is vitamin B12.

In the end what you'll want is fruits, vegetables and lentils of various kind. If you have a diverse diet, you'll have no problems.

Yes, it means trying (a lot of) new things and recipes and some learning (how to substitute meat/dairy with plant-based alternatives), but it's not hard and in the end it's very satisfying process. I'm always hunting for new recipes.

> David Raubenheimer is said to have conducted an experiment where people's behaviour showed that protein content is what disproportionately determines how much people eat until they feel saturated.

Yes, lentils & beans. Satiety guaranteed :)

Meiji leadership Buddhist? You seriously need to remove your blinkers. The "Meiji Buddhist Reform" was sweeping and extremely violent and 40,000 Buddhist temples were lost to riots or repression over the period. The new syncretic state-sponsored religion of Shinto was made to replace Buddhist and cut Japan from its Chinese cultural ties and demonstrate to the West that Japan could belong to their club.

Eating mostly polished rice or wheat is not optimal from a health perspective, so quite logically people transitioned from eating miserly diets to eating enough they started becoming taller, etc. That has very little to do with the meat itself and much more with the fact that people would previously mostly eat enough carbs to get by and children would never receive the best share in nutritional terms. Solve that and you probably can explain almost all of that effect. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rice-disease-mystery-e... gives some insight on how primitive prescriptive dietary approaches were around the Meiji period. You can see the same magical thinking around the power of rice and meat in contemporary Madagascar and it's not pretty.