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The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

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Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#31

Post by himinlomax »

shortcake27 wrote: post #19
choeger wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. There needs to be a pyramid in top of the food pyramid. Beef is not bad per se, it just shouldn't be your weekly meat.

I’m not sure if you responded to the wrong comment or what because the parent is referencing environment impact but you’re referencing health impacts. From an environmental point of view, there’s a linear relationship between your consumption of beef and environmental impact. There is no amount of beef that is good for the environment. From a health point of view, it’s debated, however there are more studies that sho…

Dairy from cows grazing on marginal land that is not otherwise suitable / efficient for other cultures is very competitive as far as producing proteins is concerned. Proteins are a necessary nutrient.

Industrial cattle fed corn is an entirely different story and should almost certainly be counted as a different category as far as climate impact is concerned.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#32

Post by at_compile_time »

waihtis wrote: post #9

The discussion around plants, meat and dairy need to become much more nuanced. Let's take dairy as an example - has a great effect in boosting mTORC1 activity which causes better growth in children. Now, a non-insignificant set of people who have bought into zealous veganry are raising children who will be physically more fragile just because they've been marketed with the idea that dairy == bad. On the other hand, o…

mTOR makes children grow faster, but everything I've heard suggests that it doesn't make them any taller as adults. Meanwhile, obesity rates in children keep growing, and atherogenesis doesn't wait until adulthood.

Heart disease and cancer are still the leading causes of death in America. COVID's taken the #3 spot, which affected those with obesity and diabetes much more than those without, but I don't expect it to stick around on this list. Somehow, frailty due to not eating meat didn't make the top 10.

If we want kids to be strong and healthy, get them outside and get them moving. No diet will see them healthy if they're sedentary.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#33

Post by fredrikholm »

himinlomax wrote: post #26
Tade0 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. I looked at the different scenarios and we would probably do fine on chicken and cheese in terms of water consumption, CO2 and land use. Pork is where it starts being risky. Beef, lamb etc. are the most problematic parts.

The water use claim regarding beef has been debunked, it was based on the weird accounting trick where you count rainfall on pasture as wasted water for some reason. Also speaking of pasture, afaik the equation for cattle is completely different whether they're fed corn vs grazing on marginal land as they're supposed to.

What?

The problem is that cattle consumes orders of magnitude more water compared to plants, on top of the fact that they also eat plants, of which they convert a small portion of into (edible) mass.

Their urine, en masse, is highly toxic to the local environment as it kills plants (high salt content, fertilizer burn) and pollutes rivers (pH, over-fertilization, algae blooming).

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#34

Post by mklarmann »

klipt wrote: post #18
Tade0 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. I looked at the different scenarios and we would probably do fine on chicken and cheese in terms of water consumption, CO2 and land use. Pork is where it starts being risky. Beef, lamb etc. are the most problematic parts.

Isn't beef bad because cows release methane, but feeding cows seaweed can mitigate that?

Seaweed, garlic, etc. has shown to reduce methane. Yet at the same time creates uncertainty around more nitrous oxide, which might makes it even worse.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#35

Post by himinlomax »

wiz21c wrote: post #30
himinlomax wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The water use claim regarding beef has been debunked, it was based on the weird accounting trick where you count rainfall on pasture as wasted water for some reason. Also speaking of pasture, afaik the equation for cattle is completely different whether they're fed corn vs grazing on marginal land as they're supposed to.

> they're fed corn and where does the corn grow ?

What's your point?

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#36

Post by mklarmann »

choeger wrote: post #23
shortcake27 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure if you responded to the wrong comment or what because the parent is referencing environment impact but you’re referencing health impacts. From an environmental point of view, there’s a linear relationship between your consumption of beef and environmental impact. There is no amount of beef that is good for the environment. From a health point of view, it’s debated, however there are more studies that sho…

> There is no amount of beef that is good for the environment. That's a tautology. In that strict sense, there's no amount of you that's good for the environment, either. Unless we all commit suicide, we have to accept the fact that our behavior changes the environment. So, yes, quantities matter a lot.

If you define “sustainable” in the sense of “enabling human life on earth”, you should be fine.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#37

Post by mklarmann »

himinlomax wrote: post #31
shortcake27 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure if you responded to the wrong comment or what because the parent is referencing environment impact but you’re referencing health impacts. From an environmental point of view, there’s a linear relationship between your consumption of beef and environmental impact. There is no amount of beef that is good for the environment. From a health point of view, it’s debated, however there are more studies that sho…

Dairy from cows grazing on marginal land that is not otherwise suitable / efficient for other cultures is very competitive as far as producing proteins is concerned. Proteins are a necessary nutrient. Industrial cattle fed corn is an entirely different story and should almost certainly be counted as a different category as far as climate impact is concerned.

No. Those cows live longer and therefor produce more methane. They are worse in terms of ghg.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#38

Post by tsimionescu »

himinlomax wrote: post #29
klipt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't beef bad because cows release methane, but feeding cows seaweed can mitigate that?

I find the methane issue quite dubious: as it gets oxidized over time, the quantity of methane from cattle in the atmosphere is more or less proportional to the number of heads. The problem with CO2 otoh is that it keeps increasing because we create it from fossil sources.

There are two problems with methane: for one, while it is "sitting" in the atmosphere, its greenhouse effect is much stronger than CO2's. After that somewhat short-lived period, it oxidizes to CO2 and water, so it still at best ends up as bad as CO2.

So even if we stopped producing CO2 from fossil fuels today, we would still be increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere though breeding cows and other livestock, moving through a CH4 phase that does even more harm. Livestock are releasing the C trapped in plant bodies.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#39

Post by himinlomax »

fredrikholm wrote: post #33
himinlomax wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The water use claim regarding beef has been debunked, it was based on the weird accounting trick where you count rainfall on pasture as wasted water for some reason. Also speaking of pasture, afaik the equation for cattle is completely different whether they're fed corn vs grazing on marginal land as they're supposed to.

What? The problem is that cattle consumes orders of magnitude more water compared to plants, on top of the fact that they also eat plants, of which they convert a small portion of into (edible) mass. Their urine, en masse, is highly toxic to the local environment as it kills plants (high salt content, fertilizer burn) and pollutes rivers (pH, over-fertilization, algae blooming).

That water claim was based on a flawed accounting that's been repeated over and over so much without source. The debunking was posted right here on HN a few years back, don't have time to find it for now, maybe later.

Other than that, what you describe only applies to industrial farming, not grazing cattle. Cows graze pasture, they shit and piss in pasture, it's almost a closed cycle except for the added salt the herder usualy gives them.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#40

Post by tsimionescu »

shortcake27 wrote: post #19
choeger wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. There needs to be a pyramid in top of the food pyramid. Beef is not bad per se, it just shouldn't be your weekly meat.

I’m not sure if you responded to the wrong comment or what because the parent is referencing environment impact but you’re referencing health impacts. From an environmental point of view, there’s a linear relationship between your consumption of beef and environmental impact. There is no amount of beef that is good for the environment. From a health point of view, it’s debated, however there are more studies that sho…

> There is no amount of beef that is good for the environment.

With a low enough amount of cows bred in more traditional ways, there would be a cycle where an equivalent amount of carbon would be captured by plants vs what is excreted by the cow. That's why animal farming has not been a source of net CO2 for the thousands of years that we have been doing it before industrial times.

However, going back to historic sustainable levels means a drastic reduction in consumption of meat and dairy - probably a few times per year or something like that. Putting all livestock together, it would mean people could eat meat maybe once a month. Eggs and dairy may be a little more common, as those are collected throughout the life of the animal.

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