Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 225 posts

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

#131

Post by anonyfox »

cowl wrote: post #126
anonyfox wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so you say that the amount of land and water needed to grow a cow that ultimately I can eat is LESS than if I would use that land to grow food to eat directly? thats pretty wild, I'd think. Not even thinking about the methane issues with cows and other things they add ontop of land use. BioFuels are a joke, though, a result of lobbyism, fully agree. Individually owned ICEs on a large scale are the problem here, that…

Yes I am saying that to get the same Nutritional value that you would get from a cow you would need much more amound of land to grow the plants that would subtitute it. Plants that would require a lot more care and a lot more automation/pesticides that the plants cows are eating. Even the volume of the needed transport/storage/refiregeration would be way bigger. Ask anyone living in a rural area, what amount of land/…

are you aware that stuff like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Foods is a thing now? not in the "we made it work in a lab" but in "there are factories now" meaning? Also never asked yourself how iE the Dutch can be a world leader/exporter of plants/foods despite having a tiny amount of land compared to many other countries?

Just asking questions here, because it seems that your anger over the BioFuel disaster (and granted, it literally is!) seems to overshadow a bit of rationality needed here to see how stuff is going here-and-now.

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

#132

Post by cowl »

midland_trucker wrote: post #125
cowl wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter where you stand, these type naive recommandations are responsible for some of the greatest enviornmental dissasters of the last century. "Bio"-Fuels being one of the main culprits of deforestation that has created way bigger problems than the ones they were trying to fix. In this case a Plant based Diet would require much more agricultural land for the same calorie intake than a balanced meat and plant one.…

> In this case a Plant based Diet would require much more agricultural land for the same calorie intake than a balanced meat and plant one. Where do you think the calories in meat ultimately comes from?

That is an absurd question and may I bring the absurdity to it's final form? where do the calories in the plant then come from? Is the next raccomandation to eat CO2 and Sun Rays?

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

#133

Post by cowl »

anonyfox wrote: post #131
cowl wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I am saying that to get the same Nutritional value that you would get from a cow you would need much more amound of land to grow the plants that would subtitute it. Plants that would require a lot more care and a lot more automation/pesticides that the plants cows are eating. Even the volume of the needed transport/storage/refiregeration would be way bigger. Ask anyone living in a rural area, what amount of land/…

are you aware that stuff like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Foods is a thing now? not in the "we made it work in a lab" but in "there are factories now" meaning? Also never asked yourself how iE the Dutch can be a world leader/exporter of plants/foods despite having a tiny amount of land compared to many other countries? Just asking questions here, because it seems that your anger over the BioFuel disaster…

The Netherland Case is specifically what I am referring to with the need for huge automatization. It's a very high tech solution, a very good one but can it be effectivly replicated world-wide without a concentrated effort? I would be enthustiacly supporting a big push toward this direction and if this result in less need for meat product, it's very welcome. But in the absence of a big Investment push what will problably happen in reality is that Brazil,Argentina etc will not push for this kind of agriculture because it is cheaper and faster to just cut some hectars of the Amazon Forest and use traditional agriculture. That is what I am afraid of, unintended consenguences that come naturally from simple raccomandation like "use a plant-based diet" withough going through the steps of making it actually sustainable.

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

#134

Post by midland_trucker »

cowl wrote: post #132
midland_trucker wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In this case a Plant based Diet would require much more agricultural land for the same calorie intake than a balanced meat and plant one. Where do you think the calories in meat ultimately comes from?

That is an absurd question and may I bring the absurdity to it's final form? where do the calories in the plant then come from? Is the next raccomandation to eat CO2 and Sun Rays?

I'm pointing out that you don't seem to realise how insanely resource inefficient meat is:

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/feed-required-to-produce-... [2] https://cbey.yale.edu/our-stories/disrupting-meat

Napkin maths from the first source suggests 5kg of feed to produce a 200g steak. All while losing all but 4% of the original calories. This is of course ignoring the vast water consumption and emissions (and of course ethical problems) which are issues worth talking about in themselves.

Conclusion is quite the opposite of your original comment, it seems we could feed the world MANY times over using less land on a 'plant based' diet.

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

#135

Post by bigtex »

These are the same people who fly on commercial planes to beautiful destinations to then lecture me about the food I eat and the cars I drive. I guarantee none of the people authoring the IPCC report are eating bugs or lab grown meat steaks at these fancy conferences.

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

#136

Post by nradov »

anonyfox wrote: post #12

No matter where you stand (some meat eaters tend to become extremely emotional on this): The fact that the scientific results and recommendations get utterly censored like this before publication makes me really angry. It’s somewhat fine for me if people/governments choose to ignore or argue against these results after publication, but this is just absurd… and is then used from people all over the world to point to „…

This was an ideological recommendation, not a scientific one. It's fine for scientists to also engage in political advocacy but we should be clear about which role they're playing at the time.

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

#137

Post by mokkol »

imeron wrote: post #81
asterix_pano wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have looked extensively for this and there is no study that shows that vegan children will be more fragile. Often they boast healthier cholesterol levels and body fat and better nutrient levels. And then, if that were true, is it better to be bigger? Dairy and meat increase the risk of developing cancers and cardiovascular diseases. Is it worth it?

The brain contains approximately 20% of whole body cholesterol, you can't get away with not eating fats. Your brain needs fats.

Who says fats are only in meat and dairy? They are in many plant based sources that contain large amounts of fats. Just to name a couple: Nuts, seeds, fruits(avocado, olives, coconut)

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

#138

Post by hbogert »

midland_trucker wrote: post #134
cowl wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an absurd question and may I bring the absurdity to it's final form? where do the calories in the plant then come from? Is the next raccomandation to eat CO2 and Sun Rays?

I'm pointing out that you don't seem to realise how insanely resource inefficient meat is: [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/feed-required-to-produce-... [2] https://cbey.yale.edu/our-stories/disrupting-meat Napkin maths from the first source suggests 5kg of feed to produce a 200g steak. All while losing all but 4% of the original calories. This is of course ignoring the vast water consumption and emissions (and…

Of course it's more complicated than just naming numbers.

Why is water consumption an issue perse? What did the 5kg of food consist of? Is that 5kg we humans could've ate? I doubt it. Throughout time we've given our animals scraps which we think is beneath us.

Take for example a cow in England eating grass and drinking water which directly came from the rain. What is inherently bad about that?

Don't get me wrong, I think that the bio industry has taken things to the extreme, but simply saying meat is inefficient and naming some numbers is not giving us a proper basis for discussion to really address how we can make things durable.

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

#139

Post by nradov »

mejutoco wrote: post #120
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Eat Lancet report covers this from health, carbon and pollution angles: https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/ The results are pretty much what you'd think.

Thanks. To spare a click to others. The part I found relevant to my question: Animal-based being healthier or not, independently of the environment in general. > Current overconsumption of meat in Western diets is a significant contributor to poor health and increases a person’s risk of becoming overweight, obese or developing certain noncommunicable diseases. Projections show that a global adoption of a Western diet…

That's such a bizarre and unscientific statement. People become obese and insulin resistant primarily from excessive consumption of carbohydrates, not from meat. Most people who try a carnivore diet actually lose weight. (I am not recommending that diet, but it is a fairly effective means of weight loss.)

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

#140

Post by cowl »

midland_trucker wrote: post #134
cowl wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an absurd question and may I bring the absurdity to it's final form? where do the calories in the plant then come from? Is the next raccomandation to eat CO2 and Sun Rays?

I'm pointing out that you don't seem to realise how insanely resource inefficient meat is: [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/feed-required-to-produce-... [2] https://cbey.yale.edu/our-stories/disrupting-meat Napkin maths from the first source suggests 5kg of feed to produce a 200g steak. All while losing all but 4% of the original calories. This is of course ignoring the vast water consumption and emissions (and…

That is the natural Conservation of Energy into play. Noone is saying that you get more calories than you put in. But the form of those calories is more useful for our consuption.

I'll take your example: While it takes 25KG of grass/other plant to get 1KG of meat The human body get's much more value from precessing that 1KG of meat than processing 25KG of grass. You can not just eat 25KG of corn plant and expect it to be the same as 1KG of meat.

This is not even a question. The need for Animal Proteins in our body is well documented and although many plants contain various forms of proteins they can not eliminate the need for Animal Proteins. There are various products that try to supplement this need artifically for those who oppose the consuption of animals on Moral grounds but that is another issue because there are also those who have a moral issue with consuming Plants; Why should one have more weight than the other? And this is also Why I am very sceptical of this issue because people try to push other moral views and conflate them into one.

All I care in this context is the enviormental impact. I can say with a clear conscience that I dont care about your other moral dilemas in this case because the issue is much larger than some people needs to self congratulate on their choices and their need to recruit more people into those choice to validate themselves.

Post reply on HN