Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by thelittleone » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:28 AM UTC

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 felt great. Workouts strong, focus and concentration improved. I saved a bunch of time and money.

After that did a 13 day fast (zero food). Day 3 sucked, but the 10 that followed where really eye opening in a wholly positive way. I do a lot of boxing, and I didn't stop during this fast. I thought it would suck but I had tons of energy and lots of speed. At the finishing lime, the first morsel of food (some roast pumpkin) was savored and tasted incredible. It gave me a new awareness and appreciation of what and how much food I need to maintain maximum performance.

I know i could eat a LOT less than I do in a year and be as or more healthy and contribute to a healthier environment. We just have to break the habit. That's really hard given the social culture of eating.

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

#112

Post by sanxiyn » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:29 AM UTC

throwaway3957 wrote: post #86

microtonal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but this is really cheap criticism that detracts from the main point. Of course, their private jets (if they have them) should be banned, sure. But this is an invisible blip on the radar compared to the climate impact of the meat industry (or air travel in general). Such messages only cause people to postpone the need to take real action. And we need to take real action now if we even want a chance to dampen t…

> But this is an invisible blip on the radar compared to the climate impact of the meat industry Me eating meat is an even smaller blip, why bother with taking my meat away? The truth is that you have to lead also by example or you’re not credible.

No one is taking your meat away. The most plausible implementation is to make meat slightly more expensive. People do respond to incentives. People with strong meat preference (like you seem to be) can continue to eat meat, but people with marginal meat preference will switch.

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

#113

Post by dkersten » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:30 AM UTC

glastra wrote: post #52

dkersten wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shift subsidies from meat to vegetables perhaps.

Which subsidies is meat getting? The ones that go to the agriculture industry responsible for feed? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#United_St...

Sure, why not?

From the same wikipedia page, a bit above what you linked, there's also this chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Meat_Atlas_2014_subsidies... showing how many billions are spent on animal product subsidies.

Unfortunately I had no luck finding the actual OECD reports, though (aside from the " Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2019" report, but that seems to just compare each country to the global average, rather than talking about different types of subsidies)

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

#114

Post by rebuilder » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:31 AM UTC

throwaway3957 wrote: post #24

I personally used to be very concerned about ressource efficiency. With a new doomsday message every day, I decided to make most out of my resources now until some eco-shmock is going to make it unavailable for me. I fly all the time and eat as good as I can. Maybe tomorrow it will be only a memory but that’s more than making a big trip other year and then nothing. Edit: BTW, this is not trolling. I represent a real…

Can you think of anything that would get you to change your behaviour?

Personally, I think the climate crisis is a great opportunity to give meaning to the lives of everyone alive now, by making survival a great project for our entire societies. A lot of consumption now is, IMO, filling the void of having meaningful long-term goals we can each work to achieve.

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

#115

Post by saagarjha » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:32 AM UTC

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…

There are entire cultures whose diet is plant-based.

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

#116

Post by trymas » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:32 AM UTC

est31 wrote: post #30

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 agree. Few years back I bought some tofu sausages to try out how they taste. They tasted interesting but not like real sausages. Definitely not a good replacement. Even if I made myself eat them because of moral reasons, ignoring how they taste, many people would still avoid them. As long as meat tastes better than its alternatives, people will use it. We need to bring good meat alternatives to the masses. The theo…

TL;DR: In my opinion meat analogues will not convert meat-eaters to vegetarians, problem is that switching to vegetarian diet requires rather big cultural change on our eating traditions.

I hear where are you coming from, though IMHO it's a problem with lack of knowledge/tradition/culture of producing vegetarian/vegan meals.

If you would say that you're vegetarian to my grandparents, they'd imagine that you eat vegetable salad all the time, with occasional baked potatoes for hot meal, they cannot imagine a meatless meal.

From my experience people tend to think that there must be a 1 to 1 replacement for meat foods: steaks, sausages, cutlets, burgers, meatballs, etc.

IMHO usually great vegetarian dishes (tasty, easy to make, not expensive, etc.) are mostly different set from meat dishes. It requires a cultural shift, which is insanely hard to change in general western population, where it's common and expected to have ham/bacon sandwich for breakfast, meatballs and spaghetti for lunch, steak for dinner, and beef burger or ribs on a bbq on a weekend.

You need a completely different set of dishes to change that meat eating tradition and IMO tofu sausages, cheap soy steaks and other meat analogues will not convert meat-eaters to vegetarians (fingers crossed for Impossible meat projects to change that).

Anecdotal example from the same thread on Indian vegetarian cuisine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20652404

P.S. I very much agree with you on this:

> The theoretical advantage that artificial meat has is the lower amount of resources needed. Over time, because of this it can get much cheaper than real meat, at least if you don't factor in skewing of the market due to government subsidies.

Subsidies are really skewing prices of animal vs plant based products.

Where I am from pork is around 5-6€/kg, chicken 3.5-5€/kg, beef 10-30€/kg, milk 0.5-1€/l.

Whereas soy-almond milk 1.5-3€/l, soy meat analogues 5-15€/kg, mushrooms 3-15€/kg, etc.

There is no substantial price difference (mostly), which is spectacular to me. How it's possible to sell 1 kilo of chicken breast for 3.5€ is spectacular to me, when freaking beans cost around 3-4€/kg. How do they grow that chicken, when it's clear as a day that it requires probably an order of magnitude more resources compared to growing beans. I wouldn't even go how government is bending backwards for milk producers with tax incentives to keep prices "competitive", and I have no idea how pork is not 20-50€/kg, when every other year there's some disease, which requires to kill and destroy all pigs in farms in 500km radius.

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

#117

Post by jfnixon » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:33 AM UTC

Nyandalized wrote: post #72

CommieDetector wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gives you the right to control what people eat?

I believe the government already has the right and power to control what people eat. People form the government, and people (ideally) choose the people to hold that power. In part I, too have the right to control what people eat through voting.

Great, that means we can vote to require meat at every meal. Don't like it? Too bad, so sad, we have the right to control what you eat.

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

#118

Post by sanxiyn » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:33 AM UTC

ultim8k wrote: post #25

I simply cannot believe that food is affecting environment more than factories, vehicles and rubbish.

The article states food is responsible for a quarter. No one is claiming it is more than half. It is important to be quantitative.

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

#119

Post by glastra » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:35 AM UTC

the8472 wrote: post #68

glastra wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the burps, actually. And it's not nearly as dangerous as publicized. Methane's lifespan in the atmosphere is much, much lower (think two orders of magnitude) than carbon dioxide [0], for example. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane

The methane turns into CO2. Which means for the amount of carbon they release it's strictly worse than the same amount of carbon released as CO2.

Yes, you are right. I have conveyed my point only half-way and I apologize.

What I meant is that methane is known to have a bigger heating effect than other greenhouse gases, like x28 that of CO2 if I recall correctly. This is used as part of the anti-ruminant argument, when comparing the effect of methane expelled by animals to the rest of greenhouse gas emissions.

However, if you take into account the reduced lifespan, that 28-time increase is definitely less relevant.

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

#120

Post by est31 » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:35 AM UTC

mklarmann wrote: post #73

est31 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Few years back I bought some tofu sausages to try out how they taste. They tasted interesting but not like real sausages. Definitely not a good replacement. Even if I made myself eat them because of moral reasons, ignoring how they taste, many people would still avoid them. As long as meat tastes better than its alternatives, people will use it. We need to bring good meat alternatives to the masses. The theo…

Our studies have shown, that about 10% are first movers (willing to give up benefits, to become climate friendly eaters) and 80% will go with the default when it is acceptable. The last 10% would still need to be coerced actively by some kind of restriction.

10% is a lot. It's enough to swing an election. And no idea what the 80% would think. Also, I'm interested in global solutions, not ones that are effective in one country only. Globally, there are varying degrees of support for fighting climate change. Especially third world countries want growth and say it's the responsibility of developed economies to fight it because we have polluted so much historically. The goal is to make it impossible for Bolsonaro to sell his meat to any country in the world.