Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course, it started out as: a) grow plants that humans can eat on soil that will grow them, eat plants. b) grow plants that humans can't eat, but livestock can, on shit soil that won't support plants that human can eaa, eat the animal. and in countries that look at the US and go "wow that's fucking barbaric" at their treatment of livestock is generally still the case.
I work with clients in a multi-billion dollar industry (they themselves are in the hundreds of millions in revenue) who sell by-products of food production for cattle feed. In this situation, the food is being grown for humans anyways and only the waste product is used. It doesn't really fit your black & white view of the situation.
How sustainable are fake meats?
111–120 of 121 posts
Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is so frustrating how much well-entrenched subsidies and tax breaks have distorted our (consumer's) notion of what is "regular" vs "expensive".
Same thing can be said about VC funded tech companies too. Does anyone really know the cost of an Uber? What about the true cost of that Door Dash delivery?
Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#113If you know much about agriculture, this question has an almost certain answer. The contrast of energy and resource expense between plants and animals is staggering, even if you’re comparing a less demanding animal like chicken. You can refrigerate, process, and ship many plants by sea, truck, and plane and they won’t catch up to animal foods. We’re also not seeing a clear economic picture in Canada and the USA becau…
The alternative we do is: * Order vegetarian when eating out. Non-western cuisines do incredible food that doesn't have any meat in it. * Only buy meat + eggs from a local farm that effectively does things "small batch". Their farm is open for visitors and you can see pigs and chickens that actually look happy . The pigs even run over to you when they smell you and you can see their cute little tails wigglin'. * Try…
If I care about their experience it seems really bizarre to kill them unless I absolutely need to. So far I’ve found no evidence that I do need to, and I’ve actually come to enjoy not eating them. I’ve become far better at cooking and it’s way easier to afford high quality ingredients.
I genuinely believe it’s great that you prefer to source food from places that at least make an effort to provide better experiences to the animals. That alone is a huge step forward for animals as well as people. I hope more and more people make the same effort.
Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
The alternative we do is: * Order vegetarian when eating out. Non-western cuisines do incredible food that doesn't have any meat in it. * Only buy meat + eggs from a local farm that effectively does things "small batch". Their farm is open for visitors and you can see pigs and chickens that actually look happy . The pigs even run over to you when they smell you and you can see their cute little tails wigglin'. * Try…
> Their farm is open for visitors and you can see pigs and chickens that actually look happy. The pigs even run over to you when they smell you and you can see their cute little tails wigglin'. That reminded me of a childhood memory. We didn't have a farm, but we had few animals (sheeps, chickens, rabbits). One year my father decided to buy a piglet from a spring fair. Me and my brothers were thrilled, it was playful…
After a few years we had a bad slaughter day in which one pig survived a bullet to the head and started making some of the most horrifying movements and screams I’ve ever heard.
We were all aware that we’d killed a sentient creature that we cared for. Not much unlike killing our dogs. We talked about it several times over days and weeks, here and there over months, then not much from then on. We never got pigs again.
Somehow it took me another 15 years to stop eating animals. It blows my mind that I was able to keep it up after that day – it was so gory and brutal, and simultaneously entirely unnecessary. We ate those pigs because we liked it, not because we needed it.
Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Order vegetarian when eating out I've been pretty successful with the opposite, only getting meat when I eat out / special occasion and not stocking it in the house.
The other upside to this(at least here in UK) is that it's easy to find a restaurant that serves local meat and produce, but it's extremely hard to find local meat in stores - even "butchers"(I put that in quotes, since I firmly believe that 90% of British "butchers" are basically cosplaying as such and are nothing more than stores that sell factory-prepared meat in a store meant to look like a traditional butcher st…
Where I live it’s not better. The average piece of meat comes from a slice of hell in some feedlot or crowded enclosure, labelling laws make it look okay, and people carry on and eat it. Butchers selling nicer meat have variable suppliers and, when I was eating meat, I’d notice over time that supplier quality was gradually decreasing and never increasing. Like they started with these great ideals and eventually had to give in and be able to reliably get a product and a decent margin off of it. Meat is a major casualty of the race to the bottom.
Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
The alternative we do is: * Order vegetarian when eating out. Non-western cuisines do incredible food that doesn't have any meat in it. * Only buy meat + eggs from a local farm that effectively does things "small batch". Their farm is open for visitors and you can see pigs and chickens that actually look happy . The pigs even run over to you when they smell you and you can see their cute little tails wigglin'. * Try…
I was doing something like this last year when it hit me how bizarre it was that I wanted to see happy animals at farms when the intent was to kill them for the sole purpose of eating them. Like, what do I care if they’re happy if I’m content to take that all away from them? Why is it logical to prefer they’re happy up until the moment they’re killed – do I think their experience matters? If so, why would I kill them…
Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting that you chose cows which are, by far, the worst animal for the environment from the clear-cutting of old growth forests, to the shocking contribution to climate change their gases produce, to the sheer amounts of water and food it takes to grow a full cow. There's nothing on this planet (w.r.t. our diet) worse for the environment than beef. It's King Bad.
Interesting that you chose cows which are, by far, the worst animal for the environment from the clear-cutting of old growth forests, to the shocking contribution to climate change their gases produce, to the sheer amounts of water and food it takes to grow a full cow. One of those things is a problem with governments. The other is a problem with the cows. Don't blame the cows if your corrupt government can't keep pe…
Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
The grow plants, feed to animals step takes up nearly 80% of the world’s agriculture: https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets
It's 77% (why round up to artificially boost your narrative?) and this source is intentionally misleading as "This includes grazing land for animals" (I couldn't find an exact source but probably around 30mil km2 of the 40mil km2, e.g. derived from [1]) . Most of this land isn't suitable for producing crops, especially without fertilizers (which bring their own host of problems) and thus the livestock provides additi…
You’re right, that statistic is misleading. We wouldn’t be using grazing land for anything agricultural if not feeding animals. I definitely won’t use this statistic anymore.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t meant to skew things with that 3% in a disingenuous way. Since I had the number 77 I should have used it though, you’re right.
This has sent me down quite a rabbit hole of understanding agricultural practices, their impacts on the environment, and many other parts of this complex system of how humans sustain themselves.
The information is hard to find, surprisingly. It’s good to get a little closer to the truth, though. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.
Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was doing something like this last year when it hit me how bizarre it was that I wanted to see happy animals at farms when the intent was to kill them for the sole purpose of eating them. Like, what do I care if they’re happy if I’m content to take that all away from them? Why is it logical to prefer they’re happy up until the moment they’re killed – do I think their experience matters? If so, why would I kill them…
I'm not sure I understand the logic. Everybody die, is it a reason to not seek happiness during the time we're aliveN
As for our happiness, why does eating meat bring anyone happiness? If it's simple, fleeting pleasure at the cost of a sentient creature's life, it doesn't seem worth it. Pleasure is nice too, but there are better things and better ways to find pleasure than through consumption. Really, the world is filled with countless ways to enjoy myself that don't require the suffering or killing of sentient creatures.
Eating all kinds of foods brings me happiness. They also nourish me better than meat, so meat isn't even necessary. Meat is one small group of foods, and everything else is this massive world of other foods to enjoy. They almost all come at a smaller cost than meat does, financially, environmentally, and psychologically speaking.
That's the gist of it. I get a lot of pleasure from caring for animals. I take time out on my morning walk to pet cats, watch the birds, so on. I dive in the ocean to see what the marine life is doing, record footage to share with people. These things bring me far more joy than a pork chop or a steak. So why choose the steak? If I'm to do that, I have to pretend that it doesn't carry the environmental and external costs of suffering and death. I have to tell myself that I wouldn't rather care for that cow. That's not true of any animal. I'd rather it had a chance to live and thrive, just like I want to.
Some people believe animals don't have the capacity to suffer and that they're lower beings than humans. I see no evidence to support that, other than the very weak "we can't possibly know" or "they aren't as intelligent". These are irrelevant to me. They are more like us than they are different in the vast majority of ways. Hell, we can live with pig lungs in our bodies. An octopus can solve puzzles, as can a raven. Cows mourn when their calfs are taken away. Dogs develop rich relationship with their families, human or otherwise.
You can say no, none of this is evidence that animals are like humans, or that they're sentient. But again, I don't see much evidence suggesting they aren't.
So, the logic is that animals suffering and dying to get on my plate doesn't make me happy. It brings me a lot of sadness. I enjoy other foods just as much, so that then is the logical path forward for me.
I don't criticize others for eating animals. I did for a long time. I raised animals, I hunted them, I fished for them, all of that. It took me almost 40 years to arrive here. If you eat meat and you don't care if animals live or die, suffer or otherwise, that's your call and I'm not for a moment condemning anyone's choices or beliefs.
Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Frustrating, no. Half the people in the US couldn't afford food if the costs weren't low. Paying subsidies is a way to keep labor costs low while keeping people fed.
Ok, but maybe we should be shifting subsidies away from animal-based food and towards plant-based food (for humans). "Frustrating" is by itself vague, so I agree with your point. I meant: frustrating for having an informed conversation about how a changing world and a changing climate suggest a changing diet. Past subsidies to animal agriculture make it easier for people to now dismiss new plant-based foods as fringe…
Plants high in protein are easier to preserve, cheaper to grow, cheaper to transport, can be stored with less energy, the list goes on.
It seems like we do this entirely because most of us think it tastes good. There’s no reason we couldn’t sustain ourselves on a fraction of the meat, dairy, and eggs that we have now.
I do wonder what I’m missing. There must be more to it.