Live data from Hacker News

'On a vegan planet, Britain could feed 200M people’

theguardian.com

21–30 of 71 posts

Re: 'On a vegan planet, Britain could feed 200M people’

#21

If I spent 1/8 of what I earn, eight of me could live on my salary. It's functionally achievable, people live in my country on that amount. But I don't like that, so I spend a bit more. There is no sense in reducing the entire human experience to the lowest common denominator one in order to fit more people on the planet. If that's in your plans, you have a literal fight on your hands.

Eating pigs & poultry requires less than 5% of land than beef. Eating something more sustainable is not equal to reducing the human experience. That's just your taste buds talking.

You could say, that the only way to have the entire human experience, is to eat carnivores (lions, anyone?).

With carnivore diet how many people you think the planet would support?

Would there be a place for yourself, now?

What about your children and children of your children? For wildlife? For nature?

Come on, grow up, people.

Re: 'On a vegan planet, Britain could feed 200M people’

#22
post #11

I don't think at the end of the day that the issue is the sustainablility of meat that will be its downfall (with the exception of greed, as you can see already with the big shots in the meat industry trying to lobby away lab grown meat / TLM products even though they barely exist). Instead it's the very wasteful food culture especially the west has, let's take steak as an example, for the around 5 steaks a family of…

This is not a good example of waste. Also, I don't agree that people like to waste food or resource. There is no reason to waste food unless you are super duper rich. And according to normal distribution majority of people aren't rich, even in America.

Re: 'On a vegan planet, Britain could feed 200M people’

#23
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I don't blame them. Food is the mortar between the bricks of society. So if someone questions that it makes a lot of people feel unsecure. It's a completely natural reaction.

Our perception of traditional food is heavily skewed by last 50 years or so.

Our ancestors were not used to so much meat and dairy as we are now. Eating plants was much more common then we think.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNIoKmMq6cs - Anthropologist Debunks the Paleo Diet] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcN7SGGoCNI - DAIRY IS SCARY! The industry explained in 5 minutes]

Re: 'On a vegan planet, Britain could feed 200M people’

#24

Throwaway for obvious reasons. What's the current academic consensus on nutritional deficiencies of vegan / lacto-vegeterian diet? I grew up on a lacto-vegeterian diet in India. I can't shake off the feeling that I would've had a better physique and growth if I had access to non-vegetarian food during my youth.

I think its just a propaganda by meat industry that you need to eat meat to live a healthy life. If you take vitamin b12 properly or take fortified foods you should be ok. (Also, the vitamin b12 is supplied to animal in many industry, so people shouldn't use vitamin b12 to argue to vegans.)

Re: 'On a vegan planet, Britain could feed 200M people’

#25
post #21

If I spent 1/8 of what I earn, eight of me could live on my salary. It's functionally achievable, people live in my country on that amount. But I don't like that, so I spend a bit more. There is no sense in reducing the entire human experience to the lowest common denominator one in order to fit more people on the planet. If that's in your plans, you have a literal fight on your hands.

Eating pigs & poultry requires less than 5% of land than beef. Eating something more sustainable is not equal to reducing the human experience. That's just your taste buds talking. You could say, that the only way to have the entire human experience, is to eat carnivores (lions, anyone?). With carnivore diet how many people you think the planet would support? Would there be a place for yourself, now? What about your…

And there will be some way of eating that requires 5% of the land of whatever you suggest, ad infinitum, until we have tens of billions of humans and we end up back at square one.

A line in the sand will be drawn somewhere, here's mine. I don't believe in infinite growth, it will result in us all drinking Soylent in cages.

The objective for me is to have a high quality of life for a reasonable number of people, not a low quality of life for the maximum amount possible.

Re: 'On a vegan planet, Britain could feed 200M people’

#26

Throwaway for obvious reasons. What's the current academic consensus on nutritional deficiencies of vegan / lacto-vegeterian diet? I grew up on a lacto-vegeterian diet in India. I can't shake off the feeling that I would've had a better physique and growth if I had access to non-vegetarian food during my youth.

I think its just a propaganda by meat industry that you need to eat meat to live a healthy life. If you take vitamin b12 properly or take fortified foods you should be ok. (Also, the vitamin b12 is supplied to animal in many industry, so people shouldn't use vitamin b12 to argue to vegans.)

The propaganda argument could be turned around, too. There are more than enough vegan companies trying to make a quick buck out of this. You take your average vegan burger package, it's stuffed with the same crap as a regular premade burger, except it uses tofu or beans instead of ground beef.

Regardless, the bigger problem is the lack of long term research we have on mindful omnivores vs mindful vegetarians vs mindful vegans, etc. Most comparisons are between mindful vegans and omnivores living off of incredibly poor diets.

Re: 'On a vegan planet, Britain could feed 200M people’

#27
post #16

If sustainability is more important, eating at least fish too is bound to be better. There's no way leaving 71% of the surface of the planet off-limits for nutrients isn't going to increase pressure on the other 29%. And yes, much fishing and aquaculture is presently unsustainable, but that can be said about agriculture too. It's not nearly an adequate argument for abandoning it entirely. The argument for full vegani…

Please see SEASPIRACY if you have a chance. Eating fish is not sustainable. Overfishing and by-catch is a real problem (already more than 90% of sharks are exterminated), and in near future the seas could be totally devoid of life (except for jellyfish). [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaspiracy ] > The argument for full veganism has to be that animals are people I don't agree. (1) We shouldn’t be cruel to animals,…

Your last three points can be applied to any products.

Re: 'On a vegan planet, Britain could feed 200M people’

#28
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eating pigs & poultry requires less than 5% of land than beef. Eating something more sustainable is not equal to reducing the human experience. That's just your taste buds talking. You could say, that the only way to have the entire human experience, is to eat carnivores (lions, anyone?). With carnivore diet how many people you think the planet would support? Would there be a place for yourself, now? What about your…

And there will be some way of eating that requires 5% of the land of whatever you suggest, ad infinitum, until we have tens of billions of humans and we end up back at square one. A line in the sand will be drawn somewhere, here's mine. I don't believe in infinite growth, it will result in us all drinking Soylent in cages. The objective for me is to have a high quality of life for a reasonable number of people, not a…

> until we have tens of billions of humans

We don't even have enough room to supplement the current population on western version of meat-eating diet. We already use more land for beef production, than we have forests.

> until we have tens of billions of humans

Agree, we have to abandon our current notions of growth, if we want to preserve life for future generations. On our current path we're going to hell (too many things to enumerate here).

> a high quality of life for a reasonable number of people

Plant-based diet means a higher quality of life for everyone - people, animals, wildlife.

I for one would rather have more forests, than beef burger packaged in plastic.

If you think that we handle animals humanly, please see Dominion (2018) movie [https://www.dominionmovement.com/watch]. If you can watch it till the end and still have the same opinion about putting meat above your taste buds, please, let me know. You'd be the first.

Re: 'On a vegan planet, Britain could feed 200M people’

#29
post #16

If sustainability is more important, eating at least fish too is bound to be better. There's no way leaving 71% of the surface of the planet off-limits for nutrients isn't going to increase pressure on the other 29%. And yes, much fishing and aquaculture is presently unsustainable, but that can be said about agriculture too. It's not nearly an adequate argument for abandoning it entirely. The argument for full vegani…

Please see SEASPIRACY if you have a chance. Eating fish is not sustainable. Overfishing and by-catch is a real problem (already more than 90% of sharks are exterminated), and in near future the seas could be totally devoid of life (except for jellyfish). [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaspiracy ] > The argument for full veganism has to be that animals are people I don't agree. (1) We shouldn’t be cruel to animals,…

How do you fit pesticides in that framework of thought?

- They are unnecessary. Humanity lived thousands of years without them.

- They harm billions of animals.

- But not using them would condemn us to a subsistence economy.

Edit: though for thought lmao

Re: 'On a vegan planet, Britain could feed 200M people’

#30
post #27
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please see SEASPIRACY if you have a chance. Eating fish is not sustainable. Overfishing and by-catch is a real problem (already more than 90% of sharks are exterminated), and in near future the seas could be totally devoid of life (except for jellyfish). [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaspiracy ] > The argument for full veganism has to be that animals are people I don't agree. (1) We shouldn’t be cruel to animals,…

Your last three points can be applied to any products.

Yes - but you're supposed to start at point 1 :)

Meat eating is a complex matter - no time & space to cover it extensively here.

As I'm convinced, without forests the water cycle gets disrupted and the climate won't be able to support life as we know it [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKL40aBg-7E - The Biotic Pump: How Forests Create Rain].

With cows, there is not enough land to even have forests.

And if we can agree that we don't need cows and dairy (plants can replace it easily), why not also remove all the suffering that's connected to the meat industry?

Sorry for the detour.

Post reply on HN