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How sustainable are fake meats?

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Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#21

Post by Spooky23 »

drewg123 wrote: post #2

From the article: " even poorly produced plant-based meats are better, environmentally, than meat from well-raised livestock. "

Strong disagree.

There's a shit-ton of money riding on that being an answer as companies like Nestle are looking to create vertically integrated markets for nutrition. These huge conglomerates created the sickness of feedlots, etc to kill the labor unions, and are now peddling the cure for the problems they created to you - eat shittier fake products with most of the downsides of the original process.

It would make more sense for heath, economic development, national resiliency and other reasons to invest in small scale agriculture. You'd also see the market address the health issues, as higher prices would reduce consumption.

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#22

Post by feet »

boredemployee wrote: post #11
bantunes wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why this is surprising. Option A: grow plants, eat plants. Option B: grow plants, breed animals, feed plants to animals, give animal antibiotics to survive breeding pens, give animal hormones to grow faster, slaughter animal, eat animal.

Unfortunately, Option A and Option B are not equivalent though.

That's the point

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#23

Post by asciimov »

an1sotropy wrote: post #7
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #4

If 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…

It is so frustrating how much well-entrenched subsidies and tax breaks have distorted our (consumer's) notion of what is "regular" vs "expensive".

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.

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#24

Post by pwinnski »

zekica wrote: post #14
bantunes wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why this is surprising. Option A: grow plants, eat plants. Option B: grow plants, breed animals, feed plants to animals, give animal antibiotics to survive breeding pens, give animal hormones to grow faster, slaughter animal, eat animal.

While I completely agree that growing plants has at least 10x less impact to environment, it is not just "grow plants". You also have to use fertilizer, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, spend energy (from fossil fuels) to drive tractors, plows, sprinklers. I'm not even going to start with GMO (the technology and the result is fine, but control companies get when you use them is not).

... all of which you have to do when growing plants you then feed to animals, too, so it's still an apples-to-apples comparison.

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#25

Post by schnevets »

My wife is pescatarian, which has really lowered my consumption of meat. There is such a weird contrast between meat marketing and the actual use. With my reduced consumption, I am still sometimes pulled in by marketing: the masterfully grilled steak; the shawarma roasting on a spit; the artisanal burger with a delicate balance of ground beef, fat, sausage, and maybe one or two secret ingredients...

...but this expectation rarely meets the reality when I order a meat item. Modern consumers have high demands for consistency and convenience, and that usually means adjuncts, breading, blending, and other techniques to account for the uncertainties of agriculture. I think we are still generations away from indistinguishable lab meat, but there are so many advances that are ready for market.

I don't understand why the industry is so determined to R&D that "replaces" all animal consumption when more specific, modest goals (replacing the chicken nugget, replacing the pepperoni) would have a notable environmental improvement.

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#26

Post by runnerup »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #4

If 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…

Indeed you are correct about the

> contrast of energy and resource expense between plants and animals is staggering, even if you’re comparing a less demanding animal like chicken.

I would like to see this study[0][1] repeated for various types of beans and legumes:

> Pork, chicken, eggs, and dairy were all pretty similar, but beef was a different story. Compared to the average of the other four, beef required 28 times the area of land per calorie, 11 times the water for irrigation, six times the nitrogen fertilizer, and it resulted in five times the greenhouse gas emissions For reference, they calculated similar impacts for potatoes, wheat, and rice. Compared to the average of those, beef’s footprint ballooned to 160 times the land, eight times the water, 19 times the nitrogen fertilizer, and 11 times the greenhouse gas emissions. Per gram of protein, the story is largely the same except that potatoes, wheat, and rice have less of an advantage due to their lower protein content.

The math listed in the article doesn't completely check out, e.g. they imply that [pork, chicken, eggs, dairy] require 160x (beef:plants) / 28x (beef:chicken) = 5.3x times (chicken:plants) as much land as [potatoes, wheat, rice], which makes sense, but also imply that [pork, chicken, eggs, dairy] 8x (beef:plants) / 11x (beef:chicken) = 0.72x times (chicken:plants) as much water as [potatoes, wheat, rice]. It's not thermodynamically possible for chickens to use less water per calorie than their feedstock. I never opened the actual study[1] though, I'm assuming they have reasonable results inside the study.

I also think that analysis vs. protein is more relevant than vs. calories -- which is why I think they should be compared against high-protein plants like beans and legumes.

0: https://arstechnica.com/science/2014/07/among-meats-beef-has...

1: https://sci-hub.ru/10.1073/pnas.1402183111

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#27

Post by coldpie »

Swizec wrote: post #10
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #4

If 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 substitutes seem unnecessarily unhealthy As a meat eater, this has been my philosophy. If you’re gonna go vegetarian, just go for it. Vegeterian food is delicious and there’s so much choice! Entire cultures of amazing natively vegetarian foods with no need for weird meat substitutes. Personally, legumes don’t have the right macros. Neither do fake meats. Cottage cheese and greek yogurt make better meat substitu…

Eh, sometimes I want a burger and fries. Cottage cheese/yogurt burger doesn't sound so great to me.

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#28

Post by slothtrop »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #4

If 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…

It's important to acknowledge that, and also that the question of sustainability arises only because of population growth. Growing demand encroaches on land (for a variety of reasons) at either a higher or lower rate, but still encroaches. A stagnant global growth rate would render the problem moot, which is going to happen in 100 or so years. In the meantime we're dealing with environmental problems that require immediate rectifying, and varying consumer habits would be wholly insufficient to do that, though still welcome. Waste in particular could be disrupted with better policy, and frankly, so could agriculture. Meat is subsidized. It's practically a matter of policy to encourage consumption as it stands. To say nothing of regulation, the potential for less land-intensive feed, etc.

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#29

Post by pwinnski »

williamdclt wrote: post #12
bantunes wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why this is surprising. Option A: grow plants, eat plants. Option B: grow plants, breed animals, feed plants to animals, give animal antibiotics to survive breeding pens, give animal hormones to grow faster, slaughter animal, eat animal.

I agree it's not surprising but this not a convincing point. I'd expect "plants" to mean very different things in A and B. Not the same plants, not the same quality requirements... I'd expect almost everything to be different between plants-for-humans and plants-for-animals agriculture.

Plants grow from seeds, take water and sunlight to grow, etc, regardless of the type of plant or the eventual use thereof.

Use weird pesticides on plants you're growing to feed to animals, and not only do said weird pesticides end up in the water supply that's used for other plants being grown to feed to humans, but also they end up in the animals to which you feed the plants, and therefore in the resultant meat. So when pesticides are banned, they tend to be banned for all uses, not just "plants grown for humans" uses.

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#30

Post by intrasight »

"fake meat" is processed food. That, IMHO, is the main difference over just eating fresh vegetables. It's more expensive because of that, and introduces externalities and risks.

I see "fake meat" as a temporary crutch for people transitioning to vegetarianism.

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