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Harvard Study: Planetary Health Index Diet – lower mortality and 30% lower CO2

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Re: Harvard Study: Planetary Health Index Diet – lower mortality and 30% lower CO2

#21

Post by GrantMoyer »

richie-guix wrote: post #9

[flagged]

The environmental issue with raising livestock isn't that they fart. It's that they convert energy from plants to energy stored in their flesh with low efficiency, so to raise livestock, humans need to grow more plants — and use more resources — to feed the livestock than they would need to grow if the humans ate the plants directly.

I find that people concerned with animals rights tend to emphasize ethical arguments over (valid) environmental arguments, while those emphasizing the environmental arguments are genuinely concerned with the environmental cost of animal agriculture. In other words, most people making environmental arguments against animal agriculture are not trying to trick you.

Re: Harvard Study: Planetary Health Index Diet – lower mortality and 30% lower CO2

#22

Post by scotty79 »

Jensson wrote: post #8
lumb63 wrote: post #3

Almost any diet that contains mostly real food rather than artificial food-like substances will produce substantial improvements in health. Contents are hugely secondary to actually consuming real food.

Only when factories focus on making addictive instead of healthy food. You can ruin the food yourself in the same way. Different cultures do this differently, so you see much healthier fast food packages in some countries than others.

Since we have food production mostly figured out and we don't need any new production optimizations do we really need food production to remain the domain of free market?

Maybe governments should set up production of healthy convenient packaged food and give it away for free. Then gradually ban businesses from selling the worst products.

Re: Harvard Study: Planetary Health Index Diet – lower mortality and 30% lower CO2

#23

Post by piva00 »

xenonite wrote: post #11
hifromwork wrote: post #7

It looks like they asked (a large number of) participants what they eat, and checked a correlation between their health and how closely they follow their Planetary Health Diet[1]. First, I don't see any attempt to control for the fact that people who eat "healthy" diets (vegetarian, vegan, avoid sugars and red meat, etc) are often the same people who care about exercise, do routine health checks etc. So even if the d…

About your third point: raising animals on pastures is not necessarily worse regards climate compared to growing vegetables on fields. It may well be the other way around. For example: the humus layer is much deeper with grass, hence storing more CO2. About your second point, you name it as "fact" that too much red meat is problematic. Scientists are not so sure if it is about the meat or about some side-effect, like…

> About your third point: raising animals on pastures is not necessarily worse regards climate compared to growing vegetables on fields.

Thermodynamics by itself would already question this assertion, no?

Re: Harvard Study: Planetary Health Index Diet – lower mortality and 30% lower CO2

#24

Post by nradov »

hifromwork wrote: post #7

It looks like they asked (a large number of) participants what they eat, and checked a correlation between their health and how closely they follow their Planetary Health Diet[1]. First, I don't see any attempt to control for the fact that people who eat "healthy" diets (vegetarian, vegan, avoid sugars and red meat, etc) are often the same people who care about exercise, do routine health checks etc. So even if the d…

It is not at all a "known fact" that "avoiding too much red meat" is "good for you". There has never been a single large-scale, long-term randomized controlled trial which has shown such causality.

In general there are hardly any "known facts" in biology, least of all in human nutrition. All we have are probabilities. Most human nutrition studies that relate to this issue have been observational and relied on subject-reported data: in other words, junk science.

If there is an actual signal here one way or the other then it certainly has a much smaller impact on overall human health than other factors like energy balance, exercise, sleep quality, chronic stress, etc. There's a lot of other stuff to optimize first before we even think about the relative quantities of plant/fungus versus animal foods in our diets.

https://peterattiamd.com/qps1/

Re: Harvard Study: Planetary Health Index Diet – lower mortality and 30% lower CO2

#25

Post by nradov »

scotty79 wrote: post #22
Jensson wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only when factories focus on making addictive instead of healthy food. You can ruin the food yourself in the same way. Different cultures do this differently, so you see much healthier fast food packages in some countries than others.

Since we have food production mostly figured out and we don't need any new production optimizations do we really need food production to remain the domain of free market? Maybe governments should set up production of healthy convenient packaged food and give it away for free. Then gradually ban businesses from selling the worst products.

Socialized food production inevitably leads to shortages and famines. Governments can't be trusted with something as important as food.

Re: Harvard Study: Planetary Health Index Diet – lower mortality and 30% lower CO2

#26

Post by scotty79 »

nradov wrote: post #25
scotty79 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since we have food production mostly figured out and we don't need any new production optimizations do we really need food production to remain the domain of free market? Maybe governments should set up production of healthy convenient packaged food and give it away for free. Then gradually ban businesses from selling the worst products.

Socialized food production inevitably leads to shortages and famines. Governments can't be trusted with something as important as food.

Technology advanced a ton since the last time it happened. And food making is no longer that lucrative. Other industries give more opportunities for corruption.

Besides, I don't advocate for nationalising entire food production. Just carving out small segment that by design operates at a loss because it acts altruistically not with market ruthlesness towards consumers.

Re: Harvard Study: Planetary Health Index Diet – lower mortality and 30% lower CO2

#27

Post by richie-guix »

GrantMoyer wrote: post #21
richie-guix wrote: post #9

[flagged]

The environmental issue with raising livestock isn't that they fart. It's that they convert energy from plants to energy stored in their flesh with low efficiency, so to raise livestock, humans need to grow more plants — and use more resources — to feed the livestock than they would need to grow if the humans ate the plants directly. I find that people concerned with animals rights tend to emphasize ethical arguments…

You are clearly discussing this in good faith, thank you.

> In other words, most people making environmental arguments against animal agriculture are not trying to trick you.

Sadly ven diagram of animal rights advocates, clueless do gooders and environmentalists overlaps greatly.

Bad faith arguments emerge not only by extremists but also by people eager to be part of the movement with no capacity for independent thought. These things take root and become "common knowledge" within the communities.

They don't need to be actively trying to trick me to muddy the waters with their own, however well intentioned, confusion.

We are still dealing with metaphysical arguments - note you didn't provide any numbers or scale or externalities or consideration towards second order effects or unintended consequences.

I can give a contrived example in the other direction (as its easier to recognize the obvious flaws):

Cars bad. Bicycles good. Clearly. Bike lane therefore must be good. Now you get a dozen guys in spandex burning extra calories and compensating by consuming far more burgers than they otherwise would have. And far worse traffic idling their engines at less efficent stop-and-go low speeds for longer.

What was actually accomplished in terms of CO2? We should ban all bicycles instead.

Re: Harvard Study: Planetary Health Index Diet – lower mortality and 30% lower CO2

#28

Post by nradov »

GrantMoyer wrote: post #21
richie-guix wrote: post #9

[flagged]

The environmental issue with raising livestock isn't that they fart. It's that they convert energy from plants to energy stored in their flesh with low efficiency, so to raise livestock, humans need to grow more plants — and use more resources — to feed the livestock than they would need to grow if the humans ate the plants directly. I find that people concerned with animals rights tend to emphasize ethical arguments…

There's more to it than just energy. As a practical matter, nutrient quality is tremendously important. Some animals, particularly ruminants (cows), are able to convert low-quality plant matter into high-quality easily digestible protein with amino acid ratios that closely match what humans need. It's the bacteria in their guts that perform the conversion. We can certainly get what we need from plant sources but this requires careful meal planning to obtain the right amounts of essential amino acids without exceeding energy balance.

https://peterattiamd.com/donlayman/

Re: Harvard Study: Planetary Health Index Diet – lower mortality and 30% lower CO2

#29

Post by aziaziazi »

nradov wrote: post #25
scotty79 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since we have food production mostly figured out and we don't need any new production optimizations do we really need food production to remain the domain of free market? Maybe governments should set up production of healthy convenient packaged food and give it away for free. Then gradually ban businesses from selling the worst products.

Socialized food production inevitably leads to shortages and famines. Governments can't be trusted with something as important as food.

It can be trusted as well/bad as for water, electricity, security…

It about quality food being vital for everybody, not about importance. A public “default food package“ could have a big impact for many families health. The private options can stay , regulated, as well as for water, electricity and safety.

Re: Harvard Study: Planetary Health Index Diet – lower mortality and 30% lower CO2

#30

Post by rickydroll »

piva00 wrote: post #23
xenonite wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About your third point: raising animals on pastures is not necessarily worse regards climate compared to growing vegetables on fields. It may well be the other way around. For example: the humus layer is much deeper with grass, hence storing more CO2. About your second point, you name it as "fact" that too much red meat is problematic. Scientists are not so sure if it is about the meat or about some side-effect, like…

> About your third point: raising animals on pastures is not necessarily worse regards climate compared to growing vegetables on fields. Thermodynamics by itself would already question this assertion, no?

maybe. there is an emerging body of evidence showing that different grazing methods influence carbon sequestration rates. https://pastureproject.org/about-us/regenerative-grazing-ben... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/15/...
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