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The Beginning of the End of the Beef Industry?

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Re: The Beginning of the End of the Beef Industry?

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This recommendation was based on epidemiological studies suggesting that small increases in the risk of several cancers may be associated with high consumption of red meat or processed meat." Epidemiological studies are surveys. They are not scientific proof of anything. This is an incredulous position to be taken by the WHO and makes me seriously question their values. They state they are small increases of risk, b…

You just cited an epidemiological study and an evidence review based mainly on epidemiological studies. What do you actually believe?

I believe that nutrition science is pretty dubious because it mainly relies on epidemiological studies. The extraordinary claims that are touted as fact are numerous. This is why we get many conflicting studies on cholesterol, fats, carbs, etc. It's very, very difficult to isolate one variable in nutrition epidemiological studies and attribute them to correlations in population outcomes. The one major success story for epidemiological studies was smoking and lung cancer. Of course, difference there is that smoking is binary: one either smokes or they don't. They may smoke more or less...but the variables are pretty low. Whereas dietary intake is diverse and no two people eat the same exact diet.

Re: The Beginning of the End of the Beef Industry?

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My digestive system got wrecked trying to be on a mostly vegetarian diet over several years after the housing bubble popped. The gist of it is that the lectins (and other defense mechanisms in the husks) of legumes and nightshades disrupt the mucus lining of the intestines, which leads to leaky gut and stool getting into the body cavity and blood (leaky gut), which may lead to autoimmune diseases like colitis and a…

Ya sorry, it's a relatively new concept: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319593.php My feeling is that it's similar to how allergies/cancer/etc often have 2 or more triggers that must coincide to set off the condition. So for example, maybe people who wouldn't typically have gluten sensitivity (a lectin), ended up with it because they distrupted their gut flora by eating, say, the glyphosate in oats (especi…

Another possible mechanism that I have heard of are dough conditioners. They make bread soft and fluffy without the need for cultures or letting the bread rise. But bread cultures (such as sourdough starter) feed on the gluten (and make gas bubbles) during natural bread rising. So the gluten doesn't get broken down in "commercial" bread the way it does in "artisan" bread (in quotes because those are two broad categories). So we end up eating lots and lots of gluten in a way that our ancestors didn't.

Re: The Beginning of the End of the Beef Industry?

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My digestive system got wrecked trying to be on a mostly vegetarian diet over several years after the housing bubble popped. The gist of it is that the lectins (and other defense mechanisms in the husks) of legumes and nightshades disrupt the mucus lining of the intestines, which leads to leaky gut and stool getting into the body cavity and blood (leaky gut), which may lead to autoimmune diseases like colitis and a…

Ya sorry, it's a relatively new concept: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319593.php My feeling is that it's similar to how allergies/cancer/etc often have 2 or more triggers that must coincide to set off the condition. So for example, maybe people who wouldn't typically have gluten sensitivity (a lectin), ended up with it because they distrupted their gut flora by eating, say, the glyphosate in oats (especi…

This sounds like the shaky basis presented in "The Plant Paradox". [0] [1]

[0] https://www.livescience.com/62914-what-are-lectins-plant-par...

[1] https://health.clevelandclinic.org/why-weight-loss-on-the-pl...

Re: The Beginning of the End of the Beef Industry?

#205
post #188

I'm excited for meat alternatives, but have 3 thoughts on them that I haven't seen mentioned yet (I'm 42): * Nearly all of the rangeland and high desert in the western US was destroyed by cattle and sheep grazing over the past 150 years. This is a billion dollar industry with the emotional buy-in of millions of people so I'm skeptical that it will be reformed in our lifetimes. * My digestive system got wrecked trying…

You are correct sir. When first coming to the US from Mexico I felt something (of my ALWAYS up to this point)- resilient stomach was going wrong. After doing some research plus experimentation, I realized back home I ate some kind of bone broth multiple times per week. The glycine and collagen in general inside it is so restorative you would not believe it. I find it to be extremely relaxing and anti inflammatory to…

[deleted]

Re: The Beginning of the End of the Beef Industry?

#206
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I really cannot believe we eat animals I don't understand this. We are animals. Why is it specially prohibited to us that we eat other animals? Note also that, as animals, we are not plant-eaters: we can't survive on plant matter alone. We are made [1] to eat other animals. We are omnivores, yes? So why is it unethical for us, specifically, to eat other animals when it's not unethical for other animals? __________…

> So why is it unethical for us, specifically, to eat other animals when it's not unethical for other animals? You almost answered your own question. "Unethical" is a foreign concept for animals because they don't even have ethics. Humans do, and these ethics have implications for how you should or should not treat other sentient life.

The trouble, as ever, is that while humans do seem to have ethics, they also seem to have a lot of disagreements about ethics.

Re: The Beginning of the End of the Beef Industry?

#208
On the one hand I’m very intrigued by this. It’s absolutely true that meat production, and in particular beef production, has an enormous environmental impact, so if this article is correct it could be huge.

But on the other hand I have some questions that I’ve not seen addressed. I’m a small farmer. My wife and I raise sheep. Ruminants can be raised on land that isn’t really productive. Maybe in some cases beef production is taking away land that would be otherwise farmed, but in my experience that’s rare. So, if we transition to plant-based meat, where does the farmland come from? We’re already losing productive farmland at an incredible clip. If we suddenly need to put millions of acres into new soybean or pea production, where does it come from?

And second, at least in theory, mixed animal/crop production systems can be closed loop. If done properly, with fallow periods and crop rotations, you don’t need external agricultural fertilizer production. Granted, that’s not the way most crops are produced now, but a lot of us are arguing that it should be - we should have local agriculture, with less centralization and more intentional closed loop farming practices. If we really do go mostly to a vegetarian diet, that possibility dries up. Agriculture becomes more and more reliant on external chemical inputs. Small producers are even more marginalized than they are today. Are we sure that’s what we want?

Re: The Beginning of the End of the Beef Industry?

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a beyond meat burger, I'm curious to hear the opinion of others that have had one too because I thought it tasted terrible . The texture was nothing like real ground beef and neither was the flavour. It wasn't good different either - I'd much rather have a regular bean burger. I feel like it's all marketing and they're just riding the hype wave caused by other better products or peoples desire for one. (I as…

I've had the impossible burger on multiple occasions. Every time I've had it, it felt like whoever cooked it either didn't care or was trying to present the burger as basically as possible to try to demo it as a discrete product. The trouble is, that's not how anyone over the age of 10 actually eats any kind of burger, so it's not really a fair presentation. If you actually season it (it absolutely needs salt and pep…

When I make a burger for myself, that's often (30% of the time?) how I eat it. But yeah, being a solid base to build a heavily flavored "burger" around is a significant use case, to be sure.
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