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How sustainable are fake meats?

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Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#31

Post by gambiting »

toqy wrote: post #16
phillipcarter wrote: post #8

Earlier 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…

> 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 store) are not that keen to tell you where the meat is actually from - when pushed you might find out that your local "butcher" is actually selling meat raised and slaughtered in Denmark or Poland.

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#32

Post by coldpie »

bantunes wrote: post #3
drewg123 wrote: post #2

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

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.

Who said it is surprising? It's useful to confirm one's assumptions with actual data, which is what this article is doing.

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#33

Post by Spooky23 »

feet wrote: post #20
zekica wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

The point was that growing meat is an extra multiple steps on top of everything you just mentioned

Not necessarily. "Environmental" problems are always scope to whatever issue the stakeholder is worried about.

Soy and wheat production in the United States is concentrated on the Great Plains, and made possible by irrigation sourced from groundwater and artificial fertilizer. Problem: that groundwater is being depleted faster than replenishment, and part of the plains will be desert-like within the lifetime of many HN users. So you're looking at destroying some of the more productive farmlands on earth, and have been destroying the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi delta for decades with massive levels of nitrate pollution.

Most of the problems with meat production are about scale. You can actually utilize the waste products of a 200 head herd of cattle, but 20,000 is an industrial waste site. Likewise, you can't pasture large scales of cattle, and feedlots intensify things like methane emissions, etc.

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#34

Post by megaman821 »

kujin88 wrote: post #18

AFAIK they're far more sustainable since they need nowhere near the amount of land, water, resources and food as the animals in the dairy and meat industries do. This, and further minus all the torture, suffering and force-feeding

I think fake meat will be important in the future because there is no way we can eat the amount of meat and dairy that we do without many negatives. That said, there is a level of sustainable livestock. Cows can graze on natural grass lands, eating a plants that humans can't digest anyway. Pigs can mostly eat agricultural waste product. Chickens can eat cover crops. The fact that land is cleared for grazing and animals are fed crops is due to the amount of meat people eat could never be met through natural means.

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#35

Post by drewg123 »

bantunes wrote: post #3
drewg123 wrote: post #2

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

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.

Its not surprising at all once you think about it, but most people have not thought deeply about it.

I posted the quote because I feel like the article's title is click-bait, and has the implied conclusion that plant based "fake meats" are not sustainable, when the opposite is true... real meat is not sustainable.

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#36

Post by erikpukinskis »

coldpie wrote: post #27
Swizec wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

FWIW the vegetarian “whole food” version of a burger and fries is probably a falafel sandwich and fries.

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#37

Post by OrvalWintermute »

chrchr wrote: post #19
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.

It’s not actually that simple. Livestock don’t necessarily eat the same plants people eat. Cattle can eat indigestible-to-humans cellulose in grasses and turn it into meat and milk. Grass can grow on marginal land without fertilizer or irrigation, unlike food crops for humans. Pigs and chickens can eat garbage and turn them into meat and eggs.

> Cattle can eat indigestible-to-humans cellulose in grasses and turn it into meat and milk. Grass can grow on marginal land without fertilizer or irrigation, unlike food crops for humans.

In central California I've seen cattle gaining weight on high desert scrub. When I look at the land there it looked like inedible, but to a hungry steer, it was quite passable.

The wild pigs there become immensely huge, in large groups - they are a great example of how much edible food there is actually is for animals.

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#38

Post by kampsun »

phillipcarter wrote: post #8
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 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 playfull and curious (not like sheep, who were rather booring), kinda like a dog. My father also really liked to take care of it. I remember that he even applied some soothing cream on it after a rather bad sunburn. But in the end it was still bought and raised for meat. My father had always been a guy that slaughtered animals for other people in the neighborhoud, pigs also. But this one really got under his skin. He did still slaughter it, but sweared to never raise and kill a pig himself. It reportedly was kinda like killing a puppy.

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#39

Post by TheRealPomax »

bantunes wrote: post #3
drewg123 wrote: post #2

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

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.

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.

Re: How sustainable are fake meats?

#40

Post by Swizec »

coldpie wrote: post #27
Swizec wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yeah so eat a burger and fries when it feels right :)

No need to go full vegetarian. No need to eat cows every day. Balance

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