501–510 of 648 posts
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That's an interesting question: how much would it cost to keep 3 years of food (let's assume the bare minimum - refined white flour) in reserve for the entire United States? What is the cost of food subsidies over the same period?
There’s some issue with storage - long term storage of food leads to the nutrients decaying.
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From a strategic perspective grain is the most important thing in a food shortage. People can live a year or two without fruit or vegetables, but without the calories in grain things will get violent fast.
I'm not going to dismiss it outright, but I am mild-to-medium skeptical of this theory. Take a look at some of the recent years of subsidies listed on https://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=00000&progcode=total&yr... . It's not just that we prioritize feed crops more than oranges, we also prioritize feed crops more than potatoes and root vegetables. Our corn subsidies are on average over twice as high as our wheat subs…
Very much the government altering the free market. Corn subsidies are not without their consequences. Cattle do not live healthily on corn. People don't do so well on corn syrup either.
I'm not a huge fan of reducing my own meat consumption but think the government should stop subsidizing these industries.
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I'm not going to dismiss it outright, but I am mild-to-medium skeptical of this theory. Take a look at some of the recent years of subsidies listed on https://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=00000&progcode=total&yr... . It's not just that we prioritize feed crops more than oranges, we also prioritize feed crops more than potatoes and root vegetables. Our corn subsidies are on average over twice as high as our wheat subs…
> t's not just that we prioritize feed crops more than oranges, we also prioritize feed crops more than potatoes and root vegetables Root vegetables don't have much calories. So this would actually make sense.
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Yes, the problem is not dairy vs. non-dairy, it is with feeding kids who have been weaned a vegetarian or vegan diet in general. For instance, the following is a recent study (July 2020): Vegetarian and Vegan Weaning of the Infant: How Common and How Evidence-Based? A Population-Based Survey and Narrative Review Background: Vegetarian and vegan weaning have increasing popularity among parents and families. However, i…
That's certainly an interpretation of that study. Here's another one. > Almost half of parents (45.2%) claim that their pediatrician was unable to provide sufficient information and adequate indications regarding unconventional weaning and 77.4% of parents reported the pediatrician’s resistance towards alternative weaning methods. > Our results show that alternative weaning methods are followed by a significant numbe…
No, it’s an argument that people should probably listen more to their pediatrician.
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It's a reasonable argument that government subsidies for farmers reduce prices for the consumer, but I don't think it's necessarily a correct assumption. Subsidies help the local farmers to compete with farmers in low cost countries. Transportation costs are usually insignificant. So without subsidies the consumer might pay the same price, but the store just ends up sourcing the product from a different country. Howe…
You could also just have large import tariffs on food. I’m honestly suprised the us doesn’t just have a 25%+ import tariff. Would quickly cause more domestic manufacturing. Like why do we even import garlic from China. We have plenty of domestic ability to produce.
Now I'm not saying that subsidising farmers to produce huge crops of the same 3 crops is the best way of continuing to ensure no one goes hungry, it self evidently doesn't work given the current status quo.
However, to talk about making huge changes to these systems without stopping to consider what impact it will have on that part of society is an incredibly rose tinted view of the world.
A tangential topic - I really think that in general calling plant-based things "meat", a terrible idea. It does not promote plant-base diet or meat consumption reduction. It is trying to be what is not. I think it pushes away those who are on the cusp of moving towards plant-base foods. Why? Because the consumer is told it is "meat", so they will compare it to meat. They will compare these patties to a real, prime An…
So far my favorite restaurant experience ever was going to Fu He Hui in Shanghai. It's a michelin star vegetarian restaurant, there was no fake meat, but it was extremely flavorful and I keep wishing I could go back.
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You know, I wonder if a meat-based production system is a hedge against catastrophic/extinction events. For example, let's say we have another potato-famine style event. Even a bio-engineered attack that takes out a crop or crops. We could scale back meat production and use the crop capacity we use to support the "meat pyramid" to feed people directly until the crisis has passed. Subsidizing crop capacity might make…
This seems to suggest that you think our meat comes from animals who kinda exist and compete mutually with crops when actually we feed most of our crops to animals. If there was an ecological disaster that killed crop production, we wouldn't waste it by feeding it to animals for a grossly inefficient luxury item. It's like when people try to make a "pro-meat" claim by pointing out how much water it takes to grow a po…
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You know, I wonder if a meat-based production system is a hedge against catastrophic/extinction events. For example, let's say we have another potato-famine style event. Even a bio-engineered attack that takes out a crop or crops. We could scale back meat production and use the crop capacity we use to support the "meat pyramid" to feed people directly until the crisis has passed. Subsidizing crop capacity might make…
OTOH shifting away from meat consumption would probably force more species diversity in our food production. I think corn and soybeans account for most of the crops grown for livestock feed, but humans eat a more varied diet. I image that would improve robustness against blights or whatever.
Interestingly it doesn't even discuss the obvious solution: Let people who buy real meat pay for the externalities. (Interestingly even in places where there's some form of carbon pricing - like the EU - this often doesn't cover a large share of emissions from meat production, as methane emissions are very relevant here - I'm not aware of any methane pricing scheme anywhere.)
Even if we ignore externalities and pollution costs, just stop outright subsidizing animal meat production so much. The reason meat is so cheap is because our government puts a lot of effort and money into making it cheap. I don't know why more people aren't trying to sell this to the "free market" crowd as government overreach. The reality right now is that plant-based protein is gaining popularity despite the marke…
We might look at them to see how diet relates to agriculture subsidies.
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I agree with you. I know more than one person who would turn up their nose at a 'veggie meat' sandwich, but would happily tuck in to a falafel wrap. Marketing matters!
Yes, but those people are usually already vegetarians. ”Fake meat” is meant for people who still do it meat, not for someone who has completely banished it from their lives.
I realize I didn't clarify this with my original statement, but I meant 'folks I know who are avowed meat-eaters, and not vegetarians'.
To be honest, this surprised me a little, too. But I've come to realize a lot of 'meat>*' people really love the veggie dishes I share with them, as long as it's an upfront, honest vegetable dish, and not trying to pretend it's something else.
