Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet • Hacker News Board

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#511

Post by bjoli » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 6:56 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #489

bjoli wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In sweden this is called being a Stockholm vegetarian, and it's very much a thing. I know a bunch of people like you, and they all claim that the hardest thing is to not just go "fuck it" and eat meat like they did before.

That’s funny, because I don’t enjoy meat as much as before any more. Before I couldn’t imagine a life without meat. Now, every time I eat it I feel less satisfied. I don’t I ever go back. But who knows.

I still think I enjoy meat, milk and eggs, but every time I try it (mostly by accident) I am disgusted by the taste.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#512

Post by WorldMaker » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:02 PM UTC

frankbreetz wrote: post #452

cronix wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What will happen to veggie prices when we go to a $15 min wage? Do other farms not benefit from illegal labor?

It takes considerably less labor to farm vegetables than to farm vegetables and feed those vegetables to animals and also take care of those animals. So vegetable prices may go up, but considerably less so when compared to meat.

Crop labor has also seen a lot more automation in general than meat labor over the last several decades. Some crop farms are almost entirely automated (and International Harvester and other brands think that Level 3 self-driving tech alone puts them on a path to nearly full automation in the next decade or so), though obviously things vary based on which crop.

On the other hand, slaughterhouses generally haven't seen any automation and other than size/scale mostly still resemble their counterparts from previous centuries.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#513

Post by WorldMaker » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:08 PM UTC

0xffff2 wrote: post #501

frankbreetz wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes considerably less labor to farm vegetables than to farm vegetables and feed those vegetables to animals and also take care of those animals. So vegetable prices may go up, but considerably less so when compared to meat.

Got a source for that? I've never been involved in commercial vegetable farming or large-scale cattle raising, but small-scale ranching is really not that labor intensive in my experience.

Scale seems to be exactly the problem. Industrial scale crop farming is highly automated. There aren't similar automations as you scale up cattle, and slaughterhouse work/butchering includes several skilled labor tasks with no similar skilled labor equivalents in vegetable farming.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#514

Post by magduf » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:13 PM UTC

shlant wrote: post #467

elktea wrote: post #92

There's a good case to be made for humans being primarily meat eaters for much of our history and only eating plants as an alternative to starving - we certainly haven't had time to evolve to eat a vegetarian diet. Agriculture has only been around for a small fraction of our history and the skeletal record clearly shows how disasterous it was for our health. The current 'plant based' fad diet recommendations are back…

Sounds like a big ol' Paleo-esque Appeal to Nature argument. > The current 'plant based' fad diet recommendations are backed up by some very poor science and may be seriously unsuitable for humans and for children in particular, nutrition-wise Care to provide evidence to back that up? Your broad, evolutionary talking points and observations on stomach pH in your other response hardly backs up your strongly worded sup…

>Plant based diets have been practiced by not insignificant portions of the population beginning in the 6th-century BCE with Buddhism and Hinduism. An estimated 20-40% of India is currently vegetarian. Not sure "fad" is an accurate descriptor.

In terms of human history, he's right. 6th-century BCE was not very long ago at all: that's less than a mere 3000 years. Humans have been around for over 2 million years.

Also, he's right about the skeletal record: archaeology shows that humans lost about 1 foot of height when they switched to agriculture. Yes, much of India is vegetarian, but Indians tend to be pretty short, but then when they emigrate to western nations and adopt more western diets, their kids end up dwarfing them.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#515

Post by WorldMaker » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:18 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #300

Frondo wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in Canada recently and tried one of the Tim Hortons "beyond sausage" sausage, egg, and cheese sandwiches. From the "beyond meat" people. Had I not known what I was eating, I wouldn't have known it was plant-based at all. The taste and texture was, at least in fast food terms, just a really good sausage. I haven't been able to try the beyond burger Burger King is selling, but if it's on par with the beyond sausa…

Quick note: Burger King uses the Impossible Burger, not the Beyond Burger. In my opinion, the Impossible Burger isn't any better than a MorningStar Farms Grillers Prime (at significantly higher price). The Beyond Burger though is easily the best meat-free burger I've ever had. A&W and Carl's Junior are Beyond Burger joints.

A good Impossible Burger served "steakburger style" as in medium rare and "still bleeding", has been the best fake burger I have ever had, but the Impossible is often too easily dried out when folks grill it to medium or much worse medium well, resulting in some of the worst.

Beyond is better in that bad burger place/greasy spoon medium to medium well, so its generally more consistent in places that serve other burgers, but it doesn't beat the Impossible at its best.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#516

Post by moreranchplease » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:22 PM UTC

noetic_techy wrote: post #510

martius wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eating less meat is not veganism. It's not even vegetarianism. It's not the first time that I'm seeing reactions about this report to focus on veganism. I don't understand where it comes from: the word "vegan" is absent from the article and the IPCC report doesn't recommend a any diet. I understand debate about this report and the impact of agriculture and breeding, but I don't understand why the debate is centered a…

If you trace the origin of most of these low meat consumption pushes, its often vegan groups with an agenda trying to get the governments ear. Problem is, the recommendations and studies they site don't stand up to real scrutiny. For example they often say you should not exceed the RDA for meat consumption, without realizing that an RDA is the bare minimum to not be nutrient deficient. It is by no means the optimal l…

most row crops are used to feed livestock.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#517

Post by magduf » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:32 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #13

Nyandalized wrote: post #2

I don't think people will stop consuming meat if you ask them nicely. You have to make decisions that will hurt the meat industry and make it infeasible. This would likely best be achieved through slowly dropping tax incentives, and transferring them over to alternatives so that people have something equally economical to today's meat.

There is no need to go from one extreme to the other. This is about eating "less" meat. People do not traditionally eat that much meat because meat used to be expensive and its supply limited. This is still the case in poor countries. In developed countries, people started to eat more and more meat as they got richer because we naturally like meat and because of clever marketing. We now eat too much meat, and also co…

>and also consume too much dairy (adults don't need to drink any milk and many don't digest it well, by the way)

How much is "too much"?

We don't need to drink tea or coffee either; do you propose getting rid of those too?

For those of us who have no problems digesting it, what exactly is the problem with eating yogurt or drinking milk? Sure, consuming too much of those probably isn't good, but you can say that about literally any food.

For people who don't digest it well, then of course I'd suggest not drinking it. The same goes for any other food: if you're allergic to peanuts, don't eat them. If you're allergic to shellfish, don't eat them. If you're allergic to bananas, don't eat them. If you're lactose-intolerant, don't drink milk unless you really like the taste and want to add lactase enzyme.

I do agree that Americans in particular eat way too much red meat, but I think some people give dairy a hard time when I don't think it's that much of a problem compared to many other things. Most adults don't drink a lot of milk anyway; usually "dairy" for adults means eggs, cheese, yogurt, etc. I don't see the health problems with dairy the way I see with red meat either. For improving public health, we should instead be reducing how much red meat people eat, plus also reducing or eliminating stuff like HFCS, refined sugars, refined flour, alcohol, etc.

>One solution would be measures to increase prices but that is a political minefield.

What they should do is just eliminate the tax breaks that unhealthy industries enjoy.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#518

Post by magduf » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

gbear605 wrote: post #347

CommieDetector wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you can not force people _not_ to eat something.

There’s an established precedent in (American) law that it’s generally okay to forbid an action but it’s not okay to mandate an action. For example, you can stop people from driving without a license, but you can’t make everyone get a license.

I hate to point it out, but ObamaCare is an example of the reverse: you're mandated to purchase health insurance, or else pay a hefty penalty fee.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#519

Post by magduf » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:42 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #145

dkersten wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it damages the world or society, then why not? Would you say that I have the right to eat pets? Humans? Animals (or plants) that are on the brink of extinction? There are plenty of valid reasons to restrict what people are allowed to eat.

By pets what do you mean? Is it ethical for me to have a cat, when cats are obligate carnivores that not only have to eat meat but also independently kill billions of birds a year? Is it not okay for me to eat a chicken but it's perfectly ok to own a python or boa and feed it live mice? Cows are not killing the planet. They are one of the few things you can raise that doesn't require pesticides or chemical fertilizer…

>Is it ethical for me to have a cat, when cats are obligate carnivores that not only have to eat meat but also independently kill billions of birds a year?

Properly-kept housecats stay inside and don't kill any birds. I suspect the vast majority of those bird deaths are caused by feral cats, not pets (though of course, most ferals probably are or descend from pets that were abandoned or escaped). Our society could be doing a better job with dealing with feral animals like this, because they are bad for ecosystems; they're basically invasive predators.

Bird-killing aside, the environmental impact of pets is actually pretty staggering. It's probably worse for dogs too, since they're much larger animals on average.

>The megafauna that existed on planet Earth just 200, 500, and 12,000 years ago were far more numerous than the number of livestock cows today.

Citation needed. Yes, there were millions of buffalo on the American plains 1000+ years ago, but a quick Google search shows there's over 94 million cows in America today. Also, from what I've read, there are more plains now than in the past, because forests were destroyed by humans to make grasslands.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#520

Post by DiseasedBadger » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 8:06 PM UTC

ObscureMind wrote: post #373

mark_l_watson wrote: post #236

At least in the USA, this could in principle be fixed by ending the corporate welfare state. Old news, but All major industries like the beef industry get huge tax breaks, free water and other giveaways at the general taxpayer’s expense. Fixing the corruption (both democratic and republican parties) in our our political would end up helping the environment a lot. That said, we have zero chance of fixing our corrupt p…

> That said, we have zero chance of fixing our corrupt political system We do have a chance. It's not going to be long until a critical mass of individuals understand that democracy is a system that legitimizes coercion, and that taxation is theft and generates poverty. We just need one more generation until that happens. When people reach that conclusion, they will move their money away from fiat currencies and they…

If putting your money in crypto prevents you from paying taxes, it's you who'd go to jail. If any government saw a dip in taxes, they'd just pass a law requiring an "internet driver's license". Then require your wallet number. Such licenses are already common, outside the US.

So, less anarcho anything. More jail time, and then forced labor, and then one again paying taxes.

Sorry.