This is absolutely a 'do not trust these claims without seeing peer-reviewed publication in a reputable journal' territory. For one thing, this is likely to be a slow method of capturing CO2 (H2-powered CO2-capture metabolism, called 'chemoautotrophy' is almost certainly going to be much slower than green plant photosynthetic capture rates). Maybe you could speed it up by adding enough hydrogen at optimal rates, but that's not free either.
I don't know a lot about current lab-grown meat approaches, and all the outfits involved seem hush-hush about the main issue, the feedstock (what kind of specific blend of nutrients/growth factors needs to be fed to the cultured muscle cells for optimal growth), but I don't see how chemoautrophic microbial goop becomes 'meat' by any similar process.
There's a lot of hype about carbon capture and reduction to fuel/food/material it seems, but the only proven industrial approach is something like modified Fischer-Tropsch, based on the nitrogen-to-ammonia Haber-Bosch process, which involves taking pure CO2 and H2 feedstocks, converting the CO2 to carbon monoxide, and then reacting the CO with H2 at high pressure and temperature with a suitable catalyst to make a variety of long-chain hydrocarbon fuels. This has been done at scale using coal-sourced CO and natural-gas sourced H2 very successfully, so that's where you'd want to start if you were serious about it. Occidental seems to be getting into it for example, which is sort of what you'd expect, as it's basically just like large-scale petrochemistry.
Lots of Theranos vibes around the whole business though, I'm afraid to say.
They appear to have given very vague information about what kind of bacteria they culture.
Assuming that they have told the truth and they feed their bacteria with carbon dioxide, dihydrogen and dioxygen, then those bacteria are not powered by the H2 with CO2 reaction (which is possible only in anaerobic conditions, by acetogenic or methanogenic bacteria/archaea), but by the oxidation of hydrogen.
The use of the word "fermentation" is completely inappropriate. Regardless what kind of bacteria they are using, the bacteria do not carry out any kind of fermentation (which refers to obtaining energy from large molecules, either by converting them into isomers or by breaking them down into smaller molecules).
In any case slowness is not their problem, because they do not use air as the source of CO2, but they use concentrated CO2, which accelerates a lot the CO2 capture.
Also, if the bacteria oxidize dihydrogen, they dispose of much more energy than the anaerobic bacteria which also capture CO2, so a doubling time of a few hours is believable.
What is unlikely is that they can produce their proteins at a cost comparable with, e.g., chicken meat or proteins extracted from legumes, when they use relatively expensive concentrated CO2 and dihydrogen to feed the bacteria and also a presumably expensive process to separate the protein and convert it into a product resembling meat.
I got a similar feeling from one particular statement in the article: that the founder of Air Protein previously founded a company (Kiverdi) that "now holds dozens of patents on technologies to turn recycled carbon dioxide into alternative fuels". That company was founded in 2008. So where are all these alternative fuels that their patents are for? If any kind of process like this has a hope of working at scale, using it to produce commercial quantities of alternative fuels seems a lot easier than using it to produce commercial quantities of food for humans. So if they can't even produce the alternative fuels at scale, how are they going to do it for food?
Instead of elaborate carbon capture infrastructure, it seems more straightforward to just use photosynthetic organisms like algae. Either engineer algae to make the proteins you want, or engineer yeast or some other microbe that can take the products of algae and convert to these proteins.
Honestly it sounds like a needless and impractical gimmick.
Or we can just have plants capture the CO2, give those plants to large ruminants which will feed those plants to the microbiota in their cecum, digest the microbiota and converting it into the kind of nutritious protein and fat that hominids have adapted to digest almost exclusively for millions of years.
If one is worried about the methane emissions of cattle, it's not really clear that this is even a secondary concern. The carbon that cows produce, whether it be methane or CO2, came from the atmosphere and is returned to the atmosphere. That is because cows are eating plants which derive their carbon primarily from the atmosphere. This is different from fossil sources of methane, which isn't atmospheric unless it's released. The isotope of carbon isn't even the same between bio-methane and fossil methane. The methane that cows release is oxidized after several years.
Meat farming takes in CO2 (photosynthesis), and produces CO2 (cows breathing) and CH4 (cows farting). CH4 is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, so, even by your flawed simplified model, farming cows has a net negative greenhouse effect.
CH4 has a half life of like 10 years or so, so even if you deleted all cows from the world right now, in 20-40 years you'd be back to "only fossil fuel CO2 causing climate change".
Furthermore, has CH4 from cows even increased historically? There are 30m cows in the US, compared to 60m bison 150 years ago.
A common error about CH4 is misunderstanding half-life vs CO2e calculations. The half life is 10 years but that does not make it a non-problem; a commonly used number is that CH4 is 25 more potent that CO2 -- but that number 25x is OVER A 100 YEAR LIFESPAN that already INCLUDES the decay over those 100 years. So if you mention that half year is 10 years you also throw the number 25x out the window, then the multiplier is much much larger (forgot how much). Because of this scientists use different potebtial multiplier for CH4 for different time horizons. Anyway it IS a problem to have CH4 instead of CO2, how big a problem depends on your time horizon and over 100 years CH4 is 25x worse than CO2 INCLUDING decay.
You touch on the second point already. As long as lifestock is constant, CH4 is constant at a certain level. Still: Reducing lifestock will reduce CH4 to a lower constant level which will reduce greenhouse effects as CH4 decays to a lower stable level where emission and decay balance.
In a sense, reducing lifestock is the same as CO2 capture -- not the same as stopping to burn fossils.
My understanding is that CH4 breakdown in the atmosphere isn’t a matter of exponential decay either but is (or could become) rate limited by OH radical availability. Such that the half life increases as more is in the atmosphere and it’s possible to totally outpace the breakdown even at constant emissions.
So what if methane is more "potent"? How potent and in relation to what, and in what amount?
Large ruminants and other animals that produce methane roamed the Earth in greater numbers long before humans came up with the concept of livestock. Stable isotopes of carbon in atmospheric methane don't support livestock being a contributor to rising methane at all. Because livestock methane is part of the carbon cycle, and livestock aren't in greater numbers, problematic increases in atmospheric methane have to be coming from somewhere else, most likely things such as fracking. Carbon-14 would be increasing in the atmosphere if cows were responsible.
Even if we eliminated meat consumption, hypothetically speaking, it's totally unclear and unfounded that any meaningful difference would be made. According to the United States EPA, agriculture as a whole makes up 11% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. That percentage includes everything from farm to table, meaning that cows in particular make up a fraction of that since most of the greenhouse gas will inevitably come from transportation and processing. Methane itself makes up ~11% of greenhouse gas. Show me any evidence whatsoever that correcting for the greenhouse gas from animals bred for food will make any appreciable difference in changing the climate in the favor of humans.
By the way, most of the methane from cows comes from their burping, not farting.
The 25x number already includes this effect. Methane is much much more potent than CO2, but since it breaks down rapidly then over the course of a 100 years the average effect is 25x.
So: if you first say "25x" then you cannot say "break down" afterwards because that is included in the 25x, you are then mentally including the breakdown twice.
There are also higher numbers in use than 25x that is used for the effect over shorter horizons. But 100 years seems like a good horizon for the humanity getting through the crisis or not.
> Or we can just have plants capture the CO2, give those plants to large ruminants which will feed those plants to the microbiota in their cecum, digest the microbiota and converting it into the kind of nutritious protein and fat that hominids have adapted to digest almost exclusively for millions of years.
The time involved, from capture by plants to a grown up mammal are very long. The space this very elegant self-replicating organic machines take is also enormous. You can cut the process in half and get proteins and carbs directly from plants, but we have known that for ages and, even with the future of our species at stake (no pun intended) we still haven’t changed our diets.
That's right that cow farts don't contribute anything to climate change. Some sources quote the methane cattle emit as if it was significant but it isn't because the environment can handle it. In truth, the emissions from farming that the environment can't handle come from "land use change". That's the land that's deforested and turned into cropland to feed cattle.
But that's a big problem and not one to be underestimated. We are tearing down the ability of the environment to capture carbon, one hectare of forest, let alone rainforest, at a time. That has to stop. And that means cutting down on meat production.
That's not to say we should stop producing and eating meat. That'd be just risking malnutrition on a planetary scale.
I'm also not sure about the bit where you say "hominids have adapted to digest almost exlusively for millions of years", where you mean meat. We're omnivorers and we are "adapted" to an omnivore diet: a little bit of everything. Eating only meat is as braindead as eating only plants. We need a balanced diet to stay healthy.
It's not like it gets you nothing; photosynthesis would be much less efficient in terms of the land footprint required. The article discusses the footprint required for their facilities relative to normal agriculture; the difference is massive. Photosynthesis is effectively driven by a 2D flux and thus is constrained by surface area to a pretty large extent – unless you use an electric light source, which would require renewable energy to be sustainable and thus, again, be constrained by surface area (think wind farms and PVs). With their technology, they can use a bioreactor and aerate it with the CO2, etc. required to grow the microbes they're using. That means the energy is not constrained to a 2D flux and can be delivered across all three dimensions in a volume.
1. Assimilating photons from sunlight to generate electrical potential by oxidizing water (ps that is kind of a crazy concept).
2. Fixing carbon dioxide by using the electron from step one to reduce CO2 to C-OH (ish)
1. Photosystem-II-I systems really suck, like, commercially available photocells are more efficient than fundamental quantum limits of the protein complex, beyond what it is likely for us to be able to do design or evolve for. Our photocells are getting better too. Also, photosynthetic organisms, especially algae, self-shadow. That's why you almost have to have those rediculous algae racetracks (look it up) and of course often the least valuable land + where there is sunlight so that it stands a chance to make economical sense is often in the desert, so for algae you're stuck shipping water to the desert :/
2. Carbon fixation really really sucks. RuBisCo is the enzyme that is the bottleneck. It sucks so hard that RuBisCo is literally the most abundant enzyme on the planet to make up for how bad it is. Not only is it an annoyingly slow enzyme, it's oxygen sensitive, which is hilarious because step 1 of photosynthesis cracks water. Plants and algae do some crazy gymnastics to separate part 1 and part 2; look up C3 and C4 cycles, and algae had to invent colonial forms and terminal differentiation because their carbon fixers are kept segregated from their photosynthesizers; one algae -synechocystis 6803 has one of the biggest algae genomes, it probably mostly goes into a rigourous gene expression which is used to anticipate circadian cycles and prepare the cell to flip between day (photosystem) and night (carbon and nitrogen fixation) cycles.
I recently spoke with a researcher working in this field. She identified three key issues:
1. Doing it with microbes means keeping the microbes alive, which is hard. You need to essentially replicate the functions of an animal, and you’re not necessarily going to be more efficient at them.
2. You can solve this by just doing it in a chemical process with catalysts and stuff. This is pretty easy except we have no way to control the chirality of the proteins (50% will be poisonous mirror images of proteins, think thalidomide). Chiral sorting is still really hard.
3. It will taste nasty.
The article discusses 1 and 3 but 2 is an interesting one that I think doesn’t get much attention.
I used to be a biologist and worked a lot with bioreactors.
1 is absolutely true and on top of that, and also since this is meant to become food, you need to be extremely careful to make sure that none of your batches become contaminated by literally anything that lives in the surrounding air, water and all other inputs to the process.
Plus, when you "scale" out your process (i.e. use a bigger bioreactor) these problems grow as much, there is no economy of scale here, quite the contrary the larger this gets the bigger the headaches.
I guess they deserve the benefit of the doubt but I'm bearish on them succeeding. I really hope they prove me wrong, though!
You can't build proteins at that scale from amino acids (I used to make proteins from amino acids).
There are absolutely ways to catalytically control chirality. See k Barry sharpless' Nobel prize, David macmillan proline catalysis, etc. Scale is still a problem.
The mirror images of proteins are highly unlikely to be toxic in the way that thalidomide is.
You can go half way and just use micro organisms like algae. Those are very easy to keep alive, they really just need sun and CO2. Then you can use the sugars and lipids as feed stock for the next step.
Algae are not that easy to keep alive, unless you are skimming a wild pond, or harvesting kelp or something. At that point you might as well get your sugars from conventionally farmed plants.
I grow it myself. Occasionally you have to replenish the nitrates and I keep it in a climate controlled area but other than that it takes pretty much no effort to keep alive.
And that's not even accounting for making modifications or algae husbandry to try to improve yields, which will cripple your algae ability to fend off things that want to eat it, etc.
Could you use an enzyme to reliably produce chiral molecules? Maybe we will be able to mass-produce nano-machines or something that could facilitate this on an avogadro's scale.
Oh just stop. I'll eat Falafel and other vegan foods. But why would I ever eat a chicken or beef replacement? Just make some unconstrained good vegan food. It'll be better.
So I love the taste of meat, but I generally don't think my personal enjoyment is sufficient reason to further harm both highly intelligent animals and the climate. It's a decision I have deemed egoistic with regards to myself (and myself only - I am not one for evangelism). I want to explain why my experience seems a bit different with "replacements".
It is very hard to change habits, so I have not stopped eating meat completely. However, I have successfully reduced my meat consumption by a significant amount, all thanks to some substitutes making it very easy to reduce some real meat while keeping my every-day habit foods. The quality and taste of the replacements range from excellent to complete utter shit. I exclusively focus on the currently good or excellent ones and adapt new items from now and then.
For example, the "Rügenwalder Mühle" company in Germany makes some excellent products [1] that are totally enough to satisfy me. Substitution works best with meats that are typically a highly processed mess filled with salt & spices. No, it doesn't fully taste the same as meat but, like I said, it tastes good enough and every gram less meat eaten is a microscopic positive change that still matters en masse.
If more people would think like you it'd be a great step forward, i.e. putting climate / biosphere health & stability and reducing animal suffering above their taste buds and being happy with 'good enough'.
Plant based meat substitutes are becoming better and better. Some folks can't tell the difference already.
That's because like OP says "Substitution works best with meats that are typically a highly processed mess filled with salt & spices". See how Burger King and McDonalds are so eager to sell you plant burgers and plant nuggets? That's because they don't give a shit what you eat, as long as it gets you in through the door.
But those are the same people, the same industry, the same organisations, that are responsible for the over-production and over-consumption of meat, and they are very directly responsible for deforestation and land use change for industrial farming.
Not eating meat may or may not do anything for the environment, but continuing to support the food industry does exactly the opposite: it supports the people who destroy the environment. And the ones who torture animals to boot.
Here's a simple solution: don't eat industrial shit. If you're going to eat meat, eat meat from a small, local farmer (not for the miles, but for the size). If you're going to not eat meat, then don't eat fake meat, but real food made of plants and that looks like plants.
And if you can't stand not eating meat, then sit down and think why not. Moralising about pleasure is dumb. People enjoy eating meat for the same reason we enjoy eating plants: because it's nourishing.
You want to save the environment? Eat real food and support the people who make real food. Not burgers.
Yes - you have these substitutes that are high in fats and salt.
But there are also substitutes that are healthier. Or like you said, just don't go for fake meat products - that's also an option. But to allow people to transition to a more plant-based diet and try out different dishes - these fake meat burgers help.
> Not eating meat may or may not do anything for the environment
Not eating meat will reduce our carbon footprint and deforestation. The conclusion of this Oxford University study [0] is that the single best thing an individual can do to reduce their environmental footprint is to avoid or reduce as much as possible meat & dairy consumption. The lead researcher gave up meat & dairy because of this study.
> Moralising about pleasure is dumb. People enjoy eating meat for the same reason we enjoy eating plants: because it's nourishing.
Why is it dumb? As far as I know we are the only animal with morale agency. Then why don't we use it?
Do you think it's justified to kill a sentient being, like a cow, just so we can enjoy its flesh? Like you said, plants are equally nourishing, so why not avoid killing other sentient beings when it's not necessary anymore for our survival?
> Eat real food and support the people who make real food.
I'm all for that. But we'd need a different agricultural system - maybe vertical farms etc - to make this scalable and more affordable. One thing that must end is subsidizing the meat & dairy industry and subsidize foods with a lower environmental footprint.
I never said anything about plants being "equally nourishing". I certainly believe that it is "justified" to kill another animal of a different species to eat its flesh. You can't eat an animal's flesh without enjoying it, so I don't care about your sneaky attempt to turn the simple issue of what nourishes our bodies to a morality play about pleasure. I do not feel any guilt about my bodily functions.
If I thought killing an animal to eat its flesh is not justified, then why would I think that killing a plant to eat its flesh is justified? A life is a life and to feed you have to take a life (or many). You're an animal and a cow is an animal, and so you (seem to?) think that a cow's life is more important or valuable than that of a potato, but that is an inconsistent and self-centered belief.
I don't really care about your distinction between "sentient" and, presumably non-sentient, either. That's an arbitrary distinction you have conjured up just to support your misguided ideology. In a vast universe that is almost entirely composed of dead matter, we must value life above all else, in all its forms. To value one being's life over another is an abominable injustice and it is only with extreme contortions of reason that vegans and vegetarians arrive at it. Or rather, historically, it is because of religious beliefs (like in Buddhists etc) that they do.
There is a difference between animals and plants. That's a scientific fact.
The question isn't which is more valuable - it's: can they suffer?
The answer is yes - other animals suffer - just like us human animals. Plants don't suffer as they don't have pain receptor cells or a central nervous system.
Take your example of a potato and a cow. If you cut a potato in half - it lives on and you will have more potatoes if you let those pieces grow. I think you know what happens to a cow when it's cut in half.
Have you ever killed an animal? If so, how did it react? What did you feel while it was screaming for its life? What happens when you pick an apple or harvest nuts, legumes etc?
Another thought experiment. How do you think children would react to the following scenarios:
A) Cutting the throat of a baby sheep or pig, the blood gushing out and the animal screaming of pain - and the mother if she's nearby screaming as well because its baby is being slaughtered.
B) Cutting a carrot, apple, mango or other fruit / vegetable or crushing nuts.
There are various videos online showing how children react when they find out where meat comes from. They are shocked and cry - without even having to show them these graphic images. It's a sign that humans are not carnivores. Our mouths don't salivate when we see or smell blood, when we see intestines etc. quite the opposite - most people are disgusted by seeing all this stuff. That's why all this is hidden from us. We only see nice pieces of meat in the shops.
As per Carl Sagan's words - 'They (animals) are too much like us'.
The fact is - humans who are not hunter gatherers anymore or don't live in harsh environments, don't need meat to survive. Several government health organizations have already stated that humans can get adequate nutrition from plant-based foods alone.
Since you are here on HN, I'm assuming you are interested in tech. I'm assuming you appreciate a logical way of thinking.
What is more logical when it comes to feeding the world.
A) Consume foods that require FEWER resources and create less damage to our biosphere.
B) Consume foods that require MORE resources and slowly destroy our biosphere.
I'm not attacking your way of life. But we humans have given up previous practices that didn't make sense anymore, e.g. burning women alive because they were deemed 'witches'. Enslaving other humans, because they were deemed a lesser human. There are reports of farmers talking about how they've given up farming animals, as they realized 'there is somebody in there' - and transitioned to non animal farming. Just because something is a tradition, doesn't mean it's right. We humans evolve and so does our moral system.
Einstein talked about this 70 years ago - if we as a civilization want to survive, we can achieve this by 'widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.'
Future humans will equate what we are currently doing to animals the same way we find it morally reprehensible to enslave other humans. Even Star Trek envisioned this kind of future, where animals are not exploited anymore.
Like I said before, it would be great if the world could at least adopt the lifestyle you outlined, i.e. have a diet that's mostly plant-based. But as you already noted - the factory farm industry is trying to enter your world. And that's the problem - we need to eradicate this destructive industry.
A parting question:
If you can avoid cruelty, suffering and exploitation - why don't you?
Ignore all of the above, if you would die without eating meat.
So you just shifted the goal posts, huh? First you cared about killing a sentient being, now you care about their suffering.
And why is this any better? You only care about animal suffering because you are an animal who can suffer yourself. Your ideology remains selfish an self-centered. You don't care about killing a potato because the potato doesn't bleed and try to run away. You're still only thinking about yourself whle pretending to think of others.
Anyway it's a muddled and confused ideology that you obviously haven't thought about very carefully.
> Several government health organizations have already stated that humans can get adequate nutrition from plant-based foods alone.
No, that's not what those organisations say. What they say is that a "well-planned" (or words to that effect) vegan diet can be healthy. But only if it is carefully supplemented with all the nutrients that are missing from plant-only diets, such as B12 vitamins. Vegans are supposed to know that and still most do not get enough B12 to stay healthy:
> Most vegans show adequate B12 levels to make clinical deficiency unlikely but nonetheless show restricted activity of B12 related enzymes, leading to elevated homocysteine levels. Strong evidence has been gathered over the past decade that even slightly elevated homocysteine levels increase risk of heart disease and stroke and pregnancy complications.
In extreme cases, vegans have fed their children their ideologically-driven diets and have caused serious damage to their childrens' health, even death:
Vegan diest are not healthy. They are lacking in essential nutrients and are only so popular because most people who eat them, do not understand the danger to their health.
> So you just shifted the goal posts, huh? First you cared about killing a sentient being, now you care about their suffering.
FYI, the definition of suffering is: "to endure death, pain, or distress". So if you kill an animal, it will suffer.
And why do you keep comparing animals to potatoes? As noted before, it's a scientific fact that plants are not the same as animals. They don't have pain receptors or a central nervous system. Most probably the reason why they didn't evolve mechanism to 'run away'.
Here is another thought experiment for you. If you had to choose between the following 2 jobs, which one would you choose. Please answer if you can:
A) Work on the kill floor in a slaughterhouse. To quote a former slaughter house worker "the one thing you can never really understand unless you’ve been there – is the smell. The blood, such an acrid, thick scent, it feels like it physically travels inside your nose and stays there.
The fear has its own scent. It’s not something I could put into words, but even now, I would recognize it. It’s physically hard too.
These animals know what’s coming, and believe me, they fight against death with every fibre of their being."
B) Work in a vegetable or fruit processing plant.
FYI, slaughterhouse workers suffer from PTSD. MMA fighter Mike Bisping worked in a slaughterhouse and couldn't last 2 weeks.
So, could you work on the kill floor? If not - why pay others, who might not have any other option - just so we can have our meat.
> No, that's not what those organisations say. What they say is that a "well-planned"
Well planned simply means choosing plant-based foods that provide the nutrients you need. Same counts for meat eaters. Meat eaters have been advised to supplement D3.
And according to the article you linked it says:
"Most vegans consume enough B12 to avoid clinical deficiency. Two subgroups of vegans are at particular risk of B12 deficiency: long-term vegans who avoid common fortified foods (such as raw food vegans or macrobiotic vegans) and breastfed infants of vegan mothers whose own intake of B12 is low."
It says most vegans have no problems. Some who are on a raw fruit / veg diet - yes they lack nutrients and need to supplement. So using that very small group to back up your argument that a plant-based diet is unhealthy is dishonest.
Supplementation is easy. Just eat fortified foods or consume B12, which is extremely cheap to buy.
> Vegan diet are not healthy.
Your statement goes against many nutrition experts. Not only is a plant-based diet healthy, it can also prevent chronic diseases.
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics with over 112,000 members is one of the largest organization of food and nutrition professionals. Here is their stance on plant-based diets:
"Vegetarian and vegan diets are healthful, may prevent and treat chronic diseases, and are better for the environment [...] not only are vegetarian and vegan diets appropriate for all stages of the life cycle (pregnancy, infancy, childhood, etc.), but they also help reduce the risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, obesity, and some types of cancer."
And you seem to think you know better than 17,000 Physicians who are campaigning for a plant-based diet - https://www.pcrm.org/about-us
Furthermore - tell this to the various athletes who are thriving on a plant-based diet. See https://gamechangersmovie.com/
Look, I get that your identity seems to be tied heavily to food - I mean your user name 'cheese_goddess' gives a clue.
If you don't support the large scale animal agriculture industry and mostly consume plant-based dishes then that's great! More power to you.
But I encourage you to review your stance on animal well-being / rights and not just view them the same as potatoes.
Eating animals when it's not required for survival means that they have to be exploited and killed and for what? Tradition and taste?
> FYI, the definition of suffering is: "to endure death, pain, or distress". So if you kill an animal, it will suffer.
Really? According to whom? According to you who came up with it just now, so you can justify moving the goalposts? Haha. Nice try.
Nah, actually, not a nice try. Just even more typical vegan dishonesty and trying to win an argument by peddling lies.
> It says most vegans have no problems.
Nope. It says most vegans aren't clinically deficient. But it says very clearly that most vegans also have low homocysteine levels that put them at risk of heart disease, stroke and pregnancy complications.
> Look, I get that your identity seems to be tied heavily to food - I mean your user name 'cheese_goddess' gives a clue.
That's calling the kettle black, coming from a vegan (I mean, assuming you are vegan). My handle, which seems to trigger vegans on HN, is chosen because I'm an amateur cheesemaker and I had thought when I created it that I could contribute to discussions with my empirical knowledge of cheesemaking and some little things I know about dairy science and technology.
But it just so happens that any HN thread on anything to do with food is immediately invaded by hungry vegans keen on spreading their ideology. So I keep getting embroiled in these silly little internet arguments with people like you, who care nothing about anything but getting people to agree that eating meat is bad.
I don't even eat that much meat. I eat it maybe ... once a week? Every two weeks? It's not like I'm keeping count. I eat beef maybe once every five years, because I don't like it. I grew up on a Mediterrannean diet and I still cook and eat that way. I find the people who say we should eat only meat about as mad as vegans, and about as unhealthy.
So no, it's nothing to do with identity. It's just that all that stuff you say is mad. That we should eat only plants is as mad as saying we should eat only meat. It is mad people saying mad stuff on the mad internet. Mad mad mad.
> Your statement goes against many nutrition experts
It doesn't. What goes against those physicians you list is research that consistently finds that vegans are lacking in basic nutrients, that older vegans have more health issues, and that children fed vegan diets by their parents end up stunted, or dead. I linked to a bunch of those above and further down this sorry excuse for a thread.
Why are all those physicians contradicting common research findings? Well, I have no clue. But I know who I'm siding with. The 17,000 "physicians" saying that it's fine to cut out a major food group from your diet? Or the researchers who say that if you do, you're in risk of malnutrition? Guess which one makes more sense.
> I don't even eat that much meat. I eat it maybe ... once a week?
> I grew up on a Mediterrannean diet and I still cook and eat that way.
Good! And I already said previously if more people had your diet and life-style then we'd be in a much better situation environmentally.
And the next evolution from that would be not having to kill BILLIONS of animals for meat. We can create meat subs from plants, e.g. beyond burgers or wait for meat grown from animal cells also known as cultured meat.
That's all veganism is. No cruelty, death and destruction when it's not necessary.
Let's use our human ingenuity to solve our world's problems.
Killing an animal for meat is not cruelty. We eat meat. It comes from animals. The alternative is to eat the meat while the animal is alive, which is how it is normally done in the natural world. That is cruelty. A cruelty that humans do not bestow on their food.
FYI, the definition of cruel from the Oxford dictionary is "cruelty (to somebody/something) behaviour that causes physical or mental pain to others and makes them suffer, especially deliberately"
And why is the alternative eating an animal alive? Have you ever tried to eat a cow alive? Was it enjoyable and tasty?
Why is the alternative not eating the animal at all?
Let's use some logic here.
Here are some facts:
Fact 1
So it's been already established that you don't need meat to survive. Your own articles you shared state that you can have a healthy life on plant-based foods alone. You just need to ensure to get the necessary nutrients, either by supplementing or eating a bigger variety of plant based foods.
Fact 2
The large scale animal agriculture industry is a big contributing factor to the destruction of our biosphere. This has been backed up by numerous credible organizations, like the UN, IPCC, Oxford University and many others.
Fact 3
Animals feel pain. Animals are not plants. And killing an animal will mean it suffers, which is an act of cruelty. Simple test... has an animal ever freely given up its life, so you can eat its flesh? When you start slicing an animal with a knife, what do you think it will do. Will it think "yes please kill me and ingest my flesh" or will it run away?
Fact 4
Killing animals all day every day is a horrible job and it's PTSD inducing. So continuing to buy meat products means
you're sponsoring the continuation of slaughter houses, where many people have to work because they have no other options.
So given the above... why would you choose to eat meat when you could avoid the following by not eating meat and following a more plant-based diet:
A) Lower environmental footprint, which is required to avert a climate catastrophe
B) No sentient being has to suffer because you want some meat or cheese
C) People don't have to work in PTSD inducing slaughterhouses
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this.
I'm asking the same question over and over again - but you seem to skirt around it.
> Really? According to whom? According to you who came up with it just now, so you can justify moving the goalposts? Haha. Nice try.
According to a dictionary. I think if we want to have a meaningful debate, we need to stick to certain established definitions and this includes the meaning of suffering.
How am I moving the goal post?
The topic I'm talking about is that our current global food system and a heavy diet of meat & dairy is considerably contributing towards our biosphere destruction and that this meat & dairy diet causes unnecessary cruelty towards other animals.
> It's just that all that stuff you say is mad.
What is mad about listening to scientists?
What is mad about finding ways to not destroy our biosphere?
What is mad about not killing and exploiting other sentient beings when we don't need to?
Whay is mad about not creating a horrific industry (slaughterhouses) that gives people PTSD?
> I linked to a bunch of those above [...] Vegan diest are not healthy.
Then why do health and nutrition experts disagree with you? Are you a doctor or health expert?
Why does The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics say ""Vegetarian and vegan diets are healthful, may prevent and treat chronic diseases, and are better for the environment"
Why does the UN and IPCC recommend a more plant-based diet?
You linked to the following sites and both of them said there are no real concerns with a vegan diet - just need to ensure you eat plant based foods that have the nutrients you need and supplement accordingly.
"As noted above, a well-planned and carefully followed vegetarian diet can satisfy the nutrient requirements for infants and children, and thus cause no real concern."
"In choosing to use fortified foods or B12 supplements, vegans are taking their B12 from the same source as every other animal on the planet - micro-organisms - without causing suffering to any sentient being or causing environmental damage.
Vegans using adequate amounts of fortified foods or B12 supplements are much less likely to suffer from B12 deficiency than the typical meat eater. The Institute of Medicine, in setting the US recommended intakes for B12 makes this very clear."
B12 is not produced by animals. We don't have to kill animals to get B12.
So considering all of the above - it's a fact that we don't need meat to survive.
So please answer this question for me:
If we can avoid cruelty and violence towards other sentient beings - why don't we?
For example, you want from being concern about killing, to being concerned about suffering, to being concerned about the environment, to arguing how healthy it is to eat a vegan diet, and now you're concerned about cruelty.
In truth, you don't care about any of those things. You're just promoting your ideology on the internet. Or rather, in an HN thread that nobody even reads besides you and me. Yawn.
Let me repeat it again and not use too many words this time.
The topic is:
The meat & dairy industry causes environmental destruction and it's unnecessarily cruel towards other animals.
We've reached a point in human and technological evolution that we don't need to exploit & kill animals for our own survival anymore.
The official definition of veganism is:
"Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."
What's wrong with trying to promote that way of thinking?
Please tell me what is wrong about avoiding cruelty, killing and environmental destruction if all you have to do is not support the meat & dairy industry and not eating animals?
> Or rather, in an HN thread that nobody even reads besides you and me. Yawn.
Haha - you never know. HN is going to live on forever and some sentient AI will parse this content and agree that it is illogical to use meat & diary to feed the world as there are other foods that require far fewer resources ;)
> Global meat consumption, meanwhile, has dramatically increased over the last few decades and is still on the rise, projected to grow by about 14 percent by the end of this decade.
Translation: people all over the world who were previously too poor to afford meat can now afford it.
Travelling or opening a history book will reveal quickly that only rich people eat meat routinely.
I see the title and My first thought is literally: feed for livestock?
I cut hundreds of tons of hay a year for the cows I feed. The grass captures carbon, clover and various other plants add nitrogen back to the soil, and the grass (carbon) is fed to the cows. A well maintained pasture can be worked for centuries and increase production on average year over year.
It is pretty insane when you think about it. We could get all the climate harm reduction benefits the article mentions if people would just choose to eat plants instead. Seems like a very simple solution.
You start with not subsidizing the meat industry massively (via direct handouts, subsidized feed and so on) and making them pay for exterrnalities.
That way they'll have vastly less money for advertising and lobbying.
Then you take the trillions you've saved and use it to bring healthy, convenient, tasty options to put in front of them.
It's actually pretty easy to get people to make different choices, you just make the good choice slightly more convenient and stop subjecting them to 24/7 manipulation to make the terrible choice.
> bring healthy, convenient, tasty options to put in front of them
It seems like this would be enough and that you don’t have to take all the steps laid out as preliminary. (You could still do them in parallel if you like.)
It's not simple, you're right, but history has shown again and again that it can be viable. Society has made a lot of progress.
In the end people can just choose. If someone reading this right now eats meat, then you can make the choice to eat more plants. Please do so as much as you can, that will make a difference in saving the planet!
since there were a few comments, telling me it's impossible that what I experience happens.
Background: I've seen a lot of violence in my childhood, lost my friends more than once through moving or switching schools, have been abused in school by a teacher and felt unwanted in general.
Although I'm smart, I always was forgetful and felt stupid, took longer to understand things than others, one of these would be enough to give depression.
for about 30 years I suffered depression, started when I was about seven up until roundabout 35 years old.
I was only diagnosed with serious depression(suicidal ideation, woke up at night, thought someone evil is in my room, crying a lot, hopelessness, low energy, panic attacks, unable to hold down a job), adhd and some borderline schizoid spectrum in 2012, went to therapy, rehab, and emotion control training.
In 2017 I left the latest rehab with doctors telling me there was no hope.
Up until that point I was the person who would eat anything, didn't care, meat, fruit, carbs, sugary stuff. I love food!
Sept 2017: In the forums Keto would pop up now and then, that was the last thing I hadn't tried the last 4 years so I thought I'd give it a shot. And within a week the depression cleared. And every time I told someone they told me, that it's not okay to eat that much meat, and food can't cause depression, and I should go back to eating "normal". Energy levels where higher than I'd ever known, my mood stabilized.
My finances were down to the last penny, so I had to prioritize meat over everything else, someone mentioned zero carb. At that point I still ate dandelion (picked them in the streets, on lawns, in the surrounding fields) with lemmon juice, just to get in enough fat for the ketogenic diet. I decided to give it a shot. To my surprise, the panic attacks went down within a week, I stopped waking up at night and seeing things that weren't there.
If this experience is placebo, I'm okay with it. No doctor has been able to explain it to me, I don't have any allergies to food, so it has to be something in the gut. I have a sibo-test sitting, but haven't done it yet.
So now, roundabout 5 years later, I've been working since 2019, high performing in what I do, no needless crying, no energy crash, no suicidal ideation. I'm still forgetful, but that's okay.
Baseline eating is 170 grams of fat/70 grams of protein, preferably organic, locally sourced beef, but I'll eat anything meat that comes my way.
Over the years I've tested all kinds of greens and carbs. All kinds of seeds seem to give me hopelessness, while sugary fruit, tubers and processed carbs sap my energy and green veggies seem to give me the idea that someone is watching me. When I don't test for a few weeks, I'm stable and don't get any of these effects.
There are some things I can eat, but even they seem to have a threshold. Currants, glazed onions, Coconut milk
raspberries (A handful a week seems okay, more will trigger symptoms)
artificial sweeteners - curious with these, they make me angry (again 4 days until it sets in)
Off the top of my head, DHA/EPA Omega 3s, Creatine, and Glucosamine aren't really found in plants. I think Choline and B12 are hard to get adequate amounts from plant sources as well.
I think you can live OK without those (I'm vegan), but supplementing the above from non-animal sources is probably a good idea, or at least not a bad one.
There is a lot of non-animal sources for that stuff. We don't need animals for production of dietary supplements.
IMHO vegans need to supplement only B12, as we live in too sterile environments to get enought of it naturally, for other things sufficiently diverse diet should suffice.
Great way to eat if you live in a rich country, or, dunno, California, I guess.
Rather than saying "vegan", why not be honest and just say "Silicon Valley diet"?
"Spirulina", "seaweed", "edamame"... I guess I can enjoy my nutritional definiciencies then, eh? Because there's no spirulina, or edible seaweeds, or edamame within a boat trip of where I live.
Btw: you can't get enough B12 from any of the sources you list. But who's afraid of B12 deficiency, when it's for a good cause, amirite?
I live 10000 km from Sillicon Valley, in not-so-rich country.
You can get your vegan B12 pills from your local eshop, no need to dive for seaweed (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=vegan+b12 - dozens, maybe hundreds of different vegan b12 supplements).
> Btw: you can't get enough B12 from any of the sources you list
You quote a fast food company blog? I'll quote the Vegan Society:
> Claimed sources of B12 that have been shown through direct studies of vegans to be inadequate include human gut bacteria, spirulina, dried nori, barley grass and most other seaweeds. Several studies of raw food vegans have shown that raw food offers no special protection.
> Reports that B12 has been measured in a food are not enough to qualify that food as a reliable B12 source. It is difficult to distinguish true B12 from analogues that can disrupt B12 metabolism. Even if true B12 is present in a food, it may be rendered ineffective if analogues are present in comparable amounts to the true B12. There is only one reliable test for a B12 source - does it consistently prevent and correct deficiency? Anyone proposing a particular food as a B12 source should be challenged to present such evidence.
And also wikipedia which is more reliable and is not trying to sell you anything:
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics considers plant and algae sources "unreliable", stating that vegans should turn to fortified foods and supplements instead.[32]
> I'd love to eat plants a lot. Just turns out they give me depression.(takes about 4 days after ingestion)
I mean no offense, and I'm no vegan (ha ha no), but it sounds like you need a therapist more than you need a butcher. There is no way that eating plants gives you depression. It's even less likely that "it takes 4 days" for it to go off.
> I'd love to eat plants a lot. Just turns out they give me depression.(takes about 4 days after ingestion)
Eat a diverse low-fat, whole plant-based diet - if you don't how or what, find yourself a weekly vegan meal plan. Supplement with B12 and you'll be fine. Learn to cook, explore vegan meals/recipes from around the world, stay away from processed food.
> There is something called bio-availability and there are nutrients in meat that you don't ever get from plants.
That's a lie you've been told. Plants are enough (again, don't forget your B12 vegan supplements).
> Transportation is the biggest co2 producer...
Transport, processing, retail & packaging is a miniscule part in CO2 production compared to land use change & farming.
It depends. Humans vary and, while you may thrive on a plant diet, you can't generalize your experience. There are people who have problems even supplementing B12. Others don't. You can't just tell those who have that they've been living a lie.
"More than a half-century of creative marketing by the meat, dairy, egg, and fish industries has produced fears surrounding nonexistent deficiencies, which in clinical practice need no patient monitoring by physicians and dietitians"
Until there are actual serious studies with a large sample population from different parts of the world you can't be sure how many people will be affected and how. Also how healthily you eat is paramount. You can eat vegan trash too.
Btw, while I didn't say the line you're quoting about nutrients missing from plants, the article you're quoting is not very serious looking, with references that 404 and no way to find the actual data that I could find.
And it doesn't say that transport etc is a miniscule part in CO2 production. It says that of all emissions from farming, transport is a small part compared to land use change. But you present it like it's emissions from farming compared to all other emissions. Way to go!
> That's a lie you've been told. Plants are enough (again, don't forget your B12 vegan supplements).
Plants are enough but you need B12 supplements? What for?
> transport is a small part compared to land use change
Transport is a small part not only to land use change, but also to farming, animal feed and processing. See the graph.
> Plants are enough but you need B12 supplements? What for?
B12 is necessary vitamin. Most people get their B12 from animal-based foods. But animals do not produce B12, it just bioaccumulates in them. My argument is, that we can go directly to the source (e.g. bacteria) and make supplements instead from vegan sources, free of harm & suffering.
> B12 is necessary vitamin. Most people get their B12 from animal-based foods. But animals do not produce B12, it just bioaccumulates in them. My argument is, that we can go directly to the source (e.g. bacteria) and make supplements instead from vegan sources, free of harm & suffering.
Yes, they are. See my other comment to you in this discussion (I've even listed some numbers for you). But I've got a hunch not even that will be enough for you.
I saw your other comment. Here's some more links for you:
Serum concentrations of vitamin B12 and folate in British male omnivores, vegetarians and vegans: results from a cross-sectional analysis of the EPIC-Oxford cohort study
> Vegans have lower vitamin B12 concentrations, but higher folate concentrations, than vegetarians and omnivores. Half of the vegans were categorized as vitamin B12 deficient and would be expected to have a higher risk of developing clinical symptoms related to vitamin B12 deficiency.
The prevalence of cobalamin deficiency among vegetarians assessed by serum vitamin B12: a review of literature
> Higher deficiency prevalence was reported in vegans than in other vegetarians. Thus, with few exceptions, the reviewed studies documented relatively high deficiency prevalence among vegetarians. Vegans who do not ingest vitamin B12 supplements were found to be at especially high risk. Vegetarians, especially vegans, should give strong consideration to the use of vitamin B12 supplements to ensure adequate vitamin B12 intake.
> Most of the edible blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) used for human supplements predominately contain pseudovitamin B12, which is inactive in humans. The edible cyanobacteria are not suitable for use as vitamin B12 sources, especially in vegans.
> (me) Plants are enough (again, don't forget your B12 vegan supplements).
> (you) But malnutrition is scarier.
I said that plants & B12 vegan supplements are enough. What I meant is (and was not maybe clear enough), that we as humans do not need to rely on animals, even if we'd be supplementing our diet with some pills (IMHO B12 supplement from vegan sources is enough). You seem to be equating veganism with malnutrition.
American Dietetic Association: "It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864
British Dietetic Association: "As a result of the memorandum the BDA and The Vegan Society will: - Work together to show that it is possible to follow a well-planned, plant-based, vegan friendly diet that supports healthy living in people of all ages, and during pregnancy and breastfeeding." https://www.bda.uk.com/about/workwithus/bda_and_vegan_societ...
> Plants are enough (again, don't forget your B12 vegan supplements).
With this:
> But malnutrition is scarier.
I replied to this:
> Plants are enough (again, don't forget your B12 vegan supplements).
With this:
> Plants are enough but you need B12 supplements? What for?
You have no interest in a curious and intelligent conversation. All you want is to propagandise your vegan ideology. You will lie, and lie, and ignore everything everyone says, unless they say something that suits you.
And even that, you will try to twist to your own purpose. Everything you quote from the American Dietetic Association and the NHS and so on, all that hinges on a vegan diet that is "well planned". Which is very hard to do and most vegans don't manage it. Here's the Vegan society again:
> Most vegans show adequate B12 levels to make clinical deficiency unlikely but nonetheless show restricted activity of B12 related enzymes, leading to elevated homocysteine levels. Strong evidence has been gathered over the past decade that even slightly elevated homocysteine levels increase risk of heart disease and stroke and pregnancy complications.
"Most vegans" ... risk heart disease, stroke and pregnancy complications! "Most vegans". Most! Because they don't get enough B12!
But you insist that "plants are enough" and that everyone can get enough B12 from nori and seaweed, which is patently false. And when you're challenged about it, you pretend you've been saying that all along: don't forget your supplements folks! (in parentheses).
Well, why do you need supplements when your diet is healthy? Why do you need supplements if "plants are enough"? Why do you need supplements if you can get enough B12 fron nori and seaweed?
Because plants are not enough. You need a balanced diet to stay healthy and if you cut meat and animal products from your diet your are putting your health at risk.
But you and other vegans will never admit that because it just doesn't look good. You just want people to stop eating meat and if that means never telling them how dangerous that is to their health, well so be it.
I've been a meat eater 40+ years. I wrote that at least B12 supplementation is necessary, you want to ignore that. Maybe I was not clear enough, but then, English is not my first language.
> I didn't reply to this
I've just tried to extract the core of my position, and of yours. Sorry if I was not clear enough (I don't like to spend my time in discussions, so I'm maybe too hasty in formulating my comments).
> Plants are enough (again, don't forget your B12 vegan supplements).
Does it mean you don't need to supplement? Doesn't it mean you may eat only plant-based diet, with B12 supplementation, and then be healthy? Maybe my english is worse than i thought.
> You have no interest in a curious and intelligent conversation. All you want is to propagandise your vegan ideology.
If there is any propaganda, it's of meat & dairy industry. Any connection, cheese queen?
> "Most vegans" ... risk heart disease, stroke and pregnancy complications! "Most vegans". Most! Because they don't get enough B12!
Hence the supplementation. Me & my wife have been supplementing from the start, several years now, and take regular blood tests. No problems what so ever. My doctor quipped that he've never seen such optimal blood test as mine is (all values in the optimal range).
> Well, why do you need supplements when your diet is healthy?
Because B12 in the meat is from earth bacteria (ideally, or from vitamins the animals are fed). We wash our food, animals don't. But we can rely on our marvelous production capabilities, and produce required supplements from vegan, non-animal sources, directly for human population.
With veganism on the rise there is more and more fortified foods available, so I suppose it will be less and less problem in the future.
> Because plants are not enough. You need a balanced diet to stay healthy and if you cut meat and animal products from your diet your are putting your health at risk.
No, you are not putting your health at risk. There is where my beef with your position is.
Western diet is linked to a lot of health problems. A lot of those problems is linked to meat/dairy intake. For example, milk/cheese is linked to alzheimer/parkinson, meat is full of herbicides/pesticides/omega-6, eggs are full of cholesterol ... you're deliberaly ignoring that with B12 supplementation a plant based diet is healthier.
> Irresponsible, dishonest, fanatical liars.
You seem very angry, determined in your ways, and nitpicky. I dont' have time to discuss this further with you. Have a nice day!
> Me & my wife have been supplementing from the start, several years now, and take regular blood tests. No problems what so ever. My doctor quipped that he've never seen such optimal blood test as mine is (all values in the optimal range).
What is your doctor measuring?
> A blood B12 level measurement is a very unreliable test for vegans, particularly for vegans using any form of algae. Algae and some other plant foods contain B12-analogues (false B12) that can imitate true B12 in blood tests while actually interfering with B12 metabolism. Blood counts are also unreliable as high folate intakes suppress the anaemia symptoms of B12 deficiency that can be detected by blood counts. Blood homocysteine testing is more reliable, with levels less than 10 micromol/litre being desirable. The most specific test for B12 status is MMA testing. If this is in the normal range in blood (<370 nmol/L) or urine (less than 4 mcg /mg creatinine) then your body has enough B12. Many doctors still rely on blood B12 levels and blood counts. These are not adequate, especially in vegans.
> If there is any propaganda, it's of meat & dairy industry. Any connection, cheese queen?
My handle is "cheese_goddess" and I'm an amateur cheesemaker, you puerile buffoon.
> Western diet is linked to a lot of health problems. A lot of those problems is linked to meat/dairy intake. For example, milk/cheese is linked to alzheimer/parkinson, meat is full of herbicides/pesticides/omega-6, eggs are full of cholesterol ... you're deliberaly ignoring that with B12 supplementation a plant based diet is healthier.
You are misinformed:
Preventive Effects of Dairy Products on Dementia and the Underlying Mechanisms
> Alongside the rapid population aging occurring worldwide, the prevention of age-related memory decline and dementia has become a high priority. Dairy products have many physiological effects owing to their contents of lactic acid bacteria and the fatty acids and peptides generated during their fermentation. In particular, several recent studies have elucidated the effects of fermented dairy products on cognitive function. Epidemiological and clinical evidence has indicated that fermented dairy products have preventive effects against dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. Recent preclinical studies have identified individual molecules generated during fermentation that are responsible for those preventive effects. Oleamide and dehydroergosterol have been identified as the agents responsible for reducing microglial inflammatory responses and neurotoxicity. In this review, the protective effects of fermented dairy products and their components on cognitive function, the mechanisms underlying those effects, and the prospects for their future clinical development will be discussed.
> Chicken eggs are an affordable source of protein and other nutrients. They're also naturally high in cholesterol. But the cholesterol in eggs doesn't seem to raise cholesterol levels the way some other foods, such as those high in trans fats and saturated fats, do.
("Similar" is not "better". I'm also not a native English speaker and that's no excuse to not be able to read).
How a vegan diet could affect your intelligence
> Later in life, the amount of B12 in a person’s blood has been directly correlated with their IQ. In the elderly, one study found that the brains of those with lower B12 were six times more likely to be shrinking.
> And, if vegetarian diets show that traditional markers for heart disease, such as “total cholesterol”, are usually improved, this is not the case for the more predictive (and thus valuable) markers such as the triglyceride/HDL (or “good” cholesterol) ratio, which even tend to deteriorate.
Yes society has made a lot of progress - in offering more freedom, luxury and opportunity to more people than ever before - like eating meat.
Give me an example of the reverse happening. We cannot "choose" our way out of this situation by somehow getting the entire globe to agree to want less.
For example, animal cruelty. Over time people have been choosing to abuse animals less and less, and today many societies have an increasing number of laws protecting animals.
There are lots of other examples. Domestic violence against a spouse, and violence against children, are things that have changed a lot. Things that were once considered normal, like marital rape or beating a misbehaving child, are now socially unacceptable in many societies.
You are right that history tends towards more freedom. But also towards being more moral (which can mean less freedom in a technical sense). Eating less meat would be an example of that, and it is happening today, just slowly. If more of us make the effort, we can speed it up and help save the planet. It really is a choice each of us can make right now!
You are also right that we don't need to just wait on personal choices. That might not be enough. We can also get governments to subsidize plant-based food to make it cheaper than meat, for example.
Eating less meat is not "more moral" it's just what you want people to do.
It's always the same thing, when a post is about the environment the vegans come in and start telling everyone to stop eating meat to save the planet.
But somehow I don't see vegans ever telling people to drive less, walk more, wash their clothes by hand, not throw out electronic devices just to get new ones etc etc, it's just eating meat that you want them to stop doing. Yet, the cause of climate change, and its main driver, is burning fossil fuels, not farming. 3/4s of carbon emissions come from burning fossil fuels for enegry production in sectors other than agriculture:
But when vegans are concerned about the environment it's always eating less meat they tell others to do, not burn less fossil fuels. Why? Why is it more urgent to stop 1/4 of the damage to the environment that 3/4s?
It's not more urgent, it's just your ideology that says it's more important to eat less meat than stop climate change.
I wish that HN had clear guidelines against trying to prosyletise people into somebody's political, or metaphysical beliefs.
> It's always the same thing, when a post is about the environment the vegans come in and start telling everyone to stop eating meat to save the planet.
In both of my comments above I didn't ask people to stop eating meat. Just to eat less of it.
> But somehow I don't see vegans ever telling people to drive less, walk more, wash their clothes by hand, not throw out electronic devices just to get new ones etc etc
I and most vegans I know do most of the above. (I'd also add "fly less" to the list, that one has a big impact!)
You are right, the 1/4 is not more urgent than the 3/4. (But let's make progress on all of it!)
Overall, I get that you've encountered some annoying vegans. Some are vocal and toxic. But please don't judge us by that small group. And regardless of what you think of vegans, that's just the messenger, while the message that eating less meat helps the planet is true regardless.
Yes, you didn't tell people not to eat meat "in both of your comments above" (nice hedge, I'll look at your comment history later) but you still only preach about eating less meat and not doing anything else to combat climate change.
That behaviour, which is typical among vegans, vocal, toxic, or whatever, is dangerous and destructive because it detracts from the true source of climate change: burning fossil fuels. Not one of you, ever, never, will start talking about the environment by saying that "3/4s of carbon emissions come from sectors other than farming, but..." or something like that.
Oh no. You folks jump straight into the meat business. And you only comment about the environment when there's a chance to tell people not to eat meat. Because you dont' really care about the environment. All you care about is that people don't eat meat.
And "eat less meat" is just one step towards that. It's not about saving the environment, it's about getting everyone to go vegan.
It's your ideology and you're here to promote it. It's like the Hare Krishna. You care about nothing else but meat and getting people off it. No intelligent discussion, no curiosity, no nothing except "Go Vegan! Now!".
It's not human nature. It's just a tradition. And a tradition is just a story (maybe even a lie) we've been taught, and which we tell ourselves. Stories are easily changed - like slavery or patriarchy, for example.
Eating meat is human nature (and biology). We can digest just about any meat there is. We cannot digest any plant. Try eating a tree branch and see how far you get.
Likewise humans (like other animals) will always have tribal and territorial tendencies manifested in enslavement, war and conquest. First-world nations developed over centuries and still have countless problems, and they're only a minority of the global population. The current reality is far worse for billions of people around the world from rural China to Africa to North Korea.
Do you really think this all continues because it's just a story? If these situations are so easily changed then please go ahead and do so.
> We can digest just about any meat there is. We cannot digest any plant. Try eating a tree branch and see how far you get.
While I'd absolutely accept that wild humans are omnivores, your first statement here is false — there are many kinds of animal flesh and organs (tree branches are more like bones than anything else) that are bad for humans, and can even be lethal. Even some meats which are safe in moderation can cause harm if they're the only one being consumed.
But I'd also argue that it's important that we're not wild any more. We may not be able to eat wood, but we can burn it to create an external second stomach in the process we call "cooking".
Now I think about it, it's also important that the environment is, by our actions, radically different to the one we evolved for. Both plants and animals have been changed by many generations of selective breeding to be better suited to our dietary desires. (And other desires, but those don't matter for this topic).
I am really dying to know what exactly you mean by that. Just yesterday I murdered a couple plates of spaghetti with a sauce with onions, garlic, baby tomatoes, tomato puree, and plenty of paprika, cayenne, black, green and white pepper, all sauteyd in extra virgin olive oil. The only thing that wasn't plants in that was the whey from my cheesemaking that I use in cooking to avoid waste. Works great to thicken sauces, soups, stews, etc.
Today was cheesemaking day so I didn't have time to cook and I only had a salad, but I'm bringing up yesterday's meal because I can say with certainty that it was digested. Like, around this morning when I got up I could not miss it.
So what the hell do you mean "we cannot digest any plants"? Who's we? Sharks? Cats? Spiders? Who?
“People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and 15 minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.”
They have a point. We may be relatively smart individuals, but, collectively, humanity is unbelievably stupid.
It’s not like we found out yesterday we’ll all die unless we change our ways. We’ve known this for at least a generation and, yet, we keep building the political-industrial systems that will bring our extinction in exchange for some short-term individual gains.
I’m not innocent of that either: last year we weighted our options and we ended up getting a gas-powered car because the EV equivalent would still be more expensive over the three year lease.
We wouldn’t have had to invent different forms of birth control if people would just refrain from penile-vaginal intercourse unless seeking pregnancy. Seems like an equally simple solution.
Not a terrible example, but I think the difference is that we, as a society, sweep the issue of animal suffering under the rug. Most Americans are horrified if someone mistreats a dog, but don't bat an eye at the treatment of cows and pigs that end up on their plate. And a lot of effort is expended to keep that disconnect in place. I recall The Hamburgler stealing hamburgers off of the trees where they were growing in McDonalds commercials. Not to mention government subsidies that bring down the price of meat. So, ultimately, I think it IS a simple solution, we just need to stop actively working against it.
People could choose to eat plants insted, but they'll also need to take supplements to avoid becoming malnourished, for example deficient in B12 vitamin.
Feeding everyone a vegan diet and making sure that everyone is scrupulously watching their nutrients and taking appropriate supllementation on a planetary scale moves your "simple solution" to the realm of science fantasy.
Guess what... animal feed is substituted with B12.
Meat eaters were also advised to take vitamin D.
Lots of foods are already fortified with these vitamins.
I don't do anything extra other than eating a well balanced plant-based diet. Had my blood-work done recently (48 biomarkers) and it was all good. No deficiencies.
It is simple and definitely worth the effort - because the result will be not destroying our biosphere due to our meat & dairy addiction.
> Guess what... animal feed is substituted with B12.
> Meat eaters were also advised to take vitamin D.
> Lots of foods are already fortified with these vitamins.
Maybe where you live, but certainly not where I live, and where I eat. Don't project the destructive ways of your culture on everyone else. Not everyone eats the way you do.
I for instance, have been brought up on a Mediterrannean diet since birth and I still cook and eat for myself and my people the same way. The Mediterrannean diet is a plant based diet rich in vegetables, fruit, pulses, legumes, and also fish and dairy and overflowing with rivers of extra virgin olive oil. 80% of the traditional dishes in my culture have no animal products in them, or they have only dairy. In my entire life I will probably consume less meat and fewer animal products than any citizen of an industrialised country who turned vegan in their twenties.
So I'll take no preaching from you about how I eat, thank you very much. Fix your world and don't mind mine. It's not my lifestyle that is "destroying our biosphere", it is yours, and that of the people who live around you.
... meat and dairy addiction ... Faah. What clueless garbage! Milk and dairy is the richess of my land. You exploit your land to death and then you blame everyone else for your own failings?
> 80% of the traditional dishes in my culture have no animal products in them
Big fan of Mediterranean dishes and yes if more people would have a diet like yours, i.e. more plant based dishes with occasional meat products then that would help immensely fighting deforestation and biosphere destruction.
My comment was NOT directed at you personally - since I don't know what your circumstances are. So thanks for clarifying.
I was only commenting on your statement that it's not simple to get all the nutrients when you're on a plant-based diet.
Most meat & dairy consumed on this planet comes from factory farms - that's why it's so 'cheap'. And those animals are pumped with antibiotics and they also get supplements, like B12. What I'm saying is we can cut out the 'middle-man' and consume those vitamins directly - or let the food industry fortify more foods with those vitamins.
And the reason why I mentioned addiction - because it is - here in the Western world anyway.
Listen to this podcast by the Physicians for Responsible Medicine.
> Most meat & dairy consumed on this planet comes from factory farms - that's why it's so 'cheap'. And those animals are pumped with antibiotics and they also get supplements, like B12.
That's not right. What you say does not apply to "this planet". It applies to "the United States", where factory farms are the norm. But they are not the norm outside the USA.
For example, FAO reports that 1/3 of the world's food is produced by "family farms" (both animal and crop farms) which tend to be small and are in any case not CAFOs ("concentrated animal feeding operations").
This article quantifies the percentage of "smallholder" farmers to 80% (I haven't been able to find a better source for that number):
Note the discrepancy: 1/3 of the world's food is produced by "family farms" but 80% of all farmers are "smallholders". That's because most food is produced and consumed in rich, industrialised countries, and the rest of the world is starving. Meat is certainly not "cheap" for, say, Ghanaian farmers, or their children! Neither is it as plentiful as for American office workers and their children.
It might well be that the majority of beef in particular, is produced in factory farms, but that is because CAFOs is where the vast majority of beef is produced in the US which is one of the largest consumers of beef on the entire planet. The citizens of the US, Argentina and Brazil consume annually, per capita, almost twice as much as the citizens of other industrialised countries:
And the supplementation of animals with B12 also appears to be a uniquely American thing, as far as I can tell. Certainly where I live, farming is mainly free-range and B12 supplementation is not necessary, at least according to my understanding, that free-grazing animals take their B12 from the bacterial flora of their wild feed... which is also responsible for the terroir of my cheeses, incidentally.
> It's more the animals that are exploited to death and for what?
That is not my question to answer. My problem is that those destructive methods that your people employ are spreading around the world and slowly taking over the farming and agriculture in my part of the world. Those practices, or the people that promote them, are my mortal enemies. Those practices go against everything I stand for and against everything I believe in. They destroy the traditions that have kept my people healthy and well-nourished for generations, even through poverty and war. They destroy our animals, and they destroy our relation with our animals. The day that all meat and dairy production in my land will be from CAFOs, is the day that we will all have turned into Americans.
> That's not right. What you say does not apply to "this planet"
More and more countries are trying to improve the efficiency of their meat production. It's not just the US. It's also China, India, Europe. Factory farming is efficient - but it's very destructive
As per my other reply... Is it logical to feed the world with products that require the most resources and have the most devastating impacts on our biosphere?
> That is not my question to answer.
Why not? Wouldn't you want to avoid exploitation and violence where possible?
> And then, I will never make cheese again.
Have you tried making cheese with other types of milk? It's pretty amazing how far we got with making non-dairy cheese products.
I don't get why you have to eat fake food when you're vegan? I cook and eat plenty of plants, in fact one of my favourite dishes is a cssserole with aubergines, potatoes, bell peppers, courgettes, and a sauce of tomato, garlic and onion with plenty of extra virgin olive oil. A vegan could eat that. The last thing I'd think of eating if I were to go vegan (when hell freezes over) is fake cheese, or fake meat. I eat food because it fills my belly, not because it looks good.
Anyway, tell you what. You make your vegan nut paste and age it for a year. See what that gets you. Actually, I'll tell you: you'll get a dessicated, crumbly, bitter, mold-ridden mess. After a year, my sheep's milk hard chees is ... still cheese. It has a musky, gamey, smokey aroma, it has a piquant taste and you can feel the little lactic crystals curnching undertooth as you chew.
That is cheese.
And, no, you're never gonna get there with vegan nut paste. Not in a hundred years. Because plant proteins are not caseins, and because cheese is a gel made of coagulated casein, and vegan nut past is a paste. And a hundred other chemical, biological, organoleptic etc etc qualities that clearly distinguish cheese, from non cheese.
The only people you can convince that nut paste tastes like cheese are people used to eating processed cheese (American cheese) and other such abominations. Like you can fake burgers and nuggets, but not a steak, you can fake fake cheese, but not real cheese.
Down with fake food! I don't understand why vegans keep supporting the very food industry that is destroying the environment and torturing animals. It's the same people who sold you beef burgers when you weren't yet vegan that want to sell you pea burgers now that you are. Why do you think they'll care what you eat, or how destructive, or immoral its production is?
> All those animal products have the highest GHG emissions.
Highest- among all types of food we're currently producing. Their emissiosn still do not compare to the emissions that come from burning fossil fuels. See:
Three quarters of (CO2 adjusted) emissions come from energy production, the vast majority of which is by burning fossil fuels. Emissions from all of agriculture (farming and crops) are about 18%.
It is clear what is destroying the environment. But you and other vegans keep banging on and on about how it is meat that's destroying the environment. Why? You're just playing into the hands of the oil companies. And not only you're not doing anything to protect the environment, but by distracting from the real source of climate change, you're making it even harder to convince people to change their nature-destroying habbit of burning fossil fuels.
So, I'm sorry, but at this point I consider every vegan who tells me meat destroys the environment to be dishonest, unless they are an actual environmental activist, rather than a vegan activist (or just someone who likes to argue vegan on the internet).
> I eat food because it fills my belly, not because it looks good.
Why can't we fill our bellies with food that doesn't involve exploiting and killing other sentient animals?
If you have your own farm then ignore the above. It's a general question regarding the global food production. But not everyone can have their own farm - so that way of life is not scalable - if the majority of 9B people want to eat meat. It can only become sustainable, if it becomes extremely expensive and demand is curbed.
> And, no, you're never gonna get there with vegan nut paste
Never say never - we humans are quite ingenious and finding ways to do things better.
> Highest- among all types of food we're currently producing.
> I consider every vegan who tells me meat destroys the environment to be dishonest
It's not just GHG, but also:
- Greater water usage required for meat & dairy diet
- Biodiversity loss
- Deforestation
- Soil degradation
The IPCC recommends a shift towards a more plant-based diet to mitigate the climate crisis.
So are you calling hundreds of climate scientist dishonest? Here are plenty of resources to back up the claim that our current meat heavy diets are destructive and that a global shift to a plant-based diet is required to avert climate catastrophe. https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-5/
Here are some quotes from experts in the field:
Dr Peter Carter, IPCC expert reviewer and Director of the Climate Emergency Institute stated: “The science is definite, global climate catastrophe cannot be averted without the elimination of meat and dairy in our diet, and that must happen fast.”
Courtney Vail, Campaign Director at Oceanic Preservation Society, added: “Changing our diets from a focus on animal-based to plant-based products is one of the most powerful things we can do to positively impact the world. Animal agriculture utilizes precious water resources, releases climate-altering greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and reduces the planet’s ability to sequester carbon by destroying diverse ecosystems.”
> Why can't we fill our bellies with food that doesn't involve exploiting and killing other sentient animals?
Nah, you're moving the goal posts just to get a chance to say your little propaganda slogan. What I asked was: "I don't get why you have to eat fake food when you're vegan? ". You want to talk about that?
Because that's what I want to know. You don't want to eat meat? OK. You don't want to eat dairy? Then don't! But you want to eat fake cheese and fake meat? I mean, still, it's none of my business what you eat, knock yourself out. But, why? Fake is fake. It should be obvious why it's ... fake?
> So are you calling hundreds of climate scientist dishonest?
No, I'm calling you and other internet vegans dishonest, because you're using environmental issues as a cover to promote your vegan agenda.
Btw, "hundreds of climate scientists" don't say we should all go vegan to save the environment, like vegans like to pretend. The IPCC report you linked doesn't say anything like that. Environmental activists don't even say anything like that. What environmental scientists say is that a shift is needed towards a plant based diet. That is the kind of diet I eat: 2/3s plants and 1/3 animal foods (dairy, meat, seafood, etc).
But vegans like you are trying really hard to fudge the meaning of "plant-based" to make it synonymous with "vegan". And it's obvious why you're doing it: now all the environmental scientists who say a shift to a plant-based diet is needed are suddendly advocating for veganism!
That is the dishonesty I'm talking about. It's the same kind of dishonesty and the same kind of social engineering tactic as calling nut paste "cheese".
Well, your silly little games aren't paying off. Meat consumption keeps increasing. CAFOs keep getting built. Animals keep getting tortured. Scores of people sign up for Veganuary and go back to devouring burgers and sausages as soon as they have. Instagram is full of fashionable vegans and yet the vast majority of the population are not even vegetarian, not even flexitarian.
Dishonesty doesn't work. You can't have your cake and eat it. Either you tell people the truth, and nothing but the truth, and you hope they can do the right thing, or you keep lying and they keep ignoring you as extreme fanatical zealots.
It's just an alternative that doesn't involve killing animals. For example, beyond burgers or impossible burgers, helps meat eaters who want to reduce their environmental footprint, transition to a more plant-based diet.
Or say you want to have spaghetti bolognese - instead of using minced animal meat you use an plant-based alternative which is better. And most people don't notice a difference these days.
Or say chicken nuggets - the plant based alternative - pretty amazing and in blind tests most people couldn't tell.
Food science is pretty amazing these days.
So what's wrong with that?
I personally don't need those products, as I don't have a craving for meat or dairy. But I have them some times.
But others do crave it, but they don't want to support factory farms - so these plant-based alternative products help.
And what is vegan propaganda?
All veganism does is promote a life style that's free from cruelty as much as possible.
What is wrong with reducing cruelty and environmental destruction?
> Or say chicken nuggets - the plant based alternative - pretty amazing and in blind tests most people couldn't tell.
Because chicken nuggets are shit food and they don't even taste like chicken anyway. That's because they're made with pink slurry, bits of chicken mechanically separated from bones and chemically treated until they're transformed into a vile, noxious paste, the lowest-grade meat that is allowed for human consumption. That's why they're so cheap.
That's what your vegan nuggets replace. And they do a great job at it! Because they're equally shit.
Fake food replacing fake food for people who don't know what real food tastes like anymore. That is the dystopian reality we live in, but for vegans it's paradise.
> And what is vegan propaganda?
Oh, well, for example lying about the role of meat production in environmental destruction and trying to get people to believe it's farming that's destroying the environment rather than buring fossil fuels. That's propaganda, and it's dangerous propaganda from people who care not a shit about the environment and only care about meat meat meat.
> Oh, well, for example lying about the role of meat production in environmental destruction
Again, are you saying that Oxford Uni, IPCC, UN and many other credible organizations are lying?
> transformed into a vile, noxious paste, the lowest-grade meat that is allowed for human consumption.
Have you ever watched how actual chicken nuggets are produced? Have you ever watched what goes on in the meat & dairy industry? You can find out more here: http://www.nationearth.com/
> Again, are you saying that Oxford Uni, IPCC, UN and many other credible organizations are lying?
No, I'm saying they're not saying what you're saying they're saying.
> Have you ever watched how actual chicken nuggets are produced?
Yep. That's what I linked you to, above. How chicken nuggets are made. Read my earlier comment again:
> That's what your vegan nuggets replace. And they do a great job at it! Because they're equally shit.
Get it?
Oh, wait, you think because I don't want to eat your fake nuggets, that can only mean I want to eat the chicken ones? Black and white thinking, typical of fanatics with little understanding of the world beyond their gurus' teachings.
> No, I'm saying they're not saying what you're saying they're saying.
So the latest report from UN's IPCC says this:
“In addition to climate mitigation gains, a transition towards more plant-based consumption and reduced consumption of animal-based foods, particularly from ruminant animals, could reduce pressure on forests and land used for feed, support the preservation of biodiversity and planetary health, and contribute to preventing forms of malnutrition (i.e. undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency, and obesity) in developing countries. Other co-benefits include lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and reducing mortality from diet-related non-communicable diseases.”
“Imbalanced diets, such as diets low in fruits and vegetables, and high in red and processed meat, are responsible for the greatest health burden globally and in most regions. At the same time the food system is also responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore a major driver of climate change.”
So the message is clear - shifting to a more plant-base diet is the single biggest way an individual can do to reduce their environmental impact.
> Yep. That's what I linked you to, above. How chicken nuggets are made.
I misunderstood. I thought you meant plant based chicken nuggets, which they weren't, hence why it was confusing.
I'm talking about Quorn nuggets (Mycoprotein) - look at how they are produced compared to how nuggets made from animal flesh are made. Looks way cleaner and not as disgusting.
And they are also healthier:
"Clinical trials on Quorn show that it can improve satiety and help people control cholesterol, blood sugar, and insulin levels."
So the point is - these products will help people who like chicken nuggets or burgers - transition to a more plant-based diet. Nobody is telling you to eat them.
You clearly think animals are just like potatoes and can be treated accordingly - like an object. Whether they have to endure pain or suffering doesn't matter to you - as long as you get your cheese and meat.
> Oh, wait, you think because I don't want to eat your fake nuggets, that can only mean I want to eat the chicken ones?
Who said anything about you having to eat plant based nuggets? This whole discussion wasn't about what you - cheese_goddess - personally eat. It was about how to feed the world sustainably and without effing up our biosphere. Our current system is not sustainable, because of animal factory farming. Getting protein from animals at this scale is illogical. And on top of that - it's cruel.
> Black and white thinking, typical of fanatics with little understanding of the world beyond their gurus' teachings.
What guru? And what teachings are you talking about?
I follow 2 principles:
1) Evidence based - I rely on our scientific community. The conclusion from those credible sources, i.e. IPCC, UN, PCRM, Oxford Uni, and many others, clearly state a move towards a plant-based diet is required to help avert a climate crisis and environmental damage.
2) Observational data... i.e. I've been to farms and more importantly watched enough videos of factory farms and slaughterhouses. It's cruel and you can see the pain & fear in the animals eyes. Do you really think killing a baby sheep just because we want to taste its soft and juicy flesh when it's not necessary for our survival is morally justified? Is it morally justified to kill another sentient being for taste pleasure?
Also, let's look up the definition of fanatic - according to a dictionary it means "a person exhibiting excessive enthusiasm and intense uncritical devotion".
The way you argued and the way you continue to ignore scientific evidence points to an 'intense uncritical devotion' and you choosing your current username - cheese_goddess - seems to suggest you match this line 'exhibiting excessive enthusiasm'.
Again - I encourage you to switch off your bias towards the false image you have of veganism (= reduced or no cruelty) and look at the scientific evidence instead.
> So the message is clear - shifting to a more plant-base diet is the single
biggest way an individual can do to reduce their environmental impact.
A "more plant-based diet" is not a vegan diet and no environmental organisation is saying that everyone should go vegan to save the planet. But we've been through all this already.
> So the point is - these products will help people who like chicken nuggets or
burgers - transition to a more plant-based diet.
And keep them for ever in the thrall of a food industry that wants to sell them shit and that doesn't give a flying fig about the environment, about animal rights, or about peoples' health or culture.
The food industry is responsible for the destruction of the environment and the torture of animals that you pretend to care so much about. It is responsible for the destruction of food cultures and for the destruction of farmers' livelihoods and way of life. And yet, you are very happy to cheer this same food industry on when it produces more industrial shit just because they don't have meat in them? Why?
Because you don't really care about the environment, about animal suffering, or about peoples' lives. That's why. You only care about one singular subject: meat. Meat meat meat meat meat. That's all you can think about.
> The way you argued and the way you continue to ignore scientific evidence points
to an 'intense uncritical devotion' and you choosing your current username - cheese_goddess - seems to suggest you match this line 'exhibiting excessive enthusiasm'.
Pfffhahaha. That's just a laughable attempt to try and turn the tables on me. It doesn't work because I don't have any ideology, I'm not the one trying to tell people what to do, or not do, and I'm not the one trying to guilt trip people into accepting my ideology. And I'm not the one who is trying to twist science and activism to my own ends.
But you are. Because you're a fanatic, a zealot, a follower, a cult member. You don't like it? Get used to it.
> no environmental organisation is saying that everyone should go vegan to save the planet.
Where did I say that? I would suggest you read more carefully and not just place words in other people's mouths.
I said a 'more plant-based diet', which means a reduction in meat consumption. And guess what - if more people would choose to follow this advice given by those organizations listed previously - it would mean fewer animals would have to be killed, which in turn means less cruelty towards animals overall and environmental destruction, i.e. a more vegan planet.
And read the official definition of veganism I posted earlier. It's not dogmatic, but rather promotes pragmatism. It says to avoid exploiting animals when practically possible, which means that it's unavoidable to eat meat when you need it to survive and there are no other foods available.
> The food industry is responsible for the destruction of the environment
Yes agreed. Our food system is not sustainable - that's why it needs to change.
> Because you don't really care about the environment, about animal suffering, or about peoples' lives.
If I don't care about animal suffering or the environment, why have I given up supporting the meat & dairy industry and stopped consuming their products? Doesn't make sense, does it?
> Pfffhahaha. That's just a laughable attempt to try and turn the tables on me.
How am I turning the tables? You called me a fanatic and being part of a cult. I merely explained, based on the official definition of fanatic - your behavior and comments show traits of being a fanatic, someone who isn't able to shift their opinion, even if there is ample evidence to show their opinion is flawed. Your opinion seems to be a) meat industry doesn't destroy the environment, b) animals don't suffer or feel pain.
> It doesn't work because I don't have any ideology
Definition of Ideology: "a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture"
Based on your comments, your ideology seems to be that animals are here to serve us, it's OK to exploit and kill them regardless of consequences. It's OK for them to suffer so we can have our cheese & meat. Tradition trumps logic and critical thinking. Many people have that view about animals - so wouldn't you say you're part of that group - sharing the same content of thinking?
> You only care about one singular subject: meat. Meat meat meat meat meat.
What do you mean? I don't follow. I mentioned several subjects. So for your benefit, let me list them again:
- Protecting the Environment
- Animal rights - not taking their life against their will
- Not supporting an industry that makes factory farm workers suffer from PTSD
> But you are. Because you're a fanatic, a zealot, a follower, a cult member. You don't like it? Get used to it.
So a 'follower' of scientific evidence means I'm part of a cult and I'm a fanatic?
A fanatic usually doesn't change their opinion when presented with evidence. Show me the evidence that:
A) animal factory farming doesn't create environmental damage
B) animals are like plants - i.e. animals don't suffer and that's why it's OK to kill and exploit them.
I used to eat meat when I was a teenager - but then changed my opinion when I saw what damage my eating habits caused.
Sorry to say this, but the term fanatic applies more to your current behavior - as you ignore the evidence.
You know, I didn't realise you 're the same looney tune character I've been interacting with upthread, but in retrospect, given the torrent of words and the snotty style, I should have figured it out earlier. My bad.
I only eat beef that’s fed on the certifiable virgin grass, immortalis gramineae.
It’s very important to me that the carbon the animal has eaten has a natural chain of custody. I don’t want to eat a carbon that’s been combusted or God forbid erupted out of someone’s ass at one point.
> If nothing changes, the food sector will soon account for almost half of the world’s total emissions budget.
And this is absolutely as it should be! Half of our carbon budget to hit 1.5 C is absolutely right to spend on food production. We need food much more than we need anything else. We can do without internal combustion engines, without air travel, without everybody getting a new iPhone every few months, but we can't do without food.
Having enough food to feed everyone a healthy and nutritious diet is a much better protection against civilisation collapse than making sure everybody has a car!
The post tries to say that trying to meet the 1.5 C goal "without addressing animal agriculture would require other sectors to reduce emission beyond realistic levels" but those are weasel words! Climate change is caused by those, air quotes, "other sectors" - industry, energy production, transportation- burning fossil fuels and it is those "other sectors" burning fossil fuels that is keeping us from hitting the 1.5 C target.
It is those, "other sectors" that need to get their house in order and reduce, no, minimise, their emissions. It's not everyone else who has to give up their food for the sake of BP, Google, Shell and Ford.
So, in a possible future overhearing of two aliens discussing us being made out of meat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tScAyNaRdQ we might be able to fib and convince them the meat is made out of carbon dioxide? Universe, here we come!
Sort of, but you’re also re-releasing a bunch more of the CO2 than goes into the steak. Plus, direct air capture is much more space efficient then plants.
Plants have been doing a pretty good job of sustainably capturing carbon dioxide for something like three billion years. Is there any direct air capture technology that’s remotely as reliable and low maintenance?
Not sure why you're downvoted because the answer to your question is definitely "no". Everything else, at the moment, is not much more than slides on a pitch deck.
I thought plants are notoriously bad at this in practice. Not because they can’t, but because they actually don’t need that much CO2, and are also rather finicky to keep alive. Other algae are better. And CO2 scrubbers exist for closed environments like subs and space ships.
Meat production is not carbon sequestering, it is carbon emitting. Most agriculture in general involves replacing more carbon sequestering natural growth with agricultural fields.
I think that would depends on what the natural growth is actually able to sequester, no? Not all areas clearcut for farmland were lush, quite the opposite actually with artificial irrigation bringing in the possibility of generating all that biomass.
There is carbon stored in the soil that tilling lets out.
And of course all of this is before you get into methane emissions from fertilizer, etc. and the fuel costs of transporting all these crops around as feed. I mean you can just look at the stats for carbon emissions from meat production.
No, meat production is still carbon emitting. What you’re thinking of is having cows manage land. For that to sequester carbon, you have to keep the cows alive and not be in a constant consume-supply cycle.
Animal farming improved human use of land, and indeed crop farming depends a lot on animal byproducts. Or do you prefer unsustainable mineral fertilizers?
Even then what? If the cycle continues where you’re continuously slaughtering and replenishing the animals for food and not letting them live their natural life, the argument that it is better at carbon capture is moot.
Because one (animal agriculture) emits way more carbon than it captures. That's what the article discusses - people trying to make a source of meat-like protein that emits no or negative carbon into the atmosphere.
This sort of article always feels a bit misleading, because what they're making isn't meat. If you can't trust that aspect of it, what else about the article is wrong?
The point of the exercise is to find alternatives that aren't so hard on the environment.
>“By contrast, our process takes a few days to make a steak, has very low water utilization, is carbon negative, uses zero arable land, and minimal land overall.”
The point is not recycling carbon for funsies, but to actually have a positive impact on the environment. Whether the process described actually achieves this is to be determined, but it is evident that animal agriculture today is a big contributor to our environmental issues.
> The point of the exercise is to find alternatives that aren't so hard on the environment.
Cows and grass are "the environment".
Millions of years of evolution refined cows to be the best mechanism for converting grass into meat. Some hippy scientists think they can do better? I doubt.
Yes, the problem is scale. Also, we live in capitalism, so scaling is absolutely necessary to reap huge profits. Cows are not direct problem, just like gun violence?
Cows over those millions of years didn’t have their populations artificially increased beyond sustainable levels for human consumption. The current system of animal agriculture isn’t good for the environment. We don’t have more land to make it sustainable. That’s why “hippy scientists” are trying to find alternatives.
I mean, photosynthesis is only about 1% efficient in the real world, whereas modern solar panels (the ones you can buy, not the ones in a research lab) are already at about 15%. I think there’s plenty of room for improvement in the efficiency of meat production too.
Depends how you measure it. You can indeed achieve higher efficiency than nature if you look at a single number. Where nature always wins is the combined efficiency, because it acts as a whole.
You example is great because it shows just that.
Solar panels might give better absolute numbers but: they are not recyclable, they can't feed cows, they are manufactured in China using materials coming from mines around the world. They need complex set-up and maintenance.
Grass if fully recyclable - in fact it builds soil after dying. It feeds other animals. It protects the soil from erosion. It mines its own materials while growing, in fact it even bootstraps itself given just a seed containing all the code that it ever needs.
A F1 car is faster on a race track, but a bicycle gets the job done much more efficiently in most cities around the world for most tasks.
“… those creatures we behold, are but the hearbs of the field, digested into flesh in them, or more remotely carnified in our selves. Nay further, we are what we all abhorre, Antropophagi and Cannibals, devourers not onely of men, but of our selves; and that not in an allegory, but a positive truth; for all this masse of flesh which wee behold, came in at our mouths: this frame wee looke upon, hath beene upon our trenchers; In briefe, we have devoured our selves.”
Thomas Browne - Religio Medici
All meat is made from recycled carbon dioxide (plants, e.g. corn & grass, take CO2 out of the atmosphere and "recycle" it, that's then fed to animals to grow meat).
As I always like to says, cows are just recycled grass.
Everyone blaming "meat" for global warming is just a shill for the petrol industry, distracting from the real cause (fossil fuels).
> Everyone blaming "meat" for global warming is just a shill for the petrol industry, distracting from the real cause (fossil fuels).
How so? Even the article itself brings up various reasons that don't include CO2 emissions; deforestation and water use for example. Cattle in particular are a major source for methane emissions - a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.
The direct contribution to global warming (via methane emissions) is very low, yes. The problem arises from feeding and waste removal. It's a multi-dimensional issue and no, cows are not just recycled grass - if that were the case they wouldn't have the same impact. Most dairy cows (appr. half the overall cow population) are fed maize, soy, and high-energy supplements in order increase yield. Silages are also frequently used and the fermenting process also adds to the GHG emissions.
> Everyone blaming "meat" for global warming is just a shill for the petrol industry, distracting from the real cause (fossil fuels).
It's a romanticised image that many still have in mind when thinking of meat production, but it's a heavily mechanised industry today and pictures like this https://ak0.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/4426340/thumb/1.jp... don't reflect a large part of the industry anymore.
Deforestation & water use aren’t a problem in the first world.
Maize & soy are also made from captured CO2 like grass.
Yes the remaining CO2 released is from energy & transport (oil) used, but that is solved not by demonizing meat, but by improving energy generation (nuclear & solar instead of oil/coal/gas)
If you are constantly pumping CH4 into the atmosphere over the long-term then you have a long-term climate impact as a result.
This is without even taking into account whether the increased heating from the "short-term" impact of CH4 over a few decades causes us to hit tipping points sooner than otherwise, or that in the best case scenario we may have been able to avoid hitting at all.
If you keep pumping a constant amount of CH4 into the atmosphere, it keeps degrading into CO2, which is transformed into grass, which is transformed into cows.
Let's say you have 100 units of CO2, and 0 units of CH4 in the atmosphere, you are producing 100 units of warming per year. Then you do something that converts 20 of those units of CO2 to 20 units of CH4, you are now producing 80 x 1 + 20 x 84 = 1,760 units of warming per year.
If you are performing this action at a rate that keeps replenishing the CH4 as quickly as it is degrading, let alone faster than it's degrading and subsequently increasing the amount of CH4 in the atmosphere, the amount of CH4 in the atmosphere is constantly being kept higher than it would be were you not performing this action, for as long a term as you continue to perform it. So you've now ended up with a planet that is constantly experiencing more warming than you would have otherwise.
If the permafrost requires 1,000 units of warming to melt and release its stores of CO2 and CH4, then this further makes the difference between triggering this tipping point or not.
I mean, you don't have to start with 0, nor does the fact that we had more bison emitting (for the sake of argument, although given all the deforestation, petrochemical use, and other agricultural processes involved in sustaining modern cows I'm not sure it's a given, especially when taking a global view) more methane in the past excuse the damage of the methane emitted by current cows.
We could have had X units of CO2, and Y units of CH4 produced by bison under the past era.
We've eradicated the bison, replaced them with 1/2 their number in cows. We now have X units of CO2, Y/2 units of CH4 produced by cows.
This is still producing more warming than if we eliminated the cows, and went to X units of CO2, 0Y units of CH4 produced by cows.
The existence of the cows still results in more CH4, and more warming, than would be the case if we phased them out, no?
In any case, if we replaced the cows by food sources that produced less than X + Y/2 units of atmospheric CO2 and CH4 respectively, we're better off.
Which is why the article points out that offsetting meat production entirely from fossil fuel would require unrealistic changes. Going vegetarian would be easier, but, if (and it’s a big if, as many experts highlighted) they manage to accomplish even a small part of their goal, the impact is still very large.
> Everyone blaming "meat" for global warming is just a shill for the petrol industry, distracting from the real cause (fossil fuels).
Maybe because most of the petrol industry serves the animal agriculture industry and hundreds of billions of animals it needs to raise and kill annually? Or did you think they don't require any inputs nor produce any outputs other than a corpse?
What is non-sense is creating all this destruction and waste of resources just so we can have some cooked animal flesh on our plates when it's not necessary for human survival in most societies anymore.
Especially this community here, who relies on logic for their work.
What makes more sense?
A) Choosing food products that require fewer resources and land to feed the world.
B) Continuing on our current path (pollution & deforestation) that will eventually mean the destruction of our biosphere.
I don't know a lot about current lab-grown meat approaches, and all the outfits involved seem hush-hush about the main issue, the feedstock (what kind of specific blend of nutrients/growth factors needs to be fed to the cultured muscle cells for optimal growth), but I don't see how chemoautrophic microbial goop becomes 'meat' by any similar process.
There's a lot of hype about carbon capture and reduction to fuel/food/material it seems, but the only proven industrial approach is something like modified Fischer-Tropsch, based on the nitrogen-to-ammonia Haber-Bosch process, which involves taking pure CO2 and H2 feedstocks, converting the CO2 to carbon monoxide, and then reacting the CO with H2 at high pressure and temperature with a suitable catalyst to make a variety of long-chain hydrocarbon fuels. This has been done at scale using coal-sourced CO and natural-gas sourced H2 very successfully, so that's where you'd want to start if you were serious about it. Occidental seems to be getting into it for example, which is sort of what you'd expect, as it's basically just like large-scale petrochemistry.
Lots of Theranos vibes around the whole business though, I'm afraid to say.