Why do people eat food they know isn’t good for their health? Why do people continue to buy products from companies that have proven to only sell bad products or engage in scumbag practices?
They all have the same answer.
It turns out in 1961 the American heart Association took bribery money from procter and gamble, who owned and sold “healthier Crisco” cooking oils that weren’t high in saturated fat, like beef and other cooking oils were.
The AHA then claimed and pushed that saturated fats caused heart disease.
Problem is, something like 88% of every study done in the past 60 years has found little to no link between heart disease and saturated fats.
So beef, according to most studies, isn’t bad for you. The AHA was just crooked and on the take, being paid off to sell Crisco.
Now it is calorie dense and people tend to eat too much of it, but that seems to be a lot of things. Don’t eat too much or you get fat. But apparently, you don’t have to worry about saturated fats being bad for you.
someone else online summarized the genetics part as the following:
Mandelian randomisation studies show that LDL-c is causative in atherogenic plaques 1 and metabolic ward RCTs show that SFA intakes increase LDL-c, while the decrease in SFAs lead to lower total and LDL-c 2.
But yes, almost all nutrition science is a bit inconclusive because of genetic variation.
Forgive me, because I’m struggling to understand the linked information, but as someone with atherosclerosis this is an issue close to my heart (ha!).
I just want to make sure I understand you.
Your link to the european heart journal says that the causal link between LDL and ASCVD is “unequivocal”.
I think the WHO study says (amongst a lot of other complicated stuff) that replacing SFAs with PUFAs and MUFAs is more favourable than replacing SFAs with complex carbohydrates? The strong implication being (although I couldn’t see this exactly) that higher SFA intake contributes to heart disease.
I don’t think it tries to compare carbohydrates to any UFAs, but the implication is indeed that SFAs significantly contribute to heart disease.
effects on the serum lipoprotein profile of reducing SFA intake by replacing a mixture of SFA with cis-PUFA […] or cis-MUFA […] were more favourable than replacing SFA with a mixture of carbohydrates.
Ah, thanks, I’ve missed that.
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Why do people drive when they know it’s bad for the planet
Because I live in America and there’s pretty much no public transportation.
Trust me, if I had a train, I’d fucking use that sucker. Travel into town for my weekly errands AND I don’t have to deal with people not using cruise control on a highway? SIGN ME THE FUCK. UP.
why do people live in America
Why do people buy from Amazon/Walmart when they know it’s making their country poorer?
Why do poor people vote for millionares when they know they don’t care about the poor?
Some of us work multiple part time jobs to barely make it.
I’d probably stay in the basement if I didn’t need to pay my landed lord their monthly tribute.
buy some cheap sliver of land and park a bus on it. save up and find a better sliver of land and plan from there.
Is it capitalism?
Do you think people in non-capitalist societies only eat the healthiest of foods?
Each individual is facing the following choice in life:
- sacrifice to save the planet, and fail
- or not
People want to immediately jump to “if everyone would just …”
Nobody is looking at an “everyone does X” button. People only have their “I do X” button available.
So that is literally the answer to your question. Very few people would sacrifice the civilization to eat a cheeseburger. But nobody has that choice or that power in their hands. Their choice is eat the cheeseburger or not, and the survival of civilization stays rigidly the same between those two choices.
Best response. Almost everyone alive has a net negative impact on the environment. Maybe that one Indian guy who planted a whole forest by himself gets a pass. We can try to be less negatively impactful depending on our inclinations, resources, and other interests and priorities. Some people may choose vegetarianism, some might buy an electric car or install some solar panels, some might organize politically for a new policy. Some might spend their altruism improving social conditions rather than focusing on the environment. But being ever so slightly less of a negative impact on the environment than your neighbour who has a slightly different set of priorities is hardly a reason to feel morally superior.
There’s truth to that. None of us is free of blame, and there’s always going to be a cost associated with the luxuries and comforts that many of us enjoy; but it’s not about “feeling morally superior”, it’s about doing the right thing, reducing unwarranted harm and suffering as much as you reasonably can. And changing your diet, eating more fruits and veggies and less meat, is probably one of the least obtrusive ways to do so (save for folks with rare medical conditions, or people who live in an environment without an abundance of arable land). Even if you don’t give a shit about the suffering of animals or the environment, you at least ought to care about your own well-being.
I’ve eaten meat my whole life, still do… but I’ve cut back a lot, and it really hasn’t been that difficult. Every time this conversation comes up, nothing annoys me more than the hive-mind crawling out of the woodwork to dump on vegans for daring to speak out against something that is demonstrably harmful in several ways, and then claim that vegans do it only for the purpose of moral grandstanding. Moreover, the absurd amount of appeals to nature and the lazy “bacon tasty” retorts make all of these people look like fucking dorks.
You don’t have to flagellate yourself for eating meat, you don’t even have to give up meat entirely… But don’t be a jackass about it, acknowledge the harmful reality you’re contributing to and you can either accept it for what is, cut back and reduce your contribution, or choose to lead a life that doesn’t enable it at all.
Same reason we use electricity despite not being 100% green energy and thus being even worse for the earth?
If you actually wanna guilt this question then the fuck are you doing using your coal and gas powered electricity to do it?
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, because the capitalists have seen to it that you will never be permitted to make an ethical choice that would dare compete with what they expect you to choose.
Being a moralizing prick doesn’t send any message, what gets people to change is making that change easy, that’s why instead of being terminally online fuckwads, british vegangelists spread the good news by hosting free kitchens, volunteering to take people grocery shopping on their own pound, teaching vegan cooking classes, and all other sorts of actually addressing literally any of the actual concerns people have about going vegan instead of being a condescending snob about it.
So honestly, in your opinion, one of the only ways a vegan can change people’s minds is to take them shopping and PAY for their food for them. Amazing, this is a new level of shitty push the blame away behaviour. Pathetic.
You’re saying that trying to motivate people positively to move on from meat is “push the blame away” behavior. But I think tut-tutting individuals who eat meat is pushing the blame away.
While there are some people who believe that eating meat is an absolute moral wrong no matter where or when it takes place in human history, a lot of people who feel eating meat is immoral feel this way because of what the meat industry does, both to the animals and to the planet. Five thousand years ago, people weren’t supporting the meat industry and all its wrongs by eating meat.
So considering it to be pathetic to try to effect real reduction in people’s meat consumption because the methods shift blame away from the individual meat eater seems really ironic to me, as well as completely counterproductive, if your goal is less meat consumption in the world.
There is no positive motivation to move people away from meat. Health maybe? Shame and forcing self-reflection is one of the few effective tools.
Your last paragraph is just rubbish. That’s not what I was calling pathetic.
There is no positive motivation to move people away from meet. Health maybe?
Did…did you just admit that you people don’t actually believe your own propaganda about why going vegan is better?
Also, pretty objectively shame doesn’t actually do anything, lecturing at people about why they’re wrong doesn’t convince them of anything, at best they just write you off as that ass who’s lecturing at them, more often they take it as a fight signal and shut down to you completely.
Key word there is motivation. I know its 10 letters long so I can explain it if I have to.
Yeah like how you’re pretty clearly motivated to suck at actually spreading the message because then you get to keep your feelings of moral superiority all to yourself.
Look, you’re here to fight not be informed. It’s really obvious and I don’t care what you think or say.
Man, you are an amazing pro-meat troll.
Cow yummy
This has got to be a troll, right?
We have a vegan infestation unfortunately.
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How about we shift to talking about portion control and be less all or nothing?
How about we don’t engage in reasonable, healthy discussion and instead throw shit?
Not everyone has the time and resources to commit to every ‘good’ fight under the sun especially when the systemic problems are as deeply rooted in our society as they are.
Which device did you post from? Did you vet it wasn’t made with slave labor? You might need to go recycle all your devices and unfortunately that will cut you off from getting your message out to the world.
Your post does more harm to your cause than good because it just makes everyone angry at you.
Potatoes, pasta, bread, legumes, nut butters, vegetables, fruits, jelly, jam; all things that many people already eat with some regularity.
Time and resources are hardly an excuse, you don’t have to spend two hours a night preparing some 5 Michelin star meal with the most organic, non-GMO, [insert buzzword] ingredients in order to make better dietary choices, at least not in the first world where we have ample options… Shit, even just reducing your meat intake by 10% is a net harm reduction that adds up.
The slave labor thing is valid to an extent, but not entirely analogous. For better or for worse, modern society is increasingly dependent on technology; folks rely on it, in some form, to find/perform work, pay the bills, stay in contact with friends and family, survive the climate they live in, travel, etc… This isn’t typically the case with meat, it’s often just carnal desire which results in the death of something to the tune of ~80 billion (with a “B”) animals every year that didn’t really need to be slaughtered.
People absolutely should be upset about the conditions of workers being exploited anywhere in the world and advocate on their behalf where possible, but our position shouldn’t be: “Oh, some bad shit happened over here, so I guess it’s fine to allow this bad shit over here to proliferate as well”… just sayin’.
I’s often just carnal desire which results in the death of something to the tune of ~80 billion (with a “B”) animals every year that didn’t really need to be slaughtered.
I’m genuinely curious: what’s the vegans’ answer to the question of “what happens to the cattle and other livestock if everyone on the planet turned vegan tomorrow?”. It’s not like they can just be let loose…
Realistically the amount of livestock is not sustainable and they’d need to be culled in gargantuan numbers so that they don’t go from a “managed” ecological disaster to an “out of control” ecological disaster. And then you get the slaughter without the benefit of feeding billions of hungry people.
I mean the premise already feels a bit absurd, but I’ll play…
I’m not a vegan myself, and I don’t really hang out in vegan spaces that much, so my answers may differ from your typical vegan, or not… who knows. But I suppose if the general goal is to preserve life where possible, then you should absolutely try to find some place for the animals to live out their days in peace. If we can manage to stuff them all in neat little boxes on the land we have now, I doubt it’s some intractable problem. You don’t have to let 'em run free and “out of control” per se, repurpose the land of the now defunct factory farms and slaughterhouses, build a number of sanctuaries all over the place, and plop 'em there. Of course, no one can possibly know all of the variables involved, so I’m not saying this is a well thought out solution, I’m just spitballing… but we’re not exactly hurting for land, to my knowledge.
However, suppose I granted you:
Realistically the amount of livestock is not sustainable and they’d need to be culled in gargantuan numbers
Why would that necessitate this outcome?
And then you get the slaughter without the benefit of feeding billions of hungry people.
Veganism isn’t some virus that physically prevents you from eating meat, and plenty of vegans have been meat eaters at some point in their lives. If it came down to it, I imagine there would be a steady supply of folks who would opt to revert temporarily instead of letting it go to waste. Vegans may disagree with me here, but I think it’s certainly a more ethical choice if the animals are already dead, can’t let the sacrifice be for nothing.
The vegan viewpoint on animals really just boils down to eliminating unnecessary suffering and death. Many are fine with the prospect of hunting, fishing, or raising livestock for food when there aren’t other options (eg. environments with insufficient crop yields to feed everyone or infrastructure to get other food), the problem arises from the fact that those of us privileged enough to live in a land of abundance continue to needlessly slaughter. Do we need to eat? Of course. Do we need to kill things to do it? Fuck no.
All that said, I think a more realistic transition scenario would be something like the meat industry halting slaughter operations, exhausting their existing supply until either there are no animals left to kill, or there are a small enough quantity to where we can just yeet the rest onto some farms somewhere. Not that vegans would be entirely on board with that, being anti-slaughter and all, but it’s at least a reduction in harm and a more believable way for things to play out… I think.
Eating beef is expensive, though. I agree with the rest.
Stop eating meat, it’s easy, you change your diet and are healthier.
Honestly stop saying “Your post does more harm to your cause than good because it just makes everyone angry at you”
It’s a tired and worn out excuse to avoid saying “I’m lazy and selfish”
Can you provide some product comparisons that include cost and nutritional value? Take into account dietary restrictions as well. Not for me personally but for anyone in general.
No, do your own work if you actually care or are you just trying to “gotcha” me?
The ‘gotcha’ was going to be: “Great information! This is the kind of post that might actually change someone’s mind.”
But instead we have condescending posts/comments that assume everyone simply has the means to make a significant change in their life.
Well I suggest you go to one of the many places where people are talking about it. I hesitate to share one with you but try
Great! Now someone reading this thread that just learned that beef is bad has a community they can look into.
I actually very rarely eat red meat myself but it’s for dietary reasons. Poultry and fish are my biggest source of protein but I still get a good amount from seeds, beans, etc.
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: [email protected]
Yes, they’re just trying to “gotcha” you. They could spend five seconds and look up that information on the same device they’re posting from.
So could the poster, but you certainly are not accusing him of trying to “gotcha” other people.
OP? Seems like they’re asking for anecdotes and wanting to discuss it. The “gotcha” commenter seemed to clearly be insincere.
In what way? He was clearly receptive to the link given by the other guy. The fact that you only see what you want to see is the real problem here.
It’s easy when you only need to care about your own needs. Try saying that with a family and kids…based on your comment I suspect you can’t.
Lead by example, or are you too weak to do that?
You could certainly lead by example by not acting like an insufferable asshole and giving the movement a bad look.
You could choose to stop murdering animals, yet here we are.
I’m pretty sure more animals got killed by you turning off people against the movement than I ever cause by eating beef my whole life. I barely eat beef in the first place, and most of what I eat comes from small scale local farmers. So congrats, I guess, for killing more cows than me.
You’re just making shit up to try and justify your stance. It’s hilarious.
I’m lazy and selfish
Not that lazy considering it didn’t need to be said. You do you though chief. Good luck getting help to change.
I don’t need help
I mean you just admitted you are lazy and selfish. Not a great look is it?
Who cares
Meeeeèeee
Because it’s a damn good source of creatine and protein. And it tastes good.
OK, but why not eat less beef and more chicken and herring?
In other words, humans are assholes
Yeah but so are preachy vegetablists
Each to their own and all that
Yup. Each one of us, for some reason or another. Welcome to the club, asshole ❤️
Then so is half of mother nature. It least we usually kill our food before we eat it. We could do something like rip out their guts and unborn calves while they’re still alive and start chowing down on them like a hyena.
Ha ha can you imagine if the vegans get into government and enact a law that says we can only eat meat if we kill it ourselves, so we all just start doing this like fuckin deranged hyenas 😂
I mean you do you if you think that’s decent human behaviour.
This rage bait question could be reworded as…
Why do people consume <anything> when we know it’s bad for the earth.
I think it’s valid that he chose the #1 food source problem to talk about first. Once we fix that, let’s discuss #2.
Where I live the beef is local and cheap. I’m not able to obtain enough protein without meat, as confirmed by a doctor and a nutritionist when I tried to go vegetarian. With food costs so high it’s cheaper to buy cow than anything else, but when I have the money I opt for fish or turkey. I looked into hunting but it’s prohibitively expensive for me with permits, tags, guns, licenses, days off and transportation. I tried fishing for myself as well, but whenever I get time to do it, there are warnings about eating fish in the area. When there aren’t I never catch anything big enough to legally be allowed to keep. I’d like to get chickens if/when local government ever lifts the bylaws preventing it.
I’m not able to obtain enough protein without meat
How does that work? Isn’t egg white pure protein? Surely eating a pile of boiled eggs would give you the same amount of protein as a steak, not counting stuff like cheese and legumes.
Oh gee I didn’t try eggs or dairy in the months I felt like shit after going veggie, and neither the doctor nor nutritionist suggested that either. You solved all my dietary needs and I can give up meat now after years of trying to figure out the most sustainable diet I can manage.
Sorry, I was trying to ask a genuine question, I didn’t mean to come across in a negative way.
I’d still be very interested in the answer.
Sorry about that, it’s the internet. I’m not a doctor, but it was explained to me that proteins from different sources are not all the same and, while I can process protein from a variety of foods, I don’t do it as efficiently as with muscle proteins. The nutritionist I spoke to - who was a vegan and a vegan activist - said people like me need about 1-2 chicken breasts per week. It’s not uncommon, a lot of people who try to go veggie and can’t hack it just go back to meat without trying to figure out why they felt sick and tired. Other people have said it’s genetic based on your ancestors, but I haven’t seen a lot of evidence to support that. Other sources point to evidence you can alter the way your body processes things by following specific diet plans, but I’m not prepared to feel that shitty again to figure it out.
Thanks, hadn’t heard about that before.
I’d advise you proof read future questions then. Your initial question came across as very dismissive and condescending.
Thanks, I’ll try to be mindful of that! English isn’t my first language, so there is surely some nuance to be learned.
Their all just using very personal examples to try and prove you wrong. You’re not.
Egg and dairy allergies are among the most common food allergies, so I’d guess that something like that might be the issue?
I and others are over here with soy, egg and gluten allergies that restrict pretty heavily what I can eat. But go off since you have it all figured out, king.
Sorry about your issues, I never meant to diminish them. I was genuinely curious about how one can become so limited in ones protein intake, but clearly worded my question poorly.
You know who else has restrictions on their food? Vegans. You’d have thought you’d be more sympathetic, but nah, you’re negativeyoda.
By choice, dingus.
I don’t have that option. Big Ole difference. Maybe give everyone Lyme disease so they develop red meat allergies and we can talk
Okay. You want me to double down? I won’t eat at vegan places most of the time. Here’s the thing: vegetables are delicious. So why?
Vegans will support a vegan place no matter what and will talk it up as being amazing even if it sucks. I’ve been burned being told, “oh. That place is so good” and it’s just a matter of vegans circling the wagons and propping up a place that serves a lazy impossible burger with fake plastic cheese on it. Y’all ain’t accountable and it makes it difficult taking vegan food seriously. No wonder y’all’s food has an inferiority complex
The real question is, why should we try to not eat beef for the environment, when corporations make 90% of all pollution in the world.
Maybe focus on the 90% of the problem and not the individual people who but meat?
the beef industry wouldnt be razing down the amazon forest if no one was buying and eating it, would they?
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Theres no such thing as a corporation without consumers, we are where the buck is created, and where the buck stops.
Absolutely correct, glad to have read your comment. People need to start realizing they play a role in what’s to come. It’s a terrible mentality to think we don’t all have our effect on the future.
There is no ethical consumption in capitalism.
Nah, you just don’t give a shit to believe you have any control over reality.
Ah, yes, the ol’ victim blame schtick. GTFO with that juvenile shit. This isn’t some timeless chicken/egg quandary, son.
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We use oil and gas because it’s the option that has been made most available to us. This isn’t an individual problem. As long as the alternatives are prohibitively expensive for the average person, in terms of time, money, availability, etc, then we’re going to always have the bulk of people choosing the easiest option.
We all have so much to worry about each day, trying to fit biking to my job a 45 minute drive away just isn’t feasible. The options for changing that are either we go fuckin full on anarchy, burn the system down, and start anew, or slowly, systematically. Set an easily achievable baseline the average person can work to adopt, encourage it via subsidization and education, and give it time.
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You’re right. At the end of the day, your lifestyle is your choice. I’m merely pointing out that there are a LOT of pressures keeping people stuck in the lifestyle they’re in. Those pressures are real, and if you want to effect change, it’s better to target them, rather than the individual.
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Oh yeah I’ll just stop driving my car in this world they manufactured to be unsustainable to travel in without a car.
If you think you can do ethical consumption by eating the avocados that fund latin american cartels to mutilate and rape the children of anyone who doesn’t just sit there and take their shit instead of some beef from a cow raised by some kid doing their 4H project, you’re the moron here.
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I think your argument works if someone is stealing the beef.
If they are buying it then that is directly funding that “90%”.
Because corporations make things based on the demand of those individual people. They don’t exist in a vacuum. And they’re not going to change because someone on the internet rants about them. Their only incentive is profit
It’s a bit of both. We started out just liking beef, for all the reasons above - easy to grow, good bioavailability, tasty, etc. From there, we built our society up, became capitalists, and started really honing in on efficiency, because more efficiency is more money. Now cows are everywhere and beef is cheap.
Right now beef is pretty much the cheapest protein option readily available, and that I actually know how to prepare. Both of those come from the supply being huge, our culture being built around meat eating, it just kinda being the way we are.
This isn’t an individual problem to solve. No amount of vegans voting with their wallet is going to redirect the monumental ship that is our culture. We need subsidization on non-meat options, more ubiquitous supply, and more practice with the style of cuisine if we ever hope to make changes that stick.
Beef would be much more expensive if not for the huge subsidies, it’s artificially cheap. Maybe we just stop doing that and see how it goes.
Right. Part of my point. We have taken great efforts to make beef cheap, and to bolster the supply. With all of this effort, it really isn’t a surprise your average person is going to choose beef.
I’d propose slowly increasing subsidies to beef alternatives, and then once those are to the same level of affordableness and you’ve got some adoption, start cutting beef subsidies. Make the transition slow and painless, more people will stick to it.
I always hear people talking about how beef is so cheap and I wonder how that could be when it costs twice as much as pork in my grocery store. I never thought about subsidies in other countries.
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The thing about individual action is that if it works, it all adds up. But if people all blame the corporations, individual action makes no dent in the over 50% of emissions that individuals help make; a self-fulfilling prophecy. And yes, over 50%. Politifact goes into detail about how most emission indeed comes from consumption instead of corporate production.
Your own source disputes what you say.
The original study did not include emissions from land use, land use change or forestry, or from sources such as landfills, agriculture and farming. It also did not include data on indirect emissions, which come from purchased energy such as heating and electricity, citing concerns about double-counting emissions attributable to corporations.
The study relied on data collected by the Carbon Majors Database, which focuses on greenhouse gas emissions data from the largest company-related sources. In other words, The data derives from records of carbon dioxide and methane emissions relating to fossil fuel (oil, gas and coal) and cement producers dating back to 1854. … t’s difficult to discern how much total global emissions can be attributed to the top 100 polluting corporations, but there are ways to get a ballpark idea.
If you use the total global emissions calculated by the Climate Analysis Indicators Tool, an average of around 60% of global emissions can be traced back to those 100 companies from 1990 to 2015.
The real issue is one of attribution. “Traced to” isn’t the same as “responsible for”. I have a hard time blaming Saudi Aramco for massive volume of oil consumption in the US. Yes the oil companies are eco terrorists too but the binary take is absurd.
Corporation polluter the planet, therefore we should be allowed to torture animals. You got it boy
What a loaded question.
Outside of the fact that a single cows life provides about 900 meals for humans, and the scraps left over make boots that last for a decade and also feed our cats and dogs. Plus, it’s delicious.
Yeah so, the amount of meals is correct. But that’s about it. I mean, I can’t say about the taste, to each their own, but one kg of cow meat needs two dozen kg of grain.
That’s about as inefficient as it gets.
As for the leather, the industry doesn’t like products that last a decade, so it isn’t actually using the leather in such a way. Industrial leather boots last a year tops.
Finally, pet food is made out of discarded cuts of meat, the uglies, etc. But also lots of cereals, and vegetables.
So we could really afford eating less meat. It isn’t good for anything. Not for us, not for the other species (certainly not for the cows, that get often half assed butchered in a hasty way because of quotas and profit), and absolutely not for the ecosystem.
But I guess the taste is all that matters.
Industrial leather boots last a year tops.
With respect, you’re buying awful boots.
If we had the same size, I could be wearing my grandfather’s steeltoes that are probably a solid 40 years old. People really underestimate how long good footwear lasts when you take care of it.
I can make hey dude’s last 9 months. If OP can’t make the cheapest leather boots last more than a year, they are using them wrong, or they should buy high end boots for whatever they’re doing.
Seriously. I bought some dirt cheap full grain leather biker boots 3 years ago; I have given them exactly 0 care, abused the snot our of them daily, and they are still holding up strong. These weren’t even boots meant for working and they still survived trudging through the various slops of all 4 minnesotan seasons for 3 years.
As long as you are buying actual leather and not “genuine leather” then whatever you buy should easily last several years even if not cared for. Well cared for leather goods can last decades.
So, OK, I’m willing to learn: please show me good brands then.
They need to resist to mud (thick mud, the kind with a ton of suction that will keep your soles when you try and move), seawater, rocks and sand, and pretty dense vegetation.
They also need to have steel toe caps, good soles (vibram or equivalent if possible) that don’t slip, and that aren’t too hard (wet stone is enough of a female dog as it is), and to go higher than my ankle.
The best brand I tried so far was caterpillar, but they lasted only 3 years. That’s a far cry from “a decade or more”.
Cows are not all fed on grain. A lot of cows are ranched on land that would not be suitable for growing grain crops.
Whatever their food is, 1kg of beef requires 24kg of grain’s worth of energy. This is something they teach in high-school biology now. The higher the food chain, the more energy is lost. Stopping such production would be pretty beneficial to the environment, but whether we should is a complicated question.
But as I pointed out, many cattle are ranched on land that cannot grow grain. They can’t grow the sorts of crops that humans eat, only the sorts of crops that cattle eat. If cattle weren’t being ranched on those lands they wouldn’t be producing edible grain instead, or any other food that humans could eat. So the inefficiency is moot when it comes to the amount of nutrition produced, removing the cattle from that land would simply reduce the total amount of food we have available.
Sure, if you remove the cattle then wild animals could come in to replace them, but we should make sure that’s not going to result in starvation and poverty if we do that. Many areas of the world have subsistence ranching by the locals.
Interesting. However, a search says that feeding all the grass (or whatever) to cattle takes that food away from existing ecosystems in dry areas and potentially allow exotic weeds to take over land. So we probably don’t want this to expand to the point where we intrude on dry ecosystems.
It’s just a matter of land management. Many of those grassland areas used to have other large grazing animals on them, so as long as the cattle herds aren’t bigger than those old herds it should be sustainable.
And of course the land couldn’t be used for anything else… like natural ecosystems.
Just because land exists doesn’t mean it needs to be pillaged to feed our desires.
Most ranchland is, in fact, a “natural ecosystem.” They just send cattle out to graze on it.
The point I’m making here is about food efficiency, though, not about land use.
Are we just going to ignore the millions of acres of vast grasslands that supported like 50 million buffalo in the US 200 year ago? Healthy grassland ecosystems and ruminants are a thing.
Exactly. Nah, we just gotta have man made monoculture everywhere, or a desert, right? So that, in the end, it just amounts to deserts anyway. Yay. 😶
Billions of trees every year get cut down to make space for cattle pastures, now tell me how destroying entire ecosystems that have been there for potentially thousands of years is worth some particular meat.
And billions of acres of pasture could never support trees
Inefficient?
Cows eat grains that humans can’t digest, or if they can, it takes energy to transform them to something human can eat.
we use some of the most fertile lands in the midwest that could be used to grow literally anything else to grow vast amounts of soy and corn for cows.
And in those specific cases, sure, you could do more efficiently by getting rid of the cattle.
The point I’m making is that there’s plenty of cattle raised in places that aren’t like that.
sure but a very small amount compared to what people eat. around 50% of american land is just used to grow crops for cattle. if we opted to reduce that, think of how much forest and natural land we could bring back.
Imagine how many people you could feed if we would just eat what we fed the animals!
Ah yes, good old hay … delicious!
We can’t live on hay and corn. Cows need several stomachs to do it.
Also, getting enough protein and creatine and other vitamins as a vegan is a hell of a lot of work and doesn’t taste as good.
Humans are animals, and the type of animals we are is omnivores. Not herbivores.
It’s delicious, therefore we should torture it and eat it. People are the worst.
There’s no need to “torture” cattle to get meat from them. Indeed, meat from animals that are experiencing stressful conditions tastes worse. Not to mention simply having lower productivity. A farm with happy cows is going to be more profitable than one with stressed ones, all else being equal.
Guess you didn’t get to grow up watching the discovery Channel before all their shows were about crab fishing and animal rescue. Would you rather I go rip a gazelle apart and start eating it’s insides while it keeps trying to stand up with only two front legs?
Because it tastes great and it’s today, and not tomorrow.
Not everybody agrees that beef is bad for you and the environment. We were talking about human health, it’s hard to find a more of bioavailable source of nutrition than animal protein and fat
While I acknowledge the concept of a “carbon footprint” is complete BS, beef production does have a very high impact on climate change. Just want to point out that fact. I still eat it from time to time though. Yes, beef is high in protein and tasty.
As an aside, I believe as environmentalists, we shouldn’t shame people for doing the “wrong” things IMHO as even the best of us still contribute to the problem in some way. Everyone has their own reasons for doing what they do, and shame doesn’t often change minds. Personally, I try to take my own small steps, but I’m not prepared to live like a hermit. I do try to eat meat less often, and I volunteer a considerable amount of time to lobby for more climate friendly policies. This course of action is what works well for me.
The average human has much more of a negative effect on the environment than a cow. So, shouldn’t the question be why we tolerate so many people?
You beat me to it.
How would not tolerating look like? Let’s start with you as an example, maybe your loved ones too. And maybe look at the horrors of a one child policy in China before we start following that idea again.
Maybe start with people like you who take things on the Internet too seriously
Don’t ya just love when scumbags try to make ecofascism woke?
Go back to being a terrible dad Ra’as AlGhoul.
You’re really sensitive, huh?
It tastes good and I’m a carnivore.
omnivore, but i agree
