I went vegetarian this year (vegan when it’s possible) mostly because of the horrors of factory farming. I could not continue to participate in such a horrific system anymore.
We don’t eat cats or dogs, so why is it okay to eat other animals? They all have thoughts and feelings.
Grass-fed production doesn’t really scale, so there’s not much way around consumption changes here. It also comes with a side effect of raising methane emissions
We model a nationwide transition [in the US] from grain- to grass-finishing systems using demographics of present-day beef cattle. In order to produce the same quantity of beef as the present-day system, we find that a nationwide shift to exclusively grass-fed beef would require increasing the national cattle herd from 77 to 100 million cattle, an increase of 30%. We also find that the current pastureland grass resource can support only 27% of the current beef supply (27 million cattle), an amount 30% smaller than prior estimates
[…]
If beef consumption is not reduced and is instead satisfied by greater imports of grass-fed beef, a switch to purely grass-fed systems would likely result in higher environmental costs, including higher overall
methane emissions. Thus, only reductions in beef consumption can guarantee reductions in the environmental impact of US food systems.
Taken together, an exclusively grass-fed beef cattle herd would raise the United States’ total methane emissions by approximately 8%.
You say that, but it’s not really just about grass-feeding. Cows are already fed almost 90% inedible crop materials that would be getting disposed of anyway. We could be doing better, but cattle’s food source is sorta the wrong focus.
And as much methane is in manure, it’s better for the environment (including GHG) than synthetic fertilizers.
The real answer is changing our meat/vegetable balance AND improve the process AND continue to improve humane regulations (and those 3 goals often synergize with each other).
The % that’s edible is not as relevant as the fact that it still takes much more human-edible feed
Not really. Definitely not if you consider the nutritional quality of the meat. And that’s beef, the worst example. (Feed to meat conversion from 6x to 25x, the higher number generally for free-range). Chickens are only x2 in ideal situations (closer to 5x when free-range since their calorie intake is not as well-managed). And from a health viewpoint, 100kcal of chicken is a better-balanced calorie than 200kcal of feed
But that is before accounting for the fact that about 165 of those feed kcals are inedible, meaning you’re trading around 35 edible kcals of corn for 100 edible kcals of chicken. Would you agree from a purely health and efficiency point of view (leaving out ethics), that 35 edible calories of a “non-nutritional grain” for 100 edible calories of a protein superfood is a pretty fair trade?
Why is it ideal or even ethical to kill others “kosher or halal” when we don’t have to kill in any way? How does this relate to them living in cages before?
Both kosher and halal require you to kill the animal quickly and painlessly. I’d say the pasture raised is more important, since that’s every other day of the animal’s life, but I’d like the last day to also not suck.
I mean, if you’re coming at it from the point of “there is no ethical meat consumption,” then you’re right, none of this means anything. It’s a simple “don’t ever eat meat.”
In which case, kosher and halal are irrelevant. Pasture raised is still relevant because we need to discuss what ethical production of things like eggs and milk looks like.
I hate to be “that guy”, but I feel like none of your references are really properly rebutting his valid point. “We don’t eat cats and dogs” is a common anti-balanced-diet dogwhistle that tries to touch on heartstrings instead of logic or even ethical behavior. You might not have meant it that way, but he was justified in pointing out the cultural bias of it.
And “cultural imperialism” is different from “literal imperialism”, but that also means your rebuttal was a gishgallop, changing the topic. I’m ASSUMING you didn’t mean to secretly change the topic to prevent losing on that previous point, but that’s what the reply looks like anyway.
The original point they made talking about how people commonly hold contradictory beliefs regarding dogs and cats compared to other animals is pointing out cultural bias. It is an appeal for logical consistency in ethical beliefs
Actually, their original point was “We don’t eat cats and dogs”. You seem to be drawing a lot of foundation they did not lay. We cannot presume that foundation, or its solidity, because they are controversial and MIGHT have been rebuttable.
Ultimately, it was a meme-worthy throw out of one sentence trying to pull at heartstrings. If he intended more or something defensible, he failed to prove it.
At this point, I’m pretty sure you’re a vegan from your replies to me. Even if you were on the right side of ethics by some agreeable system, that doesn’t make his original point more than it actually was. You can argue for the right thing with a bad or lacking argument, and you can (and should) be called on that.
Look at the words that immediately follow. “We don’t eat cats or dogs, so why is it okay to eat other animals” is a statement looking at contradictions. I don’t see much point in continuing this conversation if we’re going to be arguing over semantics/sentence meaning here. I don’t think anyone gets much out of that. Also because for some reason, replies are not showing up in my inbox so I can’t see your responses easily anyway (I think lemmy.ml is having some issues again)
I went vegetarian this year (vegan when it’s possible) mostly because of the horrors of factory farming. I could not continue to participate in such a horrific system anymore.
We don’t eat cats or dogs, so why is it okay to eat other animals? They all have thoughts and feelings.
I’m also returning to a more plant based diet in part because of animal cruelty but also because creating demand for plant based meat alternatives could potentially reduce the need for agricultural land use by ~70%. But not all animal production has the same impact on climate change: just cutting out beef and eating more nuts will help.
Ideally, pasture-raised and kosher or halal meats would be more (at all) prevalent. That’s what ethical meat consumption looks like.
Alternately, lab grown.
Grass-fed production doesn’t really scale, so there’s not much way around consumption changes here. It also comes with a side effect of raising methane emissions
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aad401/pdf
To be fair, pasture raised is more expensive, so people would eat less beef. I don’t think it’s fair to talk about scaling current consumption.
You say that, but it’s not really just about grass-feeding. Cows are already fed almost 90% inedible crop materials that would be getting disposed of anyway. We could be doing better, but cattle’s food source is sorta the wrong focus.
And as much methane is in manure, it’s better for the environment (including GHG) than synthetic fertilizers.
The real answer is changing our meat/vegetable balance AND improve the process AND continue to improve humane regulations (and those 3 goals often synergize with each other).
The % that’s edible is not as relevant as the fact that it still takes much more human-edible feed
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211912416300013
Synthetic fertilizer usage is greatly reduced by eating plants directly even compared to the best-case use of animal manure
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921344922006528
Not really. Definitely not if you consider the nutritional quality of the meat. And that’s beef, the worst example. (Feed to meat conversion from 6x to 25x, the higher number generally for free-range). Chickens are only x2 in ideal situations (closer to 5x when free-range since their calorie intake is not as well-managed). And from a health viewpoint, 100kcal of chicken is a better-balanced calorie than 200kcal of feed
But that is before accounting for the fact that about 165 of those feed kcals are inedible, meaning you’re trading around 35 edible kcals of corn for 100 edible kcals of chicken. Would you agree from a purely health and efficiency point of view (leaving out ethics), that 35 edible calories of a “non-nutritional grain” for 100 edible calories of a protein superfood is a pretty fair trade?
Why is it ideal or even ethical to kill others “kosher or halal” when we don’t have to kill in any way? How does this relate to them living in cages before?
Both kosher and halal require you to kill the animal quickly and painlessly. I’d say the pasture raised is more important, since that’s every other day of the animal’s life, but I’d like the last day to also not suck.
Is the act of killing someone who does not want to die and does not need to die ethical if painless?
Have you seen non human animals that want to die for humans to be consumed by them? https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmIqdlomtuSsJEoFi_L_pfEAPIxDRo4DB
I mean, if you’re coming at it from the point of “there is no ethical meat consumption,” then you’re right, none of this means anything. It’s a simple “don’t ever eat meat.”
In which case, kosher and halal are irrelevant. Pasture raised is still relevant because we need to discuss what ethical production of things like eggs and milk looks like.
You don’t eat dogs and cats, other cultures absolutely do and billions of people are 100% ok with eating animals. Don’t be a cultural imperialist.
Kinda missing the point, ain’t ye?
Quite the thing to claim someone else being an imperialist for not supporting this:
I hate to be “that guy”, but I feel like none of your references are really properly rebutting his valid point. “We don’t eat cats and dogs” is a common anti-balanced-diet dogwhistle that tries to touch on heartstrings instead of logic or even ethical behavior. You might not have meant it that way, but he was justified in pointing out the cultural bias of it.
And “cultural imperialism” is different from “literal imperialism”, but that also means your rebuttal was a gishgallop, changing the topic. I’m ASSUMING you didn’t mean to secretly change the topic to prevent losing on that previous point, but that’s what the reply looks like anyway.
The original point they made talking about how people commonly hold contradictory beliefs regarding dogs and cats compared to other animals is pointing out cultural bias. It is an appeal for logical consistency in ethical beliefs
Actually, their original point was “We don’t eat cats and dogs”. You seem to be drawing a lot of foundation they did not lay. We cannot presume that foundation, or its solidity, because they are controversial and MIGHT have been rebuttable.
Ultimately, it was a meme-worthy throw out of one sentence trying to pull at heartstrings. If he intended more or something defensible, he failed to prove it.
At this point, I’m pretty sure you’re a vegan from your replies to me. Even if you were on the right side of ethics by some agreeable system, that doesn’t make his original point more than it actually was. You can argue for the right thing with a bad or lacking argument, and you can (and should) be called on that.
Look at the words that immediately follow. “We don’t eat cats or dogs, so why is it okay to eat other animals” is a statement looking at contradictions. I don’t see much point in continuing this conversation if we’re going to be arguing over semantics/sentence meaning here. I don’t think anyone gets much out of that. Also because for some reason, replies are not showing up in my inbox so I can’t see your responses easily anyway (I think lemmy.ml is having some issues again)