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Do you feel helpless to stop the problem of antibiotics use in the meat industry? You’re not! Here’s a simple easy trick you can use to reduce its impact on th

Do you feel helpless to stop the problem of antibiotics use in the meat industry? You’re not! Here’s a simple easy trick you can use to reduce its impact on the world: eat less meat. You don’t need meat in 3 meals a day. Reduce it to 1 meal a day and you’ve already reduced your antibiotics impact by 2/3. Cut down to one meat meal a week and that’s a 96% reduction. You’re not powerless. Vote with your wallet and your stomach.

linkmotif 9y ago
Not to go totally Adam Smith here, but if everyone did this, wouldn’t this just drive the cost of meat down? Making it even cheaper than it already is? Wouldn’t it make more sense to explicitly seek out “better” meat? Anyway, I agree, definitely no need to eat meat more than once a day, if not every other day etc.
- swombat 9y ago
  Temporarily I guess it would drive the price down, and then production would adjust to meet the lowered demand. Think about it this way: if the number of meat eaters halved overnight, meat would be really cheap for a while, then a bunch of producers would go out of business and prices would rise again, and prices would stabilise again once production was half what it used to be.
  - barrkel 9y ago
    You're assuming that the remaining meat eaters' consumption would remain constant. It would almost certainly increase (I know mine would increase, or rather, I'd eat more expensive cuts of meat more often, like cote de boeuf); and I'd expect substitution effects - it's hard to predict what the final outcomes would be. Lobbying for regulation would be a more effective use of your time. Or something that converts individual action into collective action with an enforcement mechanism, like group shaming - but it's hard to get these to spread reliably.
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      What if I don't want to engage in group shaming? What if I don't want to tell other people what to do?
    - swombat 9y ago
      I think it's unlikely that the remainder of the population would double their meat consumption. The more obvious failing point might be the fact that as the price of meat goes down, people (e.g. in developing countries) who weren't able to afford meat now can afford it and so consumption goes back up, so actually the production doesn't go down, instead standards drop as the consuming population becomes even less discerning as to the way the meat is produced. Grr.
- xapata 9y ago
  Lower price signals the suppliers to find different work to do.
unmango 9y ago
What if I'd rather eat meat all day? Is there any way to stop the antibiotics use without eating like a rabbit?
- linkmotif 9y ago
  Get good meat! If you have the money, you’ve got options. It’ll taste better than antibiotic meat, too.
- matthewmacleod 9y ago
  You're perfectly able to eat organic meat, where antibiotics will not have been used.
- akoncius 9y ago
  humans have huge variety of choice for food which has all necessary nutrients which does not originate from meat, so this comment “eat like rabbit” is not correct if you are concluding vegetarian diet.
- swombat 9y ago
  If you’d rather eat meat all day, then you’re probably saying this problem is not important enough to you. Which is totally fine, it’s your choice. I just want you to realise you have a choice. Also, vegetarian food can be really delicious. Go to a good vegetarian restaurant some day and order something that sounds tasty - it probably will be and you may not miss the meat as much as you think!
  - barrkel 9y ago
    I'd rather eat meat all day, but also not have it pumped with antibiotics. So, to that end, I support banning the importation of meat grown with heavy use of antibiotics, I'd support certification schemes to guarantee reduced use of antibiotics, and other effective regulations (whether self-regulating or governmental regulation) with teeth that get the job done. Just don't think that your choice to try and reduce the price of meat will meaningfully affect the use of meat. It's just more meat for me.
  - 9y ago
enord 9y ago
When has this attitude _ever_ been the solution to a shared-resource problem? I'm not being snarky, I want to know. It feels like solving traffic mortality by pasting a "drive carefully"-sticker inside the windshield, doing nothing other than establishing who is morally responsible.
- chrischen 9y ago
  It's like solving traffic mortality by telling people not to drive.
  - akoncius 9y ago
    no, it’s like telling people to stop driving cars at 100 miles per hour inside city. makes sense.
    - enord 9y ago
      We do that, but with laws and signs and police and stuff. Not with stern admonition.
      - akoncius 9y ago
        so if there would be a law restricting meat consumption then everything would be fine?
        megaman22 9y ago
        It's been done in the past. Church laws forbidding the eating of meat on certain days have been a thing. Of course, most people who have the means would choose to eat meat as often as possible, and so you get things like fish not being classed as meat (leaving aside other considerations like these sorts of restrictions acting as subsidies to merchant fishing fleets, with knock-on effects for early modern naval preparedness). Or people just ignore stupid, unenforceable laws and net respect for the law as an absolute is decreased.
    - 9y ago
belorn 9y ago
Since this article talk about fish farms there is very obvious solution and that is eat wild caught fish, preferable from places where there is either a overpopulation or where there are invasive species. Plenty of such meat in the world where eating it would have a net-positive on the environment. Know one lake where the price of the overpopulated fish species in it is so low that just transporting it to a cat food factory would be a loosing deal.
- DrScump 9y ago
  eat wild caught fish But how does the consumer know the true origin of a product? "Wild-caught" claims are only as reliable as the least honest entity in the supply chain.
  - jdavis703 9y ago
    Perhaps because they caught it themselves? If I had the time and land I’d go fishing and hunting. But since I don’t I just restrict myself to a vegetarian diet.
  - arve0 9y ago
    You may know by eating fish that are not possible to farm, like cod. Edit: Apparently, cod may be farmed (1), though I think the idea still stands. 1: https://thefishsite.com/articles/cultured-aquatic-species-atlantic-cod https://thefishsite.com/articles/cultured-aquatic-species-at...
  - belorn 9y ago
    Anything written on the product is liable to supply chain fraud. How do a customer know that the virgin olive oil is not mixed with lard? No food is safe from product fraud. Has fish a higher risk compared to other products? To my knowledge the food product with highest fraud rate is oil. After that things like honey, and further down we have beef. I have never heard of report in regard to fish, but feel free to point me to such reports.
    - aaronbrethorst 9y ago
sergiotapia 9y ago
"What's the safest way to go skiing? Don't ski!"
- greglindahl 9y ago
  Skiing isn't the only sport. Meat isn't the only food. In economics, this situation is called "substitute goods".
  - supermarine 9y ago
    You missed his point. Of course skiing isn't the only sport, but if you love skiing, why snowboard? Of course meat isn't the only food, but it's delicious and a great source of protein. Sure antibiotics are bad for the system as a whole, but why not go after that instead of boycotting altogether?
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      No, I got his point. Of the people who ski, some would be happy to substitute another winter sport if skiing became less desirable (more expensive or less fashionable). Some would substitute non-winter sports (e.g. go to the California coast instead of Tahoe.) That's the 'substitute goods' that I mentioned. If you really love skiing, you're still a part of that economic theory, you're just the inelastic part. You might still substitute something else if skiing became 10x more expensive.
      - swombat 9y ago
        To embrace the skiing analogy, I’m Swiss and I love skiing. I’m about to go on a ski trip next week. If I believed that going on occasional ski trips does anywhere near the harm that meat consumption does I would indeed give up skiing. For similar reasons, I’m not interested in going lion hunting for my holidays. It’s harmful. There are other alternatives. So use the alternatives!
        greglindahl 9y ago
barrkel 9y ago
This will make meat cheaper and people who currently don't eat as much meat because of price will start eating more. You cannot solve a collective action problem by individual action; the incentives for others to cheat means that you are trying to push water uphill.
bastawhiz 9y ago
A personal anecdote: I've tried cutting my meat consumption many times in the past, but I ultimately fail to keep up a low-meat diet for the following reasons: - Vegetarian food is really not that tasty in my opinion. (edit: the kind I can reasonably prepare myself) - It's very difficult to eat enough vegetarian food for me to meet my Calorie requirements (I target 3500/day). - Eating a balanced diet of vegetarian food that tastes half-decent requires a substantial amount of preparation, especially if you have carb/protein targets. Non-vegetarian pop-it-in-the-microwave food is plentiful. There just aren't enough hours in the day. I stumbled along with this for years, trying and failing over and over. One of my best friends became a vegetarian and I watched as he basically dialed down his diet to peanut butter and lentils. Last year, I unintentionally became mostly-vegetarian entirely by accident: I started drinking Soylent. It's high-Calorie, it's consistent, there are five different flavors (three with caffeine!), each flavor tastes decent enough, and it's not a pain in the ass. Other than the odd takeaway order (two or three times a month, or if I run out of Soylent) effectively zero meat enters my apartment. My coworkers have rolled their eyes dramatically, but it's pretty good. The bottles get recycled, they come unrefrigerated direct from the manufacturer, and the drinks are (seemingly) made from half-decent stuff. If my office put them in the lunch line, I'd probably stop eating meat at work, too. (And they're pretty cheap!)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- make3 9y ago
  wtf 3500 calories a day. are you a professional athlete? I'm a grown man and that many calories would have me take two pounds a week (assuming stability at 2500 cal and 3500 cals extra per pound)
  - bastawhiz 9y ago
    3500 really isn't very much when you're trying to put on weight. Soylent in the morning and three after work (400/each) is ~half that, plus protein shake after the gym (350) and full breakfast/lunch at the office (~600/each) come out to roughly 3500. Plus I'll snack on stuff, maybe have some grapes or string cheese or whatever treats people bring in. I'm not super strict about it, so it ends up between 3000 and 3750 most days. The Soylent makes it a lot easier because you're not constantly eating. Even something as simple as using half and half instead of skim milk in your coffee adds up. Edit: but yes, I work out quite a bit.
kayhi 9y ago
I sometimes wonder with problems like these that the underlying solution is controlling the global population.
- hycaria 9y ago
  How can you just wonder and not come to the obvious conclusion yet ? (By the way from my own observations, this opinion is strongly frowned upon here)
tr0ut 9y ago
How about buy and eat locally sourced beef (and other meats) from farms that you know use the least amount of antibiotics. Have the shortest travel to your market and thus your plate. Stop eating fast-food and buying the equivalent microwave quick meal dinners. These two are the biggest offenders of factory farms. Stop eating fish from another continent is another good choice. I live in the North East and do not consume salmon because it is not a fish that lives naturally and wild. Besides some small concentrated areas. I refuse to eat farm raised salmon. So I eat whats local flounder, mackerel, bluefish, muscles and clams. Which is also seasonal. (Sorry we're so spoiled eating Pineapples in Feb during a blizzard.)
adventured 9y ago
> Do you feel helpless to stop the problem of antibiotics use in the meat industry? You’re not! Eating less meat isn't necessary to accomplish that at all. US consumers, as one example, are managing to force a large change upon US meat companies through pressure about health consequences, thanks to a long campaign of education by numerous groups and government agencies. Just five years ago you couldn't find antibiotic free chicken at most Walmart grocery stores, now every one of them carries such, with the major producers like Tyson all gradually switching over.
dghughes 9y ago
Actually my mother (age mid 70s) who grew up on a farm has said to me many times over the years her family only ate meat on Sunday. They were not vegetarians or some weird cult it was the way people were it was a normal way to eat. Traditionally or historically (?) fish isn't seen as meat. And not just for religious reasons. My guess is people saw them as so different from land animals they were not classed as meat in the minds of our ancestors.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rsync 9y ago
"You don’t need meat in 3 meals a day" You don't need 3 meals a day. If you are at all open-minded about eating less meat, you should also (if only for your own health, fitness and longevity) open your mind to eating fewer meals. Eating less[1] is one of only two things I have ever done[2] that made a noticeable impact in my health, fitness and athletic output.[3] [1] Total calories are actually about the same since I have an exercise regimen that requires a floor on calories, but feeding window is reduced (sometimes dramatically) putting me into a fasted state more than half of my life. [2] The other was shifting almost 30% of my caloric intake to almonds, walnuts, almond butter and sunflower seeds. [3] I am a competitive BJJ player.
6t6t6t6 9y ago
I never eat farmed fish because I don't trust fish farms and it seems that there are not enough regulations to make farmed fish healthy. I don't buy industrial beef neither and only eat high quality beef that is certified to have had a good diet and no hormones or antibiotics. I don't eat cheap Brazilian chickens neither. That means that I eat quite less fish and meat than other people, but every time I eat, I enjoy a good product. Also, that makes me not responsible of all the externalities generated by the meat and fish industry.
konschubert 9y ago
Do you feel helpless looking at the burning house? You’re not! Here’s a simple easy trick you can use to reduce how fast it's burning: Spit into it sometimes! --- Structural problems cannot solved with individual behavior. Structural problems can be solved when 1. individuals bond together and affect policy or 2. when a new technology emerges.
rublev 9y ago
Yeah but I don't feel like suffering from every aspect of my life just to make an impact. My suffering will become a full time job. Focusing on not eating x/y/z, not wearing x/y/z, not doing x/y/z, not going to x, y, or z, for x/y/z reasons. And so on and so forth. I work a day job, I don't have time to give a shit about most things, least of all adjusting my entire diet for activist ideology, let alone reading enough about these micro topics to get actionable data from. I have trouble just sticking to a solid routine every single day. If I possessed the power to just change my shit up for arbitrary disconnected reasons like lowering global antibiotics research, then I'd already have the mental fortitude to be a billionaire. Would personally rather donate to a foundation that is able to accomplish the same goal on a larger scale. Our efforts should be focused on the rich putting their efforts into these things. I never vote with my wallet. If I vote with my wallet and it costs me 2 hours to go across the city to get an item that's 14-16% of my day lost to acquire just one item in my life because I had the luxury of 'making a statement'.
- enord 9y ago
  Or paying more taxes to fund epa, fda and unilateral trade agreements to adress challenges so numerous that no mortal man can be expected to grok half of it in two lifetimes. In order to do that though, you have to vote vith your er... vote.
c12 9y ago
Right now my wallet is doing the voting for me; can't afford meat in every meal, let alone one meal a day haha.

linkmotif 9y ago

Not to go totally Adam Smith here, but if everyone did this, wouldn’t this just drive the cost of meat down? Making it even cheaper than it already is? Wouldn’t it make more sense to explicitly seek out “better” meat? Anyway, I agree, definitely no need to eat meat more than once a day, if not every other day etc.

swombat 9y ago
Temporarily I guess it would drive the price down, and then production would adjust to meet the lowered demand. Think about it this way: if the number of meat eaters halved overnight, meat would be really cheap for a while, then a bunch of producers would go out of business and prices would rise again, and prices would stabilise again once production was half what it used to be.
- barrkel 9y ago
  You're assuming that the remaining meat eaters' consumption would remain constant. It would almost certainly increase (I know mine would increase, or rather, I'd eat more expensive cuts of meat more often, like cote de boeuf); and I'd expect substitution effects - it's hard to predict what the final outcomes would be. Lobbying for regulation would be a more effective use of your time. Or something that converts individual action into collective action with an enforcement mechanism, like group shaming - but it's hard to get these to spread reliably.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    What if I don't want to engage in group shaming? What if I don't want to tell other people what to do?
  - swombat 9y ago
    I think it's unlikely that the remainder of the population would double their meat consumption. The more obvious failing point might be the fact that as the price of meat goes down, people (e.g. in developing countries) who weren't able to afford meat now can afford it and so consumption goes back up, so actually the production doesn't go down, instead standards drop as the consuming population becomes even less discerning as to the way the meat is produced. Grr.
xapata 9y ago
Lower price signals the suppliers to find different work to do.

unmango 9y ago

What if I'd rather eat meat all day? Is there any way to stop the antibiotics use without eating like a rabbit?

linkmotif 9y ago
Get good meat! If you have the money, you’ve got options. It’ll taste better than antibiotic meat, too.
matthewmacleod 9y ago
You're perfectly able to eat organic meat, where antibiotics will not have been used.
akoncius 9y ago
humans have huge variety of choice for food which has all necessary nutrients which does not originate from meat, so this comment “eat like rabbit” is not correct if you are concluding vegetarian diet.
swombat 9y ago
If you’d rather eat meat all day, then you’re probably saying this problem is not important enough to you. Which is totally fine, it’s your choice. I just want you to realise you have a choice. Also, vegetarian food can be really delicious. Go to a good vegetarian restaurant some day and order something that sounds tasty - it probably will be and you may not miss the meat as much as you think!
- barrkel 9y ago
  I'd rather eat meat all day, but also not have it pumped with antibiotics. So, to that end, I support banning the importation of meat grown with heavy use of antibiotics, I'd support certification schemes to guarantee reduced use of antibiotics, and other effective regulations (whether self-regulating or governmental regulation) with teeth that get the job done. Just don't think that your choice to try and reduce the price of meat will meaningfully affect the use of meat. It's just more meat for me.
- 9y ago

enord 9y ago

When has this attitude _ever_ been the solution to a shared-resource problem? I'm not being snarky, I want to know. It feels like solving traffic mortality by pasting a "drive carefully"-sticker inside the windshield, doing nothing other than establishing who is morally responsible.

chrischen 9y ago
It's like solving traffic mortality by telling people not to drive.
- akoncius 9y ago
  no, it’s like telling people to stop driving cars at 100 miles per hour inside city. makes sense.
  - enord 9y ago
    We do that, but with laws and signs and police and stuff. Not with stern admonition.
    - akoncius 9y ago
      so if there would be a law restricting meat consumption then everything would be fine?
      - megaman22 9y ago
        It's been done in the past. Church laws forbidding the eating of meat on certain days have been a thing. Of course, most people who have the means would choose to eat meat as often as possible, and so you get things like fish not being classed as meat (leaving aside other considerations like these sorts of restrictions acting as subsidies to merchant fishing fleets, with knock-on effects for early modern naval preparedness). Or people just ignore stupid, unenforceable laws and net respect for the law as an absolute is decreased.
  - 9y ago

belorn 9y ago

Since this article talk about fish farms there is very obvious solution and that is eat wild caught fish, preferable from places where there is either a overpopulation or where there are invasive species. Plenty of such meat in the world where eating it would have a net-positive on the environment. Know one lake where the price of the overpopulated fish species in it is so low that just transporting it to a cat food factory would be a loosing deal.

DrScump 9y ago
eat wild caught fish But how does the consumer know the true origin of a product? "Wild-caught" claims are only as reliable as the least honest entity in the supply chain.
- jdavis703 9y ago
  Perhaps because they caught it themselves? If I had the time and land I’d go fishing and hunting. But since I don’t I just restrict myself to a vegetarian diet.
- arve0 9y ago
  You may know by eating fish that are not possible to farm, like cod. Edit: Apparently, cod may be farmed (1), though I think the idea still stands. 1: https://thefishsite.com/articles/cultured-aquatic-species-atlantic-cod https://thefishsite.com/articles/cultured-aquatic-species-at...
- belorn 9y ago
  Anything written on the product is liable to supply chain fraud. How do a customer know that the virgin olive oil is not mixed with lard? No food is safe from product fraud. Has fish a higher risk compared to other products? To my knowledge the food product with highest fraud rate is oil. After that things like honey, and further down we have beef. I have never heard of report in regard to fish, but feel free to point me to such reports.
  - aaronbrethorst 9y ago

sergiotapia 9y ago

"What's the safest way to go skiing? Don't ski!"

greglindahl 9y ago
Skiing isn't the only sport. Meat isn't the only food. In economics, this situation is called "substitute goods".
- supermarine 9y ago
  You missed his point. Of course skiing isn't the only sport, but if you love skiing, why snowboard? Of course meat isn't the only food, but it's delicious and a great source of protein. Sure antibiotics are bad for the system as a whole, but why not go after that instead of boycotting altogether?
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    No, I got his point. Of the people who ski, some would be happy to substitute another winter sport if skiing became less desirable (more expensive or less fashionable). Some would substitute non-winter sports (e.g. go to the California coast instead of Tahoe.) That's the 'substitute goods' that I mentioned. If you really love skiing, you're still a part of that economic theory, you're just the inelastic part. You might still substitute something else if skiing became 10x more expensive.
    - swombat 9y ago
      To embrace the skiing analogy, I’m Swiss and I love skiing. I’m about to go on a ski trip next week. If I believed that going on occasional ski trips does anywhere near the harm that meat consumption does I would indeed give up skiing. For similar reasons, I’m not interested in going lion hunting for my holidays. It’s harmful. There are other alternatives. So use the alternatives!
      - greglindahl 9y ago

barrkel 9y ago

This will make meat cheaper and people who currently don't eat as much meat because of price will start eating more. You cannot solve a collective action problem by individual action; the incentives for others to cheat means that you are trying to push water uphill.

bastawhiz 9y ago

A personal anecdote: I've tried cutting my meat consumption many times in the past, but I ultimately fail to keep up a low-meat diet for the following reasons: - Vegetarian food is really not that tasty in my opinion. (edit: the kind I can reasonably prepare myself) - It's very difficult to eat enough vegetarian food for me to meet my Calorie requirements (I target 3500/day). - Eating a balanced diet of vegetarian food that tastes half-decent requires a substantial amount of preparation, especially if you have carb/protein targets. Non-vegetarian pop-it-in-the-microwave food is plentiful. There just aren't enough hours in the day. I stumbled along with this for years, trying and failing over and over. One of my best friends became a vegetarian and I watched as he basically dialed down his diet to peanut butter and lentils. Last year, I unintentionally became mostly-vegetarian entirely by accident: I started drinking Soylent. It's high-Calorie, it's consistent, there are five different flavors (three with caffeine!), each flavor tastes decent enough, and it's not a pain in the ass. Other than the odd takeaway order (two or three times a month, or if I run out of Soylent) effectively zero meat enters my apartment. My coworkers have rolled their eyes dramatically, but it's pretty good. The bottles get recycled, they come unrefrigerated direct from the manufacturer, and the drinks are (seemingly) made from half-decent stuff. If my office put them in the lunch line, I'd probably stop eating meat at work, too. (And they're pretty cheap!)

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
make3 9y ago
wtf 3500 calories a day. are you a professional athlete? I'm a grown man and that many calories would have me take two pounds a week (assuming stability at 2500 cal and 3500 cals extra per pound)
- bastawhiz 9y ago
  3500 really isn't very much when you're trying to put on weight. Soylent in the morning and three after work (400/each) is ~half that, plus protein shake after the gym (350) and full breakfast/lunch at the office (~600/each) come out to roughly 3500. Plus I'll snack on stuff, maybe have some grapes or string cheese or whatever treats people bring in. I'm not super strict about it, so it ends up between 3000 and 3750 most days. The Soylent makes it a lot easier because you're not constantly eating. Even something as simple as using half and half instead of skim milk in your coffee adds up. Edit: but yes, I work out quite a bit.

kayhi 9y ago

I sometimes wonder with problems like these that the underlying solution is controlling the global population.

hycaria 9y ago
How can you just wonder and not come to the obvious conclusion yet ? (By the way from my own observations, this opinion is strongly frowned upon here)

tr0ut 9y ago

How about buy and eat locally sourced beef (and other meats) from farms that you know use the least amount of antibiotics. Have the shortest travel to your market and thus your plate. Stop eating fast-food and buying the equivalent microwave quick meal dinners. These two are the biggest offenders of factory farms. Stop eating fish from another continent is another good choice. I live in the North East and do not consume salmon because it is not a fish that lives naturally and wild. Besides some small concentrated areas. I refuse to eat farm raised salmon. So I eat whats local flounder, mackerel, bluefish, muscles and clams. Which is also seasonal. (Sorry we're so spoiled eating Pineapples in Feb during a blizzard.)

adventured 9y ago

> Do you feel helpless to stop the problem of antibiotics use in the meat industry? You’re not! Eating less meat isn't necessary to accomplish that at all. US consumers, as one example, are managing to force a large change upon US meat companies through pressure about health consequences, thanks to a long campaign of education by numerous groups and government agencies. Just five years ago you couldn't find antibiotic free chicken at most Walmart grocery stores, now every one of them carries such, with the major producers like Tyson all gradually switching over.

dghughes 9y ago

Actually my mother (age mid 70s) who grew up on a farm has said to me many times over the years her family only ate meat on Sunday. They were not vegetarians or some weird cult it was the way people were it was a normal way to eat. Traditionally or historically (?) fish isn't seen as meat. And not just for religious reasons. My guess is people saw them as so different from land animals they were not classed as meat in the minds of our ancestors.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

rsync 9y ago

"You don’t need meat in 3 meals a day" You don't need 3 meals a day. If you are at all open-minded about eating less meat, you should also (if only for your own health, fitness and longevity) open your mind to eating fewer meals. Eating less[1] is one of only two things I have ever done[2] that made a noticeable impact in my health, fitness and athletic output.[3] [1] Total calories are actually about the same since I have an exercise regimen that requires a floor on calories, but feeding window is reduced (sometimes dramatically) putting me into a fasted state more than half of my life. [2] The other was shifting almost 30% of my caloric intake to almonds, walnuts, almond butter and sunflower seeds. [3] I am a competitive BJJ player.

6t6t6t6 9y ago

I never eat farmed fish because I don't trust fish farms and it seems that there are not enough regulations to make farmed fish healthy. I don't buy industrial beef neither and only eat high quality beef that is certified to have had a good diet and no hormones or antibiotics. I don't eat cheap Brazilian chickens neither. That means that I eat quite less fish and meat than other people, but every time I eat, I enjoy a good product. Also, that makes me not responsible of all the externalities generated by the meat and fish industry.

konschubert 9y ago

Do you feel helpless looking at the burning house? You’re not! Here’s a simple easy trick you can use to reduce how fast it's burning: Spit into it sometimes! --- Structural problems cannot solved with individual behavior. Structural problems can be solved when 1. individuals bond together and affect policy or 2. when a new technology emerges.

rublev 9y ago

Yeah but I don't feel like suffering from every aspect of my life just to make an impact. My suffering will become a full time job. Focusing on not eating x/y/z, not wearing x/y/z, not doing x/y/z, not going to x, y, or z, for x/y/z reasons. And so on and so forth. I work a day job, I don't have time to give a shit about most things, least of all adjusting my entire diet for activist ideology, let alone reading enough about these micro topics to get actionable data from. I have trouble just sticking to a solid routine every single day. If I possessed the power to just change my shit up for arbitrary disconnected reasons like lowering global antibiotics research, then I'd already have the mental fortitude to be a billionaire. Would personally rather donate to a foundation that is able to accomplish the same goal on a larger scale. Our efforts should be focused on the rich putting their efforts into these things. I never vote with my wallet. If I vote with my wallet and it costs me 2 hours to go across the city to get an item that's 14-16% of my day lost to acquire just one item in my life because I had the luxury of 'making a statement'.

enord 9y ago
Or paying more taxes to fund epa, fda and unilateral trade agreements to adress challenges so numerous that no mortal man can be expected to grok half of it in two lifetimes. In order to do that though, you have to vote vith your er... vote.

c12 9y ago

Right now my wallet is doing the voting for me; can't afford meat in every meal, let alone one meal a day haha.