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We don't need to eat meat or fish at all to be healthy, and meat & fish are very resource intensive. We're better off redirecting all the resources we currently

We don't need to eat meat or fish at all to be healthy, and meat & fish are very resource intensive. We're better off redirecting all the resources we currently waste trying to feed 8 billion people this way into sustainable, plant-based diets anyway.

saagarjha 8y ago
As much as it would be great to get everyone on plant-based diets, it's not going to happen anytime soon. So I guess, for the environment at least, fish is the best we can do until then?
- Djvacto 8y ago
  It doesn't have to be all or nothing! My wife has been vegetarian since I've known her, and vegan for a year and a half or so, and I never fully stopped eating meat until about the same time she went vegan. Before that, what happened to my diet was a reduction in the amount of meat consumed, and (for unrelated health-reasons), the cutting out of most red meat (I started with pork, and then barely ate red meat for a couple years) and shortly before starting to eat a vegetarian diet, I started only eating meat when we ate out (which is maybe 2-4 times a month for us). A few close friends of ours actively try to cut out red meat on most weeknights, for example. Some other friends simply try to incorporate vegetarian/vegan substitutes once a week, or other similar amounts. Whether your concerns are environmental, for health reasons, or about the ethical treatment of animals, you can adjust your diet as much or as little as you want and still have some sort of impact. Just like you don't have to sell your car and bike to work every day in order to cut down on your footprint by, say, biking to the nearby stores instead of driving.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  I think it will happen sooner than you think, with companies like Beyond Meat working hard to ultimately make plant protein "meat" both highly palatable and less expensive.
  - malvosenior 8y ago
    There are a lot of people (myself included) who actually enjoy real meat and would never switch, so no it won't be happening any time soon or at all really.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      Eventually that may be a socially untenable practice, what with meat consumption being linked to so many ethical and environmental issues.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - makerofspoons 8y ago
        Between the cancer risk posed by red and processed meat as well as the environmental damage, I expect meat consumption to go the way of smoking within a generation.
        malvosenior 8y ago
        The vast majority of people in the US eat meat regularly and feed it to their children. There is no way this is going to stop in one generation. There are also plenty of cultures that have meat as their staple. Can you imagine telling Mexicans to eat vegetarian tacos for instance? That simply will never happen, it's too ingrained into culture (and too delicious!).
        makerofspoons 8y ago
        Smoking cigarettes and cigars was also once considered a delicious and ingrained part of many cultures. It is now clear that processed and red meats cause bowel cancer, and the environmental impacts they pose are also becoming more and more clear. Just like smoking ended in a generation I can definitely see people rejecting these products in the near future. Cultures change all the time.
xondono 8y ago
Not trying to start the flame war, but this: >We don't need to eat meat or fish at all to be healthy Is still heavily disputed in nutrition circles.
- Lewton 8y ago
  Can you link to any material? I really don’t think any nutritional scientist would claim it’s impossible to be healthy as a vegetarian. Whether it’s easier with meat or feasible for all people is something else
  - naasking 8y ago
    > I really don’t think any nutritional scientist would claim it’s impossible to be healthy as a vegetarian. It is impossible for some people. Nutrition claims should always be taken with a grain of salt. For instance, the advice surrounding cholesterol over the past 30 years.
  - QuantumAphid 8y ago
    It's important here to realize that irrespective of your diet-- vegetarian, vegan, omnivore, carnivore and everything in between-- these are just labels and any of these can be bad for your health. For example, the following highly processed and sugary foods are considered vegan/vegetarian-friendly: French fries from most fast-food chains, Oreo cookies, Fritos corn chips, Lays potato chips, unfrosted Pop-Tarts, Nature Valley Granola Bars, Graham Crackers. I would not trust an endorsement of a diet from a health organization. Over the past 30-40 years most modern countries have been experiencing a surge in chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and strokes. If you look at the places around the globe where Western diets have been introduced (e.g., Hawaii and Polynesia, Aboriginal tribes of Australia, Inuit in polar regions etc.), you see wrecked health markers for those populations after abandoning their local indiginous diets. Health organizations have done a disservice in the realm of nutrition and health.
- cageface 8y ago
  It's not. The American Dietetics Association states as its official position that a vegan diet is healthful and adequate for all stages of life: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864 There's currently quite a bit of debate over whether or not plant-based diets are better than other diets, but not over whether or not they are healthy.
ecmascript 8y ago
> We don't need to eat meat or fish at all to be healthy I think you will have to back that statement up if you want to be taken seriously. I for one am certainly not going to stop eating fish and meat, I have been a vegetarian for over a year and I did not fancy it.
- ookdatnog 8y ago
  > I think you will have to back that statement up if you want to be taken seriously. This is such a mainstream statement that it seems to me entirely reasonable to omit a source. You can find dozens of them by looking up "vegetarianism" on wikipedia and navigating to the "health effects" section.
  - josteink 8y ago
    > This is such a mainstream statement that it seems to me entirely reasonable to omit a source Only in circles where alternative medicine is practiced, health-advice taken from unscholared internet-blogs and science is generally shunned. This very extreme claim certainly needs a source to have any sort of credibility.
    - cageface 8y ago
      4.5 million Jains in India would be happy to discuss this issue, just for starters. The world is full of healthy vegans and vegetarians.
      - close04 8y ago
        You are omitting the fact that genetics plays a huge role in the success and efficiency of your diet. More than a third of East Asians have a deficiency in one of the enzymes involved in the breakdown of alcohol (aldehyde dehydrogenase). They cannot properly metabolize it. Inuits have mutations in genes that code for enzymes that desaturate carbon-carbon bonds in fatty acids. This means they can handle diets that are very high in certain types of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. A mutation of the melanocortin-4-receptor (MC4R) leads to a markedly increased preference for high fat, but a significantly reduced preference for high sucrose food. So what I'm saying is that blanket statements like "well if I/those guys can do it then everybody should be able to" have no real value. Diets are strongly influenced by and relying on genetics. Since we don't have the same genes we won't handle the same diet in the same way. Linking to statements that have since been withdrawn due to omissions also doesn't help. Edit. Huh... getting downvoted for saying diet and genetics go hand in hand, with evidence that hasn't been retracted. If anybody was wondering why some people are never taken seriously, it's because they reject reality thinking this will change it.
lnsru 8y ago
Western world throws insane amounts of food away: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/02/no-time-leftovers-astonishing-scale-food-waste-uk-around-world/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/02/no-time-leftover... There are other real problems than plant-based diets.
- kmarc 8y ago
  I was surprised how much meat people smilingly throw away in NewZealand - when I was asked to "just throw it in the trashcan" around 30dkgs of perfectly delicious and cooked meal I simply refused and walked away. My muscles were literally blocked to make that movement of my arms, swiping a plate of meal to the bin. Around ~25 other people did not have any problems with it, so I guess the problem is in me.
  - mcv 8y ago
    Not just in New Zealand. It hurts me when I see people not finishing their plate. I will eat myself sick before I will throw away food. Sadly, this has developed into a bit of a weight problem. And then there's restaurants and supermarkets which throw away enormous amounts of unsold food. We should buy and cook less food, or maybe have a quick way of sharing left-over food with people who are hungry.
    - maxwell 8y ago
      Obesity is now a bigger problem worldwide than hunger.
      - organsnyder 8y ago
        Is that because hunger has been diminished, or because obesity has increased?
        amanaplanacanal 8y ago
        I believe both are true.
isolli 8y ago
I was vegetarian for 20 years, vegan for 7, yet I started eating meat and fish about a year ago. Here are my thoughts: - I started eating animal products again for health reason; I believe many people can thrive on a vegetarian or vegan diet, but I couldn't. It makes me unhappy, but there I am. - Similarly vegetarian and vegan for a long time, my wife started craving animal products the minute she got pregnant. And after birth she became very ill, and survived on chicken broth. In short, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. - There is no reason for anyone to eat meat twice a day; and above all there is no reason for heavy subsidies so that everyone can eat meat cheaply twice a day. So my preferred solution: animals raised humanely and sustainably to allow for healthy, limited consumption of animal products, with products priced at actual cost in order to eliminate over-consumption.
- Numberwang 8y ago
  Good on you for rationalizing that choice for yourself.
- usrusr 8y ago
  > limited consumption of animal products It would be more impactful get three people to reduce meat by 50% than to get one to reduce by 100%. Unfortunately, "meals that don't have a chunk of meat as their centerpiece but that are still far from vegetarian" does not have the same ideological zeal as veganism (speaking in the context of a western industrial background). When eating out (again: western cuisine), the meat-free choices are getting better and better and I applaud that, but it seems to just get more polarized. In aggregate, either vegan or an ever bigger focus on a meat centerpiece is hardly an improvement. Low meat dishes seem to have a serious branding problem.
  - mcv 8y ago
    I have a number of friends who eat meat only 2 times per week. I used to be vegetarian for about 15 years until I met my wife and we agreed to eat meat, but only organic/otherwise sustainable and only a limited number of times per week. When eating out, I still eat vegetarian unless I know where the restaurant got its meat from. Increasing numbers of restaurants in Amsterdam do care where their meat comes from, fortunately.
z3t4 8y ago
You also have to account the supplements needed for a pure vegan diet. The best option is probably to buy the fish fresh from your local fisherman.
- cageface 8y ago
  The only supplement needed on a vegan diet is minimal amounts of b12, and that’s only necessary because sanitation kills the bacteria that produce it. The environmental footprint of a vegan diet is way lower than even that of a pescavore.
  - naasking 8y ago
    No one's disputing the footprint, they're disputing how feasible it is for all or even most people. Vegetarianism requires much more understanding and planning to ensure you ingest sufficient proper macro and micronutrients. Edit: and you need look no further than Harvard's explanation of how to become a vegetarian and choose your foods to ensure a healthy diet: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/becoming-a-vegetarian https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/becoming-a-ve... How many ordinary people do you think have sufficient understanding of these factors to become healthy vegetarians?
    - cageface 8y ago
      Eating a healthy diet takes work no matter what diet plan you follow. You're assuming a meat-based diet is automatically healthy when in fact the typical meat based, western diet is strongly linked to all of our most deadly diseases. You're going to be a lot better off on an even non-ideal plant based diet than you are going to be eating hamburgers and pizza. I'll admit it's currently not that easy to follow a strictly plant based diet if you mostly eat in restaurants and don't live in a first tier Western city. If you're willing to do your own shopping and mostly eat at home it's actually not only easy but really enjoyable to take back control of your health and what you eat.
      - naasking 8y ago
rayiner 8y ago
Or just perfecting lab grown meat.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
SupremeMeat 8y ago
>We don't need to eat meat or fish at all to be healthy Bollocks! Meat is one of the healthiest and nutritionally rich sources of food available! Toxic transfat is made from polyunsaturated vegetable oils, and diabetes causing sugars is from grains and high sugar plants! The easiest weight loss in the world is a meat based, 70% kcal from animal fat, minimal vegetable, zero carb diet: lost 80 lbs/yr myself on it without an extra step taken to exercise. Just sat on my @ss and lost the weight! Veganism as healthy is a big fat unhealthy meme!
z3t4 8y ago
You might stop eating fish to not support the finishing industry, but then you might start supporting the fish oil industry which is even worse. It's better to buy from small time local fishermen or fish yourself. Fresh fish also taste better.

saagarjha 8y ago

As much as it would be great to get everyone on plant-based diets, it's not going to happen anytime soon. So I guess, for the environment at least, fish is the best we can do until then?

Djvacto 8y ago
It doesn't have to be all or nothing! My wife has been vegetarian since I've known her, and vegan for a year and a half or so, and I never fully stopped eating meat until about the same time she went vegan. Before that, what happened to my diet was a reduction in the amount of meat consumed, and (for unrelated health-reasons), the cutting out of most red meat (I started with pork, and then barely ate red meat for a couple years) and shortly before starting to eat a vegetarian diet, I started only eating meat when we ate out (which is maybe 2-4 times a month for us). A few close friends of ours actively try to cut out red meat on most weeknights, for example. Some other friends simply try to incorporate vegetarian/vegan substitutes once a week, or other similar amounts. Whether your concerns are environmental, for health reasons, or about the ethical treatment of animals, you can adjust your diet as much or as little as you want and still have some sort of impact. Just like you don't have to sell your car and bike to work every day in order to cut down on your footprint by, say, biking to the nearby stores instead of driving.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
I think it will happen sooner than you think, with companies like Beyond Meat working hard to ultimately make plant protein "meat" both highly palatable and less expensive.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  There are a lot of people (myself included) who actually enjoy real meat and would never switch, so no it won't be happening any time soon or at all really.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    Eventually that may be a socially untenable practice, what with meat consumption being linked to so many ethical and environmental issues.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - makerofspoons 8y ago
      Between the cancer risk posed by red and processed meat as well as the environmental damage, I expect meat consumption to go the way of smoking within a generation.
      - malvosenior 8y ago
        The vast majority of people in the US eat meat regularly and feed it to their children. There is no way this is going to stop in one generation. There are also plenty of cultures that have meat as their staple. Can you imagine telling Mexicans to eat vegetarian tacos for instance? That simply will never happen, it's too ingrained into culture (and too delicious!).
        makerofspoons 8y ago
        Smoking cigarettes and cigars was also once considered a delicious and ingrained part of many cultures. It is now clear that processed and red meats cause bowel cancer, and the environmental impacts they pose are also becoming more and more clear. Just like smoking ended in a generation I can definitely see people rejecting these products in the near future. Cultures change all the time.

xondono 8y ago

Not trying to start the flame war, but this: >We don't need to eat meat or fish at all to be healthy Is still heavily disputed in nutrition circles.

Lewton 8y ago
Can you link to any material? I really don’t think any nutritional scientist would claim it’s impossible to be healthy as a vegetarian. Whether it’s easier with meat or feasible for all people is something else
- naasking 8y ago
  > I really don’t think any nutritional scientist would claim it’s impossible to be healthy as a vegetarian. It is impossible for some people. Nutrition claims should always be taken with a grain of salt. For instance, the advice surrounding cholesterol over the past 30 years.
- QuantumAphid 8y ago
  It's important here to realize that irrespective of your diet-- vegetarian, vegan, omnivore, carnivore and everything in between-- these are just labels and any of these can be bad for your health. For example, the following highly processed and sugary foods are considered vegan/vegetarian-friendly: French fries from most fast-food chains, Oreo cookies, Fritos corn chips, Lays potato chips, unfrosted Pop-Tarts, Nature Valley Granola Bars, Graham Crackers. I would not trust an endorsement of a diet from a health organization. Over the past 30-40 years most modern countries have been experiencing a surge in chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and strokes. If you look at the places around the globe where Western diets have been introduced (e.g., Hawaii and Polynesia, Aboriginal tribes of Australia, Inuit in polar regions etc.), you see wrecked health markers for those populations after abandoning their local indiginous diets. Health organizations have done a disservice in the realm of nutrition and health.
cageface 8y ago
It's not. The American Dietetics Association states as its official position that a vegan diet is healthful and adequate for all stages of life: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864 There's currently quite a bit of debate over whether or not plant-based diets are better than other diets, but not over whether or not they are healthy.

ecmascript 8y ago

> We don't need to eat meat or fish at all to be healthy I think you will have to back that statement up if you want to be taken seriously. I for one am certainly not going to stop eating fish and meat, I have been a vegetarian for over a year and I did not fancy it.

ookdatnog 8y ago
> I think you will have to back that statement up if you want to be taken seriously. This is such a mainstream statement that it seems to me entirely reasonable to omit a source. You can find dozens of them by looking up "vegetarianism" on wikipedia and navigating to the "health effects" section.
- josteink 8y ago
  > This is such a mainstream statement that it seems to me entirely reasonable to omit a source Only in circles where alternative medicine is practiced, health-advice taken from unscholared internet-blogs and science is generally shunned. This very extreme claim certainly needs a source to have any sort of credibility.
  - cageface 8y ago
    4.5 million Jains in India would be happy to discuss this issue, just for starters. The world is full of healthy vegans and vegetarians.
    - close04 8y ago
      You are omitting the fact that genetics plays a huge role in the success and efficiency of your diet. More than a third of East Asians have a deficiency in one of the enzymes involved in the breakdown of alcohol (aldehyde dehydrogenase). They cannot properly metabolize it. Inuits have mutations in genes that code for enzymes that desaturate carbon-carbon bonds in fatty acids. This means they can handle diets that are very high in certain types of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. A mutation of the melanocortin-4-receptor (MC4R) leads to a markedly increased preference for high fat, but a significantly reduced preference for high sucrose food. So what I'm saying is that blanket statements like "well if I/those guys can do it then everybody should be able to" have no real value. Diets are strongly influenced by and relying on genetics. Since we don't have the same genes we won't handle the same diet in the same way. Linking to statements that have since been withdrawn due to omissions also doesn't help. Edit. Huh... getting downvoted for saying diet and genetics go hand in hand, with evidence that hasn't been retracted. If anybody was wondering why some people are never taken seriously, it's because they reject reality thinking this will change it.

lnsru 8y ago

Western world throws insane amounts of food away: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/02/no-time-leftovers-astonishing-scale-food-waste-uk-around-world/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/02/no-time-leftover... There are other real problems than plant-based diets.

kmarc 8y ago
I was surprised how much meat people smilingly throw away in NewZealand - when I was asked to "just throw it in the trashcan" around 30dkgs of perfectly delicious and cooked meal I simply refused and walked away. My muscles were literally blocked to make that movement of my arms, swiping a plate of meal to the bin. Around ~25 other people did not have any problems with it, so I guess the problem is in me.
- mcv 8y ago
  Not just in New Zealand. It hurts me when I see people not finishing their plate. I will eat myself sick before I will throw away food. Sadly, this has developed into a bit of a weight problem. And then there's restaurants and supermarkets which throw away enormous amounts of unsold food. We should buy and cook less food, or maybe have a quick way of sharing left-over food with people who are hungry.
  - maxwell 8y ago
    Obesity is now a bigger problem worldwide than hunger.
    - organsnyder 8y ago
      Is that because hunger has been diminished, or because obesity has increased?
      - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
        I believe both are true.

isolli 8y ago

I was vegetarian for 20 years, vegan for 7, yet I started eating meat and fish about a year ago. Here are my thoughts: - I started eating animal products again for health reason; I believe many people can thrive on a vegetarian or vegan diet, but I couldn't. It makes me unhappy, but there I am. - Similarly vegetarian and vegan for a long time, my wife started craving animal products the minute she got pregnant. And after birth she became very ill, and survived on chicken broth. In short, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. - There is no reason for anyone to eat meat twice a day; and above all there is no reason for heavy subsidies so that everyone can eat meat cheaply twice a day. So my preferred solution: animals raised humanely and sustainably to allow for healthy, limited consumption of animal products, with products priced at actual cost in order to eliminate over-consumption.

Numberwang 8y ago
Good on you for rationalizing that choice for yourself.
usrusr 8y ago
> limited consumption of animal products It would be more impactful get three people to reduce meat by 50% than to get one to reduce by 100%. Unfortunately, "meals that don't have a chunk of meat as their centerpiece but that are still far from vegetarian" does not have the same ideological zeal as veganism (speaking in the context of a western industrial background). When eating out (again: western cuisine), the meat-free choices are getting better and better and I applaud that, but it seems to just get more polarized. In aggregate, either vegan or an ever bigger focus on a meat centerpiece is hardly an improvement. Low meat dishes seem to have a serious branding problem.
- mcv 8y ago
  I have a number of friends who eat meat only 2 times per week. I used to be vegetarian for about 15 years until I met my wife and we agreed to eat meat, but only organic/otherwise sustainable and only a limited number of times per week. When eating out, I still eat vegetarian unless I know where the restaurant got its meat from. Increasing numbers of restaurants in Amsterdam do care where their meat comes from, fortunately.

z3t4 8y ago

You also have to account the supplements needed for a pure vegan diet. The best option is probably to buy the fish fresh from your local fisherman.

cageface 8y ago
The only supplement needed on a vegan diet is minimal amounts of b12, and that’s only necessary because sanitation kills the bacteria that produce it. The environmental footprint of a vegan diet is way lower than even that of a pescavore.
- naasking 8y ago
  No one's disputing the footprint, they're disputing how feasible it is for all or even most people. Vegetarianism requires much more understanding and planning to ensure you ingest sufficient proper macro and micronutrients. Edit: and you need look no further than Harvard's explanation of how to become a vegetarian and choose your foods to ensure a healthy diet: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/becoming-a-vegetarian https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/becoming-a-ve... How many ordinary people do you think have sufficient understanding of these factors to become healthy vegetarians?
  - cageface 8y ago
    Eating a healthy diet takes work no matter what diet plan you follow. You're assuming a meat-based diet is automatically healthy when in fact the typical meat based, western diet is strongly linked to all of our most deadly diseases. You're going to be a lot better off on an even non-ideal plant based diet than you are going to be eating hamburgers and pizza. I'll admit it's currently not that easy to follow a strictly plant based diet if you mostly eat in restaurants and don't live in a first tier Western city. If you're willing to do your own shopping and mostly eat at home it's actually not only easy but really enjoyable to take back control of your health and what you eat.
    - naasking 8y ago

rayiner 8y ago

Or just perfecting lab grown meat.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

SupremeMeat 8y ago

>We don't need to eat meat or fish at all to be healthy Bollocks! Meat is one of the healthiest and nutritionally rich sources of food available! Toxic transfat is made from polyunsaturated vegetable oils, and diabetes causing sugars is from grains and high sugar plants! The easiest weight loss in the world is a meat based, 70% kcal from animal fat, minimal vegetable, zero carb diet: lost 80 lbs/yr myself on it without an extra step taken to exercise. Just sat on my @ss and lost the weight! Veganism as healthy is a big fat unhealthy meme!

z3t4 8y ago

You might stop eating fish to not support the finishing industry, but then you might start supporting the fish oil industry which is even worse. It's better to buy from small time local fishermen or fish yourself. Fresh fish also taste better.