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I wonder how true this is. I have been trying to switch to a more carnivore diet - more red meat eg steak - for rumored benefits of lowering inflammation and bo
by hartator 7y ago
I wonder how true this is. I have been trying to switch to a more carnivore diet - more red meat eg steak - for rumored benefits of lowering inflammation and boosting immune system. This is stating the reverse.
- adrianN 7y agoIt's nutritional science, so the error bars are big, the effect sizes are small and the confounding variables numerous. At least a plant-based diet reduces your GHG footprint, so there's that. If you want to switch to a more carnivorous diet, I'd suggest chicken instead of beef. The evidence for mammalian meat being slightly carcinogenic seems to be pretty solid, and the climate impact of beef is about ten times that of chicken.
- paulluuk 7y agoYou also cause way less suffering in the world, which is something I believe is very much worth striving for.
- arethuza 7y agoEating far less meat, but meat that is produced to far higher standards of animal welfare would seem a reasonable compromise to me.
- ianai 7y agoThere’s really no amount of nice treatment that makes taking a calf away from its mother alright. I’m not aware of any ways to produce dairy without systematic animal abuse.
- ShlomoS 7y agoBy not taking the calves away from their mothers? That's how we did it for centuries, we only started taking calves away from their mothers when artificial milk replacements made it more profitable to do so.
- kaybe 7y agoI found a method that leaves them together for 3 months. That's an improvement at least. (Of course that means that the calf will take most -but not all- of the milk during that time. But then it is stated that the cost for the vet goes down a lot in exchange.) Another option I found is to give several calves to one cow for 6 months, which has advantages and disadvantages compared to the first way. (Longer time with milk and natural suckling behaviour but calves without their mother and the smaller ones might get less milk.) edit: Here is a list with places in Germany that do that: https://welttierschutz.org/hofliste-mit-mutter-oder-ammengebundener-kaelberaufzucht/ https://welttierschutz.org/hofliste-mit-mutter-oder-ammengeb... I'm not sure how to translate the key words for english googling.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- coldtea 7y agoAnimals eating other animals is natural evolutionary behavior. If carnivore animals had the same concerns and turned to tofu, they'd be dead. Let's concentrate of the suffering of our fellow human beings...
- paulluuk 7y agoHumans are not carnivores, and lions don't have grocery stores. If ducks stopped raping other ducks, they'd go extinct too. Not really sure if that's an argument in favor of human rapists, though.
- dao- 7y agoLions have no concept of morality either. We should care about unnecessary suffering because we can.
- coldtea 7y ago>We should care about unnecessary suffering because we can. "We should because we can"? There are many things that we "can" do that we better not do. There's no automatic logical deduction from "we can" to "so we should".
- dao- 7y agoAvoiding unnecessary suffering is sometimes used as the basis for whole ethics systems. It's inherently good and doesn't need to be deduced from anything.
- coldtea 7y agoWell, who calls what's "unnecessary"? Killing animals for their meat is not like torturing animals for no reason (which indeed would be unnecessary). And how steep would the slope be? E.g. what about killing rodents and house pests?
- coldtea 7y ago
- moltar 7y agoAnd during plant collection lots of animals die: - rodents die in wheat field during harvest - recently there was an article on HN of olive harvests killing hundreds of birds - entire forests are destroyed with wildlife by burning to grow palms for palm oil
- paulluuk 7y agoYes, during plant collection animals die as well. Not nearly as many, of course, and the same products are eaten by meat eaters as well, and most plants are grown for animal feeding, but yes, it's impossible to live a regular human life and not indirectly hurt animals, humans or the environment. You can try to minimize it, though.
- thrower123 7y agoIf you have so much as tried to grow a garden, much less farm at scale, you have a lot less sympathy for animals and their destructiveness. When you have racoons coming along at night knocking down your corn for the sheer hell of it, and not even eating it, or porcupines doing the same thing, or crows plucking out the stocks just as soon as they poke out of the ground, or deer mowing flat anything that isn't encased in an eight foot high fence, they lose their cute and cuddly charismatic aspects, and you start to view them like a horde of locusts, stealing the bread from your table, and prosecuting them with extreme prejudice becomes very, very attractive.
- paulluuk 7y agoIt's almost as if you've built your garden right in the middle of their habitat. But seriously, I come from a family of farmers, and I know that the things that farmers do to animals is way worse than anything you've described here.
- Chris_Chambers 7y agoThinking that way is a gateway to some very idiotic outcomes. Save your empathy for your loved ones and no one else. You’re probably the kind of person who gets on the city council and constantly votes to expand homeless shelters in the heart of downtown despite the accelerating increase in crime their presence causes.
- cageface 7y agoChicken is one of the most inflammatory things you can eat. It’s loaded with arachidonic acid. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6428879/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6428879/
- ShlomoS 7y agoIt is far from "loaded". 0.15g per serving is not "loaded", and is half the level of salmon for example, which is promoted as healthy. Omega 6 polyunsaturated fats are highly inflammatory. But our intake is almost entirely from "vegetable oil", not chicken.
- cageface 7y agoChicken and eggs provide by far the most arachidonic acid in the typical diet: https://epi.grants.cancer.gov/diet/foodsources/fatty_acids/table4.html https://epi.grants.cancer.gov/diet/foodsources/fatty_acids/t...
- ShlomoS 7y agoThat's because people eat a lot of chicken and eggs, and don't each much salmon. When deciding what to eat, the amount per serving is what matters, not how much of it the average person eats. And again, arachidonic acid is just one omega 6 PUFA, being specifically singled out for promotion by vegans because it is found in meat. The rest of the omega 6s are all just as bad, and our intake is almost entirely from vegetable oil. A serving of chicken has less than 2g of omega 6s in total. That's less than of the omega 6s in a serving of tofu.
- ovi256 7y agoThat's a way too bold assertion for the very weak evidence behind it. The studies are mixed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachidonic_acid#Dietary_arachidonic_acid_and_inflammation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachidonic_acid#Dietary_arach... One study pointing in a direction in biochem can be safely ignored until it's been solidly replicated and built upon.
- ShlomoS 7y ago>At least a plant-based diet reduces your GHG footprint That isn't actually true. It is a very misleading claim spread to promote veganism. It comes from comparing the raw caloric value of field corn, to the caloric value of beef. In reality, We do not actually eat field corn, we turn it into HFCS and corn oil, this reduces the energy efficiency of corn dramatically. A plant based diet also should not be based on HFCS and corn oil. Second, beef is the worst meat to compare to, it is not an accurate representation for meat in general. Chicken being fed on corn based feed produces 5 million calories per acre, more than almost all the plant based crops a vegan diet would generally be based on, including soy, and equal to staples like wheat. Third, even in comparing beef they do it wrong. They are comparing to hypothetical beef raised entirely on corn. There is no such beef. All beef is grass fed for the first year, they are only finished on grain.
- adrianN 7y agoThat's interesting. I based my opinion on reports such as [1]. Do you have any (semi-)scientific references that support your opinion? I agree that we don't eat much corn directly, but if it weren't used to feed livestock, we could use the land for something else, like potatoes or lentils or whatever grows in similar climate to corn, which are actually eaten. I'm somewhat doubtful of your claim that corn fed chicken produce 5 million calories per acre. Do you have a citation for that? The usual rule of thumb for going up one level in the food chain is that you lose 9/10th of the energy and corn only produces on the order of 12 million calories per acre. This random google result here [2] indeed claims about 1.4 million calories per acre for chicken. [1] http://www.fao.org/3/a0701e/a0701e00.htm http://www.fao.org/3/a0701e/a0701e00.htm [2] http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/Calories_per_acre_for_various_foods/ http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/Calories_per_acre_for_vario...
- nunb 7y agoThis [1] may be of interest, and has scientific references (well, Nature) too. I believe there's an associated TED talk. [1] https://proteinpower.com/drmike/2017/07/02/low-carbohydrate-diet-and-climate-change/ https://proteinpower.com/drmike/2017/07/02/low-carbohydrate-...
- Blaiz0r 7y agoThis article does emphasise processed meat being the cause, so Bacon and Hotdogs for example, as opposed to Butcher cuts or prepared foul.
- arethuza 7y agoI presume you meant "fowl" - or is that at reference to the "chlorinated chicken" we are being threatened with in the UK?
- baxtr 7y agoI found this site to be helpful: https://nutritionfacts.org https://nutritionfacts.org
- ShlomoS 7y agoThat site is run by a well known quack, and is full of misrepresented "evidence" and even outright lies. It used to be called the "vegan research institute" until he renamed it so it was less obvious as a propaganda outlet. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/death-as-a-foodborne-illness-curable-by-veganism/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/death-as-a-foodborne-illnes...
- Toine 7y ago"Well known quack" sources ? And btw you linked an article with the following conclusion : "The video confirmed what I already knew from evaluating the published evidence: it is healthier to eat more plant-based foods and less red meat."
- ShlomoS 7y agohttps://mediabiasfactcheck.com/nutritionfacts-org/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/nutritionfacts-org/ >And btw you linked an article with the following conclusion Yes. The point is that even plenty of vegans, who agree with his premise, know he openly lies to promote veganism. https://www.thatnerdysciencegirl.com/2015/11/13/the-case-against-dr-michael-gregernutritionfacts/ https://www.thatnerdysciencegirl.com/2015/11/13/the-case-aga...
- Numberwang 7y agoIt is very likely the information you base your current diet on is wrong. Scientific consensus have long shown the exact opposite. The carnivore diet as a long term option is likely to be harmful. I recommend you to do more research on this.
- cageface 7y agoAnimal protein is highly inflammatory. This is about the worst thing you can do if you are concerned about inflammation. Load up on fresh vegetables and fruits instead.
- ShlomoS 7y ago>Animal protein is highly inflammatory What is the basis for this belief? >Load up on fresh vegetables and fruits instead. Many fresh vegetables are inflammatory. Plants evolved chemicals to hinder herbation. Roots/tubers and fruit are generally fine, but leaves/stems/flowers are generally full of inflammatory anti-nutrients and should be cooked.
- cageface 7y agoNot true. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/foods-that-fight-inflammation https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/foods-that-fi...
- moltar 7y agoThat’s just a blog post on Harvard.edu domain. Has no cred on its own. Not backed up by scientific references. Please post sources. Thank you.
- techstrategist 7y ago>just a blog post on Harvard.edu Which is more authoritative than a comment on HN. I believe it’s on you to find a more authoritative source that contradicts the above.
- ShlomoS 7y agoBlog posts and HN posts have an equal lack of authority. Authority does not matter though, facts do. You can look up the levels of oxalates, phytates, PUFAs, etc from whatever source you like and confirm reality. You don't need an "authority" to tell you what to think.
- Toine 7y agoWow, where did you hear that kind of advices ? Everywhere I look, I see meat, especially red meat, being demonized, and increasing inflammation.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]