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A huge chunk of our net impact on global warming and deforestation is a direct result of our food system, namely animal agriculture. There is disagreement abou

A huge chunk of our net impact on global warming and deforestation is a direct result of our food system, namely animal agriculture. There is disagreement about just how inefficient turning an acre of corn into slabs of cow, but it should be clear that it is some fraction of the efficiency of just eating that corn as food itself.

jungletime 6y ago
I'm always amazed how good the fruit and vegetables look, but how little flavour they have when bought from super market here, compared to Europe, or actually most parts of the world where vegetables are grown locally and organically. Very sour unripe oranges, bananas, grapes, flavourless green peppers, tasteless tomatoes. Pretty much the norm in Supermarkets.
- mesarvagya 6y ago
  I believe those vegetable and fruits are GMO i.e. constructed genetically to look good. Moreover quality of soil and its nutrients is not like it was before, making vegetable and fruits less nutritious [1]. In the end, until grown vegetable and fruits are grown in home, we don't have much choice. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-an...
- ebiester 6y ago
  California is not nearly as bad as the rest of the country. the southeast US has some decent produce, but not much, and not nearly as much as its soil should offer. I am continually flabbergasted that Americans accept this - or rather, they don't. I think so much of meat consumption and fast food consumption can be explained by how bad our fruits and vegetables are.
raiflip 6y ago
What about in the case where animals can extract more nutrients from plant food than we can? Cows in particular have specially built stomachs that can extract nutrients from plants than we can. I don't think this would be enough to make eating meat more efficient, but it may be necessary to eat some meat to get nutrients you wouldn't otherwise get from plants.
- Ididntdothis 6y ago
  It’s true that some animals can digest plants that we can’t digest. But there is plenty of evidence that humans can live perfectly well on a plant based diet if they eat the right plants . It’s not necessary to eat meat for getting nutrients.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
    > But there is plenty of evidence that humans can live perfectly well on a plant based diet if they eat the right plants . Vitamin B-12 From https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements-vitamin-b12/art-20363663 https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements-vitamin-b12/art... “However, if you follow a vegetarian or vegan diet, you might be prone to deficiency because plant foods don't contain vitamin B-12. ”
    - Ididntdothis 6y ago
      If you are deficient there you can take supplements.
- tejohnso 6y ago
  > but it may be necessary to eat some meat to get nutrients you wouldn't otherwise get from plants. It is not necessary to eat meat.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - raiflip 6y ago
    Necessary is not the right word. More efficient might be better. It's entirely possible to get protein from plants and omega-3 from vitamins, but from a human health point of view, is it more efficient?
- jtolmar 6y ago
  Letting grazing animals eat grass that's just growing on its own is incredibly energy-efficient, but that's not what we do. We manually grow food for them then ship it to the animals.
agakshat 6y ago
Strongly agree with this. Utilisation of water to irrigate animal feed, deforestation of land to support growing that feed, methane expulsions from cows themselves.. it’s crazy to think about the environmental impact of beef, when eating chicken or fish would be far better for the environment (not to mention healthier).
gdubs 6y ago
It’s really only recently coming into focus. Because if you look sector by sector it’s not clear (in terms of emissions). But when you look close it’s clear that a sector like chemical production is heavily weighted towards producing fertilizer. And the majority of that is being used to grow animal feed. Or the transportation sector, a lot of which is shipping food all over the world. And land-use change, deforestation, etc, to create grazing land or grow conventional mono crops — again, mostly for animal feed. Basically, in our current system, plant foods are an edge product of an animal agriculture system. To be more sustainable, we probably want the opposite — meat as an edge product of a plant-focused agriculture. The picture in my head is a more decentralized system — regional farms, urban farms, etc. And probably a carbon tax which would make meat a little pricier. It doesn’t have to disappear, but the externalities should be baked into the cost.
29athrowaway 6y ago
And paper. We kill trees so Trader Joe's can send me a catalog of products I will throw away without reading. And 90% of people will likely do exactly the same. Or so companies like Lob.com can convert API calls into dead trees, instead of looking into ways to do the opposite.

jungletime 6y ago

I'm always amazed how good the fruit and vegetables look, but how little flavour they have when bought from super market here, compared to Europe, or actually most parts of the world where vegetables are grown locally and organically. Very sour unripe oranges, bananas, grapes, flavourless green peppers, tasteless tomatoes. Pretty much the norm in Supermarkets.

mesarvagya 6y ago
I believe those vegetable and fruits are GMO i.e. constructed genetically to look good. Moreover quality of soil and its nutrients is not like it was before, making vegetable and fruits less nutritious [1]. In the end, until grown vegetable and fruits are grown in home, we don't have much choice. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-an...
ebiester 6y ago
California is not nearly as bad as the rest of the country. the southeast US has some decent produce, but not much, and not nearly as much as its soil should offer. I am continually flabbergasted that Americans accept this - or rather, they don't. I think so much of meat consumption and fast food consumption can be explained by how bad our fruits and vegetables are.

raiflip 6y ago

What about in the case where animals can extract more nutrients from plant food than we can? Cows in particular have specially built stomachs that can extract nutrients from plants than we can. I don't think this would be enough to make eating meat more efficient, but it may be necessary to eat some meat to get nutrients you wouldn't otherwise get from plants.

Ididntdothis 6y ago
It’s true that some animals can digest plants that we can’t digest. But there is plenty of evidence that humans can live perfectly well on a plant based diet if they eat the right plants . It’s not necessary to eat meat for getting nutrients.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  > But there is plenty of evidence that humans can live perfectly well on a plant based diet if they eat the right plants . Vitamin B-12 From https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements-vitamin-b12/art-20363663 https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements-vitamin-b12/art... “However, if you follow a vegetarian or vegan diet, you might be prone to deficiency because plant foods don't contain vitamin B-12. ”
  - Ididntdothis 6y ago
    If you are deficient there you can take supplements.
tejohnso 6y ago
> but it may be necessary to eat some meat to get nutrients you wouldn't otherwise get from plants. It is not necessary to eat meat.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- raiflip 6y ago
  Necessary is not the right word. More efficient might be better. It's entirely possible to get protein from plants and omega-3 from vitamins, but from a human health point of view, is it more efficient?
jtolmar 6y ago
Letting grazing animals eat grass that's just growing on its own is incredibly energy-efficient, but that's not what we do. We manually grow food for them then ship it to the animals.

agakshat 6y ago

Strongly agree with this. Utilisation of water to irrigate animal feed, deforestation of land to support growing that feed, methane expulsions from cows themselves.. it’s crazy to think about the environmental impact of beef, when eating chicken or fish would be far better for the environment (not to mention healthier).

gdubs 6y ago

It’s really only recently coming into focus. Because if you look sector by sector it’s not clear (in terms of emissions). But when you look close it’s clear that a sector like chemical production is heavily weighted towards producing fertilizer. And the majority of that is being used to grow animal feed. Or the transportation sector, a lot of which is shipping food all over the world. And land-use change, deforestation, etc, to create grazing land or grow conventional mono crops — again, mostly for animal feed. Basically, in our current system, plant foods are an edge product of an animal agriculture system. To be more sustainable, we probably want the opposite — meat as an edge product of a plant-focused agriculture. The picture in my head is a more decentralized system — regional farms, urban farms, etc. And probably a carbon tax which would make meat a little pricier. It doesn’t have to disappear, but the externalities should be baked into the cost.

29athrowaway 6y ago

And paper. We kill trees so Trader Joe's can send me a catalog of products I will throw away without reading. And 90% of people will likely do exactly the same. Or so companies like Lob.com can convert API calls into dead trees, instead of looking into ways to do the opposite.