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Here's an interesting thought experiment for meat-eaters: Why not stop eating beef? your response might be a knee-jerk "but I really like it!". Everyone knows

Here's an interesting thought experiment for meat-eaters: Why not stop eating beef? your response might be a knee-jerk "but I really like it!". Everyone knows the huge environmental costs we are responsible for when eating meat. But it's really interesting to pursue the tension in your own personal logic-brain vs lizard want-it-brain. I've stopped eating most refined sugar and massively cut down on meat in the past few years. But the mental battles I had with myself in the process were surprising.

0_____0 6y ago
I cut down massively on beef during the worst of the California drought, when I found out what the resource consumption looked like. To the "if it's yellow let it mellow" crowd: just the beef in a typical burger has the water usage footprint of something like 40? 50? high-flow toilet flushes. Chicken is about 1/3rd the water footprint, and IMO it's a lot easier to get good texture when cooking it.
- luckylion 6y ago
  Is the cow for the burger you eat in California grown in California? It's a good idea to be aware in general, but local under-supply isn't necessarily a helpful metric, I think. We've had the argument in Northern Germany that we should use less water, and it often went along with reports about droughts in Spain. But we're not Spain, we have plenty of rain (though it's not always equally distributed over the year). Needless to say that we're not building a pipeline to transport the saved water to Spain. At the same time, we now have to regularly flush the sewers because we don't have enough "natural" flow and we have more issues with rising ground water damaging building foundations.
  - fock 6y ago
    actually, we are currently in drought conditions some years in a row in Germany. Forests are dying and the groundwater is exhausted. But hey, it's all the media making up a story.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      > But hey, it's all the media making up a story. I'm on a diet, please don't put words into my mouth. There are months that we have too little rain, but we're far from continuous drought conditions. We're still getting 50+ liters/sqm per month.
      - DanBC 6y ago
        Germany is in drought conditions. https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=37937 https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=37937
        luckylion 6y ago
        That's a different issue entirely from ground water though. The droughts mentioned are surface water, not ground water. The lower water usage does affect ground water levels but not surface water, because we're not pumping up surface water. That's not a specifically German issue, many regions that have less industry now than they had 60 years ago are dealing with the same problem. The surface water strongly affects farms and forests, but we won't change that by using less ground water (unless the hope is to have the ground water climb to -1m everywhere, at which point we're living in a bog). Additionally, rising ground water might have nasty side effects for plants, as salt in the earth will also be transported up. Surface water retention is about management, not about offsetting that with savings. We do get plenty of surface water, but much of it will be "wasted" because it'll cause floods. Aggressive diking and straightening of rivers does play a part there, and we'll be wise to adapt to changing weather patterns and climate.
- mc32 6y ago
  It’s worthwhile noting what the water lifecycle going through a cow looks like. If it’s grazing on natural pastureland vs irrigated vs animal feed and what the water lifecycle looks like. The water doesn’t disappear but it can have impact if it’s drawn out from limited aquifers that don’t get replenished quickly.
- jiofih 6y ago
  The water doesn’t get “spent” though, unless you manage to turn it into some toxic sludge (which I imagine US farms do). In the usual resource lifecycle of a cattle farm, that water goes right back where it came from - 99% is “green water”.
  - simias 6y ago
    Animal urine and feces are not clean water, if you only have a couple of animals it doesn't matter but at a large scale you need to treat it before releasing it into the wild unless you want to taint the water supply. Of course the water molecules don't disappear, but that's not the point. There's plenty of water on earth, but only a tiny fraction is clean enough for human consumption. If you pour your bottle of mineral water into the ocean, the water doesn't disappear but you still effectively wasted it. >you wouldn’t have a farm away from a water source. That's sort of the problem actually. Many aquifers are tainted to various levels because of farming. We need clean water, not cow piss.
    - jiofih 6y ago
      This is only a problem for mass-scale industrial farming - that is the thing to be avoided instead of looking for fixes for its consequences.
eukgoekoko 6y ago
HDYT, is it time for you to cut down on soya as well?
- anwseringmrns 6y ago
  Over 70 percent of the soybeans grown in the United States are used for animal feed... ️ https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexistence-soybeans-factsheet.pdf https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexisten...
maallooc 6y ago
Because I don't care about the environmental cost beacuse people like you who don't eat meat will cover for my cost, god bless. Also tbqh I'd prefer some trees chopped off than to quit eating steaks.
- codegladiator 6y ago
  I see this down voted, and frankly not surprised, this is a really unpopular opinion somehow, but this is not wrong. As a community we do see the duty of protecting environment imposed on us, but as an individual I don't think many people see it as that. I don't know how to put it in words exactly, but "future is doomed" is somehow "everyone knows" one way or another (at least I am going to die before doom happens and a single individual cannot be held responsible for the doom anyways). And then we also have the factories polluting the environment where we can debate on how useful the end product is, but when it comes down to a person eating meat the discussion just never would convince meat eaters in my opinion. Meat eaters could say "who's ultimately benefiting from the factories polluting environment" and the answer would more or less be some corporation. Why should they have all the fun ?
  - biddlesby 6y ago
    I'm inclined to agree. Framing environmentalism as a problem that individuals need to solve isn't going to get us anywhere. It's a problem with the rules of the game, it requires political willpower.
    - afandian 6y ago
      But to have any chance of getting out of this mess everyone will need to make sacrifices at massive and micro scales. The bit I was trying to draw attention to is whether, when faced with a very small piece of the puzzle, people are able to make a relatively small sacrifice or not, even something as trivial as cutting out beef. At the end of the day, it's only food and there's plenty of other things one could eat. Because there's a lot worse coming in a few decades.
UweSchmidt 6y ago
The problem is the availability of vegetarian / vegan meals in western society. Sophisticated food culture revolves around meat. It requires planning and work (in addition to dealing with the lizard brain). In particular, as a gym-goer I want my protein, and if soya is out too, then it's quite a bit more difficult. Excuses, I know.
- biddlesby 6y ago
  I wouldn't say soya is out. It's about relative impacts: soya has a vastly lower environmental impact than meat.
  - fock 6y ago
    and actually all the soya for actual human consumption could easily be farmed locally.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  "Western society" (which is diverse and fragmented) started to eat a lot of meat when it became wealthy. There are plenty of low/no meat dishes in Western culture. The often cited Southern European/Mediterranean diet does not include that much meat. Cereals (expecially in the form of bread and pasta) and vegetables used to be staples that accounted for most of our food intake. While we probably eat too much meat in general, going vegetarian/vegan is going from an extreme to the other. I'm sure most 'normal' people can cut their meat consumption by half without noticing it too much. Globally the issue is that people are starting to be wealthy enough and we are probably too many. Also, relying on ready-meals in general is not a good idea for both health and environment.
  - fock 6y ago
    unfortunately the no-meat dishes of our grandparents are not especially tasty in their "peasant"-version (northern europe) and making tasty vegetarian meals is an art not really known anymore (was it ever?) in my family, nor in any of the everyday restaurants/employee-cafeterias I visit.
logicchains 6y ago
Different people have different time preferences (preference for futures vs current satisfaction). Evidently most people don't even care what their diet does to their own health in fifty years time (given the massive rise in diet-related preventable illnesses), so I don't imagine they'd care about much about the environmental effects either. And there's nothing wrong with that; there's no "objectively correct" time preference, no objective way to say "X units of satisfaction thirty years from now is worth Y units of satisfaction today".
- biddlesby 6y ago
  Just because there's no objectively correct measure, I wouldn't say that means it isn't wrong. There's nothing objective in ethics. In your example of people not caring about their health: the environmental impact of diet is in a different ethical class for me. If you choose to ignore your own health that's your deal, but if you make choices that negatively impact the lives of millions I think the ethics are different.
  - logicchains 6y ago
    >If you choose to ignore your own health that's your deal, but if you make choices that negatively impact the lives of millions I think the ethics are different. The impact of any individual unit of meat consumption by an individual is incredibly marginal. The standard society generally uses to determine whether an individual has harmed another is way higher than that. The satisfaction an individual gets from eating meat might well be greater than the dissatisfaction that instance causes others, and indeed since there's no objective standard it's impossible to measure exactly.
    - toper-centage 6y ago
      I think it requires a certain mental state of almost complete lack of empathy to enjoy meat though. If you eat meat and never think about these issues, you simply don't care.
      - 6y ago
Shivetya 6y ago
Well how far behind will we be in telling people to not consume sea food or any animal product. However for many diets meat products are there as it is a simple means to satisfy nutritional requirements and depending on meal a little meat and related products can go a long way.
captainmuon 6y ago
Here's my unorthodox take. If I do the morally right thing and decide to stop eating beef, why should I be punished by not getting to eat beef? It sounds silly but I'm not kidding. If I could vote to reduce the global production of beef by one average person's consumption, I would do so immediately. I would probably continue to eat it though. I'm aware that many people would make the same choice, and this will result in raising prices and harder availability of beef, but that's fine with me.
- amelius 6y ago
  The only thing that might save us is proper taxing of every industry with negative externalities.
- smt88 6y ago
  Do whatever is tolerable to you. "Can't" quit beef? Try eating less or buying from a more responsible source. Can't eat less beef? Donate to a climate org, volunteer, switch to solar, drive your car less, do some political canvassing, etc. None of us will do all of that. Everyone has their subset of things they can do.
- chrisdirkis 6y ago
  A fun take from the currently defunct SlateStarCodex was buying "offsets" for activities you wanted to support. Carbon offsets for plane trips already exist, in the range of $30 to $150 or so. In theory, you could find someone who normally eats meat and offer them some amount of money per day to be vegetarian/vegan (or, find two people and pay them to halve their meat intake, or whatever). This might satisfy a moral obligation while costing you in a currency that you're happier to spend. The obvious argument is "why not buy offsets and then also not do the bad thing for 2x effect". I don't think anyone's morally obligated to buy carbon offsets arbitrarily even if they're not flying, and similarly, maybe people aren't obligated to not do the bad thing either? But this gets into the weeds of moral obligation in general, which is probably a complex topic. Suffice to say, while buying an offset might cost some amount of money, not eating meat is ~free, and that's a trade some people may be willing to make if they're feeling obliged to reduce meat production too.
AdrianB1 6y ago
I am missing the very long intestines and multiple stomach of a herbivore, so I cannot live on vegetables only. Meat is one of the very few things I can digest and there are many with similar food restrictions. I don't like chicken or beef, but I include it in my meals for diversification.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
SECProto 6y ago
> an interesting thought experiment for meat-eaters: Why not stop eating beef? I know that this was likely meant for an internal thought experiment, rather than everyone who reads it responding. But personally: I eat beef as part of ~1.5 meals per week. I could cut this down to one meal every two weeks, with a bit of effort. Eliminating it entirely would mean eliminating certain food products that I enjoy that don't have a comparable vegetarian alternative. Reducing chicken or pork would be more difficult, particularly because there is very poor availability of tofu at my local grocery stores. The most interesting thing I identified from the thought experiment: my eating habits have changed pretty dramatically from the pandemic. I've gotten in the habit of eating homemade food for about 19 out of 21 meals per week (i.e. i never buy lunch out), which results in far less meat consumption. And far higher egg consumption Side story: I have relatives that raise their own beef, in very small amounts (one per year) as a side-effect of running a dairy farm. Their farm is small scale, about 40 milking, with surface treatment of manure runoff (constructed wetland). No water supply issues where they are. Poor quality land (very shallow topsoil) wouldn't be any good for commercial crop production. They are pastured most of the summer, all hay/silage is harvested on site, with additional feed/salt provided in the other months (I should ask them where their feed comes from). The reason they are able to stay in business is because there is a stable price for milk in Canada (supply management), which results in mildly higher consumer cost for dairy products, but a ridiculous amount of political controversy from right wing political parties.
normallove 6y ago
Red meat is possibly the most nutrient dense food in the world. With everything from essential proteins and fats, to minerals like zinc, iron and magnesium, to water soluble vitamins like biotin. It's also tasty and satisfying to eat. My parents had only two children, same as my grandparents. My family isn't growing and taking up an exponential amount of resources, so I do not personally feel responsible for unsustainable population growth. Therefore I will not sacrifice my health and well-being in order to satisfy some resource quota being morally applied. Meat production isn't even a proportionally large source of energy use compared to transportation and electricity, so being asked to give up eating it to increase sustainability before larger slices of the pie are confronted really smacks of dogmatic imperialism. I think the discussion would fare far better with people who think along lines that I do, if you focused on 'how can we make meat production more energy and land efficient' instead of 'you are sinful for eating meat, give it up.' More efficient grazing patterns and breeding animals to better digest alternative food sources like kelp, for example, are promising. I'm sure there are many other avenues yet thought up.
- uxcolumbo 6y ago
  This Oxford University study [0] concluded that the best thing a individual can do is to reduce or remove dairy and meat from their diet - because of the high costs to our environment. You can get all the nutrients the body needs from plants - read articles by the Physicians Committee of Responsible Medicine. Finally, how do you justify the high cost of your pleasure of eating meat. The cost is not just the environment, it's also that our demand for meat keeps people employed in this horrific industry (slaughterhouse workers experience PTSD) and the fact that an animal has to suffer immensely, so that you can get a piece of its flesh. [0] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987
  - normallove 6y ago
    I glanced through and the study seemed targeted at dietary choices, which ignores my point that transportation and other energy intensive aspects of life far outstrip meat production. It also did not go into my suggestion, which is investigate ways to mitigate environmental impact. >keeps people employed in this horrific industry I am for reform of the industry and personally buy in bulk from local farmers. Factory farming is horrible, I will not argue with that. >and the fact that an animal has to suffer immensely, so that you can get a piece of its flesh. Moral grandstanding. You don't care about the environment or health, you wish to impose your view of the world and personal choices on others. Your pretention of care for sustainability is a tool not a real concern. I'm willing to bet you have never met or talked to a beef farmer or slaughterhouse worker.

0_____0 6y ago

I cut down massively on beef during the worst of the California drought, when I found out what the resource consumption looked like. To the "if it's yellow let it mellow" crowd: just the beef in a typical burger has the water usage footprint of something like 40? 50? high-flow toilet flushes. Chicken is about 1/3rd the water footprint, and IMO it's a lot easier to get good texture when cooking it.

luckylion 6y ago
Is the cow for the burger you eat in California grown in California? It's a good idea to be aware in general, but local under-supply isn't necessarily a helpful metric, I think. We've had the argument in Northern Germany that we should use less water, and it often went along with reports about droughts in Spain. But we're not Spain, we have plenty of rain (though it's not always equally distributed over the year). Needless to say that we're not building a pipeline to transport the saved water to Spain. At the same time, we now have to regularly flush the sewers because we don't have enough "natural" flow and we have more issues with rising ground water damaging building foundations.
- fock 6y ago
  actually, we are currently in drought conditions some years in a row in Germany. Forests are dying and the groundwater is exhausted. But hey, it's all the media making up a story.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > But hey, it's all the media making up a story. I'm on a diet, please don't put words into my mouth. There are months that we have too little rain, but we're far from continuous drought conditions. We're still getting 50+ liters/sqm per month.
    - DanBC 6y ago
      Germany is in drought conditions. https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=37937 https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=37937
      - luckylion 6y ago
        That's a different issue entirely from ground water though. The droughts mentioned are surface water, not ground water. The lower water usage does affect ground water levels but not surface water, because we're not pumping up surface water. That's not a specifically German issue, many regions that have less industry now than they had 60 years ago are dealing with the same problem. The surface water strongly affects farms and forests, but we won't change that by using less ground water (unless the hope is to have the ground water climb to -1m everywhere, at which point we're living in a bog). Additionally, rising ground water might have nasty side effects for plants, as salt in the earth will also be transported up. Surface water retention is about management, not about offsetting that with savings. We do get plenty of surface water, but much of it will be "wasted" because it'll cause floods. Aggressive diking and straightening of rivers does play a part there, and we'll be wise to adapt to changing weather patterns and climate.
mc32 6y ago
It’s worthwhile noting what the water lifecycle going through a cow looks like. If it’s grazing on natural pastureland vs irrigated vs animal feed and what the water lifecycle looks like. The water doesn’t disappear but it can have impact if it’s drawn out from limited aquifers that don’t get replenished quickly.
jiofih 6y ago
The water doesn’t get “spent” though, unless you manage to turn it into some toxic sludge (which I imagine US farms do). In the usual resource lifecycle of a cattle farm, that water goes right back where it came from - 99% is “green water”.
- simias 6y ago
  Animal urine and feces are not clean water, if you only have a couple of animals it doesn't matter but at a large scale you need to treat it before releasing it into the wild unless you want to taint the water supply. Of course the water molecules don't disappear, but that's not the point. There's plenty of water on earth, but only a tiny fraction is clean enough for human consumption. If you pour your bottle of mineral water into the ocean, the water doesn't disappear but you still effectively wasted it. >you wouldn’t have a farm away from a water source. That's sort of the problem actually. Many aquifers are tainted to various levels because of farming. We need clean water, not cow piss.
  - jiofih 6y ago
    This is only a problem for mass-scale industrial farming - that is the thing to be avoided instead of looking for fixes for its consequences.

eukgoekoko 6y ago

HDYT, is it time for you to cut down on soya as well?

anwseringmrns 6y ago
Over 70 percent of the soybeans grown in the United States are used for animal feed... ️ https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexistence-soybeans-factsheet.pdf https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexisten...

maallooc 6y ago

Because I don't care about the environmental cost beacuse people like you who don't eat meat will cover for my cost, god bless. Also tbqh I'd prefer some trees chopped off than to quit eating steaks.

codegladiator 6y ago
I see this down voted, and frankly not surprised, this is a really unpopular opinion somehow, but this is not wrong. As a community we do see the duty of protecting environment imposed on us, but as an individual I don't think many people see it as that. I don't know how to put it in words exactly, but "future is doomed" is somehow "everyone knows" one way or another (at least I am going to die before doom happens and a single individual cannot be held responsible for the doom anyways). And then we also have the factories polluting the environment where we can debate on how useful the end product is, but when it comes down to a person eating meat the discussion just never would convince meat eaters in my opinion. Meat eaters could say "who's ultimately benefiting from the factories polluting environment" and the answer would more or less be some corporation. Why should they have all the fun ?
- biddlesby 6y ago
  I'm inclined to agree. Framing environmentalism as a problem that individuals need to solve isn't going to get us anywhere. It's a problem with the rules of the game, it requires political willpower.
  - afandian 6y ago
    But to have any chance of getting out of this mess everyone will need to make sacrifices at massive and micro scales. The bit I was trying to draw attention to is whether, when faced with a very small piece of the puzzle, people are able to make a relatively small sacrifice or not, even something as trivial as cutting out beef. At the end of the day, it's only food and there's plenty of other things one could eat. Because there's a lot worse coming in a few decades.

UweSchmidt 6y ago

The problem is the availability of vegetarian / vegan meals in western society. Sophisticated food culture revolves around meat. It requires planning and work (in addition to dealing with the lizard brain). In particular, as a gym-goer I want my protein, and if soya is out too, then it's quite a bit more difficult. Excuses, I know.

biddlesby 6y ago
I wouldn't say soya is out. It's about relative impacts: soya has a vastly lower environmental impact than meat.
- fock 6y ago
  and actually all the soya for actual human consumption could easily be farmed locally.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
"Western society" (which is diverse and fragmented) started to eat a lot of meat when it became wealthy. There are plenty of low/no meat dishes in Western culture. The often cited Southern European/Mediterranean diet does not include that much meat. Cereals (expecially in the form of bread and pasta) and vegetables used to be staples that accounted for most of our food intake. While we probably eat too much meat in general, going vegetarian/vegan is going from an extreme to the other. I'm sure most 'normal' people can cut their meat consumption by half without noticing it too much. Globally the issue is that people are starting to be wealthy enough and we are probably too many. Also, relying on ready-meals in general is not a good idea for both health and environment.
- fock 6y ago
  unfortunately the no-meat dishes of our grandparents are not especially tasty in their "peasant"-version (northern europe) and making tasty vegetarian meals is an art not really known anymore (was it ever?) in my family, nor in any of the everyday restaurants/employee-cafeterias I visit.

logicchains 6y ago

Different people have different time preferences (preference for futures vs current satisfaction). Evidently most people don't even care what their diet does to their own health in fifty years time (given the massive rise in diet-related preventable illnesses), so I don't imagine they'd care about much about the environmental effects either. And there's nothing wrong with that; there's no "objectively correct" time preference, no objective way to say "X units of satisfaction thirty years from now is worth Y units of satisfaction today".

biddlesby 6y ago
Just because there's no objectively correct measure, I wouldn't say that means it isn't wrong. There's nothing objective in ethics. In your example of people not caring about their health: the environmental impact of diet is in a different ethical class for me. If you choose to ignore your own health that's your deal, but if you make choices that negatively impact the lives of millions I think the ethics are different.
- logicchains 6y ago
  >If you choose to ignore your own health that's your deal, but if you make choices that negatively impact the lives of millions I think the ethics are different. The impact of any individual unit of meat consumption by an individual is incredibly marginal. The standard society generally uses to determine whether an individual has harmed another is way higher than that. The satisfaction an individual gets from eating meat might well be greater than the dissatisfaction that instance causes others, and indeed since there's no objective standard it's impossible to measure exactly.
  - toper-centage 6y ago
    I think it requires a certain mental state of almost complete lack of empathy to enjoy meat though. If you eat meat and never think about these issues, you simply don't care.
    - 6y ago

Shivetya 6y ago

Well how far behind will we be in telling people to not consume sea food or any animal product. However for many diets meat products are there as it is a simple means to satisfy nutritional requirements and depending on meal a little meat and related products can go a long way.

captainmuon 6y ago

Here's my unorthodox take. If I do the morally right thing and decide to stop eating beef, why should I be punished by not getting to eat beef? It sounds silly but I'm not kidding. If I could vote to reduce the global production of beef by one average person's consumption, I would do so immediately. I would probably continue to eat it though. I'm aware that many people would make the same choice, and this will result in raising prices and harder availability of beef, but that's fine with me.

amelius 6y ago
The only thing that might save us is proper taxing of every industry with negative externalities.
smt88 6y ago
Do whatever is tolerable to you. "Can't" quit beef? Try eating less or buying from a more responsible source. Can't eat less beef? Donate to a climate org, volunteer, switch to solar, drive your car less, do some political canvassing, etc. None of us will do all of that. Everyone has their subset of things they can do.
chrisdirkis 6y ago
A fun take from the currently defunct SlateStarCodex was buying "offsets" for activities you wanted to support. Carbon offsets for plane trips already exist, in the range of $30 to $150 or so. In theory, you could find someone who normally eats meat and offer them some amount of money per day to be vegetarian/vegan (or, find two people and pay them to halve their meat intake, or whatever). This might satisfy a moral obligation while costing you in a currency that you're happier to spend. The obvious argument is "why not buy offsets and then also not do the bad thing for 2x effect". I don't think anyone's morally obligated to buy carbon offsets arbitrarily even if they're not flying, and similarly, maybe people aren't obligated to not do the bad thing either? But this gets into the weeds of moral obligation in general, which is probably a complex topic. Suffice to say, while buying an offset might cost some amount of money, not eating meat is ~free, and that's a trade some people may be willing to make if they're feeling obliged to reduce meat production too.

AdrianB1 6y ago

I am missing the very long intestines and multiple stomach of a herbivore, so I cannot live on vegetables only. Meat is one of the very few things I can digest and there are many with similar food restrictions. I don't like chicken or beef, but I include it in my meals for diversification.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

SECProto 6y ago

> an interesting thought experiment for meat-eaters: Why not stop eating beef? I know that this was likely meant for an internal thought experiment, rather than everyone who reads it responding. But personally: I eat beef as part of ~1.5 meals per week. I could cut this down to one meal every two weeks, with a bit of effort. Eliminating it entirely would mean eliminating certain food products that I enjoy that don't have a comparable vegetarian alternative. Reducing chicken or pork would be more difficult, particularly because there is very poor availability of tofu at my local grocery stores. The most interesting thing I identified from the thought experiment: my eating habits have changed pretty dramatically from the pandemic. I've gotten in the habit of eating homemade food for about 19 out of 21 meals per week (i.e. i never buy lunch out), which results in far less meat consumption. And far higher egg consumption Side story: I have relatives that raise their own beef, in very small amounts (one per year) as a side-effect of running a dairy farm. Their farm is small scale, about 40 milking, with surface treatment of manure runoff (constructed wetland). No water supply issues where they are. Poor quality land (very shallow topsoil) wouldn't be any good for commercial crop production. They are pastured most of the summer, all hay/silage is harvested on site, with additional feed/salt provided in the other months (I should ask them where their feed comes from). The reason they are able to stay in business is because there is a stable price for milk in Canada (supply management), which results in mildly higher consumer cost for dairy products, but a ridiculous amount of political controversy from right wing political parties.

normallove 6y ago

Red meat is possibly the most nutrient dense food in the world. With everything from essential proteins and fats, to minerals like zinc, iron and magnesium, to water soluble vitamins like biotin. It's also tasty and satisfying to eat. My parents had only two children, same as my grandparents. My family isn't growing and taking up an exponential amount of resources, so I do not personally feel responsible for unsustainable population growth. Therefore I will not sacrifice my health and well-being in order to satisfy some resource quota being morally applied. Meat production isn't even a proportionally large source of energy use compared to transportation and electricity, so being asked to give up eating it to increase sustainability before larger slices of the pie are confronted really smacks of dogmatic imperialism. I think the discussion would fare far better with people who think along lines that I do, if you focused on 'how can we make meat production more energy and land efficient' instead of 'you are sinful for eating meat, give it up.' More efficient grazing patterns and breeding animals to better digest alternative food sources like kelp, for example, are promising. I'm sure there are many other avenues yet thought up.

uxcolumbo 6y ago
This Oxford University study [0] concluded that the best thing a individual can do is to reduce or remove dairy and meat from their diet - because of the high costs to our environment. You can get all the nutrients the body needs from plants - read articles by the Physicians Committee of Responsible Medicine. Finally, how do you justify the high cost of your pleasure of eating meat. The cost is not just the environment, it's also that our demand for meat keeps people employed in this horrific industry (slaughterhouse workers experience PTSD) and the fact that an animal has to suffer immensely, so that you can get a piece of its flesh. [0] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987
- normallove 6y ago
  I glanced through and the study seemed targeted at dietary choices, which ignores my point that transportation and other energy intensive aspects of life far outstrip meat production. It also did not go into my suggestion, which is investigate ways to mitigate environmental impact. >keeps people employed in this horrific industry I am for reform of the industry and personally buy in bulk from local farmers. Factory farming is horrible, I will not argue with that. >and the fact that an animal has to suffer immensely, so that you can get a piece of its flesh. Moral grandstanding. You don't care about the environment or health, you wish to impose your view of the world and personal choices on others. Your pretention of care for sustainability is a tool not a real concern. I'm willing to bet you have never met or talked to a beef farmer or slaughterhouse worker.