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> I suspect justifying eating farmed meat is going to seriously dwindle in a few generations once the 'that's how its always been' mentality has softened. It w

• markstos 6y ago
  No need to wait for for "clean meat" as an excuse, it's already not necessary to eat animals.
  • dtech 6y ago
    It is not necessary in the same way that it is not necessary to drink alcohol or watch Netflix. People still want to do it. This makes killing animals an economic necessity to supply a large amount of demand. That will only change with lab grown meat or indistinguishable-from-the-real-thing meat replacements.
    • spacephysics 6y ago
      I think that’s quite a straw man. In order to say we don’t require meat, we have to know what the correct diet for humans are, which we unfortunately don’t. Nutrition literature is littered with contradictions, debates, and mostly recommendations based off of correlation (epidemiology) studies. Not throwing everything that’s been studied in nutrition by any means, but research areas like the gut micro biome are in their infancy, and we’ve yet to really study the effects food has on this complex system. We’ve had instances of saturated fats being painted as causing heart disease, red meat causing cancer, or sugar not being that bad for you. Each either having a perverse financial incentive to get specific results, or they used poor methodologies. This also assumes a plant based diet is the most optimal diet for humans, which I’d disagree with, especially on the account that most plant-based diets lack nutrients that are only derived from meat based products. Yes you can supplement, but now the bioavailability is changed, and typically supplements target a single or few nutrients, and rarely has the full spectrum of what the particular food has for nutrient ratios. For instance, what’s the effect on the gut microbiome when we use a supplement vs the nutrient “from the source”? We know there exists a difference in how our bodies react, just not the full picture of effects. If your ethics supersedes what could (emphasis) be a more optimal life, or if plant based diet works better than meat based anecdotally, then have at it. But we shouldn’t be dictating policy or pushing for cultural changes on things we don’t have a full understanding on, especially when we don’t know the full implications of any one human diet. Comparing meat eating to, if I’m reading between the lines correctly, hedonic pleasures of Netflix and alcohol, is fallacious, perverse, and dogmatic. I would go so far as to say restricting meat consumption on a policy level is unethical.
      • simoom22 6y ago
        I'm not aware of any essential nutrients lacking from a plant-based diet, aside from maybe B12, which is supplemented in animal feed and besides would probably be provided by soil bacteria if agricultural soil was healthier and our produce wasn't washed so well. A few amino acids like taurine aren't in plants but are synthesized from others in the human body.
      • mike00632 6y ago
        The concept of "bioavailability" might be too simple when talking about nutrition. Heme iron from animal products and vitamin A from liver are bioavailable to the point of being toxic. With the example of iron, our body has variable absorption rate based on how much we need; heme iron bypasses this mechanism and gives us extra iron.
      • claudeganon 6y ago
        Hundreds of millions of Indians have been vegetarians for centuries without any meaningful difference in health outcomes. Any claim about adverse health effects needs to account for that history. I have a very bleak view about humanity’s ability to overcome the senseless, mass slaughter and consumption of animals, even in spite of the existential risks of pandemic disease and environmental collapse that continuing to do so poses. But the idea that it’s a biological necessity (outside of a very small percentage of people with specific health conditions), seems easily disproven.
        • distant_hat 6y ago
          Malnutrition is rife in India with some 40% of children malnourished and stunted. Indian diet is not very nutritionally balanced and as a result, lifestyle diseases like diabetes and heart disease are quite common in the upper income brackets and malnutrition in the lower income brackets.
      • triceratops 6y ago
        I love meat but by no means is it necessary for living. About 40% of India is ovo-lacto vegetarian and India is in the top half of the life expectancy table compared to other countries with a similar GDP-per capita.[1] I'm personally down to eating meat once or twice per week. Mostly because it's delicious. I feel no different from when I ate meat every day, and I've lost some weight. Most of the resistance to vegetarian diets in the Western world is for cultural reasons. There isn't widespread knowledge of how to feed oneself healthily on a vegetarian diet - people picture endless salads with no fat or protein or taste. And there's the perception of vegetarian sources of protein - beans, legumes, lentils, peanut butter, eggs, tofu, yogurt, paneer - as either foreign or "poverty" foods. There are also notions of masculinity tied up with meat consumption. I have no truck with any of that, but it's silly to try to use faulty nutrition science to defend cultural mores. 1. https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#life-expectancy-and-gdp https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#life-expectancy-a...
  • tomc1985 6y ago
    But I want to eat animals! They are delicious! In all seriousness I find your sentiment amusing. The way you guys explain right past the existence of carnivores or the cruelty that nature is capable of without human interference is downright inspiring.... for me to throw another couple patties on the BBQ
• specialist 6y ago
  That's an interesting take. I'd like to learn more. I remember being surprised to learn about the counterintuitive impact the cotton gin had on slaves. TLDR: It somehow made slavery even worse.
  • dtech 6y ago
    I remember it being touched upon by Freakonomics [1], including references to some sources that elaborate more. I read a book that argues this point, but can't for the life of me remember its author or title. I'm not surprised the cotton gin made slavery worse, the raw cotton still needed to be harvested by humans. [1] https://freakonomics.com/podcast/meat/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/meat/
    • specialist 6y ago
      That was a good episode, thanks. Aside: Recently got addicted to podcasts. I really like their transcriptions.
  • kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    The gin doesn't pick the bolls. It just created bigger fields and more work.