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While I assign pretty significant utilitarian value to "stop eating animals", it still falls a few orders of magnitude short of "provide for the health and well

by wyager 6y ago

While I assign pretty significant utilitarian value to "stop eating animals", it still falls a few orders of magnitude short of "provide for the health and wellbeing of humans". We are, at the very least, decades away from having a complete enough understanding of nutrition to safely replace the nutritional value of beef with a substitute fake beef product. Once we accomplish that, there are some second-order effects to worry about, like increasing single-path reliance on complex agrochemical supply chains to meet basic nutritional needs. It's also worth keeping in mind that living off plants generally kills more total animals (although smaller animals) than living off medium-large animals.

batiudrami 6y ago
As far as I understand it you can have a perfectly suitable vegetarian diet without much effort (note: vegan is trickier and very hard for babies). If you want to maintain your current meat/“meat” consumption then we are still many years off lab meat being cheap and accessible enough yes. The intent of beyond burger, I think, is not to be a meat substitute every time you would currently eat meat, but instead a nice tasting treat food. Sure, it’s salty and full of saturated fats, but I only have them once a month.
- throwaway81523 6y ago
  I haven't tried any of these beyond burger things yet. I probably will sometime but I'm squeamish about the concept. It makes me think of Soylent Green or weird funguses or whatever. It's simpler to just use normal ingredients without meat. Corn and beans is a tasty combo that's ridiculously easy to make with an instant pot (electric pressure cooker) and the plants combine to give you complete protein. Dump a cup of dry beans into the pot (20 pound bag from Costco is about 20 bucks and keeps forever), cover with water, close lid and press the "beans" button, and go back to whatever you were doing on your computer. About 40 minutes later (they go by fast since you are paying zero attention to the cooking) there are some loud beeps. Let out the pressure, dump in a can of corn and maybe some spicy pasta sauce, stir and serve. Or do similar with rice instead of corn, add some green vegetables, etc. The above is quite a filling vegan main course for about $1 per person. No need for techno burgers of insect fritters or any of that weirdness. The instant pot is a life changer-- even more useful than a microwave imho.
sweetheart 6y ago
> It's also worth keeping in mind that living off plants generally kills more total animals This is untrue, as the animals you are eating are fed and raised on plants, which are harvested with the machines that potentially kill the field animals. So even accounting for that, fewer animals will die. Also, animals tend to migrate out of fields during harvesting, and relocate (which is still not good! But better than being ground up by machines)
- wyager 6y ago
  > as the animals you are eating are fed and raised on plants The animals I'm eating aren't fed by slash-and-burn soya or insecticide-grown vegetables. > animals tend to migrate out of fields during harvesting, Farmers don't deal with rodents and other pests by encouraging them to migrate.
dqv 6y ago
>It's also worth keeping in mind that living off plants generally kills more total animals (although smaller animals) than living off medium-large animals. Your net consumption of plants is reduced when you reduce your consumption of animals, friend. How do you figure it would cause the death of more total animals? >While I assign pretty significant utilitarian value to "stop eating animals", it still falls a few orders of magnitude short of "provide for the health and wellbeing of humans". People get along just fine eating only legumes and grains and a few other plants sprinkled in.
- wyager 6y ago
  > How do you figure it would cause the death of more total animals Cattle grazing causes less animal death than industrial plant agriculture (land clearing, pest control, insecticide usage, etc.). > People get along just fine eating only legumes and grain No they don't. Healthy vegans are few and far between. Not that the SAD is much (or any) better.
  - dqv 6y ago
    >Cattle grazing causes less animal death than industrial plant agriculture (land clearing, pest control, insecticide usage, etc.). Even grass fed beef are fed fodder which is the result of industrial plant agriculture. >No they don't. Healthy vegans are few and far between. Yes they do. Healthy vegans are way more common than you think. There is nothing unique about meat that can't be obtained from plant-based foods.
    - wyager 6y ago
      > Even grass fed beef are fed fodder which is the result of industrial plant agriculture. Cattle are fed the byproducts of human agriculture that humans refuse to eat. Anything else cattle are fed (scrubland plants, grass, etc.) is extremely low-impact. > Healthy vegans are way more common than you think. The vast majority of vegans I know are clearly malnourished. Only the ones who exhibit fairly herculean effort manage to maintain a good physique. OTOH, the vast majority of people I know who maintain an extremely animal-heavy (or animal-exclusive) diet show visible indicators of extremely good health (good skin condition, high muscle mass, good bone development, good teeth, etc.) > There is nothing unique about meat that can't be obtained from plant-based foods. Nutrition science is not at a state where we can make this statement conclusively, but what we do know conclusively is that it's at least extremely difficult to get a complete nutritional profile from plants, whereas it's very easy to do so from animal products.

by wyager 6y ago

batiudrami 6y ago

As far as I understand it you can have a perfectly suitable vegetarian diet without much effort (note: vegan is trickier and very hard for babies). If you want to maintain your current meat/“meat” consumption then we are still many years off lab meat being cheap and accessible enough yes. The intent of beyond burger, I think, is not to be a meat substitute every time you would currently eat meat, but instead a nice tasting treat food. Sure, it’s salty and full of saturated fats, but I only have them once a month.

throwaway81523 6y ago
I haven't tried any of these beyond burger things yet. I probably will sometime but I'm squeamish about the concept. It makes me think of Soylent Green or weird funguses or whatever. It's simpler to just use normal ingredients without meat. Corn and beans is a tasty combo that's ridiculously easy to make with an instant pot (electric pressure cooker) and the plants combine to give you complete protein. Dump a cup of dry beans into the pot (20 pound bag from Costco is about 20 bucks and keeps forever), cover with water, close lid and press the "beans" button, and go back to whatever you were doing on your computer. About 40 minutes later (they go by fast since you are paying zero attention to the cooking) there are some loud beeps. Let out the pressure, dump in a can of corn and maybe some spicy pasta sauce, stir and serve. Or do similar with rice instead of corn, add some green vegetables, etc. The above is quite a filling vegan main course for about $1 per person. No need for techno burgers of insect fritters or any of that weirdness. The instant pot is a life changer-- even more useful than a microwave imho.

sweetheart 6y ago

> It's also worth keeping in mind that living off plants generally kills more total animals This is untrue, as the animals you are eating are fed and raised on plants, which are harvested with the machines that potentially kill the field animals. So even accounting for that, fewer animals will die. Also, animals tend to migrate out of fields during harvesting, and relocate (which is still not good! But better than being ground up by machines)

wyager 6y ago
> as the animals you are eating are fed and raised on plants The animals I'm eating aren't fed by slash-and-burn soya or insecticide-grown vegetables. > animals tend to migrate out of fields during harvesting, Farmers don't deal with rodents and other pests by encouraging them to migrate.

dqv 6y ago

>It's also worth keeping in mind that living off plants generally kills more total animals (although smaller animals) than living off medium-large animals. Your net consumption of plants is reduced when you reduce your consumption of animals, friend. How do you figure it would cause the death of more total animals? >While I assign pretty significant utilitarian value to "stop eating animals", it still falls a few orders of magnitude short of "provide for the health and wellbeing of humans". People get along just fine eating only legumes and grains and a few other plants sprinkled in.

wyager 6y ago
> How do you figure it would cause the death of more total animals Cattle grazing causes less animal death than industrial plant agriculture (land clearing, pest control, insecticide usage, etc.). > People get along just fine eating only legumes and grain No they don't. Healthy vegans are few and far between. Not that the SAD is much (or any) better.
- dqv 6y ago
  >Cattle grazing causes less animal death than industrial plant agriculture (land clearing, pest control, insecticide usage, etc.). Even grass fed beef are fed fodder which is the result of industrial plant agriculture. >No they don't. Healthy vegans are few and far between. Yes they do. Healthy vegans are way more common than you think. There is nothing unique about meat that can't be obtained from plant-based foods.
  - wyager 6y ago
    > Even grass fed beef are fed fodder which is the result of industrial plant agriculture. Cattle are fed the byproducts of human agriculture that humans refuse to eat. Anything else cattle are fed (scrubland plants, grass, etc.) is extremely low-impact. > Healthy vegans are way more common than you think. The vast majority of vegans I know are clearly malnourished. Only the ones who exhibit fairly herculean effort manage to maintain a good physique. OTOH, the vast majority of people I know who maintain an extremely animal-heavy (or animal-exclusive) diet show visible indicators of extremely good health (good skin condition, high muscle mass, good bone development, good teeth, etc.) > There is nothing unique about meat that can't be obtained from plant-based foods. Nutrition science is not at a state where we can make this statement conclusively, but what we do know conclusively is that it's at least extremely difficult to get a complete nutritional profile from plants, whereas it's very easy to do so from animal products.