2 ms·

More crops are grown to feed the livestock than people, so if you want to save the field animals and insects, going plant based will save even more.

fastball 5y ago
Not sure this is true if you're looking at free-range though. There are many places which are not very amenable to growing crops fit for human consumption, but are more than adequate for growing the grasses (and more) that ruminant digestive systems (e.g. cows) can easily digest. So if you're growing soy on deforested land as a base for your "cruelty free" burger, it is very possible that this has damaged the original ecology (and killed living things) more than having grazing cattle would.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > Not sure this is true if you're looking at free-range though. There are many places which are not very amenable to growing crops fit for human consumption, but are more than adequate for growing the grasses that ruminant digestive systems (e.g. cows) can easily digest. Exactly. It's not like animal husbandry and meat-eating developed as some kind of ostentatious wasteful consumption. It's a way of converting inedible plants into edible meat.
  - sweetheart 5y ago
    Sure, totally, but how many of us live in places where we have access to the cows but not non-animals foods that can sustain us? Virtually none. So while its true that human beings ate meat for good reasons for a LONG time, its not really something that most folks need anymore. Is it true that everywhere we have cows we can also grow soy or wheat or whatever? No, definitely not. Does that matter? No, definitely not.
  - cageface 5y ago
    If you live in the US 90% of the meat you eat was raised in factory farms and fed farmed grains not forage.
- telchar 5y ago
  This argument - which I see often - ignores that land doesn’t have to be used for growing crops or grazing. Leaving some land wild allows biodiversity which has quite literally unquantifiable benefits now and far into the future. Using less land in total let’s us leave more land wild, and/or to put solar panels on it, or put it to other uses that may be beneficial. Further, some of that land which is unsuitable for growing crops used to be - and was degraded by growing crops or grazing. Further degrading and depleting it doesn’t do us any favors.
  - fastball 5y ago
    Land doesn't have to be used for anything, unless you want to do things. The point is that grazing is much less destructive to the original ecology than farming, so it's not clear that 1 acre of farming is better than 100 acres of grazing. I might be misguided here, but AFAIK grazing doesn't "deplete" the land at all (and might even improve the land with manure / etc), where as farming absolutely does unless you're careful about it.
    - spicymaki 5y ago
      You can’t scale environmentally friendly organic grass fed beef. There is a reason why we have cruel factory farms.
      - fastball 5y ago
        Right, but I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing that Beyond Burgers don't scale better – people are merely pushing back against the idea that we should eliminate all consumption of meat and that all methods of raising such are objectively worse than such alternatives.
wyager 5y ago
> More crops are grown to feed the livestock than people This is entirely misleading. More plant biomass goes to animals than people, but very little of it is human-edible and much of it consists of byproducts of human plant consumption (e.g. corn husks). You hear this BS all the time e.g. with soy. Yes, the "majority of soy" goes to cattle but that's because humans won't eat soybean meal. The economic impetus to grow the soy in the first place still comes from humans. If they were only feeding it to cattle it wouldn't be profitable.

fastball 5y ago

Not sure this is true if you're looking at free-range though. There are many places which are not very amenable to growing crops fit for human consumption, but are more than adequate for growing the grasses (and more) that ruminant digestive systems (e.g. cows) can easily digest. So if you're growing soy on deforested land as a base for your "cruelty free" burger, it is very possible that this has damaged the original ecology (and killed living things) more than having grazing cattle would.

tablespoon 5y ago
> Not sure this is true if you're looking at free-range though. There are many places which are not very amenable to growing crops fit for human consumption, but are more than adequate for growing the grasses that ruminant digestive systems (e.g. cows) can easily digest. Exactly. It's not like animal husbandry and meat-eating developed as some kind of ostentatious wasteful consumption. It's a way of converting inedible plants into edible meat.
- sweetheart 5y ago
  Sure, totally, but how many of us live in places where we have access to the cows but not non-animals foods that can sustain us? Virtually none. So while its true that human beings ate meat for good reasons for a LONG time, its not really something that most folks need anymore. Is it true that everywhere we have cows we can also grow soy or wheat or whatever? No, definitely not. Does that matter? No, definitely not.
- cageface 5y ago
  If you live in the US 90% of the meat you eat was raised in factory farms and fed farmed grains not forage.
telchar 5y ago
This argument - which I see often - ignores that land doesn’t have to be used for growing crops or grazing. Leaving some land wild allows biodiversity which has quite literally unquantifiable benefits now and far into the future. Using less land in total let’s us leave more land wild, and/or to put solar panels on it, or put it to other uses that may be beneficial. Further, some of that land which is unsuitable for growing crops used to be - and was degraded by growing crops or grazing. Further degrading and depleting it doesn’t do us any favors.
- fastball 5y ago
  Land doesn't have to be used for anything, unless you want to do things. The point is that grazing is much less destructive to the original ecology than farming, so it's not clear that 1 acre of farming is better than 100 acres of grazing. I might be misguided here, but AFAIK grazing doesn't "deplete" the land at all (and might even improve the land with manure / etc), where as farming absolutely does unless you're careful about it.
  - spicymaki 5y ago
    You can’t scale environmentally friendly organic grass fed beef. There is a reason why we have cruel factory farms.
    - fastball 5y ago
      Right, but I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing that Beyond Burgers don't scale better – people are merely pushing back against the idea that we should eliminate all consumption of meat and that all methods of raising such are objectively worse than such alternatives.

wyager 5y ago

> More crops are grown to feed the livestock than people This is entirely misleading. More plant biomass goes to animals than people, but very little of it is human-edible and much of it consists of byproducts of human plant consumption (e.g. corn husks). You hear this BS all the time e.g. with soy. Yes, the "majority of soy" goes to cattle but that's because humans won't eat soybean meal. The economic impetus to grow the soy in the first place still comes from humans. If they were only feeding it to cattle it wouldn't be profitable.