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Animals yes. Plants? I eat them without guilt. I wouldn't eat insects, not only because of my conditioned disgust, but now even moreso because crustaceans were

Animals yes. Plants? I eat them without guilt. I wouldn't eat insects, not only because of my conditioned disgust, but now even moreso because crustaceans were found to be capable of suffering based on an 8-point scale. Bugs and crabs don't seem so far off to one another in my mind.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago
We as a society seem to have no problem killing millions of insects to make it easier to grow plants though. No matter what you eat, things are dying to supply your food. If you want to minimize the number of animals being killed, it’s probably best to eat the largest ones you have.
- nefitty 5y ago
  Sentience is a matter of degree. That's why people can compare the intelligence of a chimpanzee to the intelligence of a three year old human. Or why it's intuitive to prefer saving the life of a human to saving the life of a fish. That does not diminish the capability of suffering that the fish has, but merely comparing the objective complexity of a human's preferences vs a fish's.
- sweetheart 5y ago
  How do you think we grow those bigger animals though? We grow plants to feed them and convert those plant calories to animal calories at a mind bogglingly inefficient rate. If you want to reduce death and suffering overall, sticking to plants only is the best route.
  - asdff 5y ago
    We also grow plants to burn in F150s. OTOH you also cannot convert all the pastoral land into agricultural land. In fact its probably pastoral land in the first place because the land is not that possible to farm on otherwise (e.g. hilly/narrow/rock laden pastures which are quite common across hilly areas like appalachia). The fact is there are good ways to grow animals and plants, and bad ways, and we should just focus on eliminating the bad ways and allowing the market to set prices on what the good practices are. It honestly wound't be too expensive; grassfed pastured beef isn't too much of a premium, neither is soybean that came from an ohio field instead of a Brazilian rainforest. If subsidizes were eliminated for the mass market operations that damage the environment, and introduced for these sustainable operations, you'd see a lot of self correction in the market to fit these more sustainable practices.
    - sweetheart 5y ago
      Kurzgesagt has a great video explaining how grass fed beef isn’t really very viable at all. I suggest you watch it. It came out a couple months ago and talks about this at length. Give it a google.
      - asdff 5y ago
        If its something like its too costly then that's fine too. Let mcDonalds become bean burgers if their pricepoint with the cost of proper grassfed beef doesn't make any sense anymore.
- PretzelPirate 5y ago
  > it’s probably best to eat the largest ones you have. This fails at scale. Feeding our population on large animals requires significantly more plant mass than if we eat plants. Large animals are terribly inefficient at converting plant matter into food. We will harm fewer sentient creatures if we simply eat plants directly.
  - PaulHoule 5y ago
    If you are eating grains directly or feed grains to (say) chickens you have to plow the land, clear other vegetation, cause erosion, probably use fertilizers and pesticides. At a certain scale though you can graze animals on grass sustainably, building soil structure instead of destroying it. The environmental movement has a beef with beef but the more I look at it chicken is the problem.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago

We as a society seem to have no problem killing millions of insects to make it easier to grow plants though. No matter what you eat, things are dying to supply your food. If you want to minimize the number of animals being killed, it’s probably best to eat the largest ones you have.

nefitty 5y ago
Sentience is a matter of degree. That's why people can compare the intelligence of a chimpanzee to the intelligence of a three year old human. Or why it's intuitive to prefer saving the life of a human to saving the life of a fish. That does not diminish the capability of suffering that the fish has, but merely comparing the objective complexity of a human's preferences vs a fish's.
sweetheart 5y ago
How do you think we grow those bigger animals though? We grow plants to feed them and convert those plant calories to animal calories at a mind bogglingly inefficient rate. If you want to reduce death and suffering overall, sticking to plants only is the best route.
- asdff 5y ago
  We also grow plants to burn in F150s. OTOH you also cannot convert all the pastoral land into agricultural land. In fact its probably pastoral land in the first place because the land is not that possible to farm on otherwise (e.g. hilly/narrow/rock laden pastures which are quite common across hilly areas like appalachia). The fact is there are good ways to grow animals and plants, and bad ways, and we should just focus on eliminating the bad ways and allowing the market to set prices on what the good practices are. It honestly wound't be too expensive; grassfed pastured beef isn't too much of a premium, neither is soybean that came from an ohio field instead of a Brazilian rainforest. If subsidizes were eliminated for the mass market operations that damage the environment, and introduced for these sustainable operations, you'd see a lot of self correction in the market to fit these more sustainable practices.
  - sweetheart 5y ago
    Kurzgesagt has a great video explaining how grass fed beef isn’t really very viable at all. I suggest you watch it. It came out a couple months ago and talks about this at length. Give it a google.
    - asdff 5y ago
      If its something like its too costly then that's fine too. Let mcDonalds become bean burgers if their pricepoint with the cost of proper grassfed beef doesn't make any sense anymore.
PretzelPirate 5y ago
> it’s probably best to eat the largest ones you have. This fails at scale. Feeding our population on large animals requires significantly more plant mass than if we eat plants. Large animals are terribly inefficient at converting plant matter into food. We will harm fewer sentient creatures if we simply eat plants directly.
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  If you are eating grains directly or feed grains to (say) chickens you have to plow the land, clear other vegetation, cause erosion, probably use fertilizers and pesticides. At a certain scale though you can graze animals on grass sustainably, building soil structure instead of destroying it. The environmental movement has a beef with beef but the more I look at it chicken is the problem.