10 ms·

It is pretty insane when you think about it. We could get all the climate harm reduction benefits the article mentions if people would just choose to eat plants

by issa 4y ago

It is pretty insane when you think about it. We could get all the climate harm reduction benefits the article mentions if people would just choose to eat plants instead. Seems like a very simple solution.

manigandham 4y ago
There’s nothing simple about changing human nature. If you have to start with "if people would just choose" then it's not viable.
- azakai 4y ago
  It's not simple, you're right, but history has shown again and again that it can be viable. Society has made a lot of progress. In the end people can just choose. If someone reading this right now eats meat, then you can make the choice to eat more plants. Please do so as much as you can, that will make a difference in saving the planet!
  - aszantu 4y ago
    I'd love to eat plants a lot. Just turns out they give me depression.(takes about 4 days after ingestion) There is something called bio-availability and there are nutrients in meat that you don't ever get from plants. But it would be nice if there were public pig pens where you could recycle food waste into bacon. Transportation is the biggest co2 producer...
    - aszantu 4y ago
      since there were a few comments, telling me it's impossible that what I experience happens. Background: I've seen a lot of violence in my childhood, lost my friends more than once through moving or switching schools, have been abused in school by a teacher and felt unwanted in general. Although I'm smart, I always was forgetful and felt stupid, took longer to understand things than others, one of these would be enough to give depression. for about 30 years I suffered depression, started when I was about seven up until roundabout 35 years old. I was only diagnosed with serious depression(suicidal ideation, woke up at night, thought someone evil is in my room, crying a lot, hopelessness, low energy, panic attacks, unable to hold down a job), adhd and some borderline schizoid spectrum in 2012, went to therapy, rehab, and emotion control training. In 2017 I left the latest rehab with doctors telling me there was no hope. Up until that point I was the person who would eat anything, didn't care, meat, fruit, carbs, sugary stuff. I love food! Sept 2017: In the forums Keto would pop up now and then, that was the last thing I hadn't tried the last 4 years so I thought I'd give it a shot. And within a week the depression cleared. And every time I told someone they told me, that it's not okay to eat that much meat, and food can't cause depression, and I should go back to eating "normal". Energy levels where higher than I'd ever known, my mood stabilized. My finances were down to the last penny, so I had to prioritize meat over everything else, someone mentioned zero carb. At that point I still ate dandelion (picked them in the streets, on lawns, in the surrounding fields) with lemmon juice, just to get in enough fat for the ketogenic diet. I decided to give it a shot. To my surprise, the panic attacks went down within a week, I stopped waking up at night and seeing things that weren't there. If this experience is placebo, I'm okay with it. No doctor has been able to explain it to me, I don't have any allergies to food, so it has to be something in the gut. I have a sibo-test sitting, but haven't done it yet. So now, roundabout 5 years later, I've been working since 2019, high performing in what I do, no needless crying, no energy crash, no suicidal ideation. I'm still forgetful, but that's okay. Baseline eating is 170 grams of fat/70 grams of protein, preferably organic, locally sourced beef, but I'll eat anything meat that comes my way. Over the years I've tested all kinds of greens and carbs. All kinds of seeds seem to give me hopelessness, while sugary fruit, tubers and processed carbs sap my energy and green veggies seem to give me the idea that someone is watching me. When I don't test for a few weeks, I'm stable and don't get any of these effects. There are some things I can eat, but even they seem to have a threshold. Currants, glazed onions, Coconut milk raspberries (A handful a week seems okay, more will trigger symptoms) artificial sweeteners - curious with these, they make me angry (again 4 days until it sets in)
    - albertgoeswoof 4y ago
      You switched to a plant based diet and it gave you depression 4 days later? Or you only eat meat and tried eating fruit and veg with it? If it’s the latter, I don’t think it’s the plants causing the problem!
    - GeorgeBanica 4y ago
      >there are nutrients in meat that you don't ever get from plants. I'm curious, what are some of those nutrients?
      - pcthrowaway 4y ago
        Off the top of my head, DHA/EPA Omega 3s, Creatine, and Glucosamine aren't really found in plants. I think Choline and B12 are hard to get adequate amounts from plant sources as well. I think you can live OK without those (I'm vegan), but supplementing the above from non-animal sources is probably a good idea, or at least not a bad one.
        myshpa 4y ago
        There is a lot of non-animal sources for that stuff. We don't need animals for production of dietary supplements. IMHO vegans need to supplement only B12, as we live in too sterile environments to get enought of it naturally, for other things sufficiently diverse diet should suffice. DHA/EPA Omega 3s - algae, seaweed, spirulina, flaxseed, chiaseeds, hempseeds, wallnuts, cruciferous vegetables (brussel sprouts) Creatine - spirulina, chives, edamame, ... (https://thedietauthority.com/best-sources-of-creatine-for-vegans/ https://thedietauthority.com/best-sources-of-creatine-for-ve...) Glucosamine - corn, wheat Choline - legumes B12 - bacteria, nutritional yeast, seaweed, mushrooms
        cheese_goddess 4y ago
        Great way to eat if you live in a rich country, or, dunno, California, I guess. Rather than saying "vegan", why not be honest and just say "Silicon Valley diet"? "Spirulina", "seaweed", "edamame"... I guess I can enjoy my nutritional definiciencies then, eh? Because there's no spirulina, or edible seaweeds, or edamame within a boat trip of where I live. Btw: you can't get enough B12 from any of the sources you list. But who's afraid of B12 deficiency, when it's for a good cause, amirite?
        myshpa 4y ago
    - myshpa 4y ago
      > I'd love to eat plants a lot. Just turns out they give me depression.(takes about 4 days after ingestion) Eat a diverse low-fat, whole plant-based diet - if you don't how or what, find yourself a weekly vegan meal plan. Supplement with B12 and you'll be fine. Learn to cook, explore vegan meals/recipes from around the world, stay away from processed food. > There is something called bio-availability and there are nutrients in meat that you don't ever get from plants. That's a lie you've been told. Plants are enough (again, don't forget your B12 vegan supplements). > Transportation is the biggest co2 producer... Transport, processing, retail & packaging is a miniscule part in CO2 production compared to land use change & farming. [https://ychef.files.bbci.co.uk/1600x900/p0c41fcj.webp https://ychef.files.bbci.co.uk/1600x900/p0c41fcj.webp - Emissions (in kg CO2e) from the food supply chain – the climate impact of food miles is often a small proportion (Source: Our World in Data/Poore and Nemecek, Science, 2018), linked from ] [https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220429-the-climate-bene https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220429-the-climate-bene...]
      - koide 4y ago
        It depends. Humans vary and, while you may thrive on a plant diet, you can't generalize your experience. There are people who have problems even supplementing B12. Others don't. You can't just tell those who have that they've been living a lie.
        myshpa 4y ago
        I know that there are always exceptions and that some, i repeat some, will have problems on a plant diet. But it will be IMHO a miniscule percent/promile, not a majority. > there are nutrients in meat that you don't ever get from plants Plant-Based Diets Are Not Nutritionally Deficient https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3854817/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3854817/ "More than a half-century of creative marketing by the meat, dairy, egg, and fish industries has produced fears surrounding nonexistent deficiencies, which in clinical practice need no patient monitoring by physicians and dietitians"
        koide 4y ago
    - cheese_goddess 4y ago
      > I'd love to eat plants a lot. Just turns out they give me depression.(takes about 4 days after ingestion) I mean no offense, and I'm no vegan (ha ha no), but it sounds like you need a therapist more than you need a butcher. There is no way that eating plants gives you depression. It's even less likely that "it takes 4 days" for it to go off.
  - manigandham 4y ago
    Yes society has made a lot of progress - in offering more freedom, luxury and opportunity to more people than ever before - like eating meat. Give me an example of the reverse happening. We cannot "choose" our way out of this situation by somehow getting the entire globe to agree to want less.
    - azakai 4y ago
      For example, animal cruelty. Over time people have been choosing to abuse animals less and less, and today many societies have an increasing number of laws protecting animals. There are lots of other examples. Domestic violence against a spouse, and violence against children, are things that have changed a lot. Things that were once considered normal, like marital rape or beating a misbehaving child, are now socially unacceptable in many societies. You are right that history tends towards more freedom. But also towards being more moral (which can mean less freedom in a technical sense). Eating less meat would be an example of that, and it is happening today, just slowly. If more of us make the effort, we can speed it up and help save the planet. It really is a choice each of us can make right now! You are also right that we don't need to just wait on personal choices. That might not be enough. We can also get governments to subsidize plant-based food to make it cheaper than meat, for example.
      - cheese_goddess 4y ago
        Eating less meat is not "more moral" it's just what you want people to do. It's always the same thing, when a post is about the environment the vegans come in and start telling everyone to stop eating meat to save the planet. But somehow I don't see vegans ever telling people to drive less, walk more, wash their clothes by hand, not throw out electronic devices just to get new ones etc etc, it's just eating meat that you want them to stop doing. Yet, the cause of climate change, and its main driver, is burning fossil fuels, not farming. 3/4s of carbon emissions come from burning fossil fuels for enegry production in sectors other than agriculture: https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector#sector-by-sector-where-do-global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector#sector-by-sec... But when vegans are concerned about the environment it's always eating less meat they tell others to do, not burn less fossil fuels. Why? Why is it more urgent to stop 1/4 of the damage to the environment that 3/4s? It's not more urgent, it's just your ideology that says it's more important to eat less meat than stop climate change. I wish that HN had clear guidelines against trying to prosyletise people into somebody's political, or metaphysical beliefs.
  - cute_boi 4y ago
    I hope vegan food becomes cheaper & it is very wild that vegan restaurant are generally more expensive due to economics & subsidy.
- myshpa 4y ago
  It's not human nature. It's just a tradition. And a tradition is just a story (maybe even a lie) we've been taught, and which we tell ourselves. Stories are easily changed - like slavery or patriarchy, for example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7JE8j5Ncmw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7JE8j5Ncmw
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    They have a point. We may be relatively smart individuals, but, collectively, humanity is unbelievably stupid. It’s not like we found out yesterday we’ll all die unless we change our ways. We’ve known this for at least a generation and, yet, we keep building the political-industrial systems that will bring our extinction in exchange for some short-term individual gains. I’m not innocent of that either: last year we weighted our options and we ended up getting a gas-powered car because the EV equivalent would still be more expensive over the three year lease.
  - koide 4y ago
    Easily changed? Slavery is still real today in many places and took wars over centuries to get to where we are today. Seems like you have a very special definition of easy.
    - myshpa 4y ago
      “People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and 15 minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.” ― Steve Perry, Men In Black
      - koide 4y ago
        gotcha, when the aliens come we'll all be vegan.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  You start with not subsidizing the meat industry massively (via direct handouts, subsidized feed and so on) and making them pay for exterrnalities. That way they'll have vastly less money for advertising and lobbying. Then you take the trillions you've saved and use it to bring healthy, convenient, tasty options to put in front of them. It's actually pretty easy to get people to make different choices, you just make the good choice slightly more convenient and stop subjecting them to 24/7 manipulation to make the terrible choice.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    > bring healthy, convenient, tasty options to put in front of them It seems like this would be enough and that you don’t have to take all the steps laid out as preliminary. (You could still do them in parallel if you like.)
  - cheese_goddess 4y ago
    > That way they'll have vastly less money for advertising and lobbying. You think that people eat meat because of lobbying and advertisting from the meat industry? Like tobacco, or alcohol? Or gambling? Is that the idea?
sokoloff 4y ago
We wouldn’t have had to invent different forms of birth control if people would just refrain from penile-vaginal intercourse unless seeking pregnancy. Seems like an equally simple solution.
- issa 4y ago
  Not a terrible example, but I think the difference is that we, as a society, sweep the issue of animal suffering under the rug. Most Americans are horrified if someone mistreats a dog, but don't bat an eye at the treatment of cows and pigs that end up on their plate. And a lot of effort is expended to keep that disconnect in place. I recall The Hamburgler stealing hamburgers off of the trees where they were growing in McDonalds commercials. Not to mention government subsidies that bring down the price of meat. So, ultimately, I think it IS a simple solution, we just need to stop actively working against it.
cheese_goddess 4y ago
People could choose to eat plants insted, but they'll also need to take supplements to avoid becoming malnourished, for example deficient in B12 vitamin. Feeding everyone a vegan diet and making sure that everyone is scrupulously watching their nutrients and taking appropriate supllementation on a planetary scale moves your "simple solution" to the realm of science fantasy.
- uxcolumbo 4y ago
  Guess what... animal feed is substituted with B12. Meat eaters were also advised to take vitamin D. Lots of foods are already fortified with these vitamins. I don't do anything extra other than eating a well balanced plant-based diet. Had my blood-work done recently (48 biomarkers) and it was all good. No deficiencies. It is simple and definitely worth the effort - because the result will be not destroying our biosphere due to our meat & dairy addiction.
  - cheese_goddess 4y ago
    > Guess what... animal feed is substituted with B12. > Meat eaters were also advised to take vitamin D. > Lots of foods are already fortified with these vitamins. Maybe where you live, but certainly not where I live, and where I eat. Don't project the destructive ways of your culture on everyone else. Not everyone eats the way you do. I for instance, have been brought up on a Mediterrannean diet since birth and I still cook and eat for myself and my people the same way. The Mediterrannean diet is a plant based diet rich in vegetables, fruit, pulses, legumes, and also fish and dairy and overflowing with rivers of extra virgin olive oil. 80% of the traditional dishes in my culture have no animal products in them, or they have only dairy. In my entire life I will probably consume less meat and fewer animal products than any citizen of an industrialised country who turned vegan in their twenties. So I'll take no preaching from you about how I eat, thank you very much. Fix your world and don't mind mine. It's not my lifestyle that is "destroying our biosphere", it is yours, and that of the people who live around you. ... meat and dairy addiction ... Faah. What clueless garbage! Milk and dairy is the richess of my land. You exploit your land to death and then you blame everyone else for your own failings?

by issa 4y ago

manigandham 4y ago

There’s nothing simple about changing human nature. If you have to start with "if people would just choose" then it's not viable.

azakai 4y ago
It's not simple, you're right, but history has shown again and again that it can be viable. Society has made a lot of progress. In the end people can just choose. If someone reading this right now eats meat, then you can make the choice to eat more plants. Please do so as much as you can, that will make a difference in saving the planet!
- aszantu 4y ago
  I'd love to eat plants a lot. Just turns out they give me depression.(takes about 4 days after ingestion) There is something called bio-availability and there are nutrients in meat that you don't ever get from plants. But it would be nice if there were public pig pens where you could recycle food waste into bacon. Transportation is the biggest co2 producer...
  - aszantu 4y ago
    since there were a few comments, telling me it's impossible that what I experience happens. Background: I've seen a lot of violence in my childhood, lost my friends more than once through moving or switching schools, have been abused in school by a teacher and felt unwanted in general. Although I'm smart, I always was forgetful and felt stupid, took longer to understand things than others, one of these would be enough to give depression. for about 30 years I suffered depression, started when I was about seven up until roundabout 35 years old. I was only diagnosed with serious depression(suicidal ideation, woke up at night, thought someone evil is in my room, crying a lot, hopelessness, low energy, panic attacks, unable to hold down a job), adhd and some borderline schizoid spectrum in 2012, went to therapy, rehab, and emotion control training. In 2017 I left the latest rehab with doctors telling me there was no hope. Up until that point I was the person who would eat anything, didn't care, meat, fruit, carbs, sugary stuff. I love food! Sept 2017: In the forums Keto would pop up now and then, that was the last thing I hadn't tried the last 4 years so I thought I'd give it a shot. And within a week the depression cleared. And every time I told someone they told me, that it's not okay to eat that much meat, and food can't cause depression, and I should go back to eating "normal". Energy levels where higher than I'd ever known, my mood stabilized. My finances were down to the last penny, so I had to prioritize meat over everything else, someone mentioned zero carb. At that point I still ate dandelion (picked them in the streets, on lawns, in the surrounding fields) with lemmon juice, just to get in enough fat for the ketogenic diet. I decided to give it a shot. To my surprise, the panic attacks went down within a week, I stopped waking up at night and seeing things that weren't there. If this experience is placebo, I'm okay with it. No doctor has been able to explain it to me, I don't have any allergies to food, so it has to be something in the gut. I have a sibo-test sitting, but haven't done it yet. So now, roundabout 5 years later, I've been working since 2019, high performing in what I do, no needless crying, no energy crash, no suicidal ideation. I'm still forgetful, but that's okay. Baseline eating is 170 grams of fat/70 grams of protein, preferably organic, locally sourced beef, but I'll eat anything meat that comes my way. Over the years I've tested all kinds of greens and carbs. All kinds of seeds seem to give me hopelessness, while sugary fruit, tubers and processed carbs sap my energy and green veggies seem to give me the idea that someone is watching me. When I don't test for a few weeks, I'm stable and don't get any of these effects. There are some things I can eat, but even they seem to have a threshold. Currants, glazed onions, Coconut milk raspberries (A handful a week seems okay, more will trigger symptoms) artificial sweeteners - curious with these, they make me angry (again 4 days until it sets in)
  - albertgoeswoof 4y ago
    You switched to a plant based diet and it gave you depression 4 days later? Or you only eat meat and tried eating fruit and veg with it? If it’s the latter, I don’t think it’s the plants causing the problem!
  - GeorgeBanica 4y ago
    >there are nutrients in meat that you don't ever get from plants. I'm curious, what are some of those nutrients?
    - pcthrowaway 4y ago
      Off the top of my head, DHA/EPA Omega 3s, Creatine, and Glucosamine aren't really found in plants. I think Choline and B12 are hard to get adequate amounts from plant sources as well. I think you can live OK without those (I'm vegan), but supplementing the above from non-animal sources is probably a good idea, or at least not a bad one.
      - myshpa 4y ago
        There is a lot of non-animal sources for that stuff. We don't need animals for production of dietary supplements. IMHO vegans need to supplement only B12, as we live in too sterile environments to get enought of it naturally, for other things sufficiently diverse diet should suffice. DHA/EPA Omega 3s - algae, seaweed, spirulina, flaxseed, chiaseeds, hempseeds, wallnuts, cruciferous vegetables (brussel sprouts) Creatine - spirulina, chives, edamame, ... (https://thedietauthority.com/best-sources-of-creatine-for-vegans/ https://thedietauthority.com/best-sources-of-creatine-for-ve...) Glucosamine - corn, wheat Choline - legumes B12 - bacteria, nutritional yeast, seaweed, mushrooms
        cheese_goddess 4y ago
        Great way to eat if you live in a rich country, or, dunno, California, I guess. Rather than saying "vegan", why not be honest and just say "Silicon Valley diet"? "Spirulina", "seaweed", "edamame"... I guess I can enjoy my nutritional definiciencies then, eh? Because there's no spirulina, or edible seaweeds, or edamame within a boat trip of where I live. Btw: you can't get enough B12 from any of the sources you list. But who's afraid of B12 deficiency, when it's for a good cause, amirite?
        myshpa 4y ago
  - myshpa 4y ago
    > I'd love to eat plants a lot. Just turns out they give me depression.(takes about 4 days after ingestion) Eat a diverse low-fat, whole plant-based diet - if you don't how or what, find yourself a weekly vegan meal plan. Supplement with B12 and you'll be fine. Learn to cook, explore vegan meals/recipes from around the world, stay away from processed food. > There is something called bio-availability and there are nutrients in meat that you don't ever get from plants. That's a lie you've been told. Plants are enough (again, don't forget your B12 vegan supplements). > Transportation is the biggest co2 producer... Transport, processing, retail & packaging is a miniscule part in CO2 production compared to land use change & farming. [https://ychef.files.bbci.co.uk/1600x900/p0c41fcj.webp https://ychef.files.bbci.co.uk/1600x900/p0c41fcj.webp - Emissions (in kg CO2e) from the food supply chain – the climate impact of food miles is often a small proportion (Source: Our World in Data/Poore and Nemecek, Science, 2018), linked from ] [https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220429-the-climate-bene https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220429-the-climate-bene...]
    - koide 4y ago
      It depends. Humans vary and, while you may thrive on a plant diet, you can't generalize your experience. There are people who have problems even supplementing B12. Others don't. You can't just tell those who have that they've been living a lie.
      - myshpa 4y ago
        I know that there are always exceptions and that some, i repeat some, will have problems on a plant diet. But it will be IMHO a miniscule percent/promile, not a majority. > there are nutrients in meat that you don't ever get from plants Plant-Based Diets Are Not Nutritionally Deficient https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3854817/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3854817/ "More than a half-century of creative marketing by the meat, dairy, egg, and fish industries has produced fears surrounding nonexistent deficiencies, which in clinical practice need no patient monitoring by physicians and dietitians"
        koide 4y ago
  - cheese_goddess 4y ago
    > I'd love to eat plants a lot. Just turns out they give me depression.(takes about 4 days after ingestion) I mean no offense, and I'm no vegan (ha ha no), but it sounds like you need a therapist more than you need a butcher. There is no way that eating plants gives you depression. It's even less likely that "it takes 4 days" for it to go off.
- manigandham 4y ago
  Yes society has made a lot of progress - in offering more freedom, luxury and opportunity to more people than ever before - like eating meat. Give me an example of the reverse happening. We cannot "choose" our way out of this situation by somehow getting the entire globe to agree to want less.
  - azakai 4y ago
    For example, animal cruelty. Over time people have been choosing to abuse animals less and less, and today many societies have an increasing number of laws protecting animals. There are lots of other examples. Domestic violence against a spouse, and violence against children, are things that have changed a lot. Things that were once considered normal, like marital rape or beating a misbehaving child, are now socially unacceptable in many societies. You are right that history tends towards more freedom. But also towards being more moral (which can mean less freedom in a technical sense). Eating less meat would be an example of that, and it is happening today, just slowly. If more of us make the effort, we can speed it up and help save the planet. It really is a choice each of us can make right now! You are also right that we don't need to just wait on personal choices. That might not be enough. We can also get governments to subsidize plant-based food to make it cheaper than meat, for example.
    - cheese_goddess 4y ago
      Eating less meat is not "more moral" it's just what you want people to do. It's always the same thing, when a post is about the environment the vegans come in and start telling everyone to stop eating meat to save the planet. But somehow I don't see vegans ever telling people to drive less, walk more, wash their clothes by hand, not throw out electronic devices just to get new ones etc etc, it's just eating meat that you want them to stop doing. Yet, the cause of climate change, and its main driver, is burning fossil fuels, not farming. 3/4s of carbon emissions come from burning fossil fuels for enegry production in sectors other than agriculture: https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector#sector-by-sector-where-do-global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector#sector-by-sec... But when vegans are concerned about the environment it's always eating less meat they tell others to do, not burn less fossil fuels. Why? Why is it more urgent to stop 1/4 of the damage to the environment that 3/4s? It's not more urgent, it's just your ideology that says it's more important to eat less meat than stop climate change. I wish that HN had clear guidelines against trying to prosyletise people into somebody's political, or metaphysical beliefs.
- cute_boi 4y ago
  I hope vegan food becomes cheaper & it is very wild that vegan restaurant are generally more expensive due to economics & subsidy.
myshpa 4y ago
It's not human nature. It's just a tradition. And a tradition is just a story (maybe even a lie) we've been taught, and which we tell ourselves. Stories are easily changed - like slavery or patriarchy, for example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7JE8j5Ncmw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7JE8j5Ncmw
- rbanffy 4y ago
  They have a point. We may be relatively smart individuals, but, collectively, humanity is unbelievably stupid. It’s not like we found out yesterday we’ll all die unless we change our ways. We’ve known this for at least a generation and, yet, we keep building the political-industrial systems that will bring our extinction in exchange for some short-term individual gains. I’m not innocent of that either: last year we weighted our options and we ended up getting a gas-powered car because the EV equivalent would still be more expensive over the three year lease.
- koide 4y ago
  Easily changed? Slavery is still real today in many places and took wars over centuries to get to where we are today. Seems like you have a very special definition of easy.
  - myshpa 4y ago
    “People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and 15 minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.” ― Steve Perry, Men In Black
    - koide 4y ago
      gotcha, when the aliens come we'll all be vegan.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Schroedingersat 4y ago
You start with not subsidizing the meat industry massively (via direct handouts, subsidized feed and so on) and making them pay for exterrnalities. That way they'll have vastly less money for advertising and lobbying. Then you take the trillions you've saved and use it to bring healthy, convenient, tasty options to put in front of them. It's actually pretty easy to get people to make different choices, you just make the good choice slightly more convenient and stop subjecting them to 24/7 manipulation to make the terrible choice.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  > bring healthy, convenient, tasty options to put in front of them It seems like this would be enough and that you don’t have to take all the steps laid out as preliminary. (You could still do them in parallel if you like.)
- cheese_goddess 4y ago
  > That way they'll have vastly less money for advertising and lobbying. You think that people eat meat because of lobbying and advertisting from the meat industry? Like tobacco, or alcohol? Or gambling? Is that the idea?

sokoloff 4y ago

We wouldn’t have had to invent different forms of birth control if people would just refrain from penile-vaginal intercourse unless seeking pregnancy. Seems like an equally simple solution.

issa 4y ago
Not a terrible example, but I think the difference is that we, as a society, sweep the issue of animal suffering under the rug. Most Americans are horrified if someone mistreats a dog, but don't bat an eye at the treatment of cows and pigs that end up on their plate. And a lot of effort is expended to keep that disconnect in place. I recall The Hamburgler stealing hamburgers off of the trees where they were growing in McDonalds commercials. Not to mention government subsidies that bring down the price of meat. So, ultimately, I think it IS a simple solution, we just need to stop actively working against it.

cheese_goddess 4y ago

People could choose to eat plants insted, but they'll also need to take supplements to avoid becoming malnourished, for example deficient in B12 vitamin. Feeding everyone a vegan diet and making sure that everyone is scrupulously watching their nutrients and taking appropriate supllementation on a planetary scale moves your "simple solution" to the realm of science fantasy.

uxcolumbo 4y ago
Guess what... animal feed is substituted with B12. Meat eaters were also advised to take vitamin D. Lots of foods are already fortified with these vitamins. I don't do anything extra other than eating a well balanced plant-based diet. Had my blood-work done recently (48 biomarkers) and it was all good. No deficiencies. It is simple and definitely worth the effort - because the result will be not destroying our biosphere due to our meat & dairy addiction.
- cheese_goddess 4y ago
  > Guess what... animal feed is substituted with B12. > Meat eaters were also advised to take vitamin D. > Lots of foods are already fortified with these vitamins. Maybe where you live, but certainly not where I live, and where I eat. Don't project the destructive ways of your culture on everyone else. Not everyone eats the way you do. I for instance, have been brought up on a Mediterrannean diet since birth and I still cook and eat for myself and my people the same way. The Mediterrannean diet is a plant based diet rich in vegetables, fruit, pulses, legumes, and also fish and dairy and overflowing with rivers of extra virgin olive oil. 80% of the traditional dishes in my culture have no animal products in them, or they have only dairy. In my entire life I will probably consume less meat and fewer animal products than any citizen of an industrialised country who turned vegan in their twenties. So I'll take no preaching from you about how I eat, thank you very much. Fix your world and don't mind mine. It's not my lifestyle that is "destroying our biosphere", it is yours, and that of the people who live around you. ... meat and dairy addiction ... Faah. What clueless garbage! Milk and dairy is the richess of my land. You exploit your land to death and then you blame everyone else for your own failings?