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You drastically, drastically overestimate just how many calories are derived from vegetables. You also drastically underestimate the amount of protein humans ne

You drastically, drastically overestimate just how many calories are derived from vegetables. You also drastically underestimate the amount of protein humans need to survive and thrive. If meat were so easy to replace with agriculture, humans would've already adapted to do that because meat is, as everyone likes to remind us, energy-intensive to raise.

pawsforthought 4y ago
We really don’t need much protein: 0.8g per kg of bodyweight for typical sedentary adults [1], none of which needs to be sourced from animals. Perhaps even worse than the energy requirements of animal agriculture is its land use. Today, a staggering 50% of all habitable land on Earth is used for agriculture, of which 77% is used for animals (this does include arable land used to grow fodder) [2]. (By comparison, pre-industrial society used ~4% of habitable land for farming. Of course, we’re far more numerous so we couldn’t expect to revert to that now.) Vertical farming is most surely not the solution. We just need to end the grotesque industrial slaughter that we’ve become utterly perversely normalized to. There is more than enough land on Earth for us all to eat in abundance, just not on omnivorous diets. [1]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26797090/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26797090/ [2]: https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use
KennyBlanken 4y ago
And where exactly do you think cattle and chickens and pigs get most of their calorie? Answer: vegetarian sources. Grass, grain, crap veg, and food waste from nearby breweries and such. Where do you think the vast majority of calories come from in most of the world? Grain and vegetables. 20% of the world's calories come from just rice alone. The problem is mostly cattle, and it's not just "energy." They require massive amounts of land, fertilizer, and water to raise compared to even other forms of protein: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beef-uses-ten-times-more-resources-poultry-dairy-eggs-pork-180952103/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beef-uses-ten-... > The team calculated that beef requires 28 times more land, six times more fertilizer and 11 times more water compared to those other food sources. That adds up to about five times more greenhouse gas emissions. > To further put these findings into perspective, the authors also ran the same calculations for several staple crops. All told, on a calorie-to-calorie basis, potatoes, wheat and rice require two to six time less resources to produce than pork, chicken, eggs or dairy. So that means that calories from beef require about sixty to one hundred and eighty times as much land, twelve to thirty six times more fertilizer, and twenty two to sixty six times more water. Look at how much rice you can buy for the cost of a 1lb of the cheapest form of beef - ground - and compare the calories per dollar. 1lb of ground beef is a little under $5 and provides at most 784 calories. 156 calories per dollar. 1lb of rice is around 25-30 seconds per pound. Let's round up to 50 cents to make it sporting. 589 calories per pound (also, 12g of protein.) 1178 calories per dollar. Rice provides almost eight times as many calories per dollar. Now consider that beef in the US is heavily subsidized (because...drumroll please...it wouldn't be price competitive with other food sources!)
- metadat 4y ago
  > And where exactly do you think cattle and chickens and pigs get most of their calories? I feed my chickens other (dead) chickens. They seem to love it and still taste the same.

pawsforthought 4y ago

We really don’t need much protein: 0.8g per kg of bodyweight for typical sedentary adults [1], none of which needs to be sourced from animals. Perhaps even worse than the energy requirements of animal agriculture is its land use. Today, a staggering 50% of all habitable land on Earth is used for agriculture, of which 77% is used for animals (this does include arable land used to grow fodder) [2]. (By comparison, pre-industrial society used ~4% of habitable land for farming. Of course, we’re far more numerous so we couldn’t expect to revert to that now.) Vertical farming is most surely not the solution. We just need to end the grotesque industrial slaughter that we’ve become utterly perversely normalized to. There is more than enough land on Earth for us all to eat in abundance, just not on omnivorous diets. [1]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26797090/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26797090/ [2]: https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use

KennyBlanken 4y ago

And where exactly do you think cattle and chickens and pigs get most of their calorie? Answer: vegetarian sources. Grass, grain, crap veg, and food waste from nearby breweries and such. Where do you think the vast majority of calories come from in most of the world? Grain and vegetables. 20% of the world's calories come from just rice alone. The problem is mostly cattle, and it's not just "energy." They require massive amounts of land, fertilizer, and water to raise compared to even other forms of protein: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beef-uses-ten-times-more-resources-poultry-dairy-eggs-pork-180952103/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beef-uses-ten-... > The team calculated that beef requires 28 times more land, six times more fertilizer and 11 times more water compared to those other food sources. That adds up to about five times more greenhouse gas emissions. > To further put these findings into perspective, the authors also ran the same calculations for several staple crops. All told, on a calorie-to-calorie basis, potatoes, wheat and rice require two to six time less resources to produce than pork, chicken, eggs or dairy. So that means that calories from beef require about sixty to one hundred and eighty times as much land, twelve to thirty six times more fertilizer, and twenty two to sixty six times more water. Look at how much rice you can buy for the cost of a 1lb of the cheapest form of beef - ground - and compare the calories per dollar. 1lb of ground beef is a little under $5 and provides at most 784 calories. 156 calories per dollar. 1lb of rice is around 25-30 seconds per pound. Let's round up to 50 cents to make it sporting. 589 calories per pound (also, 12g of protein.) 1178 calories per dollar. Rice provides almost eight times as many calories per dollar. Now consider that beef in the US is heavily subsidized (because...drumroll please...it wouldn't be price competitive with other food sources!)

metadat 4y ago
> And where exactly do you think cattle and chickens and pigs get most of their calories? I feed my chickens other (dead) chickens. They seem to love it and still taste the same.