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You'd be surprised how many animals die in the process of scaled agriculture and displacement that occurs to create these replacement goods. But they're not th
by agentgumshoe 4y ago
You'd be surprised how many animals die in the process of scaled agriculture and displacement that occurs to create these replacement goods. But they're not the big fluffy animals we anthropomorphise, so it's easy to accept.
- JoyfulTurkey 4y agoI have always wondered just how many accidental casualties occur with harvesting equipment. I guess home garden is the best bet if it’s a concern?
- iforgotpassword 4y agoLook up how olives are harvested. There are big machines that go over rhe tree and vacuum off all the olives. Too bad theres a lot of birds living in there that get sucked in and die. Why don't they fly away? The noise must be a fair warning ahead of time! Well, the harvest is at night because of lower temperatures. The birds freeze in shock when the noise and bright lights get turned on and don't move.
- ajmurmann 4y agoI don't think I'd be surprised. I don't know how to solve that though short of starving myself to death.
- zemvpferreira 4y agoNot to say this is your moral prerogative but it's pretty simple: Eat only hand-picked fruit. It's by far the least death-causing food out there and it's offered to you by the tree to eat. I'm not a vegetarian or fruitarian, I don't generally care about animal death or suffering. But if I did that would be my tactic to minimize pain in the system.
- mathieuh 4y agoIf you did that you would become extremely unhealthy. Veganism has the caveat "as far as is practicable", and a fruitarian diet is not practicable for extended periods of time as you will become malnourished.
- TylerE 4y agoAnd probably at least pre-diabetic. The form of sugar in fruit isn’t quite as bad as some, and all the fiber helps it be absorbed more slowly but there is still a lot of it many. An apple has a much sugar as 6oz of Coke. Lots of nutrients too, but 23g of sugar is… a lot.
- iopq 4y agoReminder that cucumber and avocado are fruits.
- ryanbrunner 4y agoAnd zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, beans, and peas.
- zemvpferreira 4y agoFair enough. Swap "only fruit@ for "as much fruit as possible without becoming malnourished" if you would value your own wellbeing above another animals' (which I would as well).
- thorin 4y agoI know a guy who was promoting frutarian lifestyle. He was a previous world champion kayaker and works in the outdoor industry. I saw him recently and he was still in the top 15-20 in the world in his even. I need to check with him if he's still doing it. He looks like a model, superfit and full of energy. He had an interesting blog on the amount of fruit he was having to eat, most of which he picked up for free or cheap at markets as it was approaching use by date. https://www.instagram.com/jamesbebbington/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/jamesbebbington/?hl=en http://www.inspiredlife.org/richard-harpham/item/35-james-pringle-bebbington http://www.inspiredlife.org/richard-harpham/item/35-james-pr...
- nec4b 4y agoBut if you pick fruits from trees you are taking away food for some other animals that also eat those fruits.
- mattmanser 4y agoErr, vegetables require less land per calorie than meat for consumption does. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets So your comment makes no sense at all.
- mike_d 4y agoWhich would be very compelling if your body only needed calories to survive. Meat is the most efficient way to deliver proteins and essential amino acids. You should also dig into the concept of bioavailability.
- ianai 4y agoThis is debunked. Tofu is incredibly protein dense - on par or surpassing chicken breast. Without looking it up and subjectively, tofu also seems to be digested very easily. There’s also seitan and the beans. Nuts also exist but have fat/protein ratios that tend toward uncomfortably high. (If what your eating has macros that approach the fat content in nuts to other nutrients that’s pretty high and should be noted.)
- cogman10 4y agoPea protein is also a complete protein. I've honestly never heard of protein being a problem for vegans. The bigger issue is vitamins, in particular B12. But that's easily fixed with a daily multivitamin.
- ianai 4y agoKnew I was leaving things out. Thanks for including peas! I don’t want to know how anybody gets actual, non-supplemented B12 nowadays. Many foods add a B12 in the form of cyanocobalamin. We evolved in a world where bacteria left B12 on nearly every surface left out long enough. But nowadays we clean our food and it shouldn’t be present. People will say they get it from the organ meat of certain animals - because that’s where those animals collect the B12 in their environment. Notably, I avoid cyanocobalamin like the plague. It releases small amounts of cyanide into your liver upon processing. It’s also not particularly bioavailable. There are better B12s and I wish food would leave me to choose it myself.
- Cannabat 4y agoIt sounds like you are suggesting non-animal agriculture kills or displaces more animals than animal agriculture. What do you think the animals humans like to eat, eat? A heck of a lot of grain and other plants. "Animal agriculture" includes the fluffy animals (with whom we may empathize - they ain't robots) and the massive farms that grow their feed. Animal agriculture incidentally kills and displaces far more other creatures than non-animal agriculture simply due to the additional land requirements. It is far easier to accept the less harmful industry.
- rlt 4y agoI don't think they were suggesting that. More something along the lines of "you're likely to be killing animals either way, so just accept that nature is cruel and don't feel guilty about it". There's a wide spectrum of how much you're willing to do to avoid causing suffering: - Nothing, eat meat from the worst factory farms without second thought - Only eat meat from local, ethical, sustainable, etc farmers. - Only eat meat you have personally killed in the most humane way possible - Vegetarianism - Veganism - Fruitarianism - Starve to death?
- pyrale 4y agoIt's kind of bad either way tbh. Imagine going to the funeral for someone else's mother and saying something to the tune of "The old hag was going to die anyway, so don't be sad". Telling people that their principles or feelings are wrong is rarely a great way to convince people, it just makes you look obnoxious in debates.
- headsoup 4y agoThat's just an absurd analogy. On the second point, I agree, if in person I wouldn't make such a statement in that way because reactions are immediate and you're within immediate awkwardness. But on the internet, you read a statement and then you will emotionally react, but can then go research more, ponder, deliberate and choose whether you respond emotionally, matter-of-factly, not at all, etc. I think that's great and in a sense encourages some more provocative honesty that we dance around in the flesh.
- goodpoint 4y agoNo, it's the complete opposite. Plant based diets kill way, way less animals.
- parski 4y agoApart from the problems with the point you're implying (see the other replies) you raise an important problem with industrial agriculture.
- xorfish 4y agohttps://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets If everyone were to switch to a vegan diet, global agriculture land use would be reduced by 75%.
- TylerE 4y agoWater and pesticide usage is way more problematic than land usage.
- pintxo 4y agoWe can safely assume there is a relationship between land-use and total water and pesticide usage.
- TylerE 4y agoCan we? Vertical farms are starting to be a thing, and they use water way beyond what you'd expect for the area.
- akiselev 4y agoNo one is using vertical farms for the kind of calorie dense food that would replace meat, and certainly not at any kind of scale.
- TylerE 4y agoI've seen a number of reports of large farms being planned in places like the middle east. Dubai opened one about 6 months ago capable of producing over a million kg of leafy greens a year, the largest vertical farm in the world by some margin, and that's just a pilot project.
- akiselev 4y agoA million kg of the most calorie dense leafy green (parsnip or kale at 50-60 kcal/100 grams) would be equivalent to about 167,000 kg of wheat (~360 kcal/100 grams). A bushel of wheat is about 27kg and the US produces about 50 bushels per acre [1] or 1,350 kg of wheat per acre. To produce the caloric equivalent of a million kg of leafy greens you would need about 130 acres (167,000/1350) of wheat. The average farm in the US is over 400 acres in size [2]. There are over two million farms in the US alone. The “largest vertical farm in the world by some margin” produces less calories than a tiny family farm that can barely afford its own tractor. The largest wheat farm in Canada is over 35,000 acres which means it produces just as much food per day as the largest vertical farm produces per year. That wheat farm isn’t even in the list of top 10 largest farms in North America. We’re comparing pebbles to continents. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/190356/wheat-yield-per-harvested-acre-in-the-us-from-2000/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/190356/wheat-yield-per-h... [2] https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/farming-and-farm-income/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistic... Edit: I made a slight mistake in my math. A 60 lbs bushel of wheat when processed doesn’t yield exactly 60 pounds of usable food, but it doesn’t change the overall picture (360 kcal => 240 kcal, 130 acres => 180 acres) Edit 2: That vertical farm cost $40 million to build. Our hypothetical wheat farm would cost under $2 million for the land, fertilizer, seeds, and machines.