8 ms·

I'm actually surprised how much dairy products contribute to global warming. It's only veganism that really cuts down on carbon emissions.

karmakurtisaani 4y ago
I suppose theoretically optimal diet would have to be some flavour of vegan, plus maybe some fish if available. In practice, a major reduction of meat and dairy would probably be enough to make a difference.
Tade0 4y ago
Not really. I looked at the different scenarios and we would probably do fine on chicken and cheese in terms of water consumption, CO2 and land use. Pork is where it starts being risky. Beef, lamb etc. are the most problematic parts.
- choeger 4y ago
  This. There needs to be a pyramid in top of the food pyramid. Beef is not bad per se, it just shouldn't be your weekly meat.
  - shortcake27 4y ago
    I’m not sure if you responded to the wrong comment or what because the parent is referencing environment impact but you’re referencing health impacts. From an environmental point of view, there’s a linear relationship between your consumption of beef and environmental impact. There is no amount of beef that is good for the environment. From a health point of view, it’s debated, however there are more studies that show red/processed meats having negative health effects than neutral or positive effects. Of course, you can cherry pick the studies that align with your beliefs, but the prevailing data, evidence, and research show beef actually _is_ bad per se. Note: there is no nutrient (that we know of) that you can only get from beef and no other food source. So it isn’t necessary to include it in your diet. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/whats-the-beef-with-red-meat https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/whats-the-bee...
    - choeger 4y ago
      > There is no amount of beef that is good for the environment. That's a tautology. In that strict sense, there's no amount of you that's good for the environment, either. Unless we all commit suicide, we have to accept the fact that our behavior changes the environment. So, yes, quantities matter a lot.
      - mklarmann 4y ago
        If you define “sustainable” in the sense of “enabling human life on earth”, you should be fine.
    - himinlomax 4y ago
      Dairy from cows grazing on marginal land that is not otherwise suitable / efficient for other cultures is very competitive as far as producing proteins is concerned. Proteins are a necessary nutrient. Industrial cattle fed corn is an entirely different story and should almost certainly be counted as a different category as far as climate impact is concerned.
      - mklarmann 4y ago
        No. Those cows live longer and therefor produce more methane. They are worse in terms of ghg.
        kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
        The bovid methane drumbeat is bandied by people who conveniently fail to account for the millions of missing American bison that used to produce comparable output.
        dTal 4y ago
        Did they? Did anyone measure that? Or is that simply an assumption? Relatively small dietary changes can greatly reduce the amount of methane produced by cows (I believe you add something like 15% seaweed to the feed), so it's not at all clear that a free range bison would be similar.
- klipt 4y ago
  Isn't beef bad because cows release methane, but feeding cows seaweed can mitigate that?
  - Tade0 4y ago
    It's largely (heh) about their size and that they're not really as optimized for meat as e.g. pigs. They breed comparatively slowly and take longer to grow. Moreover the weight of a cow carcass is no higher than 60% that of the animal, while for pigs the lower bound is ~78%. Poultry is also very efficient in this regard, especially turkey yielding 80%+. Where I'm from domestically consumed beef comes mostly from dairy cows so it's not particularly good, but it appears to be the more environmentally sound choice than growing them just for the meat(not that this was the aim - it's just cheaper).
    - autoexec 4y ago
      The sooner we can get lab grown beef the better. I don't care if it's more expensive or even if it isn't as efficient in terms of energy input as growing, raising, and slaughtering actual cows. It'd still come with tons of benefits like reducing antibiotic use, taking up less land, causing less suffering, eliminating illnesses, etc.
      - jononomo 4y ago
        We're not about to run out of land. My recommendation is to use nuclear power to desalinate seawater and turn the Sahara Desert into a vast grassland on which we can raise a couple of billion cattle in order to feed the world. I think the same should be done in the Australian Desert.
        sprucevoid 4y ago
        > We're not about to run out of land We already did, in the sense that we'd need more earths to let everyone on earth eat the kind of diets prevalent in rich countries today. https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets Current enourmous land use by meat industries has many negative effects. We should individually switch to plant based (if you haven't already) and in public policy rapidly remove all subsidies from meat and animal industries and fully price in all negative externalities (GHG, antibiotics risks, pandemic risks, air and water pollution). At the same time subsidize plant based alternatives. As a result plant based alternatives would be several times lower in cost than the meat versions, which in turn would drive consumption changes.
- himinlomax 4y ago
  The water use claim regarding beef has been debunked, it was based on the weird accounting trick where you count rainfall on pasture as wasted water for some reason. Also speaking of pasture, afaik the equation for cattle is completely different whether they're fed corn vs grazing on marginal land as they're supposed to.
  - wiz21c 4y ago
    > they're fed corn and where does the corn grow ?
    - himinlomax 4y ago
      What's your point?
  - fredrikholm 4y ago
    What? The problem is that cattle consumes orders of magnitude more water compared to plants, on top of the fact that they also eat plants, of which they convert a small portion of into (edible) mass. Their urine, en masse, is highly toxic to the local environment as it kills plants (high salt content, fertilizer burn) and pollutes rivers (pH, over-fertilization, algae blooming).
    - himinlomax 4y ago
      That water claim was based on a flawed accounting that's been repeated over and over so much without source. The debunking was posted right here on HN a few years back, don't have time to find it for now, maybe later. Other than that, what you describe only applies to industrial farming, not grazing cattle. Cows graze pasture, they shit and piss in pasture, it's almost a closed cycle except for the added salt the herder usualy gives them.
      - fredrikholm 4y ago
        > That water claim What water claim? That cows consume water and excrete concentrated urine? I don't know what you're debunking without a source, but appears to be a straw man. > industrial farming, not grazing cattle Grazing requires orders of magnitude more land compared to cramming cows into small cages, which decreases the amount of food you can derive from this already (very) expensive food source. I love beef, but that doesn't change the fact that it's an incredibly wasteful source of food and it ultimately unsustainable compared to plants, fish, eggs etc.
choeger 4y ago
I often wonder, how much double counting goes into these stats. Of course, dairy currently relies on fossile energy often. But how much of it is attributed elsewhere as well? Diesel, for instance, is often also attributed to big oil companies like shell. Cows are slaughtered and sold as meat at some point - is the dairy CO2 emission subtracted here? I don't think so.
- cinntaile 4y ago
  Since you often wonder, I suggest you spend some time reading some relevant papers and their methodology. You won't have to guess and assume if you do that.
NovaDudely 4y ago
I'm not too surprised, in some ways Dairy is the meat industry by proxy. All dairy cattle end up in the same abattoirs.
- asterix_pano 4y ago
  On top of that they have one of the most miserable life we could imagine. Birthing babies and getting them taken away ASAP to give milk to a machine and getting slaughtered when you are less productive... It's hard to describe our lack of empathy to create and accept such systems.
  - NovaDudely 3y ago
    Oh yeah... don't worry I know all the gruesome details. I have changed my ways accordingly. This is a why I say the meat industry is more honest than the Dairy industry. The Dairy folks are all about cows in green fields in the sun - ignoring the 4-5 years of psychological and physical torture only to end the exact same way. At least the meat industry just says - it's for meat!
Aromasin 4y ago
One of the major issue's isn't just the calorific inefficiencies in the fodder->dairy process, but the simple act of creating pastures for animals. About 85% of deforestation world-wide is being driven by animal agriculture; of which dairy makes up a huge part of that. We could use less land to produce food if we ate less dairy, by a huge margin.

karmakurtisaani 4y ago

I suppose theoretically optimal diet would have to be some flavour of vegan, plus maybe some fish if available. In practice, a major reduction of meat and dairy would probably be enough to make a difference.

Tade0 4y ago

Not really. I looked at the different scenarios and we would probably do fine on chicken and cheese in terms of water consumption, CO2 and land use. Pork is where it starts being risky. Beef, lamb etc. are the most problematic parts.

choeger 4y ago
This. There needs to be a pyramid in top of the food pyramid. Beef is not bad per se, it just shouldn't be your weekly meat.
- shortcake27 4y ago
  I’m not sure if you responded to the wrong comment or what because the parent is referencing environment impact but you’re referencing health impacts. From an environmental point of view, there’s a linear relationship between your consumption of beef and environmental impact. There is no amount of beef that is good for the environment. From a health point of view, it’s debated, however there are more studies that show red/processed meats having negative health effects than neutral or positive effects. Of course, you can cherry pick the studies that align with your beliefs, but the prevailing data, evidence, and research show beef actually _is_ bad per se. Note: there is no nutrient (that we know of) that you can only get from beef and no other food source. So it isn’t necessary to include it in your diet. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/whats-the-beef-with-red-meat https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/whats-the-bee...
  - choeger 4y ago
    > There is no amount of beef that is good for the environment. That's a tautology. In that strict sense, there's no amount of you that's good for the environment, either. Unless we all commit suicide, we have to accept the fact that our behavior changes the environment. So, yes, quantities matter a lot.
    - mklarmann 4y ago
      If you define “sustainable” in the sense of “enabling human life on earth”, you should be fine.
  - himinlomax 4y ago
    Dairy from cows grazing on marginal land that is not otherwise suitable / efficient for other cultures is very competitive as far as producing proteins is concerned. Proteins are a necessary nutrient. Industrial cattle fed corn is an entirely different story and should almost certainly be counted as a different category as far as climate impact is concerned.
    - mklarmann 4y ago
      No. Those cows live longer and therefor produce more methane. They are worse in terms of ghg.
      - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
        The bovid methane drumbeat is bandied by people who conveniently fail to account for the millions of missing American bison that used to produce comparable output.
        dTal 4y ago
        Did they? Did anyone measure that? Or is that simply an assumption? Relatively small dietary changes can greatly reduce the amount of methane produced by cows (I believe you add something like 15% seaweed to the feed), so it's not at all clear that a free range bison would be similar.
klipt 4y ago
Isn't beef bad because cows release methane, but feeding cows seaweed can mitigate that?
- Tade0 4y ago
  It's largely (heh) about their size and that they're not really as optimized for meat as e.g. pigs. They breed comparatively slowly and take longer to grow. Moreover the weight of a cow carcass is no higher than 60% that of the animal, while for pigs the lower bound is ~78%. Poultry is also very efficient in this regard, especially turkey yielding 80%+. Where I'm from domestically consumed beef comes mostly from dairy cows so it's not particularly good, but it appears to be the more environmentally sound choice than growing them just for the meat(not that this was the aim - it's just cheaper).
  - autoexec 4y ago
    The sooner we can get lab grown beef the better. I don't care if it's more expensive or even if it isn't as efficient in terms of energy input as growing, raising, and slaughtering actual cows. It'd still come with tons of benefits like reducing antibiotic use, taking up less land, causing less suffering, eliminating illnesses, etc.
    - jononomo 4y ago
      We're not about to run out of land. My recommendation is to use nuclear power to desalinate seawater and turn the Sahara Desert into a vast grassland on which we can raise a couple of billion cattle in order to feed the world. I think the same should be done in the Australian Desert.
      - sprucevoid 4y ago
        > We're not about to run out of land We already did, in the sense that we'd need more earths to let everyone on earth eat the kind of diets prevalent in rich countries today. https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets Current enourmous land use by meat industries has many negative effects. We should individually switch to plant based (if you haven't already) and in public policy rapidly remove all subsidies from meat and animal industries and fully price in all negative externalities (GHG, antibiotics risks, pandemic risks, air and water pollution). At the same time subsidize plant based alternatives. As a result plant based alternatives would be several times lower in cost than the meat versions, which in turn would drive consumption changes.
himinlomax 4y ago
The water use claim regarding beef has been debunked, it was based on the weird accounting trick where you count rainfall on pasture as wasted water for some reason. Also speaking of pasture, afaik the equation for cattle is completely different whether they're fed corn vs grazing on marginal land as they're supposed to.
- wiz21c 4y ago
  > they're fed corn and where does the corn grow ?
  - himinlomax 4y ago
    What's your point?
- fredrikholm 4y ago
  What? The problem is that cattle consumes orders of magnitude more water compared to plants, on top of the fact that they also eat plants, of which they convert a small portion of into (edible) mass. Their urine, en masse, is highly toxic to the local environment as it kills plants (high salt content, fertilizer burn) and pollutes rivers (pH, over-fertilization, algae blooming).
  - himinlomax 4y ago
    That water claim was based on a flawed accounting that's been repeated over and over so much without source. The debunking was posted right here on HN a few years back, don't have time to find it for now, maybe later. Other than that, what you describe only applies to industrial farming, not grazing cattle. Cows graze pasture, they shit and piss in pasture, it's almost a closed cycle except for the added salt the herder usualy gives them.
    - fredrikholm 4y ago
      > That water claim What water claim? That cows consume water and excrete concentrated urine? I don't know what you're debunking without a source, but appears to be a straw man. > industrial farming, not grazing cattle Grazing requires orders of magnitude more land compared to cramming cows into small cages, which decreases the amount of food you can derive from this already (very) expensive food source. I love beef, but that doesn't change the fact that it's an incredibly wasteful source of food and it ultimately unsustainable compared to plants, fish, eggs etc.

choeger 4y ago

I often wonder, how much double counting goes into these stats. Of course, dairy currently relies on fossile energy often. But how much of it is attributed elsewhere as well? Diesel, for instance, is often also attributed to big oil companies like shell. Cows are slaughtered and sold as meat at some point - is the dairy CO2 emission subtracted here? I don't think so.

cinntaile 4y ago
Since you often wonder, I suggest you spend some time reading some relevant papers and their methodology. You won't have to guess and assume if you do that.

NovaDudely 4y ago

I'm not too surprised, in some ways Dairy is the meat industry by proxy. All dairy cattle end up in the same abattoirs.

asterix_pano 4y ago
On top of that they have one of the most miserable life we could imagine. Birthing babies and getting them taken away ASAP to give milk to a machine and getting slaughtered when you are less productive... It's hard to describe our lack of empathy to create and accept such systems.
- NovaDudely 3y ago
  Oh yeah... don't worry I know all the gruesome details. I have changed my ways accordingly. This is a why I say the meat industry is more honest than the Dairy industry. The Dairy folks are all about cows in green fields in the sun - ignoring the 4-5 years of psychological and physical torture only to end the exact same way. At least the meat industry just says - it's for meat!

Aromasin 4y ago

One of the major issue's isn't just the calorific inefficiencies in the fodder->dairy process, but the simple act of creating pastures for animals. About 85% of deforestation world-wide is being driven by animal agriculture; of which dairy makes up a huge part of that. We could use less land to produce food if we ate less dairy, by a huge margin.