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They are low quality precisely because they are less rich in types of amino acids. Given the option of having animal or vegetable-based proteins you would alway

They are low quality precisely because they are less rich in types of amino acids. Given the option of having animal or vegetable-based proteins you would always pick animal, all other things being equal. Having a “varied” diet is much easier said than done. Even people who are well off, living in rich and developed countries have difficulty maintaining this balance. This is a personal observation, but I suspect a lot of people underestimate how hard it is to maintain this lifestyle. Another aspect that I don’t see discussed anywhere is that you need to have diversity of vegetables just to maintain a functional diet, what will happen to people when for some reason there are problems in the supply chain of a specific crop, you have a bad year with low yields and the price goes to the roof? Another false assumption is that everyone can accommodate a purely plant-based diet.

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
> all other things being equal But all other things will never be equal because animal protein costs 10x more energy to produce. > what will happen to people when for reason there’s a problem in the supply chain of a specific crop or you have a bad year with low yields and the price goes to the roof? Have you been to a produce department? Most of them in the US could be reduced to 25% their current size and still have 200% the diversity of the meat department. Being unable to find one or more amino acids is just not a problem that vegetarians have. The problem is constantly having to cook for yourself because vegetarian options at most restaurants (or prepared by well-meaning carnivore friends) are just "leave the meat off" and not designed from the ground up to be nutritional without meat. Cultural change would make it easy.
camel-cdr 3y ago
> Having a “varied” diet is much easier said than done I think you overestimate what varied means in this context, usually two or three different protein sources are enough. Consider a random day where I tracked my food intake: I ate some oatmeal for breakfast and dinner, and noodles with chickpeas for for lunch. In the end I had between 120% to 250% of the RDA for the different essential amino acids. Edit: Also "Another false assumption is that everyone can accommodate a purely plant-based diet". Do you have a source on that, with maybe an estimation to what percent of the population this applies to?

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago

> all other things being equal But all other things will never be equal because animal protein costs 10x more energy to produce. > what will happen to people when for reason there’s a problem in the supply chain of a specific crop or you have a bad year with low yields and the price goes to the roof? Have you been to a produce department? Most of them in the US could be reduced to 25% their current size and still have 200% the diversity of the meat department. Being unable to find one or more amino acids is just not a problem that vegetarians have. The problem is constantly having to cook for yourself because vegetarian options at most restaurants (or prepared by well-meaning carnivore friends) are just "leave the meat off" and not designed from the ground up to be nutritional without meat. Cultural change would make it easy.

camel-cdr 3y ago

> Having a “varied” diet is much easier said than done I think you overestimate what varied means in this context, usually two or three different protein sources are enough. Consider a random day where I tracked my food intake: I ate some oatmeal for breakfast and dinner, and noodles with chickpeas for for lunch. In the end I had between 120% to 250% of the RDA for the different essential amino acids. Edit: Also "Another false assumption is that everyone can accommodate a purely plant-based diet". Do you have a source on that, with maybe an estimation to what percent of the population this applies to?