10 ms·
Maybe, just maybe, we should ease off on the factory farming...
by themk 2y ago
Maybe, just maybe, we should ease off on the factory farming...
- _1 2y agoand replace it with what?
- EGreg 2y ago[flagged]
- themk 2y agoPlants.
- skhunted 2y agoNon factory farming. Prices will go up and this would be a good thing in addition to treating the animals in a more moral way.
- eunos 2y agoWell that make poor folks harder to fulfill nutrition requirements. Especially for kids that'd be devastating.
- CWIZO 2y agoA plant-based diet is cheaper than a regular diet: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-11-11-sustainable-eating-cheaper-and-healthier-oxford-study https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-11-11-sustainable-eating-chea...
- pbhjpbhj 2y agoLooking at Tesco online in UK: there's a soy protein 'mince' a £3.72/kg. Beef or chicken mince at £5. Quorn mycoprotein at £8.33. Beyond Meat at £13. Out of the 5 vegan and 8 vegetarian options, only the soy protein is cheaper than meat. I might replace one meal a week with the soy protein, but I'd be concerned about long term effects of phytoestrogen, especially on growing children? Mind you many foods have some hidden soy 'bulk' nowadays. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/soy/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/soy/ relates to understanding of health benefits/detriments of soy.
- triceratops 2y agoThe imitation meat stuff is always expensive. Going straight to that for protein betrays a lack of imagination or culinary knowledge. How about beans, lentils, and frozen peas?
- hrrbhgrrggb 2y agoYou wouldn’t use “meat replacements” though you’d just eat a vegetarian diet. If hundreds of millions of Indians can do it, so can westerners.
- pbhjpbhj 2y agoChange is hard for [some] people. Fail to acknowledge that and you'll fail to foment radical change. That said, I merely posted this data because I looked it up and found it interesting as a comparison.
- cycomanic 2y agoWhy do you need a "minced meat" substitute anyway? Compare your minced meat to a can of beans which one is cheaper. Moreover, it is well established research that most modern western diets contain too much animal products. If you think that living vegetarian causes so much problems, you need to explain how many cultures who live almost exclusively vegetarian (e.g. In some areas of India) without significant health problems.
- skhunted 2y agoThe distribution of resources of the world is grossly unfair. Two things need to happen: fewer people and a cap on how much one person has.
- storf45 2y agoHow does that happen? Any recommendations?
- skhunted 2y agoSocietal norms changing, government policies, free access to birth control, universal sex education, taxing the wealth of people who have too much, etc. It’s easy to implement once enough support is gained. This likely wont happen in my lifetime. It will only change when the change is forced. When we’ve made too much of the planet a toxic waste dump then people will be forced to change.
- al_borland 2y agoWhen my mom was growing up she had organ meats pretty regularly, as it was cheaper and they didn’t have a lot of money. Over in Scotland their national dish is haggis, which is a bunch of organ meats minced up, and then they add in some oats to bulk it up and make it go further. There are solutions to use more of the animal and stretch it. I almost never hear about people eating organ meats in the US anymore. People just find factory farmed cuts at rock bottom prices.
- Semaphor 2y agoFWIW, I was told that those parts are not wasted, but instead used for animal (e.g. for dogs, cats) food instead.
- Dalewyn 2y agoOne of the most consistent technological innovations throughout humanity's existence has been in improving how we eat, because eating is by far one of the biggest pleasures a person can have in life. The invention of fire revolutionized eating, the invention of agriculture revolutionized access to food at a fundamental level, the invention of refrigeration and freezing vastly expanded the reach and safety of food from point of harvest to dinner table, and the past century or so has dramatically democratized the kinds of food a person can choose to eat. This notion of sacrificing Quality of Eating(tm) is therefore a non-starter, humanity demands and strives for better eating. Any proposal to change how we produce food must accept it must co-exist with continued improvements to eating.
- lm28469 2y ago> eating is by far one of the biggest pleasures a person can have in life. With 70% of the west being obese or overweight I think the pendulum swung way too far. > This notion of sacrificing Quality of Eating(tm) is therefore a non-starter When did factory farms meat become quality ?? I think you're mistaking quantity and low price for quality. You'd have to be blind to not see how the quality of food decreased in the past decades, my grandparents ate much less meat but almost everything was local
- cycomanic 2y agoGeneral rule, when someone brings up that fact that some regulation makes things harder for "poor folks" it is almost never about poor people, but just figleafs for arguing against regulations. In reality it is the poor who are most affected by climate change, diseases, lack of food safety... If the people really cared about poor folks they would be arguing for more regulations, higher taxes, against credit card programs and lots of other things which effectively end up transferring wealth from the poor to the rich.
- halfmatthalfcat 2y agoThere's more alt-milks than I can count. While cow's milk obviously is used to produce other things, we can drastically reduce the need for it by moving to other kinds of milk for the liquid-consumption part.
- numbsafari 2y agoWhich of those alt milks are produced using biodiversity supporting practices? Oat? Soy? Almond?
- askonomm 2y agoYou mean juice, right? As far as I know Oat, Soy and Almond contain no milk.
- lm28469 2y agoGod I hate people using this gotcha... we all know what they mean by alternative milks. Do you also complain about peanut butter ? There is no butter in peanuts
- askonomm 2y agoI just don't get why people have to pretend things are what they really aren't.
- skhunted 2y agoYou should look up the meaning of the word misnomer and understand how widespread such occurrences are. When that happens you’ll likely reason better and not get sidetracked by pedantic shenanigans.
- askonomm 2y agoI suppose you're right. Sometimes I just can't help myself.
- 2y ago
- boredpudding 2y agoThat's the secret, you don't have to replace it. It doesn't produce food, it takes in food and turns it into less but different food. So yeah, plants. It's painful, but we've gone beyond what we can do on this planet.
- drewcon 2y agoWe’re not even close.
- boredpudding 2y ago45% of habitable land on our planet is used for agriculture. 80% of that is used for livestock. [1] Any increase in size is coming from deforestation, which is devastating to our planet. [2] [1] https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use [2] https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/deforestation/ https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/deforestat...
- skhunted 2y agoDo you believe all 8 billion people could live like Americans in a sustainable way? Do you believe we could produce enough meat and animal derived products in a morally sustainable way? Looking at film of the conditions of the animals in factory farms it’s clear the meat portion of our food supply is grossly immoral.
- drewcon 2y agoWe saw this movie before in the 70s. “The population bomb” etc. All that Malthusian drivel assumed a static state when humanity is anything but. You are discounting civilizations ability to adapt and invent by an absolutely incredible margin that is not supported by our own history of human events.
- skhunted 2y agoYou think 8 billion people can live like Americans in a sustainable way? Now by sustainable, I mean that we do so in a way that does not turn the world into a pollution infested shithole. If all 8 billion people lived like Americans where would the pollution be exported too? Who would do the work that people who live like Americans won’t do but depend on people doing? The distribution of resources in the world is grossly unfair and it is not sustainable that 8 billion people live the way Americans live. As it stands now the world is already becoming a pollution infested shithole. Imagine what happens when 7 billion more people live like us.
- mattmaroon 2y agoIt’s just such a shame all 8 billion earthlings are so addicted to food!
- themk 2y agoThere are other foods that do not carry this risk.
- malermeister 2y agoIt doesn't need to be produced through the incredible wasteful in-between animal. People can either eat straight up plant-based food, or alternatively go for lab grown meat. There's no need to go through all the inefficiency and suffering of factory farms.
- bamboozled 2y agoAre you vegan?
- malermeister 2y agoI am not, but I have a lot of respect for people who are. Personally, I'm too selfish and animal products taste too good.
- pc86 2y agoMaybe you should stick to plant-based food and lab grown meat before telling other people to stop eating animals and go to plant-based food and lab grown meat.
- malermeister 2y agoWhy?
- al_borland 2y agoI’ve seen videos about lab grown meat being in development. Is it actually available and available at scale? I haven’t looked to see if studies have been done to look at the nutritional profile of lab grown vs normal meat. I’d be curious about that as well before I tried it.
- bluGill 2y agoHow would that change anything. factory farms are more likely to take biosecurity seriously and thus not allow wild bird contact.
- ceejayoz 2y agoThese sophisticated operations look like this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Feedlot-1.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Feedlot-1.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Confined-animal-feeding-operation.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Confined-animal-feed... I assure you, wild birds are around.
- bluGill 2y agoThose are not dairy farms. Those are where cattle are fattened up just before slaughter. Very different situation. Cattle farms also take biosecurity seriously, but so far they have not worried about birds. Diary cows are kept inside and isolated from everything else since if the cow is sick you have to treat it and dump all milk obtained for a month afterwards.
- ceejayoz 2y agoThe article indicates "30% to 40% of those samples test positive". Clearly, spread is occurring, indoors or out. ("The cows never get to see the sun" doesn't really sell me on factory farming, either.) Side note: The second photo is noted as a dairy on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_farming#Concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_farming#Concerns.
- bluGill 2y agoSpread is occurring. However you have given no reason to think factory farms are in any way at fault.
- ceejayoz 2y agoI don't think it's at all controversial that concentrated monoculture populations are more at risk of spreading infectious pathogens, and there's no evidence that these tests for H5N1 were performed on a bunch of artisanal raw milk producers.
- brnt 2y agoMaybe. Meat consumption isn't declining as of yet. Let's start with treating animals with respect, don't feed them (literal in some cases) trash and take hygiene way more seriously. We have a pretty good idea how disease spreads, and still there is a large fraction of farms, feed and livestock processing facilities that are absolutely disgusting by any standard. It's not just gross, it greatly facilitates the spread and crossings of disease. We simply can no longer allow these facilities to exist: too dangerous for consumers, and food security as a whole. And the animals themselves of course.
- tomrod 2y agoDesire - yes. Feasibility - not sure, we need to substitute the caloric intake with something of a relatively similar density, profile, and nutrition. "Vegetarian" might do the trick (beans, rice, fresh vegetables) and I suspect there are a number of ways to improve protein and fat uptake that milk, cheese, and butter provide. This is just for beef, of course. It is hard to overstate how reliant most developed countries are on chicken and, especially, basically every part of a pig.