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We still maintain animal agriculture due to it being considered baseline as everyone was born into it. But seen from a clean slate, as if it wasn't yet adopted,
by colordrops 2y ago
We still maintain animal agriculture due to it being considered baseline as everyone was born into it. But seen from a clean slate, as if it wasn't yet adopted, it is a strictly negative practice in almost every measure - health outcomes, water usage, environmental impact, suffering of animals, subsidy burden, and disease risk. It should absolutely be banned.
I know that knee-jerk reactions will cause a lot of people to respond negatively to my comment, but, just like climate change, all the data and science unequivocally support my statements.
- candiddevmike 2y agoI don't believe the US government is capable of making tough decisions like that, or anything that inconveniences anyone really. The next crisis is going to be every person for themselves, either directly or indirectly.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoWhile disappointing, I agree based on what's currently possible. The problem of hyperindividualism is getting only more pronounced in the US, and it's possible there will be a hard shift right to deregulation, strip-mining of social welfare, destruction of community commonwealth, austerity, and tax cuts for the rich.
- freshpretzels 2y agoIt isn’t disappointing at all. The US government was intentionally designed to prevent fast, large decisions especially if they affect individual rights. Otherwise would-be tyrants and control freaks would try to control other people on everything. If anything we need a return to more celebration and protection of the individual.
- croes 2y agoSound like the US fear their own government more than foreign ones. Easy to exploit. BTW if you fear control by tyrants maybe the US version of capitalism is a bad idea.
- freshpretzels 2y agoThe US government is designed NOT to be able to do that. And thankfully so.
- dyauspitr 2y agoIt doesn’t matter because meat is delicious, densely nutritious and frankly not up for discussion amongst the general population. Even if it isn’t meat, a mostly vegetarian country like India is heavily reliant on the milk that comes from cows for their protein requirement.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago> densely nutritious Aside from the fact that red meat is not particularly nutritious in terms of calories or nutrient variety and has well established health hazards for us, the density of nutrition doesn't matter. The resources needed to produce a certain amount of calories / 'nutrition' involved do. Beef has just about the worst possible resources-to-calories/'nutrition' value of any mass-produced food. The amount of water, land, and feed that goes toward growing cattle until they're old enough to go to the slaughterhouse is enormous compared to grains, legumes, nuts, chicken, fish, etc. Legumes often are a more complete source of "protein", which is actually several variations of protein. And then there's cattle being the number one source of methane in the world, and methane is a major greenhouse gas. >a mostly vegetarian country like India is heavily reliant on the milk that comes from cows for their protein requirement. Legumes like chickpeas and lentils are far more likely than the more resource and labor intensive processes involved in dairy/cheese. If you think otherwise you apparently don't do much grocery shopping.
- dyauspitr 2y agoYou can have 0.2 lbs of red meat or 3 lbs of lentils for the same amount of protein. It’s not easy to consume that amount of lentils per day.
- hombre_fatal 2y agoThen compare it to a more protein dense food like extra firm tofu, TVP, or seitan? Though I also contest the claim that animal foods are more nutrient dense compared to plants while singling out one nutrient. What about nutrients like vitamin C, fiber, and vitamin E? What about averaging their %RDA across all nutrients per calorie or gram like the "All Targets" column on Cronometer? Plant-based foods would rank above animal products in such a comparison.
- imchillyb 2y agoPeople aren't ready for it, but we should be eating bugs. Boca-bug-burgers would be an infinitely renewable 'meat' and farmable on massive scales, without destroying forests or watersheds. Without subjecting users to antibiotics. Bug-burgers for the win.
- candiddevmike 2y agoI keep looking at ordering cricket flour but it's so expensive. Bug-based stuff needs to come considerably in price for folks to get on board IMO. FWIW, more than 25% of humans eat bugs regularly around the world.
- Tutafrankjonas 2y agoBugs don't come without the problems of bacteria, viruses or parasites.
- b112 2y agoThe problem isn't cattle, it's big agriculture. As soon as everyone eats bugs, then industrial big farms will start up, and all the worrisome problems discussed will appear with bugs too.
- supportengineer 2y ago"Microplastics found in protein bugs"
- b112 2y agoAlong with crops grown and fed to bugs, after all, they need to eat to grow. There will also be crowding, bugs feeding a country aren't going to be wild harvested, how would you even do that, and we'd need massive quantities. So disease would be a thing. And we'd need massive amounts of water too, and we'd have massive amounts of leavings, just as with cattle. Any "but we can just" scenarios, like using their leavings as fertilizer, can also be done with cattle. Some bugs are likely smarter that the cattle I've been around, and they feel pain, so what of the bug activists? What of the queen, and the hive mind? Are we going to claim we know that they aren't feeling pain from crowding, or their situation? What happens when we harvest in the same area over and over, a massive building just for this? Bugs excrete chemical warnings to communicate, and poison during stress, will these all build up month after month of harvest? There are endless questions to be resolved, but all I hear is "well we can just...." eat bugs, with no other validation or justification about scale, safety, etc.
- rjsw 2y agoUntil you can come up with a way for people to eat grass themselves I think that animal agriculture will continue.
- el_duderino_ 2y agoWe already do eat grass. Corn, barley, wheat, oats, etc…
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoCow (field) corn is nasty shit, but CAFOs still feed it to cows and use antibiotics to keep them from dying from it. Google Image Search "muddy feedlot". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_animal_feeding_operation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_animal_feeding_op...
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoIt's also used to make corn chips, corn-meal, and the sweetener in everything Americans consume.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoYeap. And HFCS and ethanol for mandated use in gasoline.
- el_duderino_ 2y agoThat has nothing to do with what I said.
- noworriesnate 2y agoWe eat the seeds, not the blade. I would assume by "eating grass" op meant eating the grass blades. Maybe in the future vegans will genetically engineer themselves to chew their cud. That actually sounds like a cool scifi backstory.
- AngryData 2y ago
- b112 2y agoYet it is not supported. Instead, some current methods of animal husbandry exhibit some of the concerns you raise. For example, animals that free range live lives far, far better than any wild counterparts. They get health care (vaccines), protection from predators, and more. The disney-eqsue view that wild animals live in a paradise is false, few deer die of old age. Water and environmental impacts are falsehoods as a solid rule, there are loads of sustainable cattle ranches in, for example, Quebec. Free ranged in summer, slaughter down for winter, hay grown by crop rotation and without fertilizer for over wintering. You're confusing one type of farming with all methods, big agriculture with litte, and more. For example, everyone used to have a few pigs and chickens. The pigs ate left over refuse as part of their diet, all those potato peelings, carrot ends and leaves, and food about to go bad. Give it to the pig, and you can eat it later upon slaughter. So environmentally friendly. Chickens eating worms, bugs, the pests of man. Chickens mean our small gardens are not eaten bare by pests. If you truly wanted change, advocate change to better methods. You will never get us to give up meat, a hard requirement for a healthy life for European genes.
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoThere might be some confusion of the term 'protection from predators' going on here.
- analog31 2y agoI suspect that changing to better methods would result in humanity eating a lot less meat. Most of my ancestry is European, but I eat relatively little meat -- not every day, and small portions when I do. My spouse is vegetarian. What health risks are we taking?
- QuarterReptile 2y agoCommonly anemia for her. Very likely nothing that will kill either of you.
- micromacrofoot 2y agoHad me until the last sentence, it's not a requirement (especially at current quantities) it's a preference.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoIt is impossible to get someone to understand something when their fast food, bacon, and grilled steaks depend upon their not understanding it. Meat ag is unwise for many reasons below but there is widespread resistance as per above. It requires leadership and alternative products to overcome. - Pandemic evolution, a few examples: BSE, COVID (indirectly), MERS, Q fever, Nipah, H1N1, H1N2, H2N2, H3N1, H3N2, H5N1, H7N7 - Climate change - Antibiotic resistance (given to cows because they can't digest corn properly) - Lower overall caloric production and net higher food prices - Freshwater and oceanic dead zones - Air pollution - Soil pollution - Somewhere down the list is animal cruelty, but it's historically been an unpersuasive argument Edit: Erroneously listed "H1N1" twice Edit2: Maybe not force, but taxation to make an FDA prime steak cost $1000 instead of $100.
- recycledmatt 2y agoNot sure where you buy your steaks, but you are overpaying.
- PostOnce 2y agoBy this logic, human travel should also be banned. It's bad for disease risk, the environment, etc. It's not that people believe meat has no downsides, it's that we believe the positives outweigh the negatives. We enjoy meat.
- colordrops 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- schmidt_fifty 2y agoSurely there is some middle ground between "we should ban this behavior entirely the second this comment is read" and "we should never acknowledge or discuss or take responsibility for the inevitable harm that this behavior causes"
- Tutafrankjonas 2y agoPerhaps the middle ground could be the health certificates or vaccine passports? More mRNA concoctions with a side dish of myocarditis or pericarditis? What do you prefer?
- undersuit 2y agoNot banned, replaced. We're still going to eat food after we give up meat, and we're still going to travel after we give up primarily fossil fuel driven travel.
- freshpretzels 2y agoThank you, kind overlord, for replacing the bad things with good things! Please monitor our behavior and communications to ensure all lives are compliant!!!
- 2y ago
- noduerme 2y agoI get irritated that every post here recently about a wild bird virus (H5N1) entering mammal populations, has to feature a holy diatribe about the evils of factory farming. To be clear, this is a wild avian virus that jumped the species barrier to numerous mammals in the wild now, including marine mammals, with no relationship ever to farming practices. Yes, factory farming is gross and dangerous and a disease vector. Currently, though, it is likely the only vector through which this virus is being monitored for a potential further jump to humans. The vegan argument that keeps cropping up here is not much more than a "tisk tisk, you deserve horrors because... (X)". In each of these posts you could replace farming practices with overpopulation, spread of humans into wildlife populations, global warming, overuse of antivirals/antibiotics, ventilation systems, air travel, large religious gatherings, or people not wearing masks all day every day. My point is just that responding to a post about a virus jumping species by writing a public service announcement implying that people have brought this upon themselves because of your pet cause "X" is basically the HN equivalent of the guy with the sandwich board saying REPENT THE END IS NEAR.
- colordrops 2y agoYour comment is ranting and bordering on ad hominem. It would be no different if you substituted "factory farming" with "climate change". The science and data support my statements. Do you have anything to say in response to that rather than just tone policing?
- noduerme 2y agoYou list factory farming and climate change, and say they're bad. I agree. You say data and science support your statements. You don't list the data or science. But moreover, you don't even mention the virus which is the topic of this thread or attempt to tie it through any data to the things you list in your post. In fact, the spread is H5N1 to mammals is largely unrelated to any human activity. So it's hard to know to which data or science you're referring, and I suppose people are supposed to come to their own conclusions. But as I said, I find that these types of posts detract from and derail useful conversations on this topic.
- jjtheblunt 2y agoBanning would be less impactful than popularizing some widely more preferable alternative.
- adriand 2y agoBanning is impossible in democracies because doing so would be wildly unpopular and sure to leave the door wide open to opposition parties promising to repeal the ban. You are correct that we need a more preferable alternative. Our best shot is probably lab-grown meat, which unfortunately is now banned in FL because some conservatives have chosen to make it a culture war issue. However, perhaps it will gain traction elsewhere. Really we need massive government support - a moon shot for lab-grown meat - to accelerate its development.
- ryandrake 2y ago> Banning is impossible in democracies > lab-grown meat, which unfortunately is now banned in FL Unless Florida is no longer a democracy, I don't see how these two statement square. It's clearly possible to ban things with enough political will, no matter how smart or stupid the ban is.
- maxerickson 2y agoIt's straightforward to square the statements. The first one is about expected political will. The second one is about something that happened with sufficient political will.
- adriand 2y agoBecause meat is popular and lab-grown meat is not. I’m not saying banning anything is impossible. I’m saying banning meat is impossible. Banning lab-grown meat is easy. It doesn’t take much political will to ban an unpopular, unknown or early-stage technology.
- jjtheblunt 2y agoAre there brands of lab grown meat now available?
- 123yawaworht456 2y ago>all the data and science unequivocally support my statements. oh, that rings a bell. I heard that in a different context over and over again for about 2.5 years. I heard grim promises that I will suffer and die, everyone I know will suffer and die too, the economy will collapse and the world will end - unless I trust the soyence and accept it as my lord and savior, of course.