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I think you're right, and I've decided that the same is true for meat, in that large animals are basically in the same category as us in terms of morality, ie I

• soulofmischief 2y ago
  Try starting with one less meat meal a week. When that no longer feels difficult, try one less meal again. Even if you don't settle on a meat-free diet, any reduction in consumption makes a huge difference en masse.
  • vouaobrasil 2y ago
    I have found that sometimes with a vegetarian diet I feel like I need more protein. But a balance I've found that works is 1-2 meat meals per month is enough to balance it out.
    • nelblu 2y ago
      I felt the same way when I started reducing meat. But then I started substituting it with Whey protein and Greek yogurt, and now I eat meat once in 3 to 4 weeks.
    • rqtwteye 2y ago
      Make sure you get a lot of beans. They are pretty good on protein. How do you notice that you need more protein? I hear that quite a bit but I have no idea how it manifests.
  • gambiting 2y ago
    I had the same thought actually - what did it for me was realizing that I started to eat meat 3 times a day - breakfast, lunch and dinner all had meat in them, almost always. But when I was growing up in Poland, you'd have meat maybe 2-3 times a week - not because we were poor, but purely because no one looked at a meal of vegetable dumplings(or many other meat-free dishes) as something worse compared to meat - it had the same cultural status as a porkchop. But now I live in the UK and not eating meat for dinner is almost immediately seen as weird, or "oh you're a vegeterian now?" - no....I just don't eat meat for every meal? Why is this immediately seen as suspicious? And again, no one in Poland ever thought of these meals as "vegetarian" - they were just normal meals, not a special lifestyle choice.
    • Tijdreiziger 2y ago
      Do you have any recommendations/recipes for vegan Polish dishes (i.e. dishes that happen to be vegan)?
      • nothercastle 2y ago
        Deep fry tofu squares in potato starch. Eat them with rice and broccoli. Dip the tofu in spicy red Korean paste sauce or skiyaki sauce.
      • hansvm 2y ago
        Vegetarian dishes are common. Vegan dishes are a tiny bit more rare. - Pickle soup is a classic (use a recipe with fermented pickles, which are pretty easy to make at home, but larger grocers often also sell them refrigerated as a kosher product). Aside from the sour cream it's naturally vegan, and a vegan sour cream might work fine. - Borscht is a delicious beet soup. - Wild mushroom perogies are also pretty close, save for egg and sour cream in the dough. Vegan substitutes would definitely work there, else if you experiment a bit with the hydration a basic hot water and flour dough would be close. - Cabbage soup is similar to pickle soup in spirit (using sauerkraut, another lacto-fermented vegetable). - Placki Ziemniaczane (somewhat similar to US hash browns) is often served with mushroom sauce. Sometimes it'll have egg as a binder, but that's not essential for a very similar dish (replace it if you'd like, or add a bit more flour and water, or just leave it out). - Braised sauerkraut - Krupnik is a barley soup, often made with meat stocks, but vegetable stocks aren't bad either.
        • Tijdreiziger 2y ago
          Thanks!
          • pvaldes 2y ago
            But remember that Polish beet soup has often milk or cream added on it. If is pink it has milk. If is purple not necessarily.
  • usrusr 2y ago
    Ten people halving their meat intake has more positive impact than four people going full vegan. Unfortunately the idea of "less meaty" dining is entirely unknown where I live, it's either completely meatless or meat as the defining element with some sides as fillers. Meatless is high status (even if hated by some), meat-heavy is high status (even if hated by others), but simply does not happen, except perhaps behind closed doors.
• zulban 2y ago
  "basically in the same category as us in terms of morality". Nah. I use intelligence as a proxy for capacity to suffer. So eating a monkey is worse than eating a cow, which is worse than eating a fish or chicken. Environmental impact is another facet tho. If you just think "eating all animals is 100% horrible" then you're not facing the nuances of reality. You can make a realistic change like eating a bit less whales and cows and eat chickens instead. It's not perfect but it's better. With your all or nothing thinking you might also want to avoid eating all eggs because egg farms are so inhumane for the chickens. Whereas if you buy the eggs where the chickens are treated better like free range, it's still bad but it's far better. And you're helping shape the industry.
  • butlike 2y ago
    There's a big assumption in using that proxy as a capacity to suffer.
  • ornornor 2y ago
    > you're not facing the nuances of reality. Why not? And how did you come up with your taxonomy on animal intelligence and acceptable amount of suffering to inflict them? > egg farms are so inhumane Because they are? Industrial cages don’t even have enough space for the chicken to turn around. They are spent after a year of laying eggs and slaughtered for meat. Hatched chicks that are male are ground alive. Chickens get their beaks (that has a lot of nerves in it) sliced off without anesthesia. They get pumped full of antibiotics because diseases are rampant in high density farming. Chicken breast chickens are engineered to grow huge breasts too fast and they can’t even stand up. Industrial farming is the worst, but any kind of farming comes at the expense of the animal wellbeing. Money not spent on the animal is money earned: that is fundamentally broken and can’t result in good outcomes for the animal especially when they can’t express themselves the way we can.
• delichon 2y ago
  I basically survive on grass finished beef. It's for my health, but it is also among the most ethical animal choices. They roam undeveloped wilderness (adjacent to my home) almost entirely uninterferred with until their last day, then are killed with little pain. I wouldn't make such a trade off over a life of more freedom and risk, but I know people who would and do.
  • robin_reala 2y ago
    Cattle produce extreme amounts of methane, which is a far worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. It might be ethical for the cows, but not for the climate unfortunately.
    • delichon 2y ago
      Cattle produce a normal amount of methane for ruminants, and we evolved to eat ruminants, following them around in their migrations, and eating grass indirectly through them. I was a vegan for years and my health deteriorated. I honestly believe that I would be dead now if I didn't change. I do not feel morally ambiguous about eating the food that I was evolved to eat, for the purpose of my own survival, and emitting the necessary quantity of greenhouse gasses in the process. I'm not willing to live the smallest, least healthy life I can tolerate in order to make room for more people to do the same. A high population count does not strike me as a worthy goal, but a healthy and happy one does.
      • lambdaba 2y ago
        Same here bro/sis, eating only beef was transformative for autoimmune issues I had for years. There was simply no alternative that would give me a good quality of life, just heavy medication with awful side effects.
        • tomthe 2y ago
          Wait, you eat only beef? Or beef as the only source of meat?
• ajsnigrutin 2y ago
  Same is true for vegetables too... many small animals are killed when preparing the earth (mice, snakes,...) then many more with pesticides and other chemicals. Eating grass fed cows probably kills less animals per calorie than many vegetables.
  • kristopolous 2y ago
    I strongly doubt it. A cow goes through many years of meals in order for you to go through 1. Eating meat is a personal choice but pretending it's somehow more morally virtuous than a salad is probably delusional