I hate that this used to be me.
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2023
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Personal growth :)
:)
It's especially ironic considering I've gone vegan this year.
Personal growth++
I'm a vegetarian.
I was, and still am, surprised by how often people will go into a long rant justifying why they eat meat to me as soon as they find out I'm vegetarian. All the while I'm just sat there, not saying anything, because I literally do not care whether or not they eat meat.
Me being a vegetarian is a personal choice for me and myself only. You do you. I don't care. You don't need to explain yourself to me. It makes me feel so awkward.
People will often ask me why I'm a vegetarian too. But it feels like a very personal and heavy question to ask someone immediately after finding out they're vegetarian... I don't especially want to talk about animals dying all the time and how it makes me sad especially to strangers.
Edit/Addition: It feels like a lot of focus is brought on how vegetarians/vegans force their views onto other people but my experience personally is non-vegetarians/vegans trying to force me into conversations about this topic.
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To be fair. There is much debate around whether livestock is indirectly carbon neutral with very valid studies on both sides
Please link any study on livestock being CO2-neutral. I'm very skeptical, but would love to read your source first.
I don't have access to my schools library atm. But here's one I found off google (which is admittedly a poor method to find studies)
https://smallfarms.oregonstate.edu/new-study-finds-grass-fed-beef-reduces-carbon-footprint
Full disclaimer I should have clarified in my original comment. Grass fed livestock specifically is carbon neutral
It's not carbon neutral if you look at studies that account for more factors. For instance, here's an article with an interview of the researchers in the field talking about how there is no carbon-neutral beef
There’s not been a single study to say that we can have carbon-neutral beef
[...]
We also have to ask how much of the sequestered carbon in these systems is actually due to the cattle. What would happen to the land if it were simply left fallow?
The answer is, depending on the land, and on the kind of grazing, it might sequester even more carbon https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/10/03/beef-soil-carbon-sequestration/
If we look at much more rigorous reviews on the carbon sequestration potential of "regenerative grazing" it's pretty slim. It cannot even sequester enough to counteract just grazing only production which only produces 1g protein/person/day
Ruminants in grazing-only systems emit about 1.32 Gt [...] These are their emissions. The question is, could grazing ruminants also help sequester carbon in soils, and if so to what extent might this compensate? As the following numbers show, the answer is ‘not much’. Global (as opposed to regional or per hectare) assessments of the sequestration potential through grassland management are actually few and far between, but range from about 0.3-0.8 Gt CO 2/yr 301,302,303 with the higher end estimate assuming a strong level of ambition.
https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/reports/fcrn_gnc_report.pdf
And keep in mind that this doesn't scale very well due to the massive land it requires. Already clearing land for pastures is a large deforester. Trying to even scale to a quarter of beef demand would require using 100% of grassland which would put enormous pressure for further deforestation
We model a nationwide transition [in the US] from grain- to grass-finishing systems using demographics of present-day beef cattle. In order to produce the same quantity of beef as the present-day system, we find that a nationwide shift to exclusively grass-fed beef would require increasing the national cattle herd from 77 to 100 million cattle, an increase of 30%. We also find that the current pastureland grass resource can support only 27% of the current beef supply (27 million cattle), an amount 30% smaller than prior estimates
[…]
If beef consumption is not reduced and is instead satisfied by greater imports of grass-fed beef, a switch to purely grass-fed systems would likely result in higher environmental costs, including higher overall methane emissions. Thus, only reductions in beef consumption can guarantee reductions in the environmental impact of US food systems.
Thanks for the thorough write up. Quite impressive for a meme sub :)
"And keep in mind that this doesn’t scale very well due to the massive land it requires. Already clearing land for pastures is a large deforester. Trying to even scale to a quarter of beef demand would require using 100% of grassland which would put enormous pressure for further deforestation."
Most deforestation is intended to produce land for crop farming. There is still a lot of agricultural land left that is ideal for grazing, and that cannot be used for growing crops. We may not be able to feed everyone in the world on meat, but we definitely can't do it with plant-based foods alone.
And apart from that issue, there is the matter of protein quality, which is complicated to assess. Most mentions of plant protein are referring to total nitrogen content ("crude protein"), but not all of that comes as amino acids, which is the only form in which nitrogen can be assimilated by the human body.
So mixing and balancing plant protein sources has to be done with a certain amount of skill and care, because if one of the essential amino acids in the mix is deficient, that limits the assimilability of the rest of them.
Extensive cattle ranching is the number one culprit of deforestation in virtually every Amazon country, and it accounts for 80% of current deforestation
Plant-based food production uses less cropland
The research suggests that it’s possible to feed everyone in the world a nutritious diet on existing croplands, but only if we saw a widespread shift towards plant-based diets.
[...]
If everyone shifted to a plant-based diet we would reduce global land use for agriculture by 75%. This large reduction of agricultural land use would be possible thanks to a reduction in land used for grazing and a smaller need for land to grow crops.
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
Complete proteins matter doesn't really matter all that much in practice. Things like soy are complete on their own, and things that are technically incomplete proteins like beans can be made complete with rather little like even rice. You don't need to be getting every amino acid in with every meal. If you eat the amino acids at some point in the day, you will be fine
Are the majority of livestock grass fed?
No, nor is its best case carbon neutral. See my sibling comment about that. It's also worth mentioning here that the typical grass-fed production is actually higher in methane emissions due to longer raising times
Taken together, an exclusively grass-fed beef cattle herd would raise the United States’ total methane emissions by approximately 8%.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aad401/pdf
Currently, 'grass-finished' beef accounts for less than 1% of the current US supply
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aad401
Or if we look at Australia, which likes to tout its grass-fed production, it's still majority feedlot
51% of domestically consumed beef comes from feedlots. [...] In Q1 2021, 19% of cattle on feed were on feed for less than 100 days
And trend-wise, grain-fed rather than grass-fed is increasing
Going forward, these trends indicate that the Australian grainfed sector will continue to make up a growing percentage of cattle slaughter and beef production
Unfortunately only between 4 and 5 percent in the US is
Other people have answered more thoroughly, but it should be added that even your source never calls grass fed beef carbon neutral (on the very first paragraph it even says that it isn't), just that it has a better CO2 footprint than grain fed beef (and that not by much, as has been pointed out)
The key is to farm or graze using regenerative methods. Current factory farming methods are detrimental to the soil and the rest of the environemnt in many ways. Bear in mind, however, that the largest contributor to greenhouse gasses is the healthcare sector, and that's going to be a tough nut to crack.
See my comment further down the thread going into detail about how regenerative grazing doesn't really work out as touted
https://lemmy.ml/comment/646750
In terms of emissions, healthcare is not a major source of emissions? The largest sector is energy followed by agriculture (of which animal agriculture is the majority). Most of healthcare emissions are from energy usage which is really a problem of renewable energy usage
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data
got any reading on that ? legit never heard that before
Check out the "sodcasts" of Peter Ballerstedt on his YouTube channel. He's a forage agronomist with a lot of knowledge. You may not like his conclusions, but he gives you the data to check them out.
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See my comment further down the thread going into detail about how this is not the case https://lemmy.ml/comment/646750
- Oil comes from dinosaurs.
- Electricity comes from oil.
- This means electricity is made from dinosaurs.
- Dinosaurs are animals.
- This means electricity is an animal product.
How curious it is that vegans still use electricity, when in most places it isn't even vegan!
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It's not them not eating meat that I have a problem with(even though it's not healthy), it's the self-righteousness of it.
This kind of thing always reminds me of this video from innuendo studios that really nails why this is a thing. https://youtu.be/ExEHuNrC8yU
yes! I was trying to remember where I saw that. I get the combative attitude from people sometimes 'cause I don't drink, which as I recall, he mentions in that video too.
So... Tell me how vegan alternatives to items reduce carbon footprint lol.
Vegans in ideology make sense, but if you are paying more for food [that's worse for you, instead:] just buy local stuff from your farmers market or ethically-farmed things... Local eggs, cows, vegetables... Surely this can't be unreasonable.
The worst-case production of plant-based foods actually comes out ahead compared to best-case production on virtually every environmental metric including emissions.
If I source my beef or lamb from low-impact producers, could they have a lower footprint than plant-based alternatives? The evidence suggests, no: plant-based foods emit fewer greenhouse gases than meat and dairy, regardless of how they are produced.
[…]
Plant-based protein sources – tofu, beans, peas and nuts – have the lowest carbon footprint. This is certainly true when you compare average emissions. But it’s still true when you compare the extremes: there’s not much overlap in emissions between the worst producers of plant proteins, and the best producers of meat and dairy.
https://ourworldindata.org/less-meat-or-sustainable-meat
More broadly
Plant-based foods have a significantly smaller footprint on the environment than animal-based foods. Even the least sustainable vegetables and cereals cause less environmental harm than the lowest impact meat and dairy products [9].
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/8/1614/htm
Transportation doesn't actually make as much impact as one might think
Transport is a small contributor to emissions. For most food products, it accounts for less than 10%, and it’s much smaller for the largest GHG emitters. In beef from beef herds, it’s 0.5%. Not just transport, but all processes in the supply chain after the food left the farm – processing, transport, retail and packaging – mostly account for a small share of emissions. This data shows that this is the case when we look at individual food products. But studies also shows that this holds true for actual diets; here we show the results of a study which looked at the footprint of diets across the EU. Food transport was responsible for only 6% of emissions, whilst dairy, meat and eggs accounted for 83%.
https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
In terms of health, one can live perfectly fine and healthy on a plant-based diet
It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that appropriately planned vegetarian, including vegan, diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. These diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes. Plant-based diets are more environmentally sustainable than diets rich in animal products because they use fewer natural resources and are associated with much less environmental damage. Vegetarians and vegans are at reduced risk of certain health conditions, including ischemic heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, certain types of cancer, and obesity. Low intake of saturated fat and high intakes of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, soy products, nuts, and seeds (all rich in fiber and phytochemicals) are characteristics of vegetarian and vegan diets that produce lower total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and better serum glucose control. These factors contribute to reduction of chronic disease
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Good for you. Although your choice doesn't befit me, I understand and respect your decision as long as you also respect mine.
It is sad some people need to belittle others over stuff that literally doesn't even personally affect them. I mean, unless they're the cook, I guess.
got nothing against vegans it's just when they try to force it into others
Same energy as "I don't hate the gays I just wish they'd stop shoving it in my face"
Like you force your lifestyle on animals, by exploiting and killing them?
Very few will force it on others, though. Anyway, I find it hilarious how people can get riled up about the idea of a person not eating meat or any animal products. I’ve seen it often that they take it personally for some reason and will “compensate by eating extra bacon/steak/chicken”. It’s bonkers.
Eh, I don't care what you eat. But I find very offensive, naive, and just plain wrong the idea that it's impossible to sustainably raise animals for meat, eggs, dairy, etc as many vegans will try to insist.
Does it cost more? Yes. Can we raise as many as we do today using conventional farming techniques? No. Will/should we all cut back on our meat, dairy, etc? Yes. But, then again being more mindful of what we all eat is going to be required regardless, if we're going to manage to feed everyone.
Claiming that something is on its whole sustainable is rather loosely defined (i.e what level of impact is considered sustainable and on what metrics), so let's look a little closer. What many are saying there is that process is still going to inherently be much more inefficient compared to growing plants directly for human consumption
It turns out to be the case that the worst-case production of any plants-based production comes out ahead compared to best-case production of meat, dairy, etc. on virtually all environmental metrics
If I source my beef or lamb from low-impact producers, could they have a lower footprint than plant-based alternatives? The evidence suggests, no: plant-based foods emit fewer greenhouse gases than meat and dairy, regardless of how they are produced.
[…]
Plant-based protein sources – tofu, beans, peas and nuts – have the lowest carbon footprint. This is certainly true when you compare average emissions. But it’s still true when you compare the extremes: there’s not much overlap in emissions between the worst producers of plant proteins, and the best producers of meat and dairy.
https://ourworldindata.org/less-meat-or-sustainable-meat
Plant-based foods have a significantly smaller footprint on the environment than animal-based foods. Even the least sustainable vegetables and cereals cause less environmental harm than the lowest impact meat and dairy products [9].
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/8/1614/htm
Even true of synthetic fertilizer usage compared to the best case of animal manure
Thus, shifting from animal to plant sources of protein can substantially reduce fertilizer requirements, even with maximal use of animal manure
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921344922006528
In terms of biodiversity
Livestock farmers often claim that their grazing systems “mimic nature”. If so, the mimicry is a crude caricature. A review of evidence from over 100 studies found that when livestock are removed from the land, the abundance and diversity of almost all groups of wild animals increases
If we compare more typical production rather than best to worst, the differences are even more apparent
To produce 1 kg of protein from kidney beans required approximately eighteen times less land, ten times less water, nine times less fuel, twelve times less fertilizer and ten times less pesticide in comparison to producing 1 kg of protein from beef
People take it personally because deep down everyone knows it is wrong to keep something as cruel as the meat and dairy industry alive, plus the huge environmental impacts on multiple fronts. So they get super defensive instead of confronting or accepting the fact that they're doing the wrong thing for selfish reasons.
It's funny: the forum I help moderate has a strong contingent of zero-carb/carnivores, and their experience is the same, only in reverse. They get shamed for not eating plants. I guess the moral is that people will criticize us, no matter what we do.
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Stop forcing your views onto innocent animals first
As a vegan myself, I completely agree! I won't tell others what to eat and they shouldn't tell me what to eat. If I were to ever get "preachy" it's purely about reducing impact on the factors mentioned in the meme and by no means forced... One less meal a week with meat in? Go you! Locally sourcing meat? Hell yeah, less environmental impact!
Nobody is forcing veganism onto others lmao. You see a lot of vegans going around putting a gun to someone's head demanding they drop the eggs they're holding in the store? Most vegans won't even tell you they are vegan when it's not relevant because it's too exhausting when a person turns out to be a 'veganism bad lel' debate bro, so we'd rather avoid the chance.
What do you mean by "forcing" veganism onto others?
Eat your vegetables or I will make you eat them! /s vegan btw
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