Do we eat too much meat and is it a problem?

[Sevyvia]

Depends on what your definition of too much is. More than we absolutely need to? Definitely. Lots more. But living is about more the bare necessities.

The problem with meat-eating is just that it takes up a lot more land and resources than a similar amount of nutrition in another form. Plants, for example.

[Underverse]

Too much meat for what? And a problem in what context?

I would say most Americans don't eat enough meat. Or enough vegetables, or enough fruits. And too many grains/sugars.

It could be argued that Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of meat - that processed shit laced with sketchy preservatives and sourced from unhealthy conditions.

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Depends on what your definition of too much is. More than we absolutely need to? Definitely. Lots more. But living is about more the bare necessities.

The problem with meat-eating is just that it takes up a lot more land and resources than a similar amount of nutrition in another form. Plants, for example.

Similar, but not the same. Plant energy generally has much less nutrition per calorie than animal energy (think about things like bread and pasta, for example). Eating just kale and tomatoes for your daily calorie needs isn't really realistic, even though this option has more nutrition.

And then there's the problem of not being able to find a complete nutritional profile in only plant foods.

[Wikiy]

Fortunately, the horror videos of factory farming are not the only way to make meat. Dunno what sort of markets you have in Croatia, but you can usually buy from local farmers (if you get some friends you can get a whole cow) using local butchers and if you buy in bulk, substantially save money and also eat food that was raised and killed in a far more humane manner.

The horror videos were of an average slaughterhouse in France or Belgium (can't remember). I eat meat from Croatia, but I don't expect the conditions in our slaughterhouses, or the way things are done, are any better.

As for buying meat - I live in the capital, very near the centre, and butchers' shops have virtually died out, the nearest one to me isn't exactly at a convenient location and it's open during the early hours of the day. So... Not exactly convenient. Which is why I buy prepacked meat from the usual store chains. However, EU regulations are pretty strict and there aren't exactly any problems with that meat. No hormones, no nothing. From that perspective, things are okay. But yeah, I don't have much choice but to buy slaughterhouse meat.

[VTerpsichore]

Yes and yes.
Eating meat in itself isn't a problem. It's when demand becomes very high, when people don't give a shit about how it's produced, that it becomes a problem.
There are beef farms so big that the farm and it's lands is all you see. The amount of pollution they cause is staggering. The amount of hormones and antiobiotics they inject into the cattle is disgusting. It's so extensive that lakes become acidic. Plants and greenery withers and dies. And the hormonse and antiobiotics enter the food chain.
But it happens because people don't give a shit. They just wanna shove a beef into their mouthhole at any cost.

We just want to consume without thinking with no heed to the cost.
I'm not saying we should stop eating meat, no. Meat is essential, because some land just isn't fit for growing crops on. But we need to do so in some damned moderation.

This isn't just in regards to the meat industry at all. The crops and vegetable industry do shit like this too ,extensively, destroying vast swathes of forest to clear ground for their use. The fishing industry just as much, fishing so hard that some populations of fish are near extinction and the oceanfloors are ruined by deepsea fishing. People just don't give a fuck.

I'd say something along with this, but with differences.

This goes along with anything and everything though, not just meat.

The biggest issues is, there are just TOO many people in the world.

[draganid]

well if the whole world ate meat as much as we did, it would be totally unsustainable. stay poor africa!

[Damajin]

Too much meat? No, too much high fat meat, probably. What we eat too much of is processed carbohydrates. Corn products are the evil. It's in literally everything.

High fat meat is the best meat to eat, provided you're doing the smart thing and cutting your carbs to basically nothing.

[Bushtuckrman]

It's from a video game so take it as you will, but I just played a game that made a point of how people (or specifically, Americans) eat so much meat every day that demands became too much to handle. This leads to unethical research on mass producing cattle that leads to, you guessed it, a zombie outbreak. In fact, one character lampshades the amount of meat we eat and our insatiable need for it makes us not so different from zombies.

But in reality, I sometimes hear about problems with maintaining livestock for our world's demands and wonder about it time to time but never thought of how big of a deal it is. Also, I hear reading too much into this leads to some really horrible things you may regret delving into so I'm just scrapting at the surface.

wtf did I just read???

Don't worry about the scaremongering shit you hear from vegans. Have less processed meats and more whole meats like steak, fillets and mince. Unless you Americans have horribly processed mince, wouldn't surprise me.

[Sunseeker]

The horror videos were of an average slaughterhouse in France or Belgium (can't remember). I eat meat from Croatia, but I don't expect the conditions in our slaughterhouses, or the way things are done, are any better.

As for buying meat - I live in the capital, very near the centre, and butchers' shops have virtually died out, the nearest one to me isn't exactly at a convenient location and it's open during the early hours of the day. So... Not exactly convenient. Which is why I buy prepacked meat from the usual store chains. However, EU regulations are pretty strict and there aren't exactly any problems with that meat. No hormones, no nothing. From that perspective, things are okay. But yeah, I don't have much choice but to buy slaughterhouse meat.

I understand, I live in a fairly rural area so I have access to a lot of local farms and local butchers.

[Collegeguy]

That is fucking horrifying to think about. Being born into the world just to be butchered and devoured? You know, since animals can think and have feelings, I wonder how those trapped in these slaughterhouses feel. I ONCE briefly saw a documentary chickens get extremely stressed out and lay bad eggs.

Don't worry too much about their feelings. They would eat you too if they could.

[Flutterguy]

Woah woah woah... You can eat too much meat?

[Gersemi]

We humans need balanced diet, as being vegan can also be a problem as you will have vitamin B12 deficiency (and taking supplements is not a resolution).

Hm, so we shouldn't take advantage of our scientific advances?

[PenguinChan]

Too much meat? That isn't possible

Glad to see I, too, share this sentiment.

[xenogear3]

How is Human's eating meat any different from most of the animal kingdom that eats meat?

Animal kills other animal when hungry.

Human kills other human with no good reason, Hitler, Terrorist, Japanese in WW2, etc.

[Underverse]

Animal kills other animal when hungry.

Human kills other human with no good reason, Hitler, Terrorist, Japanese in WW2, etc.

But we don't eat them? usually...

[TirielWoW]

There's no reason not to go vegan other than "muh bacon" or "I like the taste of it". Those are pretty much the only valid reasons I can think of.

This is not accurate at all. There are people (like me) who simply can't eat a vegan diet for health reasons. Also, it literally kills babies for them to be restricted to a vegan diet.

[Nihilist74]

It is a major problem that we raise too much live stock especially cattle. It causes a lot of pollution in methane form the animal waste and over farming of crops to feed the livestock. The main problem behind it all though is that there are too many humans on the planet. Even if we were all vegan, farmers are pollutiong the enviorment by overuse of nitrogen fertilizer. We dont need to have a halocaust but we should start pushing to get people to volunteer for sterilization especially if you are too poor to raise children.

[minteK917]

for minor context since I forgot to add: cloning.

In reality though, what I wonder is how we eat so much beef and cows are not in any imminent danger of becoming endangered. Same goes for chickens.

Because we breed them to be livestocks? Cow, Chicken and Pig like you see on farms dont actually exist in nature. We breed them like that throught centuries. We eat them when they are old enough, until then we use them to breed more of them and milk them for other products. Why bother cloning when nature already has a proccess in which we can make infinite of live stocks via reproduction? Need more of them? Let even more reproduce and increase their population even more. Livestocks head count are always increasing. Hence they never go down in number, we have more and more of them.

[Feronar]

The problem isn't too much meat. The problem is all the sugar, refined grains, and highly processed junk.

[Dug]

High fat meat is the best meat to eat, provided you're doing the smart thing and cutting your carbs to basically nothing.

Keto diet ftw

[Damajin]

Keto diet ftw

Exactly. Zero Carb Best Carb.