Can someone be pro environment and eat meat?

[Zmaniac17]

I've seen different numbers.

I've seen that livestock and their byproducts account for 51% of all worldwide greenhouse emissions.
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6294
http://www.independent.co.uk/environ...s-1812909.html
http://www.animalfeedscience.com/art...517-7/abstract

We have to remember that there's around 15 billion livestock animals slaughtered every year for food.

Ya I think people are a little to focused on cow farts in this thread. The fact is the resources required to produce meat far outweigh the resources required to produce any plant product. So from a purely nutritional stand point if you want to produce the most food for the least resource cost people should eat a plant based diet. If you do want to reduce your impact on the planet, reducing your meat consumption would be a good way to do it.

[Jinpachi]

Of course we can. Personally i think the food guidelines are bullshit, created by industrial ag lobbyists. I think we could get by eating meat maybe 3-4 times a month. Sustain our diets with plant based proteins the rest of the time. And people should really learn basic gardening and livestock practices.

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Ya I think people are a little to focused on cow farts in this thread. The fact is the resources required to produce meat far outweigh the resources required to produce any plant product. So from a purely nutritional stand point if you want to produce the most food for the least resource cost people should eat a plant based diet. If you do want to reduce your impact on the planet, reducing your meat consumption would be a good way to do it.

Not only that, but they'll feel better in general. I love how i feel when i havent eaten meat in a few weeks. Shit bogs me down. I dont even fuck with red meat much at all anymore.

[Theodarzna]

Other source: https://www.skepticalscience.com/how...ute-to-gw.html

In addition to that knowledge, we haven't discussed side effects like deforestation for pastures, water polution, etc. And we havent even discussed other meatproducts Just hamburgers.... let's think about that for a second.

Can someone really be pro environment / claim they care about the environment while at the same time contributing to the biggest source of carbon footprint, deforestation and water pollution / waste by eating meat?

Agriculture, even vegan specific agriculture is massively devastating to the environment.

[Bodakane]

Agriculture, even vegan specific agriculture is massively devastating to the environment.

Kind of.

People always forget that livestock needs to eat crops to survive. Their food is grown, just like vegan food is grown.

So basically, which is more:

- the destruction caused by growing crops for vegans

OR

- the destruction caused by growing crops for livestock plus the destruction of growing livestock.

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Ya I think people are a little to focused on cow farts in this thread. The fact is the resources required to produce meat far outweigh the resources required to produce any plant product. So from a purely nutritional stand point if you want to produce the most food for the least resource cost people should eat a plant based diet. If you do want to reduce your impact on the planet, reducing your meat consumption would be a good way to do it.

Exactly.

Not only that, but a cow requires about 24 lbs of day to produce a one time yield of under 500lbs. So if a beef cow is weaned at around 7 months and is slaughtered at 18 months, that's a total of around 7900 lbs of feed to produce 500 lbs of food. There are around 1.5 billion cows on the planet on any given day.

People eat about 5 lbs of food a day.

Once we factor in all livestock and their feed needs, we could easily feed EVERYONE plus have millions of pounds left over, just by using the land that livestock need to feed to instead, grow human food.

[Teri]

Imo they need to invest more in insects instead of meat or endangered fish species.

Certain Fish farm methods also cause lots of pollution.

Growing insects vs Cow meat is a huge difference in waste products, yet very similar nutrition values even in favor of insects.

[Theodarzna]

Kind of.

People always forget that livestock needs to eat crops to survive. Their food is grown, just like vegan food is grown.

So basically, which is more:

- the destruction caused by growing crops for vegans

OR

- the destruction caused by growing crops for livestock plus the destruction of growing livestock.

Death and destruction are inevitable. Go full Jain if you want to bark up that tree. Vegans also require supplements and artificially created vitamins to survive. I don't go for fad feel good diets that cannot even exist naturally.

[S7orm]

Yes. Native Americans ate meat; they simply respected the animal and did not waste it. If you can do the same (IE not waste food), you can eat meat and respect the environment.

Why does this feel like a loaded question?

Except they didn't and used to drive herds of buffalo over a cliff, wasting most of the meat because they had no efficient way of avoiding meat decay. In terms of not wasting the animal we're probably doing better than ever thanks to refrigeration

[Celista]

It is my understanding that the overall footprint for vegans is larger, as many vegan food sources are not calorie dense and overall require more space.

Did not read the actual article/study that said that, so not sure if that is actually true or not.

[Rudkobing]

Can someone be pro environment and eat meat?

Yes.

Its mind boggling. I know.

[God Save The King]

I've seen different numbers.

I've seen that livestock and their byproducts account for 51% of all worldwide greenhouse emissions.
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6294
http://www.independent.co.uk/environ...s-1812909.html
http://www.animalfeedscience.com/art...517-7/abstract

We have to remember that there's around 15 billion livestock animals slaughtered every year for food.

I've heard 20%? Where did they get 50%? Jesus I'm behind the curve then haha.

I'll look at your links at home, I'm on my phone at the moment.

[mickybrighteyes]

Op talks about eating 'MEAT' than references just burgers and burger production. I think that this idea is already flawed....

[PC2]

Death and destruction are inevitable. Go full Jain if you want to bark up that tree. Vegans also require supplements and artificially created vitamins to survive. I don't go for fad feel good diets that cannot even exist naturally.

Death from what, starving people? Food is just molecules. Science can help us mass produce all the nutrition we need.

[chazus]

Just because you are 'pro something' doesn't mean you have to commit 118% of your mind, body, and soul into it. You don't have to be an extremist to believe in something.

By your logic, if you're pro-environment, you should just kill yourself because EVERYTHING we do, has some kind of damage to the environment.

Ride a bike? The bike manufacturers ruin the environment in some way.
Eat vegan? The vegan industry ruin the environment in some way.
Protest about pollution? The sign and clothing industry ruin the environment in some way.

I don't think there is literally anything a person in this day and age does in modern society that doesn't have 10,000 different ways to impact environment... But they can still believe in helping, and do things to help despite that.

EDIT: Also, those numbers are hilarious. 7500-15000 cars is... almost virtually nothing. It's pretty damn close to zero... And that's under the idea of a stupidly high ratio that everyone eats 3 burgers a week.. Which We probably dont fulfill 20% of.

(Doing the math, since math is being used as a talking point... 3 burgers a week would account for literally 0.001% pollution of cars. It's literally Not News.)

[Theodarzna]

Death from what, starving people? Food is just molecules. Science can help us mass produce all the nutrition we need.

Industrial production creates pollution and problems.

[Bodakane]

Death and destruction are inevitable. Go full Jain if you want to bark up that tree. Vegans also require supplements and artificially created vitamins to survive. I don't go for fad feel good diets that cannot even exist naturally.

You don't know the first thing about actual vegan diets. You think a veagn just eats raw veggies. You're wrong. I've been vegan for almost a decade and take no supplements.

But wait, lemme guess you know more about it than I do, right?

[GennGreymane]

Yes

now stop listening to vegans and shun them from society, like they should be.

[HumbleDuck]

You sound like sargeras.
In theory, even being alive contributes to world destruction, that doesn't mean all pro environment people should kill themselves or accept being a hypocrite.

[Elegiac]

You don't know the first thing about actual vegan diets. You think a veagn just eats raw veggies. You're wrong. I've been vegan for almost a decade and take no supplements.

But wait, lemme guess you know more about it than I do, right?

Probably eating a lot of soy and contributing to the deforestation of the Amazon in the process.

[Deleted]

smoking is good for the environment because it kills humans.

[Techno-Druid]

Other source: https://www.skepticalscience.com/how...ute-to-gw.html

In addition to that knowledge, we haven't discussed side effects like deforestation for pastures, water polution, etc. And we havent even discussed other meatproducts Just hamburgers.... let's think about that for a second.

Can someone really be pro environment / claim they care about the environment while at the same time contributing to the biggest source of carbon footprint, deforestation and water pollution / waste by eating meat?

Yes, I'm an environmentalist and I eat meat. Although I'm against the way we go about it, both from a resource and a ethical point of view.

I'm in pretty big support of lab-grown meat, which has increasingly become cheaper and cheaper and could clear up those ethical and environmental concerns I have.