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Comment by tbirrell | Hacker News Reader

> Furthermore, many people already eat far too much meat, seriously damaging their health and incurring huge costs.

What? I'm getting fat on pasta and breads. I need to actively eat more meat. And given the cost of meat compared to carbs, I'd bet dollars to donuts that the vast majority of people in the middle and lower class face the same problem. Meat is not the health problem here.

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The fact excessive carbs consumption is bad doesn't invalidate the fact that excessive meat consumption is bad.

Campbell's report is not perfect, but it is serious work, and hints that meat consumption and cancer are linked (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study). What's more, processed meat is classified as Category 1 carcinogenic to humans by WHO (http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/).

Additionally, animals concentrate any pesticides we put on plant we then feed them. We also give them a lot of additional products with side effects, such as antibiotics. The effect of the mix of all those on the human health is still unknown but raises interesting questions.

Since we also know that meat production has a huge toll on the environment, including soil pollution, green house gaz and water consumption, it's only fair to talk seriously about the issue. Especially now that we are closing on 8 billion souls, and India and China want our lifestyle too.

It's not a moral or religious debate.

It's just an important thing to consider, discuss about, monitor closely and review regularly with honesty, again and again. Like oil usage, walk street speculation or our voting system.

As a specie, we need to ask ourself those questions to evolve.

>>> We also give them a lot of additional products with side effects, such antibiotics. The effect of the mix of all those on the human health is still unknown

What is known is the effect on human health of eating diseased meat, and the effects on animals that must live infested with parasites. We certainly do pump too many antibiotics into our cattle, but that doesn't mean all drugs are always bad for us or them.

Not sure how you made that classification so narrow with such a strange statement.

This doesn't really justify routinely giving antibiotics to all food animals, regardless of their health, though.

Indeed. If you read the nutritional arguments for the paleo and ketogenic diets, it becomes clear that there is much to debate about the heath impacts of meat, farmed grains, sugars, and the general current diet advice.

It is clear that growing meat is more resource intensive than simply eating the grain directly. Saying that it is healthier to eat the grain instead of meat is a highly debatable point.

North Americans eat too much of everything. Nearly every diet "works" because by cutting out some branch of food you generally end up eating less. The science behind meat v. carbs is a total edge case. We are talking and +/- 10% chances of premature cancer, or heart disease, or whatever other old-person malady we are trying to prevent today. What matters more than any specific food is not being fat. Eat less. Exercise. Be thinner. That will do far more to prevent premature disease than any specific diet.

Rather than a meat tax, I'd rather see better government support for healthy lifestyles. Employers give sick leave. They should also give exercise leave to prevent disease in the first place. (Mine actually does this, 4 hours per week paid exercise time.) And tax deductions for gym/fitness center memberships is the lease that could be done.

The recommended daily meat intake is much lower than the typical (American) diet. The pasta and bread aren't helping, but more meat calories in place of carbs won't suddenly make you lose weight.

The bit which your quote is furthermoring is about the ecological impact of livestock farming, which is the headline justification for a meat tax. The health benefits are another, lesser, reason.

Note I'm not making any claims as to the health benefits/costs or existence of them, just to highlight the main justification for the tax: to limit the environmental impact caused by raising lifestock & growing feed for them.

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