A no-beef diet is great – but only if you don’t replace it with chicken | Hacker News Reader

A no-beef diet is great – but only if you don’t replace it with chicken

vox.com

10 pointsimartin2k17 comments

What about local grass fed beef. I'm pretty sure it's the farming methods that are the problem not the animal you eat. I currently have 150kg of beef hanging. It grew up 10 minutes from my house, ate grass,and will feed us for six months.

The article's point was that cows are a major source of greenhouse gases. Eating grass fed beef doesn't change that.

There's an effort to start to mass produce a type of algae that by adding a small % of it to their diet reduces methane by 80%+ from what I remember.

Grass-fed cows gain weight more slowly, so they produce more methane per unit of meat produced. However, it can be argued that grass fed cattle farming is a net positive for Greenhouse emissions, since the carbon captured by the larger pastures can offset the effect of the methane emissions from the cattle. In some cases the entire farm's operational emmisions could be offset. Note that this is climate dependent. [1]

It is important also to note that if the land were instead used for growing crop for human consumption, then the carbon capture effect would be far higher, and that generally grass fed beef in the US are fed grain in the final months before slaughter. Other factors like water usage of cattle farming per calorie produced compared to human consumed crop can put even grass fed cattle farming in a bad light.

[1]: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/13/746576239/is...

Cattle/livestock is also used for improving the quality/fertility of the soil for growing crops. It drastically reduces the need for harmful fertlizers, the need to till the land as much (reducing diesel usage) etc.. Also, the milk and meat is a nice bonus.

The Sacred Cow documentary is worth watching which goes into detail of this cycle - including that a lot (most?) crops use animal manure for fertilizing, so you still need the animals.

Apart from that, livestock grazing has been used effectively to fight desertification by Allan Savory and others.

https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/reversing-desertification-with-l...

There's a large amount of range land which is impractical for farming. However, it is suited for grazing. It was used for bison before domestic cattle.

If we conclude that bovine grazing is harmful, should we conclude that exterminating the American bison was green?

I'm really not one to proseletyze (I promise). Ten years ago I could barely understand how someone could be vegetarian (much less vegan), but I started cutting meat out of my diet a few years ago, as well as most dairy. I still occasionally eat beef or chicken, maybe a handful of times in a year. And it's hard for me to completely avoid dairy, but I switched to coconut and soy milks as a daily choice.

My point is that "giving up meat" doesn't feel like I've given up anything. I don't miss it like I thought I would. There's no craving for it. What's been interesting is that attempting to be vegan has led us to eat a much larger variety of foods. Thai and Indian, of course, but also more diverse choices that are traditionally meat-based but with tofu or bean substitutions.

Beyond the carbon footprint argument presented in this article, there's also the water footprint to consider, where industrial animal farming plays a large role in that shortage through usage and pollution (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-0483-z.epdf).

If the majority treated meat as a luxury, a weekly delicacy instead of daily staple for example, no one would have to give up meat if they didn’t want to and could afford to buy it. It can be easier to just go zero, but if a person tries and fails and gives up, that’s not helpful. How much protein do I need each day if I’m not running marathons or doing heavy labor? There are other sources of protein out there. We like tempeh (beans in a mycelium matrix), tofu, legumes, eggs (still impactful, but not beef), nuts and seeds, whole-wheat and rye flour in sourdough, in addition to small amounts of animal meat. I’m insect-curious at this point. Anything else you recommend?

> If the majority treated meat as a luxury, a weekly delicacy instead of daily staple for example, no one would have to give up meat if they didn’t want to and could afford to buy it.

That's assuming that supply remained basically the same.

If demand for meat dropped to the point where people were only eating it a once or twice a week instead of daily, supply would dry up to the point where it would actually become a rare delicacy and most people wouldn't be able to afford it much.

No meat diet is also great! Go vegan!

I reject the flimsy assertion that eating beef or chicken is a "moral catastrophe" or even bad at all.

Anything less than the latest trend is worthy of condemnation. If we continue at this rate, today's advocates of "insect protein" will be cancelled in a decade.

Given the state of factory farming and our understanding of neurobiology, moral catastrophe is a perfectly reasonable assertion.

Animals suffer immensely, and we have no reason to believe their experience of suffering is more tolerable than humans.

> Given the state of factory farming and our understanding of neurobiology, moral catastrophe is a perfectly reasonable assertion.

No I don't think it is reasonable at all.

> Animals suffer immensely,

Untrue. Eating chicken or cow meat does not require the animals suffer immensely.

Some farming, transport, and slaughter practices cause needless suffering. But others don't, they actually allow pretty decent lives for the animals.

The willingness to generalize about and castigate meat eaters is telling.

>pretty decent lives for the animals

There is a romanticized vision of nature which isn't entirely accurate. Consider animals in a state of nature. Most will die horrible deaths after suffering sickness or death. Humanely treated domestic animals live charmed lives in comparison. Their health is valued, protected by human incentives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTVlifTAdlM

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