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Comment by asterix_pano | Hacker News Reader

Are we ready to stop eating meat?

We don't have to stop eating meat. Reducing consumption goes a long way already.

Here's my story. I noticed that I was eating far more meat than I actually wanted to. It happened out of habit and because it was just there. That means I had been "mindlessly" buying meat while shopping instead of having a plan what to do with it. Once I stopped shopping like that, I found that I craved meat less often than I had expected. When I now do, I actually have meat and that without feeling bad at all. I consume far less meat than I used to, without actually missing anything. I consider that a success and one that is sustainable for me on top of that.

I find it hard to fathom what are said to be average American meat consumption habits. They say it’s 4 pounds per week per person, but that’s just insane. Sometimes I buy half a pound of bacon and end up throwing half away a month later. I use half a pound of ground pork in a sauce that serves ten for dinner. I feel like I’d have to make a comedic effort to eat four pounds of meat in a week.

Technically i think that bacon you throw away is considered part of your consumption. I would be curious how much meat is wasted vs eaten. It is still a large amount of meat but fascinated by the nuances.

I 100% admit to consuming food that I waste. That's on me! Half a pound is the least they sell.

What's beyond me is just the top line, gross figure. I'd need to bring home 10-20 pounds of meat every week to conform to the average, which is unimaginable.

Buy exact weight from the butcher counter.

I've been a vegetarian for a while now, but I remember visiting England at age 17 and at nearly every restaurant we visited, I would order a burger. Every place had a "quarter pound beefburger" or something like it on the menu, and I was there for it.

The greatest and most memorable was this one restaurant where one of the menu items was, as I recall, "two half-pound beefburgers". When it showed up at the table my brother was astounded and my dad said something like "He might share with the rest of us."

I did not. They had their own meals, and I had my pound of beef for lunch.

I've had to slow down a bit as I reach middle age, and I've been a vegetarian since 2003, but I probably eat around 4LBs of fake meat most weeks, not counting all the tofu.

(I'm not saying this isn't absurd. Just a fun anecdote.)

You can freeze bacon for a few months. Any longer and it will start to taste rancid.

Oversimplification. Eating meat does not cause deforestation, cutting down trees does. There are other, more sustainable ways to feed cattle.

Don't blame the average consumer for an issue much bigger than their own individual contributions.

Consumer behavior drives industry to do the things it does. People demand more meat, industry cuts down large swaths of forest to make land on which to graze cattle.

I don't get how people think this is supposed to work. It's like they just want to not take any responsibility whatsoever for how their behavior affects the world. Where do you think the change is going to come from if no one is willing to alter their lifestyle?

And yet, deforestation rates have declined significantly over the past several decades globally despite added several billion people, while Europe and the US have been reforesting.

From the article:

"As we explore in more detail in our related article, countries tend to follow a predictable development in forest cover, a U-shaped curve.5 They lose forests as populations grow and demand for agricultural land and fuel increases, but eventually they reach the so-called ‘forest transition point’ where they begin to regrow more forests than they lose."

It's like saying pressing the trigger doesn't kill someone, only the bullet does.

We are feeding over 70 billions of land animals for our appetite, nothing about that is sustainable.

Are you ready to stop using palm oil?

https://www.rainforest-rescue.org/topics/palm-oil

Absolutely. However, palm oil is a much smaller cause than the animal agriculture (like 1/10).

You might be surprised by the actual facts on this matter: https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/whats-causing-deforestatio...

And in particular: "The study found that clearing forests for oil palm plantations like the one above in Sabah, Malaysia, was the leading cause of deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia during 2001 and 2015."

For North America, the major cause of deforestation was timber logging and forest fires.

The only place where cattle ranching has a major role in deforestation is in Brazil, and even in that case is not 90% of the cause as you imply above.

You need to have a look at the numbers globally. And include all the deforestation done to clear space for growing soy beans (later used to feed farmed animals).

some sources below Margulis, Sergio. "Causes of Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon". World Bank Working Paper No. 22. 2003

Tabuchi, Hiroko, Rigny, Claire & White, Jeremy. "Amazon Deforestation, Once Tamed, Comes Roaring Back". New York Times. February 2017(New)

Bellantonio, Marisa, et al. "The Ultimate Mystery Meat: Exposing the Secrets Behind Burger King and Global Meat Production". Mighty Earth (New)

Oppenlander, Richard A. Food Choice and Sustainability: Why Buying Local, Eating Less Meat, and Taking Baby Steps Won’t Work. . Minneapolis, MN : Langdon Street, 2013. Print.

If you can avoid Nutella, you can avoid palm oil (it was tough for our family but we just don't buy it).

Palm oil (and it's derivatives like palm fruit oil, or palm solids) is infested throughout a lot of shelf-stable snacks.

Nutella is the least of your issues.

"Palm oil is the most consumed vegetable oil on the planet."

"The food industry is responsible for 72% world wide usage of palm oil. Cosmetics and cleaning products are responsible for a further 18% usage whilst 10% globally is used for biofuels and animal feed.

In food, it's the fat ingredient in things like biscuits and margarine. In soap and cosmetics, it’s used as a fat to increase the thickness or viscosity of a product and it helps skin to retain moisture.

Palm oil and its derivatives is often masked under 200 different names in ingredients lists. More obviously it may be listed as palm kernel, palmitic acid or even simply as vegetable oil. As of 2014, in the EU, food ingredient lists must list which type of vegetable oil they contain."

From: https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/food-drink/palm-oil-what-it-...

There are alternatives to Nutella that don't use palm oil, so you don't have to be tough on your family. But note that even if Nutella disappeared tomorrow, it wouldn't make a dent on palm oil consumption.

Also, if you believe what Nutella has to say about their use of Palm Oil, you don't have to feel bad for consuming it: https://www.nutella.com/int/en/inside-nutella/sustainability...

I'm not ready to become fully vegetarian. But I'd be curious what steps people have taken to reduce or change their meat consumption?

I'm thinking of only eating meat when going out to a nice restaurant, or for certain special meals (ie American Thanksgiving). But avoiding the commodity meat and being vegetarian as much as possible at home.

I moved to Vietnam and became vegetarian when I realized that despite what Bourdain (rip) likes you to believe, cheap street food isn't that good for you after all.

They don't go through much effort to hide the source of meat. In fact, some places hang the meat out in the sun (and flies and dirt) for you to see it as you drive by.

Never mind that there is no quality control, animal welfare, USDA, sanitization, etc... Heck, the meat they serve you might not even be what they advertise. Plenty of dogs and cats roaming around. Don't forget, right before covid, there was a mass swine flu going around where they slaughtered literally every single pig in the northern part of the country.

Anyway, I always cringe now when people try to tell me how good street food is... if you've seen some of the things I've seen... the decision is pretty easy.

Try just adding some good side vegetables or salads to your ordinary dishes and you should be able to reduce the amount of meat and carbs in each meal.

You could also try to find one good vegetarian dish and cook that once in a while. Daal is my goto vegetarian dish that tastes good and is easy to make in large batches.

thanks for conflating two enormous, guranteed-NO items.. not

Please understand that cultures worldwide have profoundly different relationships to wooded areas, first

Secondly, markets and population economics vary drastically across geography

Thirdly, a discussion is a communications endeavor, no matter what the facts are.. the actual participants have to engage in some sensible fashion

reset, please

The HN crowd does get their panties in a bunch when anyone mentions vegetarianism, population control, or anything related to Socialism.

You can't have it all. Well the very wealthy can, but you can't.

Not eating meat would probally overnight stop the deforestation of the Amazon. Plus you desk jockeys might live past 60 in decent health.

> Not eating meat would probally overnight stop the deforestation of the Amazon.

Unfortunately not. The Amazon would still get converted into farm land, but it would be even more palm oil instead of cattle.

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