How what you eat affects climate change
November 20, 2022 8:06 AM Subscribe
How what you eat affects climate change. One serve of beef = 330 grams of carbon dioxide. One serve of chicken = 52 grams of carbon dioxide. One serve of fish = 40 grams of carbon dioxide. One serve of vegetables = 14 grams of carbon dioxide. One serve of lentils = 2 grams of carbon dioxide. Livestock = 14% of all global greenhouse gas emissions, which is equivalent to all the cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships in the world (transportation) which is also 14%.
Related is yesterday's post on different types of milk. For environmental impact (in a highly general sense) oat milk is best, with oat > soy > almond > dairy.
posted by AlSweigart at 8:19 AM on November 20, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by AlSweigart at 8:19 AM on November 20, 2022 [7 favorites]
I'm not sure I'm ever going to eat a car or truck much less a plane.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 8:23 AM on November 20, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 8:23 AM on November 20, 2022 [6 favorites]
The pendulum has swung back to suggesting a change in individual choices over pressure on larger institutions?
posted by Selena777 at 8:24 AM on November 20, 2022 [54 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 8:24 AM on November 20, 2022 [54 favorites]
One serve of lentils = 2 grams of carbon dioxide.
With Beano perhaps -- without it one must factor in all the grams of methane -- a much more robust greenhouse gas -- produced. Think of all those cow burp and afflatus contributions.
posted by y2karl at 8:24 AM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
With Beano perhaps -- without it one must factor in all the grams of methane -- a much more robust greenhouse gas -- produced. Think of all those cow burp and afflatus contributions.
posted by y2karl at 8:24 AM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
Cool. So, how much lentils should I eat to balance private jet plane use?
posted by The River Ivel at 8:28 AM on November 20, 2022 [21 favorites]
posted by The River Ivel at 8:28 AM on November 20, 2022 [21 favorites]
The pendulum has swung back to suggesting a change in individual choices over pressure on larger institutions?
Considering the only good part of COP27 has been the richer countries agreeing topay poorer countries to make them shut up about climate change "to assist developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change," I'm not sure there's any legal way to pressure any institution and get results.
posted by simmering octagon at 8:30 AM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
Considering the only good part of COP27 has been the richer countries agreeing to
posted by simmering octagon at 8:30 AM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
Do keep in mind that there are climates where a responsible omnivorous diet makes more sense than a vegetarian one, and that modern factory farming is not the only possible way of producing food. But with those caveats in mind, you can’t deny that for most of us, the less meat we buy the better it is for everybody.
posted by rikschell at 8:31 AM on November 20, 2022 [19 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 8:31 AM on November 20, 2022 [19 favorites]
Isn't meat over 20% once you count the transport it involves, like oh shipping animal feed from Brazil?
posted by jeffburdges at 8:31 AM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by jeffburdges at 8:31 AM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
> The pendulum has swung back to suggesting a change in individual choices over pressure on larger institutions?
Ever since the oil companies got an italian man to dress up like a native american and lie to you about recycling, the supply side polluters have been trying to convince us it's actually our consumption choices that are to blame, and not the systemic forces that make them profitable. I will never be made to feel environmental shame for flying, having to drive in a city without good transit, having a nice meal, or living my life.
posted by dis_integration at 8:32 AM on November 20, 2022 [43 favorites]
Ever since the oil companies got an italian man to dress up like a native american and lie to you about recycling, the supply side polluters have been trying to convince us it's actually our consumption choices that are to blame, and not the systemic forces that make them profitable. I will never be made to feel environmental shame for flying, having to drive in a city without good transit, having a nice meal, or living my life.
posted by dis_integration at 8:32 AM on November 20, 2022 [43 favorites]
I'll gladly destroy every car/truck/place on earth to keep eating meat!
Kidding aside, I'm on a no-fat diet due to gallstones (can't wait for them to take off and nuke it from orbit... it's the only way to be sure) so I've cut all meat & dairy. And it's a sad diet. I don't even hate lentil & chickpeas, it's just that meat & fat brings a lot of flavour to a dish, even in low quantities.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 8:33 AM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
Kidding aside, I'm on a no-fat diet due to gallstones (can't wait for them to take off and nuke it from orbit... it's the only way to be sure) so I've cut all meat & dairy. And it's a sad diet. I don't even hate lentil & chickpeas, it's just that meat & fat brings a lot of flavour to a dish, even in low quantities.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 8:33 AM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
But I'm 100% on board eating less meat, and using it smartly for flavour.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 8:34 AM on November 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by WaterAndPixels at 8:34 AM on November 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
According to the EPA the average U.S. automobile emits 411 grams of CO2 per mile. According to the Census Bureau the average U.S. commute time is 28 minutes one way. If they're stuck in traffic and averaging 30 mph the entire distance, that's 30 miles round trip. That means 12,000 grams of CO2 emitted by the average car commuter every day.
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/one-way-travel-time-to-work-rises.html
https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyNET.exe/P100JPPH.TXT
posted by cthlsgnd at 8:41 AM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/one-way-travel-time-to-work-rises.html
https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyNET.exe/P100JPPH.TXT
posted by cthlsgnd at 8:41 AM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
The pendulum has swung back to suggesting a change in individual choices over pressure on larger institutions?
Do as I say, not as I do?! Both. We need both. We still need both. We have always needed both.
posted by aniola at 8:47 AM on November 20, 2022 [42 favorites]
Do as I say, not as I do?! Both. We need both. We still need both. We have always needed both.
posted by aniola at 8:47 AM on November 20, 2022 [42 favorites]
The pendulum has swung back to suggesting a change in individual choices over pressure on larger institutions?
We need to pressure Federal and State governments into switching from coal fired power stations to solar panel farms and wind turbines, AND we need to eat less beef. Both. The answer is both.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:51 AM on November 20, 2022 [19 favorites]
We need to pressure Federal and State governments into switching from coal fired power stations to solar panel farms and wind turbines, AND we need to eat less beef. Both. The answer is both.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:51 AM on November 20, 2022 [19 favorites]
I mean the thing is, you can only control yourself. It's kind of vapid to complain about people talking about things you can do to help, because you'd rather talk about the systemic problems that you can't fix by yourself.
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:56 AM on November 20, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:56 AM on November 20, 2022 [8 favorites]
In the context of this article, complaining about individual vs. systemic action is a derail. Nowhere on earth is the production and consumption of beef going to get banned by a government. But if nobody buys it, they'll stop producing it. Simple as that.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 9:02 AM on November 20, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 9:02 AM on November 20, 2022 [12 favorites]
OK I did not watch the whole thing but this is absolute bullshit when framed as a personal dietary choice. We have zero evidence that we can impact climate by telling people to change their personal shopping and eating habits. This is useful inasmuch as it helps us think about public policy. I cannot agree that we can only impact ourselves - lots of people out there - especially the meat industry - impacting the world on massive scale. We can too through mass action and public pressure to create systemic and policy change.
Fight to kill meat industries subsidies. We cannot change the world by personally ordering a smaller steak. Fuck this disproven theory of change. When we make claims about how things happen we should look to the historical record and the evidence.
(I have been a pescatarian for over 35 years and mostly eat vegan - it makes me feel nice about myself - that's not how we address the scale of the problem)
posted by latkes at 9:02 AM on November 20, 2022 [14 favorites]
Fight to kill meat industries subsidies. We cannot change the world by personally ordering a smaller steak. Fuck this disproven theory of change. When we make claims about how things happen we should look to the historical record and the evidence.
(I have been a pescatarian for over 35 years and mostly eat vegan - it makes me feel nice about myself - that's not how we address the scale of the problem)
posted by latkes at 9:02 AM on November 20, 2022 [14 favorites]
BuddhaInABucket, I thought the argument was that the "true cost" of beef production should be passed onto the consumer by the government, making it more costly and therefore less available to the common person.
posted by Selena777 at 9:04 AM on November 20, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 9:04 AM on November 20, 2022 [6 favorites]
Actually- yes, I would like to walk back my comment based on the two comments following it. Of course it's not black and white- subsidies should be eliminated, and we can pressure our governments to do that.
That said, I think a lot of people simply don't know about the extreme cost of eating red meat. I still think it's more realistic that education and outreach will cause people to make this change, considering how responsive our governments have historically been with regard to climate change.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 9:09 AM on November 20, 2022 [6 favorites]
That said, I think a lot of people simply don't know about the extreme cost of eating red meat. I still think it's more realistic that education and outreach will cause people to make this change, considering how responsive our governments have historically been with regard to climate change.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 9:09 AM on November 20, 2022 [6 favorites]
Nowhere on earth is the production and consumption of beef going to get banned by a government.
Some counterexamples include dog meat, cat meat, horse meat, force-fed calf meat, monkey meat, and pig meat.
posted by aniola at 9:13 AM on November 20, 2022 [12 favorites]
Some counterexamples include dog meat, cat meat, horse meat, force-fed calf meat, monkey meat, and pig meat.
posted by aniola at 9:13 AM on November 20, 2022 [12 favorites]
I mean the thing is, you can only control yourself.
Agreed. And we can tax problems and use them to subsidize solutions.
posted by Brian B. at 9:14 AM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
Agreed. And we can tax problems and use them to subsidize solutions.
posted by Brian B. at 9:14 AM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
you can’t deny that for most of us, the less meat we buy the better it is for everybody.
I think the key word here is "less". A vegetarian or vegan diet works for many but not even close to all (for reasons that go high and deep). But what pretty much everyone could do is cut back some on their meat consumption. And it's (probably) good for you.
Likewise the "individual choices over pressure on larger institutions" thing -- it's not as if we can't work it both ways. Make the changes you can make personally, but also keep the pressure on those monsters out there be they govt, industry, whatever.
None of this is not complex.
posted by philip-random at 9:16 AM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
I think the key word here is "less". A vegetarian or vegan diet works for many but not even close to all (for reasons that go high and deep). But what pretty much everyone could do is cut back some on their meat consumption. And it's (probably) good for you.
Likewise the "individual choices over pressure on larger institutions" thing -- it's not as if we can't work it both ways. Make the changes you can make personally, but also keep the pressure on those monsters out there be they govt, industry, whatever.
None of this is not complex.
posted by philip-random at 9:16 AM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
It's all well and good to make personal choices to with towards a goal but shaming people for not making them within a system that incentives them isn't really useful.
posted by Ferreous at 9:28 AM on November 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 9:28 AM on November 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
Some counterexamples include dog meat, cat meat, horse meat, force-fed calf meat, monkey meat, and pig meat.
Hard won battles against the cat, dog, horse and monkey meat lobbies. Wait.
posted by simmering octagon at 9:30 AM on November 20, 2022 [7 favorites]
Hard won battles against the cat, dog, horse and monkey meat lobbies. Wait.
posted by simmering octagon at 9:30 AM on November 20, 2022 [7 favorites]
Livestock = 14% of all global greenhouse gas emissions, which is equivalent to all the cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships in the world (transportation) which is also 14%.
[citation needed]
Data I've been able to find suggests livestock is around 6% while transport is around 16%. Older data has it at 11% for all agriculture, and 15% for transport.
posted by Dysk at 9:31 AM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
[citation needed]
Data I've been able to find suggests livestock is around 6% while transport is around 16%. Older data has it at 11% for all agriculture, and 15% for transport.
posted by Dysk at 9:31 AM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
Vegetables and Beef in the United States are produced via methane based fertilizer, from the Haynesville and Permian shales.
This makes Donaldsonville, LA a hellhole, where kids' faces peel from Ammonia poisoning. Kids and adults get asthma, adults get COPD, and adults die of lung cancer.
The solution, apparently, is to build 4 more petro- ammonia plants, and maybe one powered by epectrity. which the Manchin bill has proposed as a 'climate solution.'
This ammonia is sold upriver, then comes down the Mississippi, where it kills our food in the nation's largest dead zone.
Normally, eating meat and fish in Louisiana can be pretty "low-carbon"; and I can grow hundreds of pounds of bananas in my backyard without thinking about it. The biggest worry is contamination from the local refineries.
I just wish these studies would include the links to the petroleum fertilizer manufacturing chain, otherwise, the study gets nonsensical quickly. It s promoting a political agenda of despair and submission, even if that was not the intent.
posted by eustatic at 9:40 AM on November 20, 2022 [18 favorites]
This makes Donaldsonville, LA a hellhole, where kids' faces peel from Ammonia poisoning. Kids and adults get asthma, adults get COPD, and adults die of lung cancer.
The solution, apparently, is to build 4 more petro- ammonia plants, and maybe one powered by epectrity. which the Manchin bill has proposed as a 'climate solution.'
This ammonia is sold upriver, then comes down the Mississippi, where it kills our food in the nation's largest dead zone.
Normally, eating meat and fish in Louisiana can be pretty "low-carbon"; and I can grow hundreds of pounds of bananas in my backyard without thinking about it. The biggest worry is contamination from the local refineries.
I just wish these studies would include the links to the petroleum fertilizer manufacturing chain, otherwise, the study gets nonsensical quickly. It s promoting a political agenda of despair and submission, even if that was not the intent.
posted by eustatic at 9:40 AM on November 20, 2022 [18 favorites]
Some counterexamples include dog meat, cat meat, horse meat, force-fed calf meat, monkey meat, and pig meat.
Oh, and cow meat. And meat generally.
posted by aniola at 9:40 AM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
Oh, and cow meat. And meat generally.
posted by aniola at 9:40 AM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
I've managed to switch from cow to oat milk, but now I'm looking at cheese. What do we all think of vegan cheese? On one axis I'm moving from bad-environment to good-environment, but on the other I'm going from actual-food to highly-processed-food. Even more so for meat substitutes. Thoughts?
posted by one more day at 9:46 AM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by one more day at 9:46 AM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
I think the local vs global issue is we don't 'just' need individuals to reduce meat consumption, we need that reduction to correlate to a reduction in meat production. if I stop eating meat but Harris Ranch does not reduce its number of cows...right?
posted by supermedusa at 9:47 AM on November 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 9:47 AM on November 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
The pendulum has swung back to suggesting a change in individual choices over pressure on larger institutions?
There was this open source software project that I failed to contribute to once. It needed a lot of work done and was in serious danger of falling into irrelevance. But the current maintainer objected to the large changes I wanted to make, because they were such big changes to a project that hadn't seen such changes in years. And the current maintainer also objected to the small changes I wanted to make, because they were so small and insignificant and why was I trying to fix something that wasn't a big deal?
It turns out that the current maintainer just didn't want any change to happen, and this false divide was a convenient way to ensure that.
posted by AlSweigart at 10:00 AM on November 20, 2022 [31 favorites]
There was this open source software project that I failed to contribute to once. It needed a lot of work done and was in serious danger of falling into irrelevance. But the current maintainer objected to the large changes I wanted to make, because they were such big changes to a project that hadn't seen such changes in years. And the current maintainer also objected to the small changes I wanted to make, because they were so small and insignificant and why was I trying to fix something that wasn't a big deal?
It turns out that the current maintainer just didn't want any change to happen, and this false divide was a convenient way to ensure that.
posted by AlSweigart at 10:00 AM on November 20, 2022 [31 favorites]
On one axis I'm moving from bad-environment to good-environment, but on the other I'm going from actual-food to highly-processed-food. Even more so for meat substitutes. Thoughts?
If you do move to a vegan/vegetarian/plant-based diet, do some reading up on what nutrients you need to pay attention to. B12 is the most important one to be aware of. If you don't get enough b12, you can do permanent damage. And 100% daily value isn't enough for a lot of people.
Anyway, to answer your question, it's probably best just to switch to their unprocessed equivalents, if you're willing. You can basically just sub legumes for meat, and sub nuts and seeds for cheese.
posted by aniola at 10:06 AM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
If you do move to a vegan/vegetarian/plant-based diet, do some reading up on what nutrients you need to pay attention to. B12 is the most important one to be aware of. If you don't get enough b12, you can do permanent damage. And 100% daily value isn't enough for a lot of people.
Anyway, to answer your question, it's probably best just to switch to their unprocessed equivalents, if you're willing. You can basically just sub legumes for meat, and sub nuts and seeds for cheese.
posted by aniola at 10:06 AM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
You can basically just sub legumes for meat, and sub nuts and seeds for cheese.
In a dietary sense, yes, in a culinary sense, very very no.
posted by Dysk at 10:10 AM on November 20, 2022 [20 favorites]
In a dietary sense, yes, in a culinary sense, very very no.
posted by Dysk at 10:10 AM on November 20, 2022 [20 favorites]
veganism = tired
cannibalism = wired
cannibalism of the top emitters = HIRED!
posted by lalochezia at 10:38 AM on November 20, 2022 [5 favorites]
cannibalism = wired
cannibalism of the top emitters = HIRED!
posted by lalochezia at 10:38 AM on November 20, 2022 [5 favorites]
Fertilizer responsible for more than 20 percent of total agricultural emissions
posted by jeffburdges at 10:40 AM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by jeffburdges at 10:40 AM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
Since I don't believe we can or even should entirely eliminate meat consumption, I've been thinking a lot about how scale matters, and how our perception of quality and quantity is linked to culture.
There are some landscape systems that need big grazers to thrive. Maybe wild buffalo are better than tame cows, but they need to be there. And there are some systems where hunting is needed, at least until the big predators can return. We have far too many deer where I live, and they spread dangerous ticks. Since there are only a few wolves in the west of the country, someone needs to cull them, and then it makes most sense to eat them. In other places wild boar, or escaped pigs are invasive. The point is we can eat meat, where it makes sense.
BTW, pigs, and goats can be really useful and sustainable for land maintenance, if they are under control. And then you can eat them, too. Or milk the goats to make cheese. Everything needs context.
People in rich countries eat too much meat, and it is neither good for them nor the planet. On top of that, the quality of the meat is often sad. Could we change our concept of joy towards eating less meat, but better meat, or at least better prepared meat? Since my children will no longer eat meat unless it sustainably raised, we now only rarely eat lamb, maybe once or twice a year. But when we do eat that insanely expensive lamb, it is like a different animal from the ones we had before, it is sweeter and more succulent, I've even eaten it raw, like a beef tartare, but lamb.
Eating meat only rarely is one way of changing culture, another could be to eat very little meat. When you go to fine dining restaurants, you often just get a tiny morsel of something very luxurious, and you still leave satisfied because you get a lot of delicious preparations of vegetables and mushrooms, and good bread and/or rice and pasta. Perhaps it's unrealistic to imagine that type of cooking at home, but the home version could be using a bacon rind for flavor in your minestrone soup, which I did a lot as a student. Or stretching your chopped meat with rice in your dolmas or stuffed bell peppers.
I'm sort of rambling here, but it is also a serious question: could we change hearts and minds, so in ten years, the common dream of "the good life" wouldn't be steaks wrapped in gold, but a vegetarian feast? Parts of the elite are already there, there are several 3 star restaurants that are vegetarian.
This is relevant for all the changes we need to make: our cities and houses need to change, our transportation needs to change, our vacations need to change. How can we make this feel good? I need to know.
posted by mumimor at 11:17 AM on November 20, 2022 [12 favorites]
There are some landscape systems that need big grazers to thrive. Maybe wild buffalo are better than tame cows, but they need to be there. And there are some systems where hunting is needed, at least until the big predators can return. We have far too many deer where I live, and they spread dangerous ticks. Since there are only a few wolves in the west of the country, someone needs to cull them, and then it makes most sense to eat them. In other places wild boar, or escaped pigs are invasive. The point is we can eat meat, where it makes sense.
BTW, pigs, and goats can be really useful and sustainable for land maintenance, if they are under control. And then you can eat them, too. Or milk the goats to make cheese. Everything needs context.
People in rich countries eat too much meat, and it is neither good for them nor the planet. On top of that, the quality of the meat is often sad. Could we change our concept of joy towards eating less meat, but better meat, or at least better prepared meat? Since my children will no longer eat meat unless it sustainably raised, we now only rarely eat lamb, maybe once or twice a year. But when we do eat that insanely expensive lamb, it is like a different animal from the ones we had before, it is sweeter and more succulent, I've even eaten it raw, like a beef tartare, but lamb.
Eating meat only rarely is one way of changing culture, another could be to eat very little meat. When you go to fine dining restaurants, you often just get a tiny morsel of something very luxurious, and you still leave satisfied because you get a lot of delicious preparations of vegetables and mushrooms, and good bread and/or rice and pasta. Perhaps it's unrealistic to imagine that type of cooking at home, but the home version could be using a bacon rind for flavor in your minestrone soup, which I did a lot as a student. Or stretching your chopped meat with rice in your dolmas or stuffed bell peppers.
I'm sort of rambling here, but it is also a serious question: could we change hearts and minds, so in ten years, the common dream of "the good life" wouldn't be steaks wrapped in gold, but a vegetarian feast? Parts of the elite are already there, there are several 3 star restaurants that are vegetarian.
This is relevant for all the changes we need to make: our cities and houses need to change, our transportation needs to change, our vacations need to change. How can we make this feel good? I need to know.
posted by mumimor at 11:17 AM on November 20, 2022 [12 favorites]
one more day: a switch to sheep or goat cheeses might be an easy first step?
posted by eviemath at 11:19 AM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 11:19 AM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
One thing I think about is this is just one of many choices one can make re: environmental impact and no one is obligated or can possibly make all the “right” ones. For example, I don’t fly. Ever. I decided to continue to live near family so that I would not be required to fly to visit them, which has limited my career options and kept me in a state that’s banned abortion. I don’t eat meat much because it’s difficult for me to prepare and spoils easily, but when I do I am not likely to listen to lectures from people who fly home for the holidays every year. You made your choices, I make mine. Neither of us is better than the other.
In contrast, beef is the single most destructive food you can easily buy at the market but the thing is anyone can also easily stop eating it, so it's not so fun to talk about.
The majority of pre-prepared (frozen and canned) meals rely on beef. I’ve never seen a can of Boyardee at the store that used chicken, for example. There are a few soup options but they usually suck. For frozen meals, most of the chicken-based or vegetarian ones get slotted into the “health food” category which means price markups and reduced calorie counts, so you pay more money for less sustenance. I’m not sure I’ve seen a frozen meal that uses fish other than fish fingers…
Anyway, for people who rely on those kinds of food, it is harder. One step needs to be making it so that “healthy meal” doesn’t automatically mean “wheee, mark it up!” and that “healthy” also doesn’t mean “low calorie.” Otherwise there will continue to be limited options for people with limited time and money.
posted by brook horse at 11:40 AM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
In contrast, beef is the single most destructive food you can easily buy at the market but the thing is anyone can also easily stop eating it, so it's not so fun to talk about.
The majority of pre-prepared (frozen and canned) meals rely on beef. I’ve never seen a can of Boyardee at the store that used chicken, for example. There are a few soup options but they usually suck. For frozen meals, most of the chicken-based or vegetarian ones get slotted into the “health food” category which means price markups and reduced calorie counts, so you pay more money for less sustenance. I’m not sure I’ve seen a frozen meal that uses fish other than fish fingers…
Anyway, for people who rely on those kinds of food, it is harder. One step needs to be making it so that “healthy meal” doesn’t automatically mean “wheee, mark it up!” and that “healthy” also doesn’t mean “low calorie.” Otherwise there will continue to be limited options for people with limited time and money.
posted by brook horse at 11:40 AM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
The pendulum has swung back to suggesting a change in individual choices over pressure on larger institutions?
It's complicated.
On the one had, the choices that each agent has (and that includes governments and companies and other non-people) are determined by a set of current and past collective decisions. Most people who are car dependent couldn't just decide to not be, their whole society is likely structured around the automobile. And actually, personal car use is not that big a part of emissions, just very visible, our whole societies run on fossil fuels on a titanic scale so any independent consumption decision isn't going to change that. I might ride a bike, but how did the steel and aluminium get made? Where was it shipped from? How did the tyres get made? Not under my control.
On the other hand, we cannot simply choose to ignore what we genuinely know about the consequences of acting within those frameworks.
So my emissions are statistically very likely to be much lower than yours since I am in the UK and you are in the US. Depending on where you are in the US that difference may be larger or smaller but either way, the expected gap between us is almost entirely due to choices that neither of us made or could have made. On the other hand, UK electricity sector emissions went down by 55% in ten years because of changes that people voted to happen. Emissions in France or Denmark are even lower because of choices those societies made.
Where I tend to land is this:
Our primary individual responsibility is to act collectively. I.e. how you vote and participate in other forms of collective power is more important than your personal consumption decisions.
On the other hand, within the frame created by society, there are levers you can pull that are fairly low cost and high reward. Merely reducing beef consumption (and you should in fact focus specifically on beef rather than meat overall because of the enormous intensity of beef) and sharply curtailing flying are both actions that can be taken without the rest of society joining you and yes, I do think we have an individual obligation not to be entirely reckless.
How am I supposed to look someone from coastal Bangladesh in the eye and say, "The oil companies lied deliberately in the 1980s and that's why I had to fly to Thailand twice a year, Rosneft made me do this. ExxonMobil forced me to go on five European city breaks a year. Sucks about your farm though"? I just think that is taking the principle of collective action over consumption behaviour way too far and shading into a world where the existence of turbo-shits at some point in time make it unnecessary for me to *ever* consider *any* of my consumption decisions.
posted by atrazine at 11:41 AM on November 20, 2022 [13 favorites]
It's complicated.
On the one had, the choices that each agent has (and that includes governments and companies and other non-people) are determined by a set of current and past collective decisions. Most people who are car dependent couldn't just decide to not be, their whole society is likely structured around the automobile. And actually, personal car use is not that big a part of emissions, just very visible, our whole societies run on fossil fuels on a titanic scale so any independent consumption decision isn't going to change that. I might ride a bike, but how did the steel and aluminium get made? Where was it shipped from? How did the tyres get made? Not under my control.
On the other hand, we cannot simply choose to ignore what we genuinely know about the consequences of acting within those frameworks.
So my emissions are statistically very likely to be much lower than yours since I am in the UK and you are in the US. Depending on where you are in the US that difference may be larger or smaller but either way, the expected gap between us is almost entirely due to choices that neither of us made or could have made. On the other hand, UK electricity sector emissions went down by 55% in ten years because of changes that people voted to happen. Emissions in France or Denmark are even lower because of choices those societies made.
Where I tend to land is this:
Our primary individual responsibility is to act collectively. I.e. how you vote and participate in other forms of collective power is more important than your personal consumption decisions.
On the other hand, within the frame created by society, there are levers you can pull that are fairly low cost and high reward. Merely reducing beef consumption (and you should in fact focus specifically on beef rather than meat overall because of the enormous intensity of beef) and sharply curtailing flying are both actions that can be taken without the rest of society joining you and yes, I do think we have an individual obligation not to be entirely reckless.
How am I supposed to look someone from coastal Bangladesh in the eye and say, "The oil companies lied deliberately in the 1980s and that's why I had to fly to Thailand twice a year, Rosneft made me do this. ExxonMobil forced me to go on five European city breaks a year. Sucks about your farm though"? I just think that is taking the principle of collective action over consumption behaviour way too far and shading into a world where the existence of turbo-shits at some point in time make it unnecessary for me to *ever* consider *any* of my consumption decisions.
posted by atrazine at 11:41 AM on November 20, 2022 [13 favorites]
Eating less meat now, will benefit you much much more in the future when supply chain issues or straight up cost make meat either actually or functionally unavailable. Don't play catch up when beef is unavailable or completely beyond your budget.
It'll be alot easier now if you have a few varied, meat-light or vegetarian dishes you like to eat under your belt to make in a pinch. Identifying your top five favorite meat-heavy dishes and trying to find good analogs (not necessarily by like trying to figure out how to make a vegetarian pulled pork sandwich or brisket, but try to identify what parts of those flavors you like, to then search for a dish that may fill that same niche). Or make meat stretch and using less of it can be a valuable skill too. Using things like cured products, highly spiced sausages or smoked items like ham hocks can get you much much much more flavor per animal calorie produced than if you're just eating kind of a square meal. Oh, and also don't forget that MSG is not bad for you and can take a rather mediocre pile of vegetables and turn them right up into an absolute banger. Recently I was making some polenta with roasted broccoli and mushrooms and shit; it did not taste great, but a little magic MSG dust completely saved the day.
Meal planning, and having a varied set of dishes you can prepare for yourself is an act of climate resilience that is accessible to anyone that eats and cooks food.
If you're feeling particularly effected by climate doom, it can be a good vacation from that doom to tuck into a nice vada pav instead of a burger (which, vada pav > beef burger is a hill I will die on, even as an omnivore; if the mcdonalds down the street sold vada pav I would be in trouble).
posted by furnace.heart at 12:22 PM on November 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
It'll be alot easier now if you have a few varied, meat-light or vegetarian dishes you like to eat under your belt to make in a pinch. Identifying your top five favorite meat-heavy dishes and trying to find good analogs (not necessarily by like trying to figure out how to make a vegetarian pulled pork sandwich or brisket, but try to identify what parts of those flavors you like, to then search for a dish that may fill that same niche). Or make meat stretch and using less of it can be a valuable skill too. Using things like cured products, highly spiced sausages or smoked items like ham hocks can get you much much much more flavor per animal calorie produced than if you're just eating kind of a square meal. Oh, and also don't forget that MSG is not bad for you and can take a rather mediocre pile of vegetables and turn them right up into an absolute banger. Recently I was making some polenta with roasted broccoli and mushrooms and shit; it did not taste great, but a little magic MSG dust completely saved the day.
Meal planning, and having a varied set of dishes you can prepare for yourself is an act of climate resilience that is accessible to anyone that eats and cooks food.
If you're feeling particularly effected by climate doom, it can be a good vacation from that doom to tuck into a nice vada pav instead of a burger (which, vada pav > beef burger is a hill I will die on, even as an omnivore; if the mcdonalds down the street sold vada pav I would be in trouble).
posted by furnace.heart at 12:22 PM on November 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
a potato sandwich?? take my money!
I like to imagine that we could ask consumers in the West/Global North/whatever to reduce meat (beef) consumption by 25%. its such a small sacrifice. you can still have that occasional burger, or some short ribs in a stew. just less. if we also cut back that percent of production it could be pretty impactful.
also, I believe Liquid Smoke is vegetarian, and it really imparts that smoked/bbq type flavor to a dish, if that is part of what you enjoy about meat.
posted by supermedusa at 12:38 PM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
I like to imagine that we could ask consumers in the West/Global North/whatever to reduce meat (beef) consumption by 25%. its such a small sacrifice. you can still have that occasional burger, or some short ribs in a stew. just less. if we also cut back that percent of production it could be pretty impactful.
also, I believe Liquid Smoke is vegetarian, and it really imparts that smoked/bbq type flavor to a dish, if that is part of what you enjoy about meat.
posted by supermedusa at 12:38 PM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
Nowhere on earth is the production and consumption of beef going to get banned by a government.
There's an entire subcontinent that where that's really complicated. More than 1/8th of all humanity are Hindu.
posted by bonehead at 12:51 PM on November 20, 2022 [5 favorites]
There's an entire subcontinent that where that's really complicated. More than 1/8th of all humanity are Hindu.
posted by bonehead at 12:51 PM on November 20, 2022 [5 favorites]
The majority of pre-prepared (frozen and canned) meals rely on beef. I’ve never seen a can of Boyardee at the store that used chicken, for example. There are a few soup options but they usually suck. For frozen meals, most of the chicken-based or vegetarian ones get slotted into the “health food” category which means price markups and reduced calorie counts, so you pay more money for less sustenance. I’m not sure I’ve seen a frozen meal that uses fish other than fish fingers…
Anyway, for people who rely on those kinds of food, it is harder. One step needs to be making it so that “healthy meal” doesn’t automatically mean “wheee, mark it up!” and that “healthy” also doesn’t mean “low calorie.” Otherwise there will continue to be limited options for people with limited time and money.
I hear what you are saying, and it makes me want to repeat a story I posted somewhere here some time ago.
Once I lived in an impoverished area, and the majority of our neighborhood were struggling to feed their children. At the end of each month, food banks were the only solution for many families. There was a corner shop, owned by a Turkish (perhaps Kurdish) immigrant, and he couldn't live with the grief, it truly broke his heart, so he set up an informal cooking school for free. He taught anyone who wanted to learn to cook with vegetables instead of meat and cook from scratch instead of from the freezer/microwave.
The moral of the story is actually more American than Danish: he empowered a lot of poor people who found new ways to succeed, and he himself became moderately rich, because the neighborhood craved more high quality products and the spices and condiments to go with them. I haven't been there for a while, but last time I walked by, the once modest shop was more like Dean & Deluca than a normal bodega.
posted by mumimor at 12:58 PM on November 20, 2022 [12 favorites]
Anyway, for people who rely on those kinds of food, it is harder. One step needs to be making it so that “healthy meal” doesn’t automatically mean “wheee, mark it up!” and that “healthy” also doesn’t mean “low calorie.” Otherwise there will continue to be limited options for people with limited time and money.
I hear what you are saying, and it makes me want to repeat a story I posted somewhere here some time ago.
Once I lived in an impoverished area, and the majority of our neighborhood were struggling to feed their children. At the end of each month, food banks were the only solution for many families. There was a corner shop, owned by a Turkish (perhaps Kurdish) immigrant, and he couldn't live with the grief, it truly broke his heart, so he set up an informal cooking school for free. He taught anyone who wanted to learn to cook with vegetables instead of meat and cook from scratch instead of from the freezer/microwave.
The moral of the story is actually more American than Danish: he empowered a lot of poor people who found new ways to succeed, and he himself became moderately rich, because the neighborhood craved more high quality products and the spices and condiments to go with them. I haven't been there for a while, but last time I walked by, the once modest shop was more like Dean & Deluca than a normal bodega.
posted by mumimor at 12:58 PM on November 20, 2022 [12 favorites]
Eating less meat now, will benefit you much much more in the future when supply chain issues or straight up cost make meat either actually or functionally unavailable.
Please don't make me eat bugs. That's what I don't want for sure.
posted by amtho at 1:03 PM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
Please don't make me eat bugs. That's what I don't want for sure.
posted by amtho at 1:03 PM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
I've got bad news for the people pinning their hopes on lentils. They're unsustainable too.
In a word, Saskatchewan. 60% of lentils come from Saskatchewan. Not 60% of the Canadian market, not 60% of the US market.
60% of the global, planetary supply of lentils. Is from Canada.
Which means that they are grown using mechanized monocrop agriculture and artificial fertilizer. Then shipped in bulk halfway across a continent on diesel burning freight trains, then across an ocean in diesel burning ships, then across AfroEurAsia on more trains, then in trucks to a packaging plant where they're put in plastic bags, then trucked to your local market.
How long do you think we can keep that up?
posted by bartleby at 1:05 PM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
In a word, Saskatchewan. 60% of lentils come from Saskatchewan. Not 60% of the Canadian market, not 60% of the US market.
60% of the global, planetary supply of lentils. Is from Canada.
Which means that they are grown using mechanized monocrop agriculture and artificial fertilizer. Then shipped in bulk halfway across a continent on diesel burning freight trains, then across an ocean in diesel burning ships, then across AfroEurAsia on more trains, then in trucks to a packaging plant where they're put in plastic bags, then trucked to your local market.
How long do you think we can keep that up?
posted by bartleby at 1:05 PM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'll go out and sow som lentils right away now.
posted by mumimor at 1:07 PM on November 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by mumimor at 1:07 PM on November 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
I believe Liquid Smoke is vegetarian
Some varieties contain glycerine or glycerol, that may not be strictly vegan (it's not disclosed generally). If you're vegetarian or vegan for ethical/religious reasons, best to stick to the (better quality) stuff that only contain two ingredients; smoke extract and water...best to stick to those anyway?
But yes! liquid smoke is right up there with things like smoked paprika, asafoetida and MSG to bring flavor to dishes that aren't really associated with those flavors!! I personally find liquid smoke so powerful that it's just hard to dose correctly; I will dilute it 1:1 in an old soy sauce jar. A couple shakes don't make a dish obviously 'smoky' but can really add to the overall depth of flavor in a dish. The weirdest thing that smoke makes taste way better, to me at least, is any eggplant dish at all. It naturally gets a carmely smokey flavor even if its not cooked over wood, but a little bit of liquid smoke takes that flavor and dials it up a bit.
Smoked paprika is one of those things that doesn't make any sense; adding it to dishes that are 'cheesy' can amp up the 'cheesy' flavors, allowing you to actually use less cheese. It's some wizardry a chef friend clued me into, and I was fucking knocked flat that last time I made up some mac and cheese and ended up using half the cheese I normally did.
posted by furnace.heart at 1:14 PM on November 20, 2022 [6 favorites]
Some varieties contain glycerine or glycerol, that may not be strictly vegan (it's not disclosed generally). If you're vegetarian or vegan for ethical/religious reasons, best to stick to the (better quality) stuff that only contain two ingredients; smoke extract and water...best to stick to those anyway?
But yes! liquid smoke is right up there with things like smoked paprika, asafoetida and MSG to bring flavor to dishes that aren't really associated with those flavors!! I personally find liquid smoke so powerful that it's just hard to dose correctly; I will dilute it 1:1 in an old soy sauce jar. A couple shakes don't make a dish obviously 'smoky' but can really add to the overall depth of flavor in a dish. The weirdest thing that smoke makes taste way better, to me at least, is any eggplant dish at all. It naturally gets a carmely smokey flavor even if its not cooked over wood, but a little bit of liquid smoke takes that flavor and dials it up a bit.
Smoked paprika is one of those things that doesn't make any sense; adding it to dishes that are 'cheesy' can amp up the 'cheesy' flavors, allowing you to actually use less cheese. It's some wizardry a chef friend clued me into, and I was fucking knocked flat that last time I made up some mac and cheese and ended up using half the cheese I normally did.
posted by furnace.heart at 1:14 PM on November 20, 2022 [6 favorites]
[wonders briefly what the net overall change in carbon emissions would be from people deciding to eat less meat versus people being annoyed at how easily the claim that they should eat less meat slips from environmental concerns to the usual backlash-producing faux moral superiority and thereby decide to eat more meat]
[wonders at slightly greater length how the reduction in carbon emissions from people deciding to eat less meat compares to, say, swapping out 10% of coal power generation for solar]
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 1:15 PM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
[wonders at slightly greater length how the reduction in carbon emissions from people deciding to eat less meat compares to, say, swapping out 10% of coal power generation for solar]
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 1:15 PM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
OK, that was a frivolous comment, I'm sorry. I checked it and it seems I need to prep the ground with fava beans or peas and then grow the lentils together with oats. It's a bit of a project, but not impossible. My farmers association says that on the positive side, consumers are willing to pay more for local products.
posted by mumimor at 1:17 PM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by mumimor at 1:17 PM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
Oh, not to worry. I was just trying to put out a reminder that meat consumption wasn't invented by McDonald's in the 1960s.
It was from ten thousand years of "the land around here won't grow any crops worth a damn; only stuff that the ruminants like sheep/goats/cows will eat" 'well then let's grow ruminants, and eat them? and trade them for crops?' "Thag, you're a genius!"
Not everywhere can grow everything. Unless there's a whole industry of Irish bananas and Mongolian tuna that has been hidden from me.
posted by bartleby at 1:50 PM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
It was from ten thousand years of "the land around here won't grow any crops worth a damn; only stuff that the ruminants like sheep/goats/cows will eat" 'well then let's grow ruminants, and eat them? and trade them for crops?' "Thag, you're a genius!"
Not everywhere can grow everything. Unless there's a whole industry of Irish bananas and Mongolian tuna that has been hidden from me.
posted by bartleby at 1:50 PM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
it's interesting, Our farm was much more diverse 200 years ago, when the land was far more plagued by desertification. There was a huge and famous orchard, and several grains were farmed. Fresh water fish like eels were part of the economy, as well as sheep, dairy cows and obviously pigs. The farm provided a nationally famous inn.
There were also two mills: one for grains and one for timber.
The orchard still existed when I was a child, but no one recognized its significance, we bought Granny Smith apples at the supermarket and let our own fruit rot on the ground, because supermarkets wouldn't deal with small holders.
I feel I should reconstruct all this, now the desertification has been stopped. But to my friends and neighbors, the idea of having a real productive farm here seems absurd. I need to think.
posted by mumimor at 2:16 PM on November 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
There were also two mills: one for grains and one for timber.
The orchard still existed when I was a child, but no one recognized its significance, we bought Granny Smith apples at the supermarket and let our own fruit rot on the ground, because supermarkets wouldn't deal with small holders.
I feel I should reconstruct all this, now the desertification has been stopped. But to my friends and neighbors, the idea of having a real productive farm here seems absurd. I need to think.
posted by mumimor at 2:16 PM on November 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
It's all well and good to make personal choices to with towards a goal but shaming people for not making them within a system that incentives them isn't really useful.
Serious question: why not?
I've been low-meat and no-beef for about 20 years, now. I thought I had pretty much calcified into a stance I'd take for the rest of my life. But lately I've encountered a resurgence of articles like this, reminders of how bad meat and dairy are. And of course climate change is having more obvious immediate impacts.
In response to those things, I've been throttling back the meat more, and I've switched to oat milk. Because my recent level of consumption felt low ten years ago, but it feels shamefully high now.
I can't be the only one out there who changes behavior because of some healthy shame.
posted by gurple at 2:23 PM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
Serious question: why not?
I've been low-meat and no-beef for about 20 years, now. I thought I had pretty much calcified into a stance I'd take for the rest of my life. But lately I've encountered a resurgence of articles like this, reminders of how bad meat and dairy are. And of course climate change is having more obvious immediate impacts.
In response to those things, I've been throttling back the meat more, and I've switched to oat milk. Because my recent level of consumption felt low ten years ago, but it feels shamefully high now.
I can't be the only one out there who changes behavior because of some healthy shame.
posted by gurple at 2:23 PM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
If shaming people worked, the world would be very different and not in a good way.
posted by simmering octagon at 2:40 PM on November 20, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by simmering octagon at 2:40 PM on November 20, 2022 [6 favorites]
Systemic incentives are a tool society uses to encourage or discourage behavior. "Healthy shame" (if such a thing exists) amounts to saying "Despite everything else saying you should do the thing; you should take the route you'll get punished for". The purpose of a system, and all.
Does shame work to change this sort of behavior? How often does it entrench people instead? When does it instead prompt someone to double-down?
I'm sure you do things that are insufficiently carbon-sensitive which we could shame you for. How much of that would you hear & go "yeah, I'm going to commit to never flying/buying vegetables out of season/having children", and how much would you reject?
posted by CrystalDave at 2:44 PM on November 20, 2022
Does shame work to change this sort of behavior? How often does it entrench people instead? When does it instead prompt someone to double-down?
I'm sure you do things that are insufficiently carbon-sensitive which we could shame you for. How much of that would you hear & go "yeah, I'm going to commit to never flying/buying vegetables out of season/having children", and how much would you reject?
posted by CrystalDave at 2:44 PM on November 20, 2022
The thing about commodities is that abstaining from consuming them doesn't decrease their production, it makes it cheaper for others to increase their consumption.
Fossil fuels are basically money - not one mined or pumped BTU is going to go uncombusted.
There is effectively no limit to how much steak and hamburger the people of the world will eat if the price is right, and especially if the fuel costs to get a pound of beef from calving to your plate drops.
posted by MattD at 2:54 PM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
Fossil fuels are basically money - not one mined or pumped BTU is going to go uncombusted.
There is effectively no limit to how much steak and hamburger the people of the world will eat if the price is right, and especially if the fuel costs to get a pound of beef from calving to your plate drops.
posted by MattD at 2:54 PM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'm sure you do things that are insufficiently carbon-sensitive which we could shame you for. How much of that would you hear & go "yeah, I'm going to commit to never flying/buying vegetables out of season/having children", and how much would you reject?
Absolutely, that's true. I'll contend that the more shame I feel about some of those things, the less I'll do them.
I have a friend who went vegan a year ago. She doesn't preach about it, but if asked why she'll tell you, and it's mostly climate stuff. Cooking with her, and having her choice presented to me many times over, has helped me feel some healthy shame and scale my own meat-eating back.
She flies all the time for work, while in my friend group I'm the one who never flies. I hope I'm filling a similar role there.
Why does shame have to be a bad thing? Shame molds behavior.
posted by gurple at 3:54 PM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
Absolutely, that's true. I'll contend that the more shame I feel about some of those things, the less I'll do them.
I have a friend who went vegan a year ago. She doesn't preach about it, but if asked why she'll tell you, and it's mostly climate stuff. Cooking with her, and having her choice presented to me many times over, has helped me feel some healthy shame and scale my own meat-eating back.
She flies all the time for work, while in my friend group I'm the one who never flies. I hope I'm filling a similar role there.
Why does shame have to be a bad thing? Shame molds behavior.
posted by gurple at 3:54 PM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
So there's an interesting Australian project that's being going on for a while now where a certain kind of seaweed mixed into the feed of cattle seems to be able to massively reduce their methane emissions. It appears to work, at small scales, but it's not clear yet whether they can scale it up to cover the global cattle industry.
I'm personally happy to diversify my palette and eat more chicken, pork and beans, but I do hope it does scale purely because I suspect it's going to make the people who deploy the 'climate change requires us all to go vegan' argument furious.
posted by Merus at 3:55 PM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm personally happy to diversify my palette and eat more chicken, pork and beans, but I do hope it does scale purely because I suspect it's going to make the people who deploy the 'climate change requires us all to go vegan' argument furious.
posted by Merus at 3:55 PM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
There are lots of other reasons to eat a plant-based diet, too. It's just climate change is the aspect that has momentum right now.
posted by aniola at 4:23 PM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by aniola at 4:23 PM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
I hate to say that capitalism works, but the market is certainly making it easier to cut back on red meat because it is expensive as hell! I personally would cook with more red meat because that's what I grew up with and I have a very loose set of food ethics but it's unaffordable except as an occasional treat.
posted by kingdead at 4:36 PM on November 20, 2022
posted by kingdead at 4:36 PM on November 20, 2022
If shaming people worked, the world would be very different and not in a good way.
Well, it kind of does work, for some people. We've seen reports of that in this thread. The question is, does it shame enough people? It could be my literal-mindedness showing, but it seems with all these arguments sometimes "people" is used to claim something that isn't true for them personally thus must apply to everyone. Maybe that's understood to be implied, but if it were then why would the argument even be made?
The thing about commodities is that abstaining from consuming them doesn't decrease their production, it makes it cheaper for others to increase their consumption.
Well, it kind of does decrease their production, because it reduces demand. It's true that it decreases prices, but along the way less profit is extracted, which makes it marginally less viable to produce meat.
Fossil fuels are basically money - not one mined or pumped BTU is going to go uncombusted.
Well, yes, it can, because there's other uses for petrocarbon that energy production. And further reducing demand reduces the incenties to mine and pump. Your argument is basically appeal to inertia.
I hate to say that capitalism works, but the market is certainly making it easier to cut back on red meat because it is expensive as hell!
Instead of everyone cutting back, those who can better afford it then get all the meat, so rest assured it's still not great. It becomes another way that rich people are disproportionately catered to, and have heavier carbon weight than the less wealthy.
posted by JHarris at 5:12 PM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
Well, it kind of does work, for some people. We've seen reports of that in this thread. The question is, does it shame enough people? It could be my literal-mindedness showing, but it seems with all these arguments sometimes "people" is used to claim something that isn't true for them personally thus must apply to everyone. Maybe that's understood to be implied, but if it were then why would the argument even be made?
The thing about commodities is that abstaining from consuming them doesn't decrease their production, it makes it cheaper for others to increase their consumption.
Well, it kind of does decrease their production, because it reduces demand. It's true that it decreases prices, but along the way less profit is extracted, which makes it marginally less viable to produce meat.
Fossil fuels are basically money - not one mined or pumped BTU is going to go uncombusted.
Well, yes, it can, because there's other uses for petrocarbon that energy production. And further reducing demand reduces the incenties to mine and pump. Your argument is basically appeal to inertia.
I hate to say that capitalism works, but the market is certainly making it easier to cut back on red meat because it is expensive as hell!
Instead of everyone cutting back, those who can better afford it then get all the meat, so rest assured it's still not great. It becomes another way that rich people are disproportionately catered to, and have heavier carbon weight than the less wealthy.
posted by JHarris at 5:12 PM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
If shaming people worked, the world would be very different and not in a good way.
Trump's explicit racism and rallying of masks-off fascism is, in fact, much worst what the Republican Party was before. I prefer my racists being shamed and afraid of losing their jobs if they tell their black coworkers that they wished slavery still existed, not emboldened and organizing on Twitter.
I hate to say that capitalism works, but the market is certainly making it easier to cut back on red meat because it is expensive as hell!
Red meat is cheap as hell because capitalism doesn't stop us from externalizing the true cost of it. We burn down the Amazon for cattle grazing and ranchers make a profit while consumers get cheap beef? That's about as sustainable of an economic system as smashing car windows to take the spare change in the cup holder.
posted by AlSweigart at 6:00 PM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
Trump's explicit racism and rallying of masks-off fascism is, in fact, much worst what the Republican Party was before. I prefer my racists being shamed and afraid of losing their jobs if they tell their black coworkers that they wished slavery still existed, not emboldened and organizing on Twitter.
I hate to say that capitalism works, but the market is certainly making it easier to cut back on red meat because it is expensive as hell!
Red meat is cheap as hell because capitalism doesn't stop us from externalizing the true cost of it. We burn down the Amazon for cattle grazing and ranchers make a profit while consumers get cheap beef? That's about as sustainable of an economic system as smashing car windows to take the spare change in the cup holder.
posted by AlSweigart at 6:00 PM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
We have zero evidence that we can impact climate by telling people to change their personal shopping and eating habits.
This is absolutely not true. Producers make what the consumers demand.
I work in the car industry and one of my favourite cars used to be a hyper efficient sub-compact weighing 1100kg that I got an average of 4.0L/100km over the one year I drove it, which is 59MPG in the US. We likely lost millions on designing and manufacturing and launching and promoting it because literally no one bought it.
Instead... people seem obsessed with buying huge 2200kg vehicles which average 10.0L/100km (23MPG). So... that's mostly what we make now, and as an extension, is exactly what I drive today, because I have a company car and that's our flagship product.
No one would have been happier than me if customers turned out in droves to buy hyper efficient vehicles, we would have churned out 500,000 a year for them. And before someone brings up profit margins - economic profit exists because there is willingness to pay more than the cost of production, and that gets split between consumer surplus and producer profit. It's a circular argument because the lack of demand for efficient cars is the reason there isn't any margin on them - if people demanded smaller cars rather than larger ones, then we would see higher prices and margins on small cars (just the same way in the 90s that smallest phones had the highest prices, because miniaturization was technically challenging, until the screen size wars started).
Producers and manufacturers can only produce what customers want to buy. Sure, if you're a monopoly (Apple, Intel, etc) you can manipulate what the consumer buys to some degree, but most industries are pretty competitive and don't have that kind of concentration of power.
posted by xdvesper at 6:00 PM on November 20, 2022 [9 favorites]
This is absolutely not true. Producers make what the consumers demand.
I work in the car industry and one of my favourite cars used to be a hyper efficient sub-compact weighing 1100kg that I got an average of 4.0L/100km over the one year I drove it, which is 59MPG in the US. We likely lost millions on designing and manufacturing and launching and promoting it because literally no one bought it.
Instead... people seem obsessed with buying huge 2200kg vehicles which average 10.0L/100km (23MPG). So... that's mostly what we make now, and as an extension, is exactly what I drive today, because I have a company car and that's our flagship product.
No one would have been happier than me if customers turned out in droves to buy hyper efficient vehicles, we would have churned out 500,000 a year for them. And before someone brings up profit margins - economic profit exists because there is willingness to pay more than the cost of production, and that gets split between consumer surplus and producer profit. It's a circular argument because the lack of demand for efficient cars is the reason there isn't any margin on them - if people demanded smaller cars rather than larger ones, then we would see higher prices and margins on small cars (just the same way in the 90s that smallest phones had the highest prices, because miniaturization was technically challenging, until the screen size wars started).
Producers and manufacturers can only produce what customers want to buy. Sure, if you're a monopoly (Apple, Intel, etc) you can manipulate what the consumer buys to some degree, but most industries are pretty competitive and don't have that kind of concentration of power.
posted by xdvesper at 6:00 PM on November 20, 2022 [9 favorites]
Aren't there some structural issues favouring SUVs due to the light duty truck/car thing in the US? Which, in combination with the higher profit margins, has meant years and years of marketing pushing SUVs and pickups? Consumer behaviour and preferences don't arise from the human soul in a vacuum.
posted by Dysk at 8:09 PM on November 20, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 8:09 PM on November 20, 2022 [5 favorites]
Producers also make what the law allows.. car industry where public policy has a big impact being an excellent example. If regulations more rationally limited car size we wouldn't have the tank-sized trucks currently dominating or roads. Fortunately, existing regulation does mean we don't have actual tanks, or like, cars with flamethrowers driving down the highway. Or as mentioned above, if the car industry wasn't allowed to externalize its real costs, things would be different!
The cigarette industry is a great example of the power of regulation.
posted by latkes at 8:38 PM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
The cigarette industry is a great example of the power of regulation.
posted by latkes at 8:38 PM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
It has never been easier to adopt a plant based diet. Be one less person hurting animals.
posted by neonamber at 9:31 PM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by neonamber at 9:31 PM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
Food prices are impossibly complex, with layers of subsidies and incentives that are different in different regions. I wouldn't even try to guess what a kilo of beef should cost. Also, with the climate change that already has happened, and the wars that are happening, food prices are going to be very unpredictable (but rising) for a while. So all this discussion about the market is a bit of a derail.
I know for a fact that individual choices can make change, because people here in Denmark stopped buying eggs from caged hens some years ago. I don't know if there was a TV documentary or something, but within a very short period of time, people went from not thinking about eggs at all to buying far more expensive eggs, to the extent that you can't even find the cheaper eggs in normal shops anymore (they are still used in the industry, this isn't hen paradise yet). I always think of this when I feel bad about how slow things are going. And I can see similar movements for dairy products and meat, though not quite as dramatic yet. Yesterday, I was driving for several hours, and stopped at a convenience store: all the sandwiches were either with ethically produced meats or vegan, and in the coffee machine I could choose between oat milk and organic milk, no other choices. If it is like that at a motorway stop, the tipping point is near, even though the meat counter in Lidl still has tons of factory farmed pork.
I passed a loading station for EVs and it was full of cars. I think there is a business to be built from making some sort of entertainment center next to those loading stations. Somewhere with a gym, a café and a library.
Here, sustainable choices aren't a left/right question. All the conservatives I know eat organic meat and dairy too, and the reason they give for not eating more vegetarian or vegan food is lack of skills and choice. So I feel that changing diets is low hanging fruit. And politicians are the same. Left and right are both saying that the structure of subsidies and incentives has to change, so farmers can move on to more sustainable practices.
posted by mumimor at 1:22 AM on November 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
I know for a fact that individual choices can make change, because people here in Denmark stopped buying eggs from caged hens some years ago. I don't know if there was a TV documentary or something, but within a very short period of time, people went from not thinking about eggs at all to buying far more expensive eggs, to the extent that you can't even find the cheaper eggs in normal shops anymore (they are still used in the industry, this isn't hen paradise yet). I always think of this when I feel bad about how slow things are going. And I can see similar movements for dairy products and meat, though not quite as dramatic yet. Yesterday, I was driving for several hours, and stopped at a convenience store: all the sandwiches were either with ethically produced meats or vegan, and in the coffee machine I could choose between oat milk and organic milk, no other choices. If it is like that at a motorway stop, the tipping point is near, even though the meat counter in Lidl still has tons of factory farmed pork.
I passed a loading station for EVs and it was full of cars. I think there is a business to be built from making some sort of entertainment center next to those loading stations. Somewhere with a gym, a café and a library.
Here, sustainable choices aren't a left/right question. All the conservatives I know eat organic meat and dairy too, and the reason they give for not eating more vegetarian or vegan food is lack of skills and choice. So I feel that changing diets is low hanging fruit. And politicians are the same. Left and right are both saying that the structure of subsidies and incentives has to change, so farmers can move on to more sustainable practices.
posted by mumimor at 1:22 AM on November 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
I only eat local (within 5 miles to be more exact) grass-fed beef and pork, which has a smaller carbon footprint than the tofu and palm oil products the vegetarians are eating around here (shipped halfway around the world after being grown in freshly slashed and burned Amazon Rainforest or orangutan habitat). My biggest contribution to reducing my carbon footprint? Not reproducing.
We've already crossed the ecological tipping point, so I'll be enjoying a steak as I watch the world burn...
posted by schyler523 at 5:35 AM on November 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
We've already crossed the ecological tipping point, so I'll be enjoying a steak as I watch the world burn...
posted by schyler523 at 5:35 AM on November 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
Yes, let's convince 7.9 billion people to make sacrifices and downgrade their already challenging existences instead of regulating the super rich and their corporations who are largely responsible for these problems.
Denmark shops didn't stop selling caged hen eggs because everyone decided to stop buying them. There are fewer caged eggs to buy because they will be illegal to sell by 2025 so farms are switching to free range systems. This was not individual choice, this was 100% government regulations.
Look, if you want to change your diet for ethical reasons or because it gives you an imaginary sense of control over the situation, go for it. But I'm not going to live on lentils and oatmilk while the Kardashians take 15 minute private jet flights and Shein produces over a million garments a day that mostly end up in landfills within a week because they are so cheap and poorly made that people will literally only wear them once or twice.
Pissing in the ocean isn't going to speed sea level rise either. I tried that already.
posted by ananci at 5:54 AM on November 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
Denmark shops didn't stop selling caged hen eggs because everyone decided to stop buying them. There are fewer caged eggs to buy because they will be illegal to sell by 2025 so farms are switching to free range systems. This was not individual choice, this was 100% government regulations.
Look, if you want to change your diet for ethical reasons or because it gives you an imaginary sense of control over the situation, go for it. But I'm not going to live on lentils and oatmilk while the Kardashians take 15 minute private jet flights and Shein produces over a million garments a day that mostly end up in landfills within a week because they are so cheap and poorly made that people will literally only wear them once or twice.
Pissing in the ocean isn't going to speed sea level rise either. I tried that already.
posted by ananci at 5:54 AM on November 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
The way I look at it is, in a world where life continues to be worth living, there will be a lot less eating meat, a lot more eating local, a lot less flying, and a lot less driving. Who knows how those changes will happen. But if life stays worth living, it will be because they happened one way or another.
I don't have the power to make sure we end up in that world. But, just looking out for my own happiness, I have the power to make sure I can thrive in that world on the off chance we end up there. If I'm already living a happy life without flying, driving much, or eating much meat, then, in the lucky event that those changes occur, I'll be ready to accept them.
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:22 AM on November 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
I don't have the power to make sure we end up in that world. But, just looking out for my own happiness, I have the power to make sure I can thrive in that world on the off chance we end up there. If I'm already living a happy life without flying, driving much, or eating much meat, then, in the lucky event that those changes occur, I'll be ready to accept them.
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:22 AM on November 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
Denmark shops didn't stop selling caged hen eggs because everyone decided to stop buying them. There are fewer caged eggs to buy because they will be illegal to sell by 2025 so farms are switching to free range systems. This was not individual choice, this was 100% government regulations.
Just to be a bit of a pedant: the out-phasing of "cage eggs" came way before the legislation. This was consumer driven from the beginning. (links are to documentation in Danish, but the dates are in numbers, so easy to understand).
When the minister of food announced the decision to stop the cage-farms, obviously the lobbyists went out screaming "think about the poor" and " in the future, eggs will cost a Euro a piece". I literally didn't understand what they were even talking about, and neither did any other Danish consumers. The lobbyists were screaming on behalf of 7 (seven) farmers with together 550.000 hens who were selling almost all of their eggs to the food industry.
Apart from that, I'm all for taxing the rich till they are no longer rich, and for legislating for climate change. It's just that I also believe we need to get to a place were changing our habits doesn't feel like degradation and sacrifice, but like delicious fun. Also because I prefer living in a democracy, were there is a wide support for the necessary changes.
Actually, to bring it back to structural solutions, the reason the whole egg thing went the way it did is probably in part that here, the rich are heavily taxed, and the minimum wage level is pretty high, so most people can afford free-range eggs.
posted by mumimor at 6:27 AM on November 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
Just to be a bit of a pedant: the out-phasing of "cage eggs" came way before the legislation. This was consumer driven from the beginning. (links are to documentation in Danish, but the dates are in numbers, so easy to understand).
When the minister of food announced the decision to stop the cage-farms, obviously the lobbyists went out screaming "think about the poor" and " in the future, eggs will cost a Euro a piece". I literally didn't understand what they were even talking about, and neither did any other Danish consumers. The lobbyists were screaming on behalf of 7 (seven) farmers with together 550.000 hens who were selling almost all of their eggs to the food industry.
Apart from that, I'm all for taxing the rich till they are no longer rich, and for legislating for climate change. It's just that I also believe we need to get to a place were changing our habits doesn't feel like degradation and sacrifice, but like delicious fun. Also because I prefer living in a democracy, were there is a wide support for the necessary changes.
Actually, to bring it back to structural solutions, the reason the whole egg thing went the way it did is probably in part that here, the rich are heavily taxed, and the minimum wage level is pretty high, so most people can afford free-range eggs.
posted by mumimor at 6:27 AM on November 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
I know for a fact that individual choices can make change, because people here in Denmark stopped buying eggs from caged hens some years ago.
They absolutely can. The problem in an increasingly number of places is big money going to PR campaigns to convince people that climate change isn't a problem, or that these efforts won't be effective, or that they secretly have a malign purpose. Money from industries who put their current prosperity ahead of the fate of the entire human race.
posted by JHarris at 7:41 AM on November 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
They absolutely can. The problem in an increasingly number of places is big money going to PR campaigns to convince people that climate change isn't a problem, or that these efforts won't be effective, or that they secretly have a malign purpose. Money from industries who put their current prosperity ahead of the fate of the entire human race.
posted by JHarris at 7:41 AM on November 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
Yes, let’s convince 7.9 billion people….
If Americans and others in rich, Westernized countries ate the same amount of meat (especially beef and cow products) as the vast majority of the world’s 8 billion people, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, and while the climate would still be in serious trouble due to other factors, it would be not as bad to a statistically significant degree.
Yes subsidies to the beef and dairy industries are significant structural problems that contribute to this. Yes, we can see from Brazil’s experience with Bolsonaro how much difference individual politicians and capitalists can make, and it’s very hard to see how the rest of our individual actions combine together to produce cultural change (also, that latter is definitely a slower process). The part where the US government was all-in on marketing dairy and beef for decades (and still somewhat is), and pushing a meat and dairy heavy diet through school lunch programs, is definitely a huge contributing factor.
But also, meat and dairy consumption have been turned into wedge issues and political signifiers in the US to a degree that makes changing those structural obstacles much, much harder. So: yes, we need structural changes, and we also need cultural shifts to help counteract that and open up the space for regulatory and policy change. (This is one of the main reasons why I went fully vegetarian. Where I live, I in fact have access to locally, humanely, and sustainably raised meat of various animals up to and including cows. But it was important to me to be part of a cultural shift away from seeing meat as a necessary component of a meal, or viewing meat consumption as a status symbol.)
Because let’s not kid ourselves: it’s not that everyone around the world needs to eat less meat and dairy. This is specifically a rich people’s and/or American problem - just one component of the two-orders-of-magnitude outsized negative impact that this relatively small sub-population of the world population has on the world climate.
posted by eviemath at 10:11 AM on November 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
If Americans and others in rich, Westernized countries ate the same amount of meat (especially beef and cow products) as the vast majority of the world’s 8 billion people, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, and while the climate would still be in serious trouble due to other factors, it would be not as bad to a statistically significant degree.
Yes subsidies to the beef and dairy industries are significant structural problems that contribute to this. Yes, we can see from Brazil’s experience with Bolsonaro how much difference individual politicians and capitalists can make, and it’s very hard to see how the rest of our individual actions combine together to produce cultural change (also, that latter is definitely a slower process). The part where the US government was all-in on marketing dairy and beef for decades (and still somewhat is), and pushing a meat and dairy heavy diet through school lunch programs, is definitely a huge contributing factor.
But also, meat and dairy consumption have been turned into wedge issues and political signifiers in the US to a degree that makes changing those structural obstacles much, much harder. So: yes, we need structural changes, and we also need cultural shifts to help counteract that and open up the space for regulatory and policy change. (This is one of the main reasons why I went fully vegetarian. Where I live, I in fact have access to locally, humanely, and sustainably raised meat of various animals up to and including cows. But it was important to me to be part of a cultural shift away from seeing meat as a necessary component of a meal, or viewing meat consumption as a status symbol.)
Because let’s not kid ourselves: it’s not that everyone around the world needs to eat less meat and dairy. This is specifically a rich people’s and/or American problem - just one component of the two-orders-of-magnitude outsized negative impact that this relatively small sub-population of the world population has on the world climate.
posted by eviemath at 10:11 AM on November 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
I just found this illustration of what's going on during an attempt to find out what the average person in a place with very low meat consumption eats in a day.
posted by Selena777 at 10:53 AM on November 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 10:53 AM on November 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
Selena777, thank you for that link. Years and years of Metafilter posts about how we should eat less meat and that's the first comment that may actually have a measurable change on my habits. I've struggled to increase my vegetable consumption my whole life, but you know what I can easily make and eat more of? Rice.
Brb off to find a replacement for my shitty rice cooker that I got from Goodwill in college and never replaced when it died four years ago.
posted by brook horse at 3:28 PM on November 21, 2022
Brb off to find a replacement for my shitty rice cooker that I got from Goodwill in college and never replaced when it died four years ago.
posted by brook horse at 3:28 PM on November 21, 2022
Wow! We've so many of those selected countries eating more meat than the US: Hong Kong, Argentina, China, Vietnam, Australia, Spain, Brazil, and even the UK. Vietnam is not the archetype of a rich nation.
If you count meat+dairy then the US edges past China and Vietnam, but US meat+dairy comes behind Hong Kong's meat, and their dairy is high for Asia. Hong Kong must be a busy place cardiologists.
I wonder if Hong Kong has many exogenous factors, or if China would follow a similar path given sufficient affluence.
We've a global problem with CO2 emissions from cows, pigs, etc. clearly.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:03 PM on November 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
If you count meat+dairy then the US edges past China and Vietnam, but US meat+dairy comes behind Hong Kong's meat, and their dairy is high for Asia. Hong Kong must be a busy place cardiologists.
I wonder if Hong Kong has many exogenous factors, or if China would follow a similar path given sufficient affluence.
We've a global problem with CO2 emissions from cows, pigs, etc. clearly.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:03 PM on November 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
Nowhere on earth is the production and consumption of beef going to get banned by a government.
*laugh-crying in hindu fundamentalist*
posted by MiraK at 6:02 PM on November 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
*laugh-crying in hindu fundamentalist*
posted by MiraK at 6:02 PM on November 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
Vietnam's large pork consumption is mostly backyard style operations where a multi-generational family unit might keep a few pigs in the backyard, mainly fed with food scraps and spoilage and then using the manure for crops. Over 70% of pig production today in Vietnam comes from backyard operations with 4 or less pigs. (citation)
This is vastly different from say, cutting down virgin forest in the Amazon, growing soybeans there, then shipping it to the US to pour into industrial feedlot operations to produce beef... which itself causes twice as much CO2e emissions as pork.
It's again different to most cattle operations in Australia or New Zealand, which is almost fully grass fed and open range - effectively "free" calories generated from vast tracts of land which is too water and nutrient poor to farm regular crop, but viable enough to grow grass in.
The equation in those vast marginal areas is literally either cattle or nothing, because humans can't eat grass. Well... to be fair, if we didn't fence it off and farm cattle, you'd just get kangaroo and wallaby which are also good eating, I recently stayed at an AirBNB beach house with over 1,000 wild wallabies just wandering around the grounds.
posted by xdvesper at 7:18 PM on November 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
This is vastly different from say, cutting down virgin forest in the Amazon, growing soybeans there, then shipping it to the US to pour into industrial feedlot operations to produce beef... which itself causes twice as much CO2e emissions as pork.
It's again different to most cattle operations in Australia or New Zealand, which is almost fully grass fed and open range - effectively "free" calories generated from vast tracts of land which is too water and nutrient poor to farm regular crop, but viable enough to grow grass in.
The equation in those vast marginal areas is literally either cattle or nothing, because humans can't eat grass. Well... to be fair, if we didn't fence it off and farm cattle, you'd just get kangaroo and wallaby which are also good eating, I recently stayed at an AirBNB beach house with over 1,000 wild wallabies just wandering around the grounds.
posted by xdvesper at 7:18 PM on November 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
Fossil fuels are basically money - not one mined or pumped BTU is going to go uncombusted.
Investment in new oil projects is noticeably slowing. Many of the analysts are predicting peak oil production by the early 2030s, likely 2032. That's entirely due to changing consumption patters and largely shifts in the electricity and transportation sectors (which are increasingly becoming the same).
Extracted petroleum sure, but companies are already planning to wind down operations and to extract less petroleum.
posted by bonehead at 6:28 AM on November 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Investment in new oil projects is noticeably slowing. Many of the analysts are predicting peak oil production by the early 2030s, likely 2032. That's entirely due to changing consumption patters and largely shifts in the electricity and transportation sectors (which are increasingly becoming the same).
Extracted petroleum sure, but companies are already planning to wind down operations and to extract less petroleum.
posted by bonehead at 6:28 AM on November 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
If shaming people worked, the world would be very different and not in a good way.
Agreed. The dangers of shaming is the sense of distortion that enters the mind. What is mostly a symbolic act then becomes an absolute solution and allows the shamers to excuse their own faults. Look at all the misinformation on healthy diet over the last few generations, shaming one compound only to have another be far worse. Medieval justice led to rumors about black cats causing plagues, when they were part of the solution. It is an understatement to say the problem is complex. For example, we limit the size of our families, save a bunch of money, and use it to travel on subsidy-fueled jets for vacation. Or we give up eating something to save a forest only to have the entire forest converted to charcoal product because the grower has no more income. Then there is the root of the problem, namely population, which contributes to long term decline and increased demand for everything. Who is to shame? Women around the world need more autonomy to limit their families because their size is due to their third-class status of being controlled, and not by their husbands, but by cultural leaders using dogma or traditions they freely pick from in order to shame people to grow followers. It comes down to making progress in attitudes and offering birth control and education in order to be more autonomous. But this triggers a lot people in denial who prefer to keep the solutions at bay with small gestures or big distractions, such as population growth being required to prosper in a modern world, which is a very ancient excuse, and which a small family size clearly debunks.
posted by Brian B. at 7:31 AM on November 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
Agreed. The dangers of shaming is the sense of distortion that enters the mind. What is mostly a symbolic act then becomes an absolute solution and allows the shamers to excuse their own faults. Look at all the misinformation on healthy diet over the last few generations, shaming one compound only to have another be far worse. Medieval justice led to rumors about black cats causing plagues, when they were part of the solution. It is an understatement to say the problem is complex. For example, we limit the size of our families, save a bunch of money, and use it to travel on subsidy-fueled jets for vacation. Or we give up eating something to save a forest only to have the entire forest converted to charcoal product because the grower has no more income. Then there is the root of the problem, namely population, which contributes to long term decline and increased demand for everything. Who is to shame? Women around the world need more autonomy to limit their families because their size is due to their third-class status of being controlled, and not by their husbands, but by cultural leaders using dogma or traditions they freely pick from in order to shame people to grow followers. It comes down to making progress in attitudes and offering birth control and education in order to be more autonomous. But this triggers a lot people in denial who prefer to keep the solutions at bay with small gestures or big distractions, such as population growth being required to prosper in a modern world, which is a very ancient excuse, and which a small family size clearly debunks.
posted by Brian B. at 7:31 AM on November 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
Eating meat is tasty, of course. I prefer soups with some meat and meat broth, usually chicken, sometimes beef. Cured meats do have a bigger impact on flavor, but are much worse for health. Naturally cured sausage ends up with the same carcinogenic nitrates, by the way.
Meat is symbolic of wealth and power. killing the fatted calf . And people will continue to seek wealth and power and their trappings. My ex- used to get pissy about having chicken too often, ffs. I absolutely agree that the cost of meat and the grains used to feed it should not be subsidized. See also fossil fuel and air travel.
There doesn’t need to be an either/or between personal decisions that affect Climate and corporate responsibility. Agribusiness pushes consumers, but demand drives them; avocados are popular because they’re so delirious and nutritious. China’s burning coal to produce goods, a lot of them for the US consumer market. You can choose to reduce fossil fuels at home and also consume less crap shipped from factories all over. You can drive fewer miles in your electric car on the way to a rally to push for better transportation. We have to do all the things. Cheap meat is incredibly destructive and wasteful; pork production waste poisons water and can’t be sustained. It’s obscene that manure from feedlots is not harvested for fertilizer, but allowed to pollute water.
Unregulated capitalism is hella expensive and the bad guys have made huge inroads; the cost of any business should be borne by the business and reflected in prices. In the US, lots of really bad corporate behavior is subsided.
posted by theora55 at 8:38 AM on November 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
Meat is symbolic of wealth and power. killing the fatted calf . And people will continue to seek wealth and power and their trappings. My ex- used to get pissy about having chicken too often, ffs. I absolutely agree that the cost of meat and the grains used to feed it should not be subsidized. See also fossil fuel and air travel.
There doesn’t need to be an either/or between personal decisions that affect Climate and corporate responsibility. Agribusiness pushes consumers, but demand drives them; avocados are popular because they’re so delirious and nutritious. China’s burning coal to produce goods, a lot of them for the US consumer market. You can choose to reduce fossil fuels at home and also consume less crap shipped from factories all over. You can drive fewer miles in your electric car on the way to a rally to push for better transportation. We have to do all the things. Cheap meat is incredibly destructive and wasteful; pork production waste poisons water and can’t be sustained. It’s obscene that manure from feedlots is not harvested for fertilizer, but allowed to pollute water.
Unregulated capitalism is hella expensive and the bad guys have made huge inroads; the cost of any business should be borne by the business and reflected in prices. In the US, lots of really bad corporate behavior is subsided.
posted by theora55 at 8:38 AM on November 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
It’s obscene that manure from feedlots is not harvested for fertilizer, but allowed to pollute water.
In some places, it is harvested and used for fertiliser. I've always found it nuts that that isn't more commonplace. The smell of pigshit spread on fields is part of the smell of spring and summer to me.
posted by Dysk at 9:06 AM on November 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
In some places, it is harvested and used for fertiliser. I've always found it nuts that that isn't more commonplace. The smell of pigshit spread on fields is part of the smell of spring and summer to me.
posted by Dysk at 9:06 AM on November 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
Pig ichor is petrichor for thee?
posted by y2karl at 10:19 AM on November 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by y2karl at 10:19 AM on November 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Selena777, thank you for that link. Years and years of Metafilter posts about how we should eat less meat and that's the first comment that may actually have a measurable change on my habits. I've struggled to increase my vegetable consumption my whole life, but you know what I can easily make and eat more of? Rice.
Yeah, I'm really enjoying this tool in a lot of ways, but one thing that's jumping out at me is that nobody is getting a ton of calories from vegetables.
Some countries have high produce numbers because they rely on "starchy roots" (Russia, unsurprisingly, likes potatoes) or fruits (Cuba, unsurprisingly, likes plantains). But vegetables themselves are a few percentage points most places, and top out at 7%.
(This matches my experience cooking vegan food after being raised carnivorous, which is that you just can't "replace meat with vegetables" in terms of calories. You replace a lot of meat flavor with vegetables. But the calories come from grains and beans and roots and sugar and fat.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:22 PM on November 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I'm really enjoying this tool in a lot of ways, but one thing that's jumping out at me is that nobody is getting a ton of calories from vegetables.
Some countries have high produce numbers because they rely on "starchy roots" (Russia, unsurprisingly, likes potatoes) or fruits (Cuba, unsurprisingly, likes plantains). But vegetables themselves are a few percentage points most places, and top out at 7%.
(This matches my experience cooking vegan food after being raised carnivorous, which is that you just can't "replace meat with vegetables" in terms of calories. You replace a lot of meat flavor with vegetables. But the calories come from grains and beans and roots and sugar and fat.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:22 PM on November 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
That's likely because most vegetables have very few calories and you'd have to eat a ridiculous volume of something like broccoli to get a full day's worth of calories from it (excluding oils etc). If you look by grams per person instead, some countries are eating vegetables for a large proportion of their meals by weight even though they aren't getting many calories from them (China, for example).
The differences in meat consumption between countries weren't as dramatic as I would have guessed. If the info in the diagram is accurate, the US only eats a little more meat than the global amount (though I'm not sure how the global number was determined, particularly with regard to different countries' population sizes). It seems like the real outliers are the countries that eat very little meat, whether for cultural reasons or logistical/food insecurity reasons.
posted by randomnity at 5:00 AM on November 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
The differences in meat consumption between countries weren't as dramatic as I would have guessed. If the info in the diagram is accurate, the US only eats a little more meat than the global amount (though I'm not sure how the global number was determined, particularly with regard to different countries' population sizes). It seems like the real outliers are the countries that eat very little meat, whether for cultural reasons or logistical/food insecurity reasons.
posted by randomnity at 5:00 AM on November 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
It's again different to most cattle operations in Australia or New Zealand, which is almost fully grass fed and open range - effectively "free" calories generated from vast tracts of land which is too water and nutrient poor to farm regular crop, but viable enough to grow grass in.
NZ farming has an enormously negative impact on the waterways of the country.
posted by atrazine at 5:33 AM on November 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
NZ farming has an enormously negative impact on the waterways of the country.
posted by atrazine at 5:33 AM on November 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
India’s population is too large to be perceived as just an outlier though, IMO. I knew vegetarianism was commonplace there, but not to that extent.
posted by Selena777 at 11:25 AM on November 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 11:25 AM on November 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
We'll witness the phrase "Let them eat meat" aka "Qu'ils mangent de la viande" plenty of course.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:11 AM on November 24, 2022
posted by jeffburdges at 10:11 AM on November 24, 2022
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In contrast, beef is the single most destructive food you can easily buy at the market but the thing is anyone can also easily stop eating it, so it's not so fun to talk about.
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:18 AM on November 20, 2022 [10 favorites]