jeffwPlant-heavy ‘flexitarian’ diets could help limit global heating, study finds
Mister NeonI hate animals, that’s why I’m a vegetarian.
Care to explain the joke?
That’s not a joke. I don’t like animals, they drive me crazy, and I think they’re disgusting. Since they’re disgusting I don’t want their flesh in me.
lqdrchrdThe virgin vegetarian because I love animals vs the chad vegetarian because I hate animals
I view vegans like party clowns view mimes.
Upvoted for making me re-read this several times and contemplate the statement.
I think they’re disgusting. Since they’re disgusting I don’t want their flesh in me.
Isn’t this the basis behind some religions’ prohibition against eating pigs? Basically that they are disgusting and disease-ridden.
It was the historical reason for this rule, yes. In the time people eating pig meat were getting sick, so they put a rule into their religion as a countermeasure.
Vegan agriculture kills more animals less humanely than .... oh he's serious. That's even funnier.
That’s the joke I thought he was trying to hint at lol
For me being flexible help ramp down my consumption of meat. Each day without was a win. These days it’s very rare that I eat any meat. It’s become boring compared to the fun of a meatless diet.
𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖈𝖍My partner and I are flexatarians, it’s lovely. The only downside is that it’s hard to not eat carb heavy, which is also an issue with vegetarianism and veganism. I feel like a spy among vegetarians.
I really don’t eat a lot of meat. When I do it’s usually chicken, sausage, or broth. The latter two are great for using bits of the animal that wouldn’t normally be consumed alone.
girlfreddyI eat pretty much the same, except almost zero carbs because of diabetes. But I’ve been eating like this for decades because my stomach just can’t handle most beef or pork at all (except the sausage) … it sits like a rock in my gut and takes almost a full day to start feeling normal again.
Ever since pandemic, meat has been doing the same to me. Muscle meat in particular, ground meats I’m more ok with.
How do you manage to avoid carbs? It seems like almost everything nonmeat is some form of carb, except for mushrooms, milk, and eggs
I try to keep my carbs under 30 grams per day. Above that I gain weight and feel like crap.
Very VERY limited wheat products like bread, pasta, etc (once per week if that). I used to use konjac noodles as an alternative but they’ve become very expensive.
Zero sugar (I use stevia instead, but it’s an acquired taste).
I make protein shakes with 0% milk, real chocolate powder, collagen protein and stevia. I’ll have 2-3 @ 16oz per day.
I also make my own soda/pop with club soda, lemon and lime juice, and stevia.
Drink about a gallon/4 litres of water per day.
And because of cost I eat a lot of frozen veggies vs fresh … mixed with pasta sauce, melted cheese on top, or made into an omlet of sorts.
Homemade soups are also great, but I currently live in a rooming house so don’t have access to a freezer anymore.
What about vegetables? If you are talking about plant proteins with not a lot of carbs go for TVP or vegan protein powders.
tinwhiskersYou may not have discovered TVP yet. You should do so.
I’m not looking to add protein, I’m looking to reduce carbs. They’re in fucking everything from oat milk to fruit. At least, that’s what my Endo told me.
unsweetened almond milk has minimal carbs, and not much you can do about fruit since its all pretty much all sweet but the fiber is good to make you feel fuller.
MisterFrogI feel very grateful that I grew up in a non-veg household that still ate tofu. And now I am a tofu fiend.
However, eggs are still far less impactful than beef, so, protein options still exist, not to mention all the nuts and beans out there.
Also, what about vegetables? Though I admit these should be part of a diet no matter what your diet is, so doesn’t really count.
It’s not all carbs in non-meat land, is all I’m saying.
Power to you for whatever works for you though, no judgement.
That’s the big problem with our family. My wife has dietary restrictions from having a duodenal switch and ending up super malabsorptive even among DS patients because of it.
So she has a tiny stomach capacity and only absorbs a percentage of any nutrients in what she eats. Non-meat proteins tend to play hell with her stomach. She’s gotta be careful about what protein shakes she has for her breakfast.
TrashboatMaybe I’m being too pessimistic, but feels like this is yet another study to add to the mountain of evidence that people will ignore because they’ve deemed the taste of meat worth an impending global calamity. When will the average persons tipping point be? When oceanfront property is available in Tennessee?
When will the average persons tipping point be?
When its too expensive to buy meat. Its not like this is new either. Here’s meat consumption over the last 100 years in the USA:
It tracks decently with the rise in GDP in the USA:
If you could graph sentient creatures’ collective agony I’m sure that would line up pretty well too
I hope things get better
People only want to have happy feelings for the animals they eat. It’s what they are told since they were toddlers and don’t you dare say those animals are actually suffering while they keep stuffing themselves. And they’d go “plants have feelings too!”
This is a very sobering read: vox.com/…/farmed-animals-animal-welfare-human-pro…
Endless nightmare indeed
Plants react to stimulus as well. The smell of freshly cut grass for instance is chemical signaling – typically they’d be losing their plant matter to insects eating them, so they release chemicals to attract other insects which prey on the ones eating them.
Is the grass in agony? It responds to harm with a chemical response aimed at stopping the harm.
Where do we draw the line? Do we starve obligate carnivores so their prey lives?
I think you’re getting a little too philosophical. Why not start with mammals with whom we share much in common? They exhibit levels of cognition far above what people like to believe. They mourn, have cultures, traditions. They feel fear, and that fear looks like ours, so it should be something we all can understand.
I’d also extend the same protection to fish and other complex organisms.
If it was really up to me, nothing would ever suffer, whether an earth worm or a human. But realistically we can stop eating the things with brains and friends and that’d be a boon for our climate, environment, and our health.
I would never starve animals in nature. My dog eats meat too because that’s what he is made to do. I don’t, because I don’t have to. Nature is cruel, but we don’t control that. We can easily control our nature and what we eat (or factory farm).
Fair enough, that’s a very good argument.
Most people alive today will be dead before anything affects them. My parents have that attitude to global warming so fly out on holiday 2-3 times a year.
This change needs to happen from the top to force everyone’s hands, you can’t rely on the goodness of individuals because we’re all selfish fucks
I think “anything” is a huge stretch.
There are going to be noticeable effects, even in the first world, in the coming decades. Definitely half a century from now.
Don’t know about you guys, I’ll be dead by then
You said “most people alive today”, not “I”
I’m watching the new climate town video as I see this.
Glad it media is still telling us it is our fault as consumers while industry and governments actively work against us.
Yes eating plants is better for the environment and your body. Yes I try to eat mostly plants and I encourage you all to try it, but Capitalism is what is killing us and eating a salad isnt going to fix it.
Actually, quite the opposite. As long as you buy beef, cattle will continue to be a major driver of climate change. Under capitalism, it only gets produced because you buy it
isn't it heavily subsidized? I appreciate that you're using a textbook definition of capitalism but that's not how anything actually works.
Worldwide? Not necessarily, no. Most of the growth in beef demand in particular is in developing nations. Subsidies increase access, but they don’t create demand in and of themself
In my country meat is heavily subsided and if was put to market at true price less people would buy it.
They don’t remove them because It would piss off a lot of business to remove the subsidies overnight and many would lose jobs. But I say fuck them, it’ll work out in the long run
Subsidies increase access, but they don’t create demand in and of themself
If something is significantly lowered in price, wouldn’t that affect demand? If not, why would it suddenly work differently?
You should also see how much of the EU budget directly goes to farming. That’s just direct subsidies, there’s also loads of indirect ones.
Indeed! I would add to this, we also heavily subsidize corn and wheat production as well. We waste an inordinate amount of what should be prairie land just so we can put up a bunch of beyond inefficient farms so that the rich can continue making money off of what theyve already been profiting off of.
Id also like to remind everyone that this sort of farming killed our prairies. In effect, this puts us at risk of another dust bowl due to the difference in size of root systems between corn/wheat and prairies tall grasses, and exacerbates the climate crisis further as prairies are incredibly efficient at pulling carbon out of our atmosphere.
And it isn’t just the plants. It is the centuries of plants that have lived and died to build the soil. Modern practices burn up the old plants (often, though no till and no burn practices to exist and are growing in popularity) making the soil consistently lose fertility. Also we cover them in pesticides and herbicides and monocrops.
Boomer Humor DoomergodFun fact: The guy in the “It’s not much but it’s honest work” meme was a pioneer in no-till agriculture, and helped to research methods and popularize the practice. He did tremendous work in helping to reduce runoff and save our soils.
Honest work, indeed.
Yes you are right, but we don’t live in a truly free market. There are all kinds of shenanigans that happen to make our decisions have less impact. Also advertising has to be accounted for. Corporations use neuroscience to convince us to do things against our best interest. How can we account for that?
The article literally says producers, consumers, and government are all part of it.
We’ve gotten to the point that any mention of what an individual can do to reduce their carbon impact is met with “stop blaming us!”
The reality is that we are all responsible and we all have to change, including individuals. You just don’t want to change, you want everyone else to. You are just like the rich person that says they care about global warming, as they turn around and jump on their private jet.
I agree it is all connected.
I guess my complaint is the degree at which we as individuals make an impact vs Corporations and the Government. I could go completely carbon neutral tomorrow. Sustainably farm in the woods and never leave, but that wouldn’t touch the 6 million tons of Methane leaked from Natural Gas infrastructure this year.
I guess my complaint is the degree at which we as individuals make an impact vs Corporations and the Government. I could go completely carbon neutral tomorrow. Sustainably farm in the woods and never leave, but that wouldn’t touch the 6 million tons of Methane leaked from Natural Gas infrastructure this year.
Pretty much everyone and everything can point to a bigger polluter. The reality is that we all have to change. If every time we are given ways to change, we instead whine that there are worse than us…well, then, we’re just fucked.
I guess I’m essentially a flexitarian at this point, though I have never labelled myself as such. I tend to opt for non-meat options but am nowhere near vegan as I only learned after my daughter started dating one. What an incredible minefield it is! You have to sit around and analyze absolutely everything. Like can you believe pepsi is vegan but not diet pepsi?!? But diet coke is. I don’t know about coke zero and am frankly afraid to ask…
Uranium3006Wait what did they put in the diet pepsi?
I think it’s a trade secret. Probably something like how Guinness used to use fish bladders as a filter
i cut down my meat consumption to almost zero. maybe some beef pho on the weekend sometimes… but i HATE the term flexitarian… i refuse to call myself that…
Ehh, what you call yourself isn't important. The point is you're still eating a diet that's compatible with not fucking the environment
what you call yourself isn’t important.
yeah, i agree… that’s why i hate labels.
diet that’s compatible with not fucking the environment
and for health, and for a bunch of other reasons… but we don’t need another label for it… my choice of food is simply my choice of food… it doesn’t need to be categorized
Half-vegetarian is another term
Plant forward is how fine dining advertises this concept. I tend to prefer that term over anything as vegetarian/flexitarian tends to have a stigma attached.
I think “plant forward” is actually a reasonable term.
Are we doing this again?
The are 100 companies are responsible for 70% of global emissions. States can test nuclear weapons in the Pacific Ocean; nah eat a salad for lunch.
And what do those companies produce? A lot of them make food. They don’t give a fuck as long as people keep eating insane amounts of meat.
But if it makes you feel better, abdicate your personal responsibility and point the finger. But no matter how you vote, it won’t save the world as long as meat production is going up. They don’t raise the cows if you don’t buy the beef
Ah yes concrete manufacturers, one of the largest producers of greenhouse gasses, are only doing it because of meat eaters. Fun fact, the number one producer of greenhouse gasses in France isn’t an entire industry, there’s a single concrete factory that outweighs every other greenhouse gas producing industry in the country.
www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/10/3/43
amp.theguardian.com/…/meat-greenhouses-gases-food…
“He killed 5 people, I only killed 1!” Is not a valid defense of criminal activity. Nor does “concrete is worse than our food chain” mean we shouldn’t fix it
Impact of Dietary Meat and Animal Products on GHG Footprints: The UK and the US
Direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the ~30+ billion animals consumed as food each year contribute ~14–16% of the global total. The aim of this research is to determine the contribution of meat and animal products to individual GHG footprints. Top-down estimates of GHG emissions from each livestock species are determined using livestock numbers, types, and region-specific emission factors. Comparing livestock emissions with those from individual countries, cattle rank as the third largest emitter after China and the United States (US). The largest uncertainty in these emissions calculations is in the range of emissions factors. Global top-down calculations indicate that the per capita GHG footprint from livestock emissions alone are approximately 1 tCO2eyr−1. For the United Kingdom (UK) and the US, the calculated GHG livestock-related footprints are 1.1 tCO2eyr−1 and 1.6 tCO2eyr−1 per person, respectively. Bottom-up calculations focused on the UK and the US from consumption figures indicated emissions related to meat consumption are approximately 1.3–1.5 tCO2eyr−1 per person. Comparing dietary changes with other ways of reducing GHG footprints indicates removing dietary meat is similar to avoiding one long-haul flight each year and a larger reduction than driving 100 miles less each week.
I never said that we shouldn’t fix anything, I was refuting your point that we only produce so many greenhouse gasses because we eat so much meat when that just isn’t the case.