This does need to happen. So many people (especially here on Facepunch) talk the talk of fighting climate change and unsustainable growth, but when solutions such as this and other forms of reducing consumption are mentioned, suddenly everyone lashes out in anger.
No, it’s not enough for the world to go nuclear and for all cars to become electric. We consume too much and we have to slow down. I myself am currently trying to get my meat consumption down to only three times per week.
There's a lot of cool developments happening in the vegetarian/vegan world and going meatless is pretty feasible nowadays. I can't say I don't ever crave meat but there are a lot of vegetarian dishes that I can see going mainstream and replacing current menu items.
I've managed to cut beef more or less completely out of my diet unless I have absolutely no other option, and I'm hoping to cut more out as I become a bit more financially independent. It's saved me a lot of money, and I don't really miss it at this point. Knowing the impact makes it difficult to really partake at this point, to be honest.
You don't have to be a "vegetarian" - if you have the inclination, try being flexitarian.
Try one vegetarian meal a week and find something you like. Then try two a week. You're already making a difference if you do that.
Many people have been brought up with the idea that a meal that doesn't have meat isn't really a meal; and frankly it's ridiculous. If you find a couple of vegetarian meals that you enjoy, you'll quickly realise that a lot of the time, meat adds absolutely nothing to a meal unless it's the main event, bordering on the sole focal point of a meal. If you frequently cook pasta or curry already, I'd suggest trying out a vegetarian variation as an easy step.
🌱 we can do it guys
This is a cyclic feedback loop between consumer demand and farmer output, but the farms need to stop increasing in size. Mega-farms aren't willing to downsize after investing a lot into the infrastructure of the factory farms (automated machines, equipment, personnel, etc), and the food industry as a whole would rather increase marketing to sell more rather than listen to consumer demand and downsize (or change farming practices that would lessen environmental impact at an increased product cost).
Proud of you fam for a great start ♥️
Too bad a lot of people aren't willing to cut their meat consumption in half. I just happened to see an article from a Danish newspaper where they asked if people were willing to only eat meat 3 times a
week, and about ~55% answered "No". Comments weren't much better, with a lot of them either venting conspiracy theories or saying dumb shit like "well maybe if them Africans just got less children, we wouldn't be in this mess!!!"
This is great and all, but I don't think I'd be able to do this.
Mainly due to money problems, it's just cheaper to buy some pies, Chili Tuna, Microwave Curry Chicken, than buying a whole bunch of veggies trying to level it all out so I get the right shit.
My brother has been Vegan for years, it's not easy with out current money situation.
vegan dishes are more expensive? It does happen all over the world?
Sorry but I don't follow.
Where I am from, restaurants that specializes in vegan/vegetarian dishes are almost always more expensive than non-vegan counterparts.
Of course this doesn't count cooking at home.
I love me some meat and I would really miss cutting it out of my diet completely but I have dialed it back to eating meat twice a week at most, it really helps that vegetarian alternatives are much better now than I recall them being several years ago.
Cutting out meat will reduce grocery costs, the tricky thing is dairy (especially in Aus). Replacing meat with legumes, beans, tofu, more veggies etc. will save you a lot of money.
i don't know much about the relative prices of things in australia but a lot of dishes like curries are easy and cheap to whip up with inexpensive ingredients like lentils, tomato sauce, and a big box of indian spice mix. i think it's fair if you situation can't enable it, but you might be surprised by what's still available.
Happy to have been 5 years ahead on this front, and to finally see this becoming a mainstream issue.
this does count cooking at home. i have family members who are vegan, and the price of meat substitutes (which can be quite delicious, the beyond burger while not indistinguishable from meat is uniquely tasty) is quite high. even frozen vegan products are typically more expensive than their non-vegan counterparts.
you're paying for nutrition, not caloric content
That's just processed shit, only buy it when going to a bbq of something, I'll be very surprised if someone wants that stuff on a daily basis
you'd be amazed by the potential for creating dishes with imitation chicken and ground beef
Yeah I know, doesn't mean it's healthy for the wallet nor is it necessary. There's so many other options that expensive substitutes are easily avoided. I do like to try them out every now and then, and sometimes buy imitation meat sausages or patties for the occasional bbq
I don't expect the average person to switch off of meats in the US especially given the culture. What I see more likely is methods of reducing agricultural emissions by either reducing them at the source; the animal. In fact, ground has already been made in regards to this. While I don't believe much has been done in regards to this yet, small amounts of seaweed included into the diets of cattle can reduce their methane emissions (methane is 30 times worse compared to CO2) by up to 99%. Articles: [1] [2] to list sources. Another method is by the increase in human-made meats intended to be as similar to those produced 'naturally'. Farm grown meats could prove to be an alternative, although more costly to develop.
More of a focus needs to be made in other sectors simultaneously for maximum effect. From the EPA (US),
https://i.imgur.com/b7yj8X8.png
Detailed graphs can be found on this link by clicking a tab at the top and scrolling down for a timeline view. I am not making an argument against reducing meat consumption, it's simply not the only target we should be painting. Major ground can be made in creating more sustainable energy generation or with nuclear power. Public transportation or alternative fuels are an option for reducing emissions in that regard. Entire industries (coal mining) can be nearly removed with sustainable energy generation and using natural gas instead of coal can greatly reduce emissions.
Agriculture is a major source of source of greenhouse gases absolutely. Reducing consumption of meats surely helps, but not as much as fixing the problem at it's root.
Yeah, but it costs more when you consider other family members eat meat, so they'd still be paying as much for meat, and more for veggies.
I have been surprised, and there has been cases where I haven't eaten Meat for a few days but just money situation is fucked for going full time.
It'll definitely be harder to efficiently prepare plant-based meals when cooking for people who eat meat, but I wouldn't say that's a fault of veganism itself, it's more a fault of cooking for people with different dietary requirements
I don't know if it's all true - just throwing it out here but I've read some fact checking on Cowspiracy back in the day. The outcome was that people would need to eat a shitton more veggies to equal what they gain from meat, meaning the production would just shift and unless the tools to grow so much would be a lot more eco-friendly it would hardly make a difference.
Anyway I'm pretty open minded when it comes to food, unlike most of our population. A large number of restaurants still don't offer vegetarian/vegan alternatives and people sometimes give you weird looks when you ask for it. It's gonna be a problem here, but I believe the younger generations will accept this more easily. I'm super okay with the idea of eating lab-grown meat alternative, but I can't imagine my father would accept it. Older people just give you the "my body needs it" bullshit.
Doesn't the emissions from transportation and electricity etc. partly come from the food delivery system itself, as in meat being transported to meet the demand around the world?
https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/cargo-container-shipping-carbon-pollution/
http://nipunarice.com/rice-o-pedia/major-rice-producing-nations/
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-top-dry-bean-producing-countries.html
shipping is a major issue. interestingly, the US is one of the top three producers of beef.
All this stuff sounds pre-packaged. pre-packaged food is much more expensive than cooking for yourself
You need to consider the amount of soy and stuff we grow just for cattle to eat when we could just eat that instead, it's way more efficient.
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