Can Meat Eaters be Easy to Offend?

[Lightknight]

The study included full cradle-grave footprint including the carbon footprint of the feed"

Okay great that's quite useful then, I'll be bookmarking that site.

The only beef I usually have is Ground Beef for Beef Tacos and Meat Loafs, and Chuck Roast for Pot Roasts, and I only eat one of those once every 1-2 weeks. Mostly I eat chicken, turkey-ham, turkey-sausage, and pork chops.

Broccoli is my favorite vegetable.

Well, keep in mind that beef really isn't that far above other food types when considering emission per calorie. I mean, one beef calorie is just under double that of a calorie of tomato or broccoli? Not really that bad or at least it's not something that we really know what "bad" is yet. Maybe all of these numbers are perfectly acceptable where emissions are concerned and we're just comparing one low number to another low number?

I personally haven't been eating much meat. I've been missing dinner which was my main meat consuming meal time. I've been eating a lot of chicken and fish but I do love a grilled ribeye once a month or so.

 

[jklinders]

I don't make a habit of telling other people how to eat and generally appreciate a return of that gesture. Sadly, many vegans and vegetarians are incapable of providing that courtesy.

So when I keep hearing the same bullshit arguments over and over again (environmentally vegetarianism is about as destructive as a mixed diet just in different ways) I tune them out when I am being polite and tell them to shut the fuck up when my politeness runs dry.

 

[K12]

People have been erroneously using kilograms to measure the emissions and have been padding the studies for years. But if you drop a kilogram of meat from your diet you don't replace it with a kilogram of broccoli. You'd have to replace it with 6.7 kilograms to maintain the caloric intake.

https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2014/03/11/Food/Images/emissionsCHART_NUupdate.jpg?uuid=g3H2xqlGEeOKe8HGhOJnHw

Thanks for posting this. I personally don't use the environmental argument for vegetarianism because it feels like a side issue and this table doesn't give me even less confidence with it. It does seem that meat has generally fewer emissions but it doesn't seem to be able to support a switch to vegetarianism for that reason alone.

It's simple.

Vegans wish to convert others to also become vegan.


Those others are meat eaters.

Erm... what? Vegans don't eat meat and dairy (and apparently honey which I find rather over the top)
Since when does belonging to a group automatically make you a . This sounds about like "gay recruiters" style thinking to me.

You could argue that ethical veganism implies that making others eat less meat is a good thing but this is going to depend a lot on how you justify your exclusion of meat from your diet and how you consider moral responsibility to work... that is not a simple issue.

Even if there is the intention to convince others (which is not an unusual or automatically negative thing for people with a particular moral belief) this won't automatically be a smug, obnoxious "Sigh, how silly you are, let me set your thinking straight" kind of exercise. That assumption (and the occassionally over the top reaction to it) by meat-eaters is exactly the thing that this thread was asking people about.

No but there's an obvious difference between a veggie hamburger recipe and the weekly/monthly propoganda pieces I see.

I personally don't mind it as much, but the activism
I actually don't know any vegans who don't have that attitude, heck you may be telling me this you may also be telling me fairies are real.

As we speak I have a big long post in my timeline on facebook doing just that.

Do you ever get messages listing all the vegetarians who aren't writing big long posts proselytising their vegetarianism? This is how these kinds of biases work. Loud and annoying people are clearly part of the sub-group that they're arguing for (and are also memorable and noticable) and people who don't bring up and argue for their minority opinion (or sexuality or culture or whatever) are assumed to be part of the majority by default.

Any easily offended, vegetarian-haters you know probably have never had a reason or opportunity to reveal that part of themselves to you. I recently shared a veggie christmas recipe on my facebook that I remember making last year and it was really nice. Aside from positive comments I have a handful along the lines of "why don't you just eat real food"/ "the vegetarian option is you can fuck off"/ "you are an idiot"/ "eating meat is natural"/ "why do you think you're better than me" variety as a response to it.

Obviously I do not but I know who amongst my friends is or isn't a vegetarian, I have no problems with these people myself but their is a definite form of activism there at least in my social circle.

Your regular veggie hamburger recipe is simply that, however a bi-weekly post on why meat-eaters are such horrible people, polluters, wasters etc.

Now that's calling for a debate and a reaction no matter how you spin it.

You'd be the first (especially vegan) person I come across that did not at five minutes into a meal ask me questions about why I meat and wether or not I know how bad it is and how I could stand the harm to the animals.

Edit: look at Full Metal Bolshevik's post in this thread for an obvious example of the line of thinking meat eaters are confronted with that might possibly offend them.

Well I don't know your friends so I can't really argue with your experiences. Either I've been lucky with my veggie friends or you've been unlucky. Generally as long as you're reacting to someone's actual actions rather than assuming how they'll act simply because they are veggie then I've got no beef with you... (see what I did there).

Probably worth mentioning that I'm a vegetarian not a vegan (mainly because I can't be arsed, not because I believe that ethical vegans are mistaken). Quite a few vegetarians I know will try to palm off the "smug veggie" stereotype by saying "oh no that's what vegans are like". I try to avoid this though because I haven't found it to be true... plus it's just generally an unhelpful response.

 

[blackrave]

Yes.

But at the same time you are made of shit, full of shit and going to die.
All of those things while factually true aren't something you would say to one's face.
And for a good reason.

Just to make a point.
Do you live in a city and own a car? You're the reason there are traffic jams and poor air quality.
Do you buy cheap clothes and cheap electronics? You're supporting child labor and exploitation of 3rd world countries.
Did you occasionally throw out spoiled excess food? You're the reason stores overstock and throw out much more food, then they normally would.
Do you use internet and electronics for pointless activities (anything not related to work)? You're the reason electricity consumption is so high (and fuel and infrastructure and waste).
How does it feel? Great?

Same here.
Criticizing someone's choices or bluntly reminding them of something they would rather forget, usually makes them feel bad and most people go into defensive mode when they feel bad.
Snark and anger are both part of said reaction.

In short it is human nature, plain and simple.
Surprised?

 

[Silvanus]

Criticizing someone's choices or bluntly reminding them of something they would rather forget, usually makes them feel bad and most people go into defensive mode when they feel bad.
Snark and anger are both part of said reaction.

In short it is human nature, plain and simple.
Surprised?

Well, you're rather changing the question there. You've assumed the vegetarian in question has been going around reminding meat eaters of stuff, or criticising their choices. Neither of those were part of the premise.

I've never criticised anybody for dietary reasons, but I've had several people go out of their way to make me feel bad for not eating meat.

 

[blackrave]

Criticizing someone's choices or bluntly reminding them of something they would rather forget, usually makes them feel bad and most people go into defensive mode when they feel bad.
Snark and anger are both part of said reaction.

In short it is human nature, plain and simple.
Surprised?

Well, you're rather changing the question there. You've assumed the vegetarian in question has been going around reminding meat eaters of stuff, or criticising their choices. Neither of those were part of the premise.

I've never criticised anybody for dietary reasons, but I've had several people go out of their way to make me feel bad for not eating meat.

1)Can meat eaters be easy to offend? That was the question. What do you think happens when person reacts by getting offended? That was logical expansion and investigation of original question.
2)Well, I've never criticized anyone for their dietary choices (except one anorexic girl I knew, but that's another story) as well and I have witnessed plenty of vegans who behave with smug superiority. You know what it means? Jack shit.

 

[Silvanus]

1)Can meat eaters be easy to offend? That was the question. What do you think happens when person reacts by getting offended? That was logical expansion and investigation of original question.

If the "logical" expansion you make is just that they must have done something to deserve the response, then it's not really an investigation. It's just assuming that one is justified in their actions and the other is not.

2)Well, I've never criticized anyone for their dietary choices (except one anorexic girl I knew, but that's another story) as well and I have witnessed plenty of vegans who behave with smug superiority. You know what it means? Jack shit.

Uhrm, it means that the generalisation about vegetarians going about criticising or "bluntly reminding" others is baseless or unrepresentative. That's what it means. Plus, you know, I was offering anecdotal evidence because I thought this was just a casual conversation.

If you didn't mean to generalise, that's fine. It's just how it came across to me.

 

[Dizchu]

So if a person's personal values were "screw the environment" you would view them as at least internally consistent if they did things that harmed the environment and not evil or bad?

I'm not sure what you're getting at here? I mean I'd prefer if someone who has no concerns for the environment was up-front about it, but that doesn't mean that I think that attitude is a good one. They're internally consistent and I find that in part admirable even if I don't find their actual beliefs admirable.

The industrial complex allows us to reduce the impact on the environment per calorie produced.

You can look at this in one of two ways. First, that the density and intensity of the farming means maximum efficiency and maximum output. Second, that such density and intensity is the result of rampant capitalism. People are given more and more and more, far beyond what they actually need (or want, actually. A lot of produce goes to waste). It's pure excess.

Doesn't really matter, we are omnivores and consumption of meat is biologically evolved in us. Whether we get our food from a facility that kills animals quickly and efficiency or through trial and error in the wild with weaponry it is our nature as the animals we are to pursue meat. We are no more guilty than a lion who picks off the weakest of a herd. You seem to acknowledge that fact below though. So... *high five*

This seems to be a fallacious argument, an appeal to tradition to be specific. Behaviours aren't excused because of evolutionary psychology. They aren't dismissed either of course, but it's an extremely flawed defense in pretty much any argument. I acknowledge that meat consumption is a result of how we evolved, but so are a whole bunch of things I think you'd hesitate to defend like tribalism, xenophobia, warfare...

That's because it's livestock, not prey. Livestock used to be synonymous with wealth and everyone who was anyone owned at least a small herd in addition to whatever other businesses they were engaged in.

This is a bit of a bait-and-switch. You were talking about hunting for survival, "necessary suffering" of one species to sustain another. Comparing us to other carnivores and other omnivorous species. But those species have adapt to their ecosystems, there is a balance. I'd even argue that with people like the Inuit (who rely heavily on fishing), there's more of a balance than with enormous factory farms.

Every species needs energy to survive. Does that mean that fracking is good because hey, it's just us getting a supply of energy? We're not adapting to the environment, we're changing the environment to suit us.

You do realize that this is an identical argument to be made against farmland, right? While beef certainly has a higher carbon footprint per calorie than any individual veggie, just tomatoes and broccoli by themselves combine to take up a higher footprint than beef. But you don't hear vegetarians call for an end to tomatoes and broccoli, do you?

Actually there is criticism of the excessive consumption of foreign fruits and vegetables that aren't in season. But about your point about farmland... extensive farming does not have the same densities of animals as intensive farming. It's like saying that the Kowloon Walled City was environmentally friendly because it occupied such little land.

So I'm sorry, the numbers don't add up to any kind of case against most meat. Beef is pretty high, but it's not out of the ballpark to the point where you can really claim it shouldn't exist for environmental reasons. It also fails to account for some animals that do active harm to the planet.

Even in the chart you posted, meats trend towards the top of the list. The only fruit on the list are tomatoes. The only vegetables are potatoes and broccoli. There's no mention of bread or grains. Even the article you linked agrees with my point, "my take on meat is that we should eat less of it, pay more for it, use all of it, and know where it's from."

While I'm certain potato consumption would still be sky-high if meat consumption were reduced, I doubt "Kentucky Fried Broccoli" would catch on.

Deer, Canadian geese and wild pigs do active damage where they are (especially when overpopulated for the first two), eat one of those and you actually have a net-positive on the environment.

By this logic humans should eradicate themselves. Now I don't think human intervention with the environment is inherently bad, I just think it's an interesting observation.

I mean, the single greatest thing you or anyone can do for the environment is not have any children. That's like, miles above any efforts what your diet consists of can do regarding your carbon footprint. To be internally consistent most vegetarians who are such on the lines of environmentalism should not reproduce.

Ohh... oops...

Want to hear something funny? The industrial complex actually reduces the carbon footprint per calorie for meat. Confined spaces mean less consumption, hormones mean faster growth which means less time to emit methane, to even requiring less feed (aka fewer acres to grow their food). So which do you place at a higher premium, carbon footprint or quality of life for livestock?

You are missing one crucial thing here... the possibility of reducing consumption. You assume that there's only one way of doing things. Basically the equivalent of saying "which do you value more, human civilisation or a reduction in fossil fuel consumption?" Can't we have both?

So Vegans and Vegetarians frequently end up with veggies that might be a lot higher than normal. Kind of depressing.

http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-carbon-footprint-diet (infographic link)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_carbon_diet (check the sources for further reading)

In the article there are references to studies that indicate that CAFO systems produce more CO2 emissions than grazing, so even the claim that intensive livestock farming is more environmentally friendly is highly debatable at best.

What about pork and poultry? Both have free range varieties and both have a lower carbon footprint per calorie than tomatoes or broccoli.

Yes there are a few non-meat foods that have a larger carbon footprint, but you're forgetting the huge variety of different foods that exist. My point about not eating meat anymore isn't conditional, I have changed my diet and am happy with that change. As for tomatoes and broccoli, I never ate much of either anyway haha.

 

[Silvanus]

Maybe not the premise, but the smugness and offensiveness of vegans is just... so overwhelming.

Note how even this discussion sank into smug attacks on people with a healthy diet. Preferably using manipulated data and other nonsense.

This discussion features plenty of smugness from the other side, too, you'll note. You're just finding one objectionable and one not.

Had it too a while back when someone showed to a farm-related meeting. Invited as part of opposition group input because our customer was such a nice guy, and she shows up covered in stuff covered in offensive stickers like 'eating animals is so yesterday'. She was oblivious to the fact that she was exit before she'd even opened her mouth. Needless to say her role and that of her group was eliminiated from the project rather quickly.

You find that sticker offensive?

What about the kinds of jokes the OP mentioned? Talking about how delicious bacon is when you're interacting with a vegetarian? I've not found them offensive, though I've definitely found them tiresome.

 

[cthulhuspawn82]

I dont know about getting offended by people bad mouthing meat, but I almost get offended when people badmouth buffets, especially an American favorite, Golden Corral. As someone who only eats 1500 calories a day, buffet day is like a once a week holiday for me, its what I live for. Hearing people call it dirty and disguising is almost like a personal insult.

And honestly, I find the concerns about buffet cleanliness to be ridiculous. Ive seen all the terribly videos/pictures people post about unclean conditions. But if I eat buffets once a week and have never been sick, then from a pragmatic standpoint, the health level is just fine.

 

[Dizchu]

Would you have a problem eating that sort of meat, since nothing had to suffer?

No, not at all. I might still not eat it just because my tastes have changed, but by that point the opposition will come from anti-GM folks.

Personally though I think synthesizing meat, eggs and dairy would be a great thing and not just for the environment. You could theoretically invent entirely new meats and cheeses by altering the cells. Milk is apparently fairly easy to replicate, and alterations to the chemical makeup can make new tastes and make it suitable for those that are lactose-intolerant.

Of course, the economy would have to dictate this.

One side doesn't need arguments because they hold the default position, the other needs them but hasn't got them.

This is fallacious logic (the argument from ignorance, to be specific). It's like saying people didn't have to prove that the Sun spins around the Earth because it was "the default position". Whether something is the default position or not doesn't matter, evidence must be presented to defend a position.

As for "the other side doesn't have arguments", you don't have to agree with the conclusion of those arguments for them to still exist. If you disagree with the evidence that's cited, make a case for why it's inaccurate. If someone tried to argue that the Earth was flat and presented poor evidence, I'd point out why that evidence is poor, I wouldn't ignore them. Unless what they claim has been thoroughly debunked, but in this case the most generous way I can describe this particular argument is that it's open to interpretation and certain aspects are inconclusive.

The result is that vegan cries of being offended by jokes at the expense of their unbalanced diet, sounds kinda like creationists complaining that their religion isn't taught at schools instead of biology, and that is all really unfair.

Do vegans get offended by jokes? Do they get offended by meat eaters? Meat eaters are everywhere, meat is sold everywhere, they're unlikely to get triggered by seeing a Big Mac.

It's interesting that you bring up creationism. People who accept the theory of evolution don't get offended by creationists, they don't feel offended by quips like "was your grandfather a monkey?" Yet if you claim that what the creationists believe is incorrect, they'll get extremely defensive. "Y'all just wanna sin", "you're brainwashed by Darwinism", "you're going to hell!"

I mean you can consider arguments against creationism "overused", does that mean that rejecting them outright is acceptable? Sounds like confirmation bias.

 

[Michael Legault]

I work as a cook, I eat meat. I am repulsed by factory farms and really dislike the meat that comes from your average grocery store, their chickens are bleached so they're all the same colour, and their beef and pork usually has water added (note the juice that collects at the bottom of the packaging,is not a natural juice) to help with freezing. And the meat is simply of inferior quality.

Case and point, I bought half a pig from a farmer, it worked out to about $3CDN/lb and the quality of the meat is insane, I've worked in kitchens for 13 years and this stuff was in a class of it's own. The bacon that came off of it... I fear I will never taste it's equal again. And the best part was I know what the pig had been eating, the same melons, squash and other great produce my farmer has been growing and that I myself have been eating.

I feel sorry for people who buy grocery store meat, happy animals makes for way higher quality meat.

I have a question for vegetarians and vegans though. Well more of a comment really. I am slightly ashamed to admit that I have neglected a large radish on my table looking at it as the last few weeks have gone by (life has been busy and haven't found a good use for it) the thing has started to flower. But it makes me think that this thing is just as alive as you and I, it's trying it's hardest to try and stay that way. It's fighting for it's life. I've been tempted to go outside and plant it.

Now, it is my personal opinion that both plants and animals deserve respect. But any time I have brought this up to a vegan or vegetarian the only response I ever get is "I'm tired of hearing that argument." And they turn away. I have to wonder, do they really not see that plants are living breathing things that both feel and respond to stress? Or do they think you can't be grateful of something and still consume? I'm a fan of Toriko, and food appreciation is a huge theme in that show. Be it animal or plant.

 

[Silvanus]

One side doesn't need arguments because they hold the default position, the other needs them but hasn't got them.

That's rubbish. You should be able to coherently defend your position whether you're in the majority or not. It doesn't follow in any way, shape or form.

The result is that vegan cries of being offended by jokes at the expense of their unbalanced diet, sounds kinda like creationists complaining that their religion isn't taught at schools instead of biology, and that is all really unfair.

What was that about smugness?

Criticise me when I go "You are vegan, and therefore definately silly, evil, smelly and probably thinking Justin Bieber music is great". That would be prejudiced (and the Bieber accusation a grounds for a lawsuit for slander and defamation). Making fun of silly overused arguments isn't.

I'm criticising you for generalising, and for failing to apply criticism equally. It's fair grounds. You're being inconsistent.

How would judging people as backwards because they have a healthy diet, without any form of rational argument behind it, somehow not be offensive? Of course it is.

Calling something "so yesterday" seems to be the mildest form of criticism I've ever seen, bordering on a joke. Taking offence at that is laughable if one is also willing to be genuinely dismissive and sneery themselves.

 

[Lightknight]

I'm not sure what you're getting at here? I mean I'd prefer if someone who has no concerns for the environment was up-front about it, but that doesn't mean that I think that attitude is a good one. They're internally consistent and I find that in part admirable even if I don't find their actual beliefs admirable.

Well then, you certainly win this round of the internal consistency portion of our discussion.

You can look at this in one of two ways. First, that the density and intensity of the farming means maximum efficiency and maximum output. Second, that such density and intensity is the result of rampant capitalism.

When someone says "rampant capitalism", they are just saying "blatant supply and demand" which means that people asking for and paying for a product that someone else is supplying. The alternative is to say that people aren't asking for something or aren't being supplied when asking for something. It's just as ridiculous to complain about consumers getting what they pay for as it is for people to claim that something is just "socialism" which isn't inherently good or bad but was certainly put on the naughty list back in our early school days.

People are given more and more and more, far beyond what they actually need (or want, actually. A lot of produce goes to waste). It's pure excess.

There is waste in every system, it is not a function of capitalism. In fact, in communist economies on the other end of the spectrum showed far more significant problems with inefficiency, waste and corruption as primary complaints about the system. The only difference here is scale. Communist environments stayed relatively small due to those problems and frequently had want issues (people starving even), whereas capitalist markets thrived due to the personal motivation being higher. While you may see more tonnage of waste in a capitalist system, the actual proportion of waste to food produced is far lower because of waste meaning higher costs and lost revenue. The industrial complex means efficiency in long term food storage as well as transportation to areas of demand. I mean, if you want to levy a political complaint against capitalism then that's one thing, but it's actually off base to complain about waste in the system.

I'll also point out to you that waste is not unique to the meat industry. In fact, food items which are not in meat and fish categories are FAR more likely to go to waste and account for a vast majority of waste and vegetables are the single worst offenders of waste.

The worst part is that worldwide the major problem is spoilage whereas in the West most of the waste is just what we throw away. But please keep in mind that nearly everything you will ever buy will end up thrown away anyways. But what's the number one common food item that goes to waste? Potatoes.

http://www.ifr.ac.uk/waste/Reports/WRAP%20The%20Food%20We%20Waste.pdf (This study is UK but it was done right down to the average expiration date of food items thrown into the garbage and the practice has been found consistent with other nations)

The vast majority of meat that gets thrown away are actually TV Dinners and ready meals rather than all that meat you see in the butcher area of a grocery. These "mixed meals" are number 4 in tonnage of avoidable food waste, below Potatoes, sliced bread, and apples. You don't get to a standard meat in the listed until number 34 which is "chicken portions" and only accounts for 00.9% of all avoidable food waste. Sausages and Pork are numbers 38 and 39 at 00.8% each. Ham is number 44 at 00.6%. Eggs fish and beef portions are 50, 51 and 52 at 00.5% each.

For all waste by weight (unsold, avoidable waste, unavoidable waste, etc), meat and fish comes in at fifth place (see table 22 in the UK link above, it's page 42). Below bakery items, vegetables, mixed foods, and fruit. All meat and fish is at 8.4% of weight in waste, vegetables are at 25.8%, more than three times wasted than that of all meat and fish categories.

So when we want to talk about waste, you've got to do some SERIOUS soul checking here when vegetables are the worst offenders of waste. 1,730,000 tons of veggies (not counting fruit or bread) compared to 560,000 tons of meat? Whoa.

This seems to be a fallacious argument, an appeal to tradition to be specific.

Nope, we are biologically evolved to want and appreciate meat. That's not tradition, that's instinctual. This would be like saying that a man liking a woman because he's heterosexual is just an appeal to tradition.

This is a bit of a bait-and-switch. You were talking about hunting for survival, "necessary suffering" of one species to sustain another. Comparing us to other carnivores and other omnivorous species. But those species have adapt to their ecosystems, there is a balance. I'd even argue that with people like the Inuit (who rely heavily on fishing), there's more of a balance than with enormous factory farms.

I was using hunting for survival because our discussion was on the slaughter of animals and I consider hunting to have been significantly more "harmful" to animals, especially before efficient killing machines like guns were invented. What you are advocating for is something like a deer getting shot near but not in a kill spot and then limping around the forest for an hour rather than a bullet to the back of a brain. Big industry means significant less suffering at the time of death.

Every species needs energy to survive. Does that mean that fracking is good because hey, it's just us getting a supply of energy? We're not adapting to the environment, we're changing the environment to suit us.

Sure, but if eating chicken has a better environmental impact than eating tomatoes or broccoli while also providing ready source of protein then what's your point?

Actually there is criticism of the excessive consumption of foreign fruits and vegetables that aren't in season. But about your point about farmland... extensive farming does not have the same densities of animals as intensive farming. It's like saying that the Kowloon Walled City was environmentally friendly because it occupied such little land.

Is something you're saying here dismissing the fact that fruits and veggies can have a higher carbon footprint per calorie than some meats? You might be explaining part of the "why" of it, but not dismissing the fact of it. You brought up the environmental factors as an argument. If one is the same or better for the environment than the other then this would logically take your argument and levy it against the vegetable market more than the meat market in nearly all cases other than beef and goat.

Even in the chart you posted, meats trend towards the top of the list. The only fruit on the list are tomatoes. The only vegetables are potatoes and broccoli. There's no mention of bread or grains. Even the article you linked agrees with my point, "my take on meat is that we should eat less of it, pay more for it, use all of it, and know where it's from."

Here, this was released this year:

http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2015/december/diet-and-environment.html

Lettuce, for example, produces three times the greenhouse gases as bacon. If we as a nation actually followed the dietary recommendations of the agricultural department (less meat, more veggies/fruits), It would result in "a 38 percent increase in energy use, 10 percent bump in water use and a 6 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions." That's only if we reduced caloric intake as well, if we ate the same number of calories but adjusted our food proportions to match the recommendations then the greenhouse impact is higher across all categories (43% increase in energy use, 16% increase in water footprint, and 11% in greenhouse gas emissions).

If everyone just replaced meat altogether with veggies and other things, you'd be talking far higher numbers.

The big problem that a lot of other articles are running into is that they continue to compare emissions by weight rather than by calorie which still doesn't make sense when we eat according to calories, not weight. Which side of this equation an article falls on depends on whether weight or calorie is being used.

Now that you have been made aware of why emission per calorie is the true quantifier then you should be better informed when reading these resources.

Deer, Canadian geese and wild pigs do active damage where they are (especially when overpopulated for the first two), eat one of those and you actually have a net-positive on the environment.

By this logic humans should eradicate themselves. Now I don't think human intervention with the environment is inherently bad, I just think it's an interesting observation.

I mean, the single greatest thing you or anyone can do for the environment is not have any children. That's like, miles above any efforts what your diet consists of can do regarding your carbon footprint. To be internally consistent most vegetarians who are such on the lines of environmentalism should not reproduce.

Ohh... oops...

Yep.

You are missing one crucial thing here... the possibility of reducing consumption. You assume that there's only one way of doing things. Basically the equivalent of saying "which do you value more, human civilisation or a reduction in fossil fuel consumption?" Can't we have both?

Why don't you start eating chicken or bacon instead of leafy salads if you want to do your part? If you really are invested in lower environmental impact then doing this would be internally consistent.

Eating less would "decreases energy use, blue water footprint, and GHG emissions by around 9 %". While that's a positive direction it isn't as big a difference as having a heavier chicken or pork diet than a vegetarian diet.

I have no problem with a reduction in overall consumption. But the issue still remains that how you consume whatever calories you do eat still has the biggest impact on the environment.

So Vegans and Vegetarians frequently end up with veggies that might be a lot higher than normal. Kind of depressing.

http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-carbon-footprint-diet (infographic link)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_carbon_diet (check the sources for further reading)

These numbers don't jive with the actual studies produced (this is not a study, this is a blogger interpretation of other data). There is something wrong with it. It might be that they only limited it to the US produced items while the average diets come from all over the world or it may be due to the emission numbers per item aren't correct. For example, there is a discrepancy between emission of beef in her article as compared to her emission calculator. There are also other weird places where her numbers are off that harm her goals. Like near the beginning when she says that food production could account for nearly a quarter of human emissions whereas the numbers I'm showing put it at closer to half. How did she get that wrong when "half" is shocking and a "quarter" is trivial considering it is feeding the entire top of the food chain on the planet as well as all animals we feed. If I plug in the same values from the 2015 study that shows lettuce as having three times the emissions of bacon, the chart gets flipped.

So something is out of whack here. The majority of numbers show vegetables as the single biggest contribution to greenhouse gases in the US where food is concerned with meat being 25% like I established above. Perhaps they've underestimated the amount of waste produced by vegetables whereas beef goes to waste far less frequently? Not sure.

I think we should stick to the actual studies not blogger's interpretation of data. Something is askew with her math that does not match any of the other data you or I have provided.

All that aside, she is describing four classical distributions. High meat, average meat, no meat, no animal products. There are alternate combinations that would be better that include poultry and pork more than some veggies and such. You could actually get far lower than a Vegan and still eat meat if you optimized your diet around emissions rather than type of food.

In the article there are references to studies that indicate that CAFO systems produce more CO2 emissions than grazing, so even the claim that intensive livestock farming is more environmentally friendly is highly debatable at best.

I'm sorry, but you found a non-peer reviewed resource. I would request you go back to the drawing board and find an actual study like I have been contributing to discussion. Let's get our facts from experts and not from websites solely devoted to attack meat.

 

[Dizchu]

When someone says "rampant capitalism", they are just saying "blatant supply and demand" which means that people asking for and paying for a product that someone else is supplying. The alternative is to say that people aren't asking for something or aren't being supplied when asking for something. It's just as ridiculous to complain about consumers getting what they pay for as it is for people to claim that something is just "socialism" which isn't inherently good or bad but was certainly put on the naughty list back in our early school days.

I'm not criticising any economic model here, just stating basic logic. If demand is extremely high then meeting that demand will require a ridiculous amount of resources. Convenience comes at a cost, that's just how it is.

I'll also point out to you that waste is not unique to the meat industry. In fact, food items which are not in meat and fish categories are FAR more likely to go to waste and account for a vast majority of waste and vegetables are the single worst offenders of waste.

Never said it was, but it's the result of these insanely high demands. The root of the environmental concerns is how much people consume and how much it costs to provide the product.

Nope, we are biologically evolved to want and appreciate meat. That's not tradition, that's instinctual. This would be like saying that a man liking a woman because he's heterosexual is just an appeal to tradition.

We are biologically evolved to want to reproduce, yet asexuals and people who don't want kids exist. Humans have instincts yes, but we also have intellect and self-awareness. An "appeal to tradition" fallacy is an argument that relies on "that's just the way things are". But "the way things are" have changed drastically over the millennia. There are plenty of things that we've evolved with that have proved unnecessary or even detrimental to us, so it's not a good basis for argument.

Evolutionary psychology explains why people are the way they are, not why they ought to be the way they are. It's an explanation, not a justification.

Big industry means significant less suffering at the time of death.

But I've already explained that it's not the suffering at time of death that's the concern, it's the suffering during life. Just like humans "evolved to eat meat", pigs, chickens and cows didn't evolve to live in extremely dense populations. I mean free-range farming is artificial too, but it doesn't come close.

Sure, but if eating chicken has a better environmental impact than eating tomatoes or broccoli while also providing ready source of protein then what's your point?

False dichotomy. Tomatoes and broccoli are not the only non-meat foods.

Is something you're saying here dismissing the fact that fruits and veggies can have a higher carbon footprint per calorie than some meats?

Correction: Some fruits and veggies have a higher carbon footprint than some meats. If you are willing to accept that there's a difference in the impact lamb, beef and chicken have on the environment then you must also accept that there's a difference between tomatoes, apples, oranges, etc.

If everyone just replaced meat altogether with veggies and other things, you'd be talking far higher numbers.

I posted references to studies that have indicated otherwise so at best this is inconclusive.

Why don't you start eating chicken or bacon instead of leafy salads if you want to do your part? If you really are invested in lower environmental impact then doing this would be internally consistent.

That implies I eat leafy salads on a comparable level. The common misconception is that vegans and vegetarians eat a lot of fruit and vegetables to compensate for the lack of meat (the term "vegetarian" is misleading). Every other food group is ignored.

These numbers don't jive with the actual studies produced (this is not a study, this is a blogger interpretation of other data).

Does this not count as an "actual study"? [http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/694/art%253A10.1007%252Fs10584-014-1169-1.pdf?originUrl=http%3A%2F%2Flink.springer.com%2Farticle%2F10.1007%2Fs10584-014-1169-1&token2=exp=1450895300~acl=%2Fstatic%2Fpdf%2F694%2Fart%25253A10.1007%25252Fs10584-014-1169-1.pdf%3ForiginUrl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Flink.springer.com%252Farticle%252F10.1007%252Fs10584-014-1169-1*~hmac=fa190b753e4c82eab4709dc1aeebc789001aabfc4b0a68dfbb41f15a54d33deb]

I think we should stick to the actual studies not blogger's interpretation of data. Something is askew with her math that does not match any of the other data you or I have provided.

Page 6 of the PDF I linked may interest you.

You could actually get far lower than a Vegan and still eat meat if you optimized your diet around emissions rather than type of food.

Sure, but we're talking about averages here.

I'm sorry, but you found a non-peer reviewed resource. I would request you go back to the drawing board and find an actual study like I have been contributing to discussion.

Well that's amusing because I was referring to the Wikipedia article and not the blog post, which I mainly used because the infographics were consistent with the data from the studies. The infographic you posted came from an article that contradicted what you were arguing so I was unaware that you wanted nothing but professional studies.

But yes, the Wikipedia article links to this paper: https://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/SOW08_chapter_5.pdf
Which in turn references this study: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02978508

http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehs/Docs/Understanding_CAFOs_NALBOH.pdf This PDF should outline the biggest risks of CAFO farming, among the most worrying are fresh water pollution, antibiotic resistance and methane, as well as the difficulty regulating such intensive operaitons. Predictably the benefits of CAFOs are increased produce and reduced cost. Predictably the benefits of CAFOs are increased produce and reduced cost, not any environmental or health benefits.

 

[Dizchu]

Now, it is my personal opinion that both plants and animals deserve respect. But any time I have brought this up to a vegan or vegetarian the only response I ever get is "I'm tired of hearing that argument." And they turn away. I have to wonder, do they really not see that plants are living breathing things that both feel and respond to stress? Or do they think you can't be grateful of something and still consume? I'm a fan of Toriko, and food appreciation is a huge theme in that show. Be it animal or plant.

I think it's an interesting question to ask, not necessarily something that should be dismissed outright. Organisms tend to have a drive to sustain themselves, they need nutrients and sunlight and they need to reproduce to keep the species going. The reason why there are such intense reactions to battery farming is essentially because it treats livestock like crops. Give them the minimum amount of space and pump them full of nutrients and they're good to go.

I don't necessarily think that the consumption of meat means a disrespect of animals. Traditionally, some cultures had immense respect for the animals they hunted and I don't believe that was insincere. But I think you and I can both agree that overfeeding a pig until it can barely move on its weak legs just so it can be processed isn't "respect". When it comes to people like the Inuit there is a lot of debate among vegans and vegetarians about whether their way of life (which relies heavily on hunting and wearing furs) is ethical, because as you rightfully point out, it's not that simple.

 

[Michael Legault]

Now, it is my personal opinion that both plants and animals deserve respect. But any time I have brought this up to a vegan or vegetarian the only response I ever get is "I'm tired of hearing that argument." And they turn away. I have to wonder, do they really not see that plants are living breathing things that both feel and respond to stress? Or do they think you can't be grateful of something and still consume? I'm a fan of Toriko, and food appreciation is a huge theme in that show. Be it animal or plant.

I think it's an interesting question to ask, not necessarily something that should be dismissed outright. Organisms tend to have a drive to sustain themselves, they need nutrients and sunlight and they need to reproduce to keep the species going. The reason why there are such intense reactions to battery farming is essentially because it treats livestock like crops. Give them the minimum amount of space and pump them full of nutrients and they're good to go.

I don't necessarily think that the consumption of meat means a disrespect of animals. Traditionally, some cultures had immense respect for the animals they hunted and I don't believe that was insincere. But I think you and I can both agree that overfeeding a pig until it can barely move on its weak legs just so it can be processed isn't "respect". When it comes to people like the Inuit there is a lot of debate among vegans and vegetarians about whether their way of life (which relies heavily on hunting and wearing furs) is ethical, because as you rightfully point out, it's not that simple.

A factory farm typically has no respect for the animals. Which is why I went out of my way to find a source I trust. For produce too, I don't support GMO if I can help it. Or ones that use chemicals. To make good food you need good ingredients. Though I try to think of things as more than just ingredients.

 

[NPC009]

So when we want to talk about waste, you've got to do some SERIOUS soul checking here when vegetables are the worst offenders of waste. 1,730,000 tons of veggies (not counting fruit or bread) compared to 560,000 tons of meat? Whoa.

Just butting in, but was does that have to do with anything? People buying too much food (and stocking up on veggies an fruit so they can pretend they eat healthier than they actually do?) has nothing to do with them being vegetariers or not, unless you can provide actual data that proves vegetariers just love chucking perfectly good food away.

(Personally, I try to limit food waste as much as possible. I paid perfectly good money for that food, and not really feeling like eating reheated curry for dinner is not a good enough reason to throw it away.)

 

[Dizchu]

A factory farm typically has no respect for the animals. Which is why I went out of my way to find a source I trust. For produce too, I don't support GMO if I can help it. Or ones that use chemicals. To make good food you need good ingredients. Though I try to think of things as more than just ingredients.

About GMOs... I actually think there's great potential for genetic modification. I mean we've selectively bred crops for millennia, wild bananas are nowhere near as edible as the bananas we eat. While I think genetically modifying crops and animals just so they can tolerate the abysmal conditions they grow in is an extremely bad practice, I think moderate genetic modification is a good thing.

 

[Lightknight]

I'm not criticising any economic model here, just stating basic logic. If demand is extremely high then meeting that demand will require a ridiculous amount of resources. Convenience comes at a cost, that's just how it is.

The alternative is to not meet the food demand. An artificially low supply then means exorbitant prices that end up hurting the most vulnerable among us.

Changing nearly anything seems to have a negative elastic effect on something else. It's really hard to enact good policies that are purely good. I just want to make sure we're advocating for something that will actually have a net good rather than a mild good with a significant negative.

Never said it was, but it's the result of these insanely high demands. The root of the environmental concerns is how much people consume and how much it costs to provide the product.

No, it isn't, in times of lower demands we often have even severe waste. Also, before the industrial complex we had a much larger issue with spoilage. It just so happens that in developed Western countries that waste from unnecessary discarding of food is common. But it less developed nation they have a huge problem with spoilage. I'm not sure how you think waste is in any way a product of industry.

We are biologically evolved to want to reproduce, yet asexuals and people who don't want kids exist. Humans have instincts yes, but we also have intellect and self-awareness. An "appeal to tradition" fallacy is an argument that relies on "that's just the way things are". But "the way things are" have changed drastically over the millennia. There are plenty of things that we've evolved with that have proved unnecessary or even detrimental to us, so it's not a good basis for argument.

I'm not sure how describing groups of people with specific traits dismisses the general population's evolutionary traits. Again, this is like telling someone who says they're straight, "Well, you say you're born straight but there are totally people who are asexual or gay". So what? Them being whatever doesn't impact that person being what they are.

If there was a demographic of people who hate the taste of meat, that wouldn't trivialize the average person who is naturally evolved to appreciate meat.

Evolutionary psychology explains why people are the way they are, not why they ought to be the way they are. It's an explanation, not a justification.

Are you saying that you are the authority on what people "ought" to be? I just presented a peer reviewed paper that shows lettuce as having three times the emissions of bacon per calorie. I think you ought to start eating bacon every time you think about a leafy salad

But I've already explained that it's not the suffering at time of death that's the concern, it's the suffering during life. Just like humans "evolved to eat meat", pigs, chickens and cows didn't evolve to live in extremely dense populations. I mean free-range farming is artificial too, but it doesn't come close.

Thanks to biological engineering cows have experienced significant engineering. Are you certain that some of the impacts of our tinkering with their biology and our practices haven't led to a micro-evolution of cows that are evolved to live in dense populations? I'm unsure that a cow who has only ever experienced dense populations isn't entirely adapted to it the same way humans learn to adapt to similar conditions when it's forced upon us.

Could they be a lot happier and freer? Sure, but we don't really know what cows are thinking. We see pictures of this herd animal packed in with a lot of others and we try to inject our own human feelings and wants on them. Personification is cute and all but it isn't always right.

False dichotomy. Tomatoes and broccoli are not the only non-meat foods.

The thing is, there are a LOT of other items that are right around there or higher than chicken. That table didn't compare all food items. The point is that chicken and pork compare equally and sometimes better than staples of the vegetarian community. You seem to accept that point so the contrast of vegetarian to omnivore isn't that stark.

Correction: Some fruits and veggies have a higher carbon footprint than some meats. If you are willing to accept that there's a difference in the impact lamb, beef and chicken have on the environment then you must also accept that there's a difference between tomatoes, apples, oranges, etc.

What do you believe is an acceptable carbon footprint for a calorie and why do you value it at that? There's plenty of studies comparing food types but there's not much saying that the carbon footprint being 6 points higher actually means dick all. I'm not making a point here, I'm asking because I genuinely don't know. Sure, beef is just over double that of a tomato but does that mean it's particularly bad or is that value relatively meaningless, like having a 13 watt fluorescent bulb instead of a 7 watt LED. Sure, 13 watts is just over 7 watts but 13 watt is perfectly acceptable.

What should be our target threshold for carbon footprint per calorie and why?

I posted references to studies that have indicated otherwise so at best this is inconclusive.

No, you posted a reference to a blog. Any studies you have presented are still back in emission per tonnage thinking which is dishonest (of them, not you) at best.

That implies I eat leafy salads on a comparable level. The common misconception is that vegans and vegetarians eat a lot of fruit and vegetables to compensate for the lack of meat (the term "vegetarian" is misleading). Every other food group is ignored.

Ok, so tell me what you eat. On average.

These numbers don't jive with the actual studies produced (this is not a study, this is a blogger interpretation of other data).

Does this not count as an "actual study"?

Ok, here's the thing, I used to have to grade statistical studies on their adherence to statistical norms. So this kind of thing is actually my jam, so to speak.

Here is a summary of the points I'm about to discuss below:
1. The emissions here are actually in emission per weight which we already discussed is misleading and inflated since plants weigh less than meat and contain fewer calories per gram.
2. The study is for the UK but the blogger is applying them to the US which isn't the same demographic.
3. The study is using the blogger's calculator which has old numbers. A study that uses an anti-meat site's calculator is expressing a result bias.
4. The study failed to randomize sample size and acknowledges it as a problem (the cohort of vegetarians had significantly healthier eating habbits than the general population and the friends/family they recruited deviated from the general population of meat eaters).
5. The study failed to account for waste emissions which are much higher in veggies and fruit. This is HUGE and the study acknowledges that this could have significantly reduced the difference between categories and even linked to a 2013 study that indicated veggies would be much higher waste emitters.
6. The study acknowledges that the emission estimates it used have significant issues and are not within the degree of certainty that the paper itself was in.

<spoiler=Click for the breaking apart of the study to make the points in the summary above>The numbers in the blog were the blogger's own extrapolations of the data. Or did you not notice that this is a UK study regarding UK emissions and the blogger was appropriating it for use in the US?

If you were to crack open the study, you'd see that the numbers are also all obtained by emissions from weight:

"with animal-based products generally having much greater emissions than
plant-based products per unit weight"

So, they found the emission ratio using weight while the diet size itself was supposed to be in a 2,000 calorie diet. I know you probably saw the blogger referencing calories and thought that the emissions were per calorie but they aren't. Once again a study has fallen prey to using weight as the qualifier which does not directly correlate to a calorie diet emission.

Please note that the study itself has one other major issue that I would mark it down on. The sample size is not random. They recruited mostly through vegetarian sites to get all of the samples.

Participants were resident in the UK and recruited through collaborating general
practitioners, by post via vegetarian and vegan societies, and by adverts in vegetarian and
health food magazines. Participants were also asked to recruit friends and relatives
(?snowballing?).

Do you believe that people who frequent vegetarian sites are a valid cross-section of the overall population of the UK? Because there's no way to confirm that. While the sample size is large, failure to sufficiently randomize the sample is a major problem. This would be like a polling center going to republican sites and asking them to recruit democrat family members to respond to the study. Not only would republicans who are passionate enough to frequent such a site not necessarily be a cross-section of all republicans, but the people they recruit may not be a cross section of democrats either.

Also note that the data used in this 2014 study was from 2007. The study released this year that found lettuce to be three times the emissions of bacon is a newly released study and pertains directly to the US.

It's funny that carbonfootprint.com references this study because this study also references carbonfootprint.com as where it got its carbon emission footprint calculator from. The problem is that carbonfootprint.com's value for meat is higher than the sources this study used and the blog acknowledges that the calculator is wrong in the comments of the blog. That's already 3 points of difference. What's more is that it groups goat and beef into the same category but we both know goat is MUCH higher despite being consumed far less. So if they took the average of the two meat type's emission then it skews the average value for beef way out of the ball park. They should not have combined beef and goat meat.

I mean, look at their own discussion (I'm posting things as I run across them): "The
GHG estimates for food items used in this paper are subject to uncertainty that is not captured in
the confidence intervals shown in this paper"

They even acknowledge that they didn't consider food waste and that vegetable and fruit waste emissions are known to be higher than meat products:

Throughout the analyses presented here we have assumed that GHG emission related to food wastage is
reasonably similar across all food groups, but this may not be the case. Estimates of food wastage
in the UK suggest that wastage of fruit and vegetables is higher than for meat products (Quested
et al. 2013), which could reduce the difference in GHG emissions between the dietary groups.

As I already showed you, there is far more waste from vegetables and fruit.

Also, the study noted that reported food weights in survey format studies of meat frequently include bones and skin which would inflate the estimate of emissions.

Oh man: "The diets observed in the EPIC-Oxford cohort may not represent current consumption
patterns in the UK." Not only because the data is from the 1990s but because the friends and family of vegetarians don't necessarily represent UK (told you!) and because the people on the sites tended to eat healthier than the general vegetarian population. So they even acknowledged the randomization issue here.

The spoiler above includes direct quotes of the paper's discussion section which is quite damning of their emission numbers' validity. As I stated, the first problem is that they erroneously used emission by weight to get the emission number.

Well that's amusing because I was referring to the Wikipedia article and not the blog post, which I mainly used because the infographics were consistent with the data from the studies. The infographic you posted came from an article that contradicted what you were arguing so I was unaware that you wanted nothing but professional studies.

I cited the infographic and the study it was cited from. Did you read the study itself? It was just a study on emissions of plants and meat so it didn't have all the complexities and failures of the study you presented. It also successfully compared emissions to calories with emissions to weight to explain why one is better than the other.

http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehs/Docs/Understanding_CAFOs_NALBOH.pdf This PDF should outline the biggest risks of CAFO farming, among the most worrying are fresh water pollution, antibiotic resistance and methane, as well as the difficulty regulating such intensive operaitons. Predictably the benefits of CAFOs are increased produce and reduced cost. Predictably the benefits of CAFOs are increased produce and reduced cost, not any environmental or health benefits.

The study is talking about local environmental pollution. Not emissions. You and I can agree all day long that CAFOs take a massive dump on their immediate area. Like, literally where fertilizer and animal waste are concerned.

But that's not overall emission. CAFO's perform better on emissions than small scale farms as we discussed where emissions to calories and even weight is concerned.

Also, a CAFO is required to have permits regarding disposal and use of the manure. We do limit what they can do and if they go over then that's a failure to regulate.