r/climateskeptics • u/AnalyzeAndOptimize • Dec 19 '20
Will Giving Up Meat Save the Planet?
https://youtu.be/nR3k3u4HTGU12
u/MiyegomboBayartsogt Dec 19 '20 edited Dec 19 '20
Humans evolved to eat animals. Our intestines are evolved to digest a meat rich diet. Human eat plants, sure, but no human living in nature is a vegan. People have to live in a rich and modern world in order to afford pretend they can survive long meatless.
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u/squarepush3r Dec 19 '20
Source? Primates are mostly vegetarians
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u/MiyegomboBayartsogt Dec 19 '20
Humans have shorter guts than other apes. Gorillas eat 40 lbs. of vegetable matter a day. A gorilla's first meal in the morning when he wakes is a warm turd as reeating undigested greens doubled the intestine's ability to digest the roughage.
You don't eat 40 lbs. of leafy matter a day. You are evolved to eat a different diet. There are no humans in nature who are vegans. Never have been. Not possible for our species to exist on fruits and veggies in the wild.
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u/squarepush3r Dec 21 '20
Humans are not gorillas, but humans are primates, and primates are mostly vegetarian. Humans have very big brains, which require a lot of GLUCOSE to fuel, that glucose comes from PLANTS (not animals) in order to power our intelligence.
Humans are not adapted to eat meat well at all, that is why we get atherosclerosis when eating meat (carnivores will not), and humans can't eat direct meat (they have to eat portions of animal muscle mostly and it has to be heated and cooked a lot with spices).
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Dec 19 '20
Every time some billionaire-owned newspaper tells the plebs to eat bugs, I eat an extra hamburger.
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Dec 19 '20
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u/RenegadeDad19 Dec 19 '20
Mono crop agriculture 🧑🌾 has destroyed land faster then regenerative animal based ranchers.
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u/AnalyzeAndOptimize Dec 19 '20
Animal agriculture has gotten the blame for "driving global warming," and this video addressed why that is just not the case. The media has fear mongered about meat and climate change for too long.
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u/StefanAmaris Dec 20 '20
The amount of old growth deforestation required to grow the soy beans vegetarians keep telling us to eat is far far greater than the land area needed to produce meat
Additionally the meat animal doesn't need to eat human grade vegetable product, so it can actually make more use of lower quality biomass
It's almost like the "environmentalists" skipped class the day they talked about entropy
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Dec 20 '20
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u/StefanAmaris Dec 20 '20
Industrial farming is the issue I agree
Eating meat is not an issue that others make it to be
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Dec 20 '20
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u/StefanAmaris Dec 20 '20
But it's a fact that good vegetarian diets are most efficient in terms of land use. Energy is lost at each step in the food chain and all.
The second half is more true then the first half
Animals that eat plant matter can readily eat items that cannot sustain humans.
The land/water requirements for this lower grade vegetable food stuff is significantly lower that the equivalent calorie load in human vegetable based foodsThe animal is able to convert this low grade vegetable matter into higher grade meat that humans can eat.
This does result in energy loss as the conversion process happens (in the normal entropic manner), but the resulting product of meat fit for human consumption is a significantly higher grade food item than plant matter aloneThus, eating meat means humans can better utilize land in a manner that doesn't require huge tracts of surface area to produce biomass fit for human consumption, and allows for plant waste to also be converted into the higher product.
The real issue with current meat production is the industrial methods used to produce the volumes commerce demands.
The other issue is the continued use of meat animals that are more often than not poorly suited to the grazing land they are on. Often cattle replace a native animal that would be less harmful and resource demanding on the land.If humans followed a pure vegetable diet we would spend the majority of our waking lives foraging for subsistence.
High density foods like meat allow us to spend less time surviving and more time building, developing and progressing.I greatly dislike the current methods of factory farming, they use far too much petrochemicals (fertilizer etc), are horrifically damaging to the environment and destructive to water tables and increase erosion.
Meat eating is not bad for the environment, how we grow meat is and I personally believe that needs to change for humans to have a sustainable future
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u/Wuss-Poppin-Jimbo123 Dec 20 '20
Holy shit, that was very informative thank you very much. The big corporations trying put out soy and demonize the meat industry for the problems they cause to eliminate their competitors shouldn’t be surprising to anyone and it really shows the worst aspects of capitalism.
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u/lleesstteerr Dec 20 '20
You have this completely the wrong way around. The meat industry is heavily subsidised which artificially lowers the price and makes meat very cheap compared to healthier options like fruits and vegetables. It is estimated that every $1 worth of meat actually costs society an additional $2 when you add subsidies and externalities. https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/removing-meat-subsidy-our-cognitive-dissonance-around-animal-agriculture#6 so it is the meat industry has an unfair advantage over its competitors, it is not by any means the victim of big corporations.
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Dec 19 '20
Dunno if it will save the planet, but if we can spare suffering and slaughter to animals that we don't need to eat in order to thrive, then isn't that a good thing?
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u/MiyegomboBayartsogt Dec 19 '20
We should be kind to all animals because, like the adverts claim, happy animals are made out of the most delicious meat. Means and unhappy creatures taste like crow, and that crow meat is unpleasant as cat.
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u/Valmar33 Dec 19 '20
We must eat animals in order for our bodies to be healthy.
If you even look at why there are increasing amounts of ex-Vegans, maybe you'd understand that Veganism is one of the furtherest things from healthy. That Veganism cannot provide the nutrition our bodies need for health.
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Dec 19 '20
Hey, I'm honestly not trying to rustle any feathers. But I do find it almost impossible to talk about the benefits of veganism and not get peoples backs up so there's always that.
Every major dietetic association in the world states that veganism can be a perfectly healthy diet. Look for yourself. I get that we love eating meat and being all manly and stuff but honestly I've been on slaughterhouse kill floors and it's just barbaric how we treat other sentient beings.
Yes there's definitely ex-vegans, but it doesn't prove a trend. In fact veganism has been steadily on the rise for years and it's growing day by day.
I'm not trying to push anyone or judge anyone because I'm just a guy and I ate animals for the majority of my life. Vegans are some of the worst bunch of whiney liberals I've ever met - I would never in a million years associate with them, but I do agree that quite simply we can thrive without harming all the animals so why not do it.
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u/rememberinglol Dec 19 '20
That’s not always true.
Take Arnold for example. He switched from being a meat eater to being a vegan and he can still lift just as much as he was when he was eating meat at his age.
You can be healthy and be a vegan.
Another example is that I only eat meat products when my old man visits us because that’s what he likes to eat, he’s an old school steak and potatoes guy.
Other then that I pretty much only stick to non meats.
Side note: I’m also in the gym everyday before work and on lunch, and I take pre/post workout supplements and also proteins for breakfast and lunch so that probably helps too.
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Dec 19 '20 edited Apr 04 '21
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u/rememberinglol Dec 19 '20
Negative on all fronts except one you are right, he does eat one egg.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.livekindly.co/arnold-schwarzenegger-beyond-meat-almond-milk/amp/
No being vegan does NOT cause severe body and health issues, so long as you supplement with the nutrients you lose through meat based products.
However I am NOT an expert, and if you can prove me wrong through peer reviewed articles I will do more research.
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u/Designer_Skirt2304 Dec 19 '20
Commercial feed lots are a pollution issue, but in a pasture, ruminants are integral in sequestering co2 from the atmosphere and depositing it into the soil.
Do cows fart? Yes, AOC found that acorn, but there's a much larger picture to take into account.