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Okay, sure. You CAN find all essential amino acids in veggies. You can probably find the fatty acids too. The relevant issue is if you can find all the needed vitamins. Specifically, vitamin B12. I saw a news article somewhere that there were tiny amounts of it in spirulina algae, but other than that, you can't have it from a vegan diet. And, yes, I know you can take supplements for it, but it sort of puts a damper on the claim that "humans can live perfectly well on a vegan diet". At the very least, we did not evolve for or with a vegan diet. And what happens if you don't get enough? Why, your nervous system starts taking damage, from loss of sensibility from your feet inward, to depression and dementia. The idea of a child not having enough during development is not a happy one. Given this, the reason most vegans who do not get supplements for it don't get severe symptoms from a deficiency is that they have a store of it built up during childhoods eating meat and giving up veganism before these run out.
Edit: Fun fact: Once upon a time, when people started to try treating B12 deficiency, the cure was to eat a few pounds of raw cattle liver every day. It is rumoured that despite the horrible symptoms they were having and the efficacy of the cure, some chose not to take this cure.
On the other hand, if you don't subsist on a vegan but on a vegetarian diet, 1 glass of milk a day is enough to provide for the daily need of B12 for most people. There is a big difference between not eating meat and subsisting on a vegan diet.
I'm reminded of this fun movie taking place in Ukraine, where it is so unthinkable to not eat meat, that when the guy visiting from America says he's a vegetarian, they look at him like he's crazy.
To be fair, slavic cuisine is full of meat, and animal fats.
It's funny how often those most insistent "we need meat to survive" doesn't even know the most basic facts of nutrition. It could be noted I guess that there's some carbs in eggs. And with some I mean a fraction of a percent, lol.In my experience that goes for most people, regardless of their actual diet. It just gets worse when they start arguing against other peoples diets.
True to a point, but in my experience even the most pseudoscientific, woo-woo embracing vegans know stuff as basic as "carbs are mainly from vegetable sources", because if they thought carbs was what they lost by skipping meat they'd go straight towards pasta and skip over the lentils, and get really really sick really really quick.
People that don't care much about diets may know as little, but as you say, they don't care. When it comes to those that do care, it seems pretty much everyone with strong opinions that lacks really basic nutritional understanding is of the "meat is a must" crowd.
Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of vegans that peddle pure b$~#!+** such as "veganism cures cancer" and similarly offensive woo-woo, but if you're a vegan and has survived so far, you're most likely aware of where to get the various primary nutrients. Maybe one's not as good at knowing what contains stuff like folic acid and calcium, but that's a different deal from protein.
I'm reminded of this fun movie taking place in Ukraine, where it is so unthinkable to not eat meat, that when the guy visiting from America says he's a vegetarian, they look at him like he's crazy.
To be fair, slavic cuisine is full of meat, and animal fats.
Heh, that's basically my experience when travelling in the Czech Republik and Slovakia.
I ended up eating lots of soup.
And, yes, I know you can take supplements for it, but it sort of puts a damper on the claim that "humans can live perfectly well on a vegan diet".
Why would it? If you can get vegan B12, which you can, whether in the form of a supplement pill or added in vegetable milk or through eating unwashed vegetables (not recommended), it doesn't in any way put a damper on that humans can live perfectly well on a vegan diet.
And, of course, it's very common among older people - even those eating meat - to need B12 supplements to not get a deficiency. So if the argument is that you can't live healthily on a vegan diet because you need supplements, then the same could be said for omnivorous diets.
At the very least, we did not evolve for or with a vegan diet.
Has anyone disputed this? We didn't evolve for or with cardriving or medicine either*.
However, even in a setting without supplements or a food industry you can get B12, because eating many wild roots and vegetables will get you B12 through the dirt they're in. Again, this is not recommended in general, but neither is unprepared meat.
And what happens if you don't get enough? Why, your nervous system starts taking damage, from loss of sensibility from your feet inward, to depression and dementia. The idea of a child not having enough during development is not a happy one. Given this, the reason most vegans who do not get supplements for it don't get severe symptoms from a deficiency is that they have a store of it built up during childhoods eating meat and giving up veganism before these run out.
I have a genetic, permanent condition which makes my body nearly unable to get B12 from food in general, and it wasn't diagnosed until I was 23, so I know very well how it is growing up with a lack of B12 regardless of how much meat I ate (I currently eat about 35 times the recommended daily intake via pills, which would be basically impossible to get through food). And yeah, you should definately get B12 supplements (or products with it as an additive) if you're a vegan. And in general, I'd probably not serve my kid (if I had one) a completely vegan diet from a health perspective, as if I get a deficiency I'm much better equipped to notice and communicate and adress it.
That said, I think if I fed a kid a vegan diet, it'd probably still get a healthier diet than the average kid in my country. The trust people place in meat and milk as a healthy baseline is dangerous. Also, of course, this isn't helped by allowing companies to run wild with additives such as heavy salting of basically everything, the lacking education about nutrition, and that poor families often don't have the time or energy to get a good, healthy, well-balanced diet.
That doesn't really change much though, unless one can actually show that lack of nutrients is even more common among vegans than other people. Because, you know, it's not like the avegare meat eater will know what nutrients they get and what they lack. Scurvy is on the rise among children in the UK, and I'd bet my life that's not because of veganism.
If you think you get your carbs from meat, chances are you won't notice building up symptoms of vitamin E deficiency.
*Well, we're still evolving, so one could say that we're evolving with both cardriving, medicine and a vegan diet, but I guess that's not the point here.
*snip*
That being said, I suspect that a balanced vegan diet is only possible in the modern era with modern innovations like dietary supplements and the fact that much of our food is enhanced with supplements
*snip*
But then again, I only suspect, I haven't actually researched this.
Essentially, yeah, this is correct. I think the era between "people in the wast in general have at least decently balanced diets" and the current era of "people in the west can in general have a very well-balanced vegan diet" are fairly short though, as before B12 supplements et cetera people's understanding of nutrition and access to well-balanced omnivorous diets where a lot limited.
I know the vast majority of people here in Sweden ate like crap 80 years ago.
*snip*
That being said, I suspect that a balanced vegan diet is only possible in the modern era with modern innovations like dietary supplements and the fact that much of our food is enhanced with supplements
*snip*
But then again, I only suspect, I haven't actually researched this.
Essentially, yeah, this is correct. I think the era between "people in the wast in general have at least decently balanced diets" and the current era of "people in the west can in general have a very well-balanced vegan diet" are fairly short though, as before B12 supplements et cetera people's understanding of nutrition and access to well-balanced omnivorous diets where a lot limited.
I know the vast majority of people here in Sweden ate like crap 80 years ago.
Well, there is a world of difference between 80 years ago and a thousand [and a half] years ago.
For the love of the gods, people in England during the renaissance or early modern era (not sure which, it's that time with terrible hygiene, awful religion and a lot of big ships) thought that eating sauerkraut was a bad idea. (I don't remember where I read that) To me, a Polish person, that's hilarious. Sauerkraut is good for the body, mind and soul and it's rich in vitamin c so it keeps away scurvy.
Funny thing: I hear "80 years ago" and think "oh that's practically yesterday". must be a side effect of being a thousand years out of style.
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While I've been a vegetarian for a long time, the claims that we could feed the world if we stopped eating meat and grew plants instead is nuts.
Just because the land can support some grass and cattle can get to it doesn't mean its usable for corn and a tractor.
In a lot of the developing world they let goats and sheep roam around and find whatever they can, and they make a living on it in places you need to work full time just to get a small garden going.
More reasons why veganvangelists need to shut the f+~@ up
(veganvangelist: what I call that particular vocal minority of vegans that act like you're a horrible person if you don't forego animal products, and try to guilt trip you into adopting their dietary habits. I hate them so f$*!ing much.)
First Point:
If we don't have an explanation for the much larger changes in Earth's climate over the past few tens of thousands of years (and we don't), then speculating on present/near-term future change based on very limited models of human activity (models that do not even begin to give us the kind of basis we need to make sweeping changes in our laws and international relations to prevent what "will happen" with global climate going forward) is a total waste of time.
Second Point:
Instead, we need to focus on improved efficiency in all major aspects of human endeavor. This will have direct measurable and certain economic benefits and, as a bonus, will do more for human impact on global climate than anything we are likely to argue over at international climate symposiums, these boards, or anywhere else.
Duh.
You say "duh" like you didn't just say something that is demonstrably false in logical reasoning.
Your first point is that because the climate has changed before, and we can't 100% conclusively prove why, therefore we can't prove why it's happening now.
To start, this is a failure of logic. Essentially your claim is that because we don't know what A is, we can never know what B is. This of course ignores the fact that we do know some things about A and know even more about B, which goes into the second point.
Second, it fails because we do have decent ideas of how and why climate changed in the past. We don't have complete histories, nor precise measurements made from those times, but the basic science of how the climate changes is fairly well understood. All the processes aren't necessarily completely understood, but that's mostly due to the complexity of the system, not the underlying science. We do understand the underlying science of why various molecules behave the way they do in the Earth's environment. We know how CO2 works, we know water pretty well, etc.
Third, you completely disregard the fact that scientist can directly measure the impact of CO2 in the atmosphere. Seriously, at this point, any argument about whether this is happening or not is bunk. It's happening. We actually have the proof.
I agree that estimates of what will happen in the future are definitely murky and debatable. But arguing that CO2 production for humans is having no effect is completely without merit. We can measure it. We are measuring it. What changes are coming in the future, we can make some good guesses, but they're always going to be guesses. The more we learn, the better those guesses will be.
In the end though, you can take your "duh" and shove it.
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The modern agricultural industry is also designed to overproduce by its very nature.
if we did away with that it would be a significant improvement.
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On the other hand, if you don't subsist on a vegan but on a vegetarian diet, 1 glass of milk a day is enough to provide for the daily need of B12 for most people. There is a big difference between not eating meat and subsisting on a vegan diet.You're still killing baby animals.
If you're not eating meat because of moral reasons, dairy's right out too.
I haven't argued on the moral of killing animals. I have just stated that not eating meat is not the same as being vegan.
Well, there is a world of difference between 80 years ago and a thousand [and a half] years ago.
Exactly, that was what I meant :). My point was that yet, a healthy vegan diet was impossible until quite recently, but healthy diets in general were nearly non-existent until quite recently. There's a gap between them of a few decades, probably, which is a blink of an eye in terms of human history.
While I've been a vegetarian for a long time, the claims that we could feed the world if we stopped eating meat and grew plants instead is nuts.
Just because the land can support some grass and cattle can get to it doesn't mean its usable for corn and a tractor.
I agree that it's a bad claim to make, but I'm not sure we can say that it's not true either; I just don't think it's been calculated on, really, and there are factors in both directions;
On one hand, as you say, a lot of ground can support animal husbandry but not farming...On the other hand, globally, the vast majority of livestock is fed mainly with food specifically farmed for them (eg soy)...
On the third hand, this isn't true for fish, which still largely feed itself and so makes use of areas we can't otherwise use...
On the fourth hand, our access to edible fish is very limited and quickly shrinking.
And so on, there's probably another dozen hands or so. But mainly I think it's a pointless argument to say that if we go vegan we can feed the world, because the reason people starve is not a lack of food production in the world, it's about distribution; we already produce enough food to feed the whole world, and a lot more could be produced just by modernizing the most primitive agriculture to modern levels.
So while I think it's hard to determine whether or not a purely vegan food industry would be more effective than the current food industry is, ultimately it's a pointless question since production/efficiency isn't the bottleneck for people to get food: Economy is, and the systems that violently keep people away from the food.
If you're not eating meat because of moral reasons, dairy's right out too.
That depends a lot on the moral reasons in question. Most people have some degree of nuance to their moral views, and such nuances might mean drinking milk can be okay while eating meat isn't. On the other hand, I know few groups that tend to reject nuance as quickly as certain vegans...
Most of my comments have already been raised, so I won't repeat them.
But I will say that I vaguely recall a study which indicated that people with fuel efficient/hybrid vehicles actually produce a similar level of emissions as those without. Because they can get greater mileage per gallon, and because they see their driving as "less bad" for the environment, they are less concerned with the amount they drive, and drive longer distances as well as are more likely to jump in a vehicle when instead they could bike or drive.
But I will say that I vaguely recall a study which indicated that people with fuel efficient/hybrid vehicles actually produce a similar level of emissions as those without. Because they can get greater mileage per gallon, and because they see their driving as "less bad" for the environment, they are less concerned with the amount they drive, and drive longer distances as well as are more likely to jump in a vehicle when instead they could bike or drive.
I'm gonna call bs on that study. There is no way that is remotely possible for a vast majority of drivers. Compare how far you drive because you have to vs how far you want to, and how little "the environment" compares as a reason for doing so vs "gas money"
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On the other hand, if you don't subsist on a vegan but on a vegetarian diet, 1 glass of milk a day is enough to provide for the daily need of B12 for most people. There is a big difference between not eating meat and subsisting on a vegan diet.You're still killing baby animals.
... you are so getting that milk the wrong way
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Well, there is a world of difference between 80 years ago and a thousand [and a half] years ago.Exactly, that was what I meant :). My point was that yet, a healthy vegan diet was impossible until quite recently, but healthy diets in general were nearly non-existent until quite recently. There's a gap between them of a few decades, probably, which is a blink of an eye in terms of human history.
Well, here's an example of what I'm talking about: spices and herbs were used liberally in european cuisine throughout the middle ages and even the renaissance, then later on post-renaissance, aristocratic snobbishness and increasingly awful medicinal theory (who let the four humors take root as a theory anyway?) led to spices falling seriously out of favor, and that has apparently been a problem ever since.
and another example: the working schedules required during the industrial revolution led to a radical change in the sleeping habits of the industrial world, for the worse. People started sleeping one sleep at night, without any naps in the day. Before this change, two sleeps at night (with a waking period in the middle of the night) or a shorter sleep at night with a nap in the day (siesta) were commonplace. This isn't related to food, but it's the same general idea.
I'm gonna call bs on that study. There is no way that is remotely possible for a vast majority of drivers. Compare how far you drive because you have to vs how far you want to, and how little "the environment" compares as a reason for doing so vs "gas money"
But I will say that I vaguely recall a study which indicated that people with fuel efficient/hybrid vehicles actually produce a similar level of emissions as those without. Because they can get greater mileage per gallon, and because they see their driving as "less bad" for the environment, they are less concerned with the amount they drive, and drive longer distances as well as are more likely to jump in a vehicle when instead they could bike or drive.
Hybrid owners drive more and get more tickets
"The research firm Quality Planning analyzes data for insurance companies and looked at data on 359,309 covered vehicles over a two-year period. It found that even though hybrid owners save on gas and greenhouse gas emissions, they drove 25% more on non-work related trips. Even though their commuting habits were roughly the same as non-hybrid drivers, they took more discretionary trips, potentially offsetting their environmentally friendly purchase."
So there is a chicken or egg problem in the data: are the people purchasing hybrids buying them to save money on gas, because they do a lot of weekend driving trips, or does owning a hybrid make to more likely that you are more willing to drive more for more non-work related activities.
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I'm gonna call bs on that study. There is no way that is remotely possible for a vast majority of drivers. Compare how far you drive because you have to vs how far you want to, and how little "the environment" compares as a reason for doing so vs "gas money"
But I will say that I vaguely recall a study which indicated that people with fuel efficient/hybrid vehicles actually produce a similar level of emissions as those without. Because they can get greater mileage per gallon, and because they see their driving as "less bad" for the environment, they are less concerned with the amount they drive, and drive longer distances as well as are more likely to jump in a vehicle when instead they could bike or drive.
Hybrid owners drive more and get more tickets
"The research firm Quality Planning analyzes data for insurance companies and looked at data on 359,309 covered vehicles over a two-year period. It found that even though hybrid owners save on gas and greenhouse gas emissions, they drove 25% more on non-work related trips. Even though their commuting habits were roughly the same as non-hybrid drivers, they took more discretionary trips, potentially offsetting their environmentally friendly purchase."
Er, the refutation of the original point is in the data you cite, I'm afraid.
Granting for a moment that hybrid owners drive 25% more miles than non-hybrid owners, they also produce roughly half to 2/3 of the emissions per mile of conventional vehicles.
Do the math. 125% of 67% is about 83% --- hybrids still produce substantially less emissions.
Similarly, average number of miles driven per person is indeed up, by about 50%, since 1970. But if emissions have gone down by 75%, everyone is still making less of an impact today -- 25% of 150% is less than 38%.
The idea that "as X goes down, Y goes up so the end result is the same" is rhetorically convenient, but almost never true if you look at the actual numbers.
I'm gonna call bs on that study. There is no way that is remotely possible for a vast majority of drivers. Compare how far you drive because you have to vs how far you want to, and how little "the environment" compares as a reason for doing so vs "gas money"
But I will say that I vaguely recall a study which indicated that people with fuel efficient/hybrid vehicles actually produce a similar level of emissions as those without. Because they can get greater mileage per gallon, and because they see their driving as "less bad" for the environment, they are less concerned with the amount they drive, and drive longer distances as well as are more likely to jump in a vehicle when instead they could bike or drive.
Hybrid owners drive more and get more tickets
"The research firm Quality Planning analyzes data for insurance companies and looked at data on 359,309 covered vehicles over a two-year period. It found that even though hybrid owners save on gas and greenhouse gas emissions, they drove 25% more on non-work related trips. Even though their commuting habits were roughly the same as non-hybrid drivers, they took more discretionary trips, potentially offsetting their environmentally friendly purchase."
So there is a chicken or egg problem in the data: are the people purchasing hybrids buying them to save money on gas, because they do a lot of weekend driving trips, or does owning a hybrid make to more likely that you are more willing to drive more for more non-work related activities.
You're ignoring another factor. Hybrid cars are expensive.
Someone who owns a $30,000+ vehicle is more likely to take vacations than someone who owns a $10,000 vehicle, because the owner of the more expensive vehicle is statistically likely to be wealthier. Add in the factor that a hybrid vehicle makes road trips less expensive and easier to take, you end up with multiple variables other than the one you presuppose for why they drive more.
Also, note that the article doesn't say that hybrid owners have higher emissions, it says that the additional miles offsets.
I'm not a big fan of hybrids though in general, too much reliance on rare earth metals.
You're ignoring another factor. Hybrid cars are expensive.
Someone who owns a $30,000+ vehicle is more likely to take vacations than someone who owns a $10,000 vehicle, because the owner of the more expensive vehicle is statistically likely to be wealthier. Add in the factor that a hybrid vehicle makes road trips less expensive and easier to take, you end up with multiple variables other than the one you presuppose for why they drive more.
Also, note that the article doesn't say that hybrid owners have higher emissions, it says that the additional miles offsets.
I'm not a big fan of hybrids though in general, too much reliance on rare earth metals.
OTOH, used hybrids are available. And smaller hybrids are cheaper than a lot of popular SUVs and trucks.
There's certainly not the 3:1 cost difference you imply.
Except I'm not making the demographics up. The largest demo of hybrid owners is affluent, urban people. The working poor do not tend to own hybrids, but the do still own cars. The working poor don't take a lot of vacations, so excluding them from any group of vehicle owners is going to skew your statistics on non-commuter usage.
Note, I didn't claim that is accounts for the ENTIRE usage difference. I said it's a factor that MMCJawa wasn't considering. I'd imagine that his expressed factor is also part of the statistic.
For example, if someone is thinking about driving vs flying for a vacation, owning a hybrid probably plays into that quite a bit. Even then, they still need the disposable income to consider the vacation at all though.
Except I'm not making the demographics up.You're ignoring another factor. Hybrid cars are expensive.
Someone who owns a $30,000+ vehicle is more likely to take vacations than someone who owns a $10,000 vehicle, because the owner of the more expensive vehicle is statistically likely to be wealthier. Add in the factor that a hybrid vehicle makes road trips less expensive and easier to take, you end up with multiple variables other than the one you presuppose for why they drive more.
Also, note that the article doesn't say that hybrid owners have higher emissions, it says that the additional miles offsets.
I'm not a big fan of hybrids though in general, too much reliance on rare earth metals.
OTOH, used hybrids are available. And smaller hybrids are cheaper than a lot of popular SUVs and trucks.
There's certainly not the 3:1 cost difference you imply.
Yeah. The bigger point is simply that "hybrid owners" are not a representative samples of "car owners," and so it's disingenuous to suggest that owning a hybrid makes or allows you to drive more.
By that argument, I would like to suggest that playing professional basketball makes your feet bigger. I would also like to suggest that learning to read and write makes you taller, and that eating at expensive restaurants raises your take-home income.
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There's no lack of food to feed the planet. The problem is that we waste so much of it. I suspect much more than what we eat. There was a John Oliver episode about the subject that's worth watching.While I've been a vegetarian for a long time, the claims that we could feed the world if we stopped eating meat and grew plants instead is nuts.
Just because the land can support some grass and cattle can get to it doesn't mean its usable for corn and a tractor.In a lot of the developing world they let goats and sheep roam around and find whatever they can, and they make a living on it in places you need to work full time just to get a small garden going.
i'm pretty sure the amount of food wasted by individuals and households is dwarfed in comparison by the amount of food (raw materials and processed) wasted by the entire food and agricultural industries.
As I've said before, overproduction is part of the design. Yay, capitalism!
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I understand the appeal of that approach, it frees us from all guilt or responsibility for being members of the nation that consumes the most resources and has the largest carbon footprint per capita.
Actually, there is good news on that front. The U.S. no longer consumes the most total resources (China has us beat) and we're not even in the top ten for carbon footprint per capita. Indeed, we recently dropped below Australia on the latter category... mostly because Cameron is such an idjit.
It is affected by (b), and possibly by (c). Scroll down to the pH section of this link and read the paragraph starting with "Pollution" to see how. What it very much does is increase the amount of CO2 not being sequestered, and thus remaining in atmosphere to continue to affect heating. And since localized CO2 output can affect the entire planet, it is both foolish and unscientific to dismiss localized changes out of hand.
Ignoring the first sentence there, you just repeated what I said, with a link. So, thank you for backing me up on that! But unfortunately you maybe forgot what (b) and (c) were, and threw them in, too, even though they don't belong? This is what I'm talking about when I caution against just mixing everything in a blender.
The rest of your posts are often in that same vein -- informative, but often muddled. I point out a local change in climate might be caused by a global shift, but run contrary to it, and you respond by saying that I'm ignoring local changes. Hopefully you see the problem there?
I understand and applaud that you're passionate about the topic, and you seem reasonably well-read on it. All I'm saying is that your reading on different topics has in some cases gotten a bit mixed up in your head, enough that sometimes your posts come across as factually incorrect -- which of course emboldens the deniers think that all of anthropogenic climate change is incorrect, so that's something to be avoided, IMHO.
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Yeah, our (Australian) government has taken a huge step into stupid land recently in terms of its environmental policies and political stances.
They were going to allow dredging of the barrier reef to allow oil shipping through and we're going to allow exploratory oil development in parts of it as well. There was enough of a backlash it went to census and got stopped. So now the Prime minister is trying to change the laws so lobby groups can't fight policy decisions. Fantastic.
Our nearest economic neighbour is New Zealand. They've just gone completely coal free for their electricity production. Granted they have better conditions for both geothermal and wind generated power. However, Australia just declared that they are reducing funding for alternate energies research and are increasing the coal mining sites and leases. They're so desperate to make coal work out, they're looking at changing current laws so that the biggest companies can fly in workers from overseas to work the mines rather than employ Australians to do so. If you understand economics you'll know why that is the stupidest move a government can do for its own population.
That's a good point. I mean, I have no idea how my great-great-grandma died, so clearly if I jump into an alligator pit there's no reason to think I'm gonna get hurt.
This thread has gone a long way in different directions, but this is the one that totally caught my eye...
Even made my jaw drop...
Though you don't know how she died exactly (because who knows how jaws work and all...)
Did you just say that your great great grandma got eaten by an alligator?
There's no lack of food to feed the planet. The problem is that we waste so much of it. I suspect much more than what we eat. There was a John Oliver episode about the subject that's worth watching.While I've been a vegetarian for a long time, the claims that we could feed the world if we stopped eating meat and grew plants instead is nuts.
Just because the land can support some grass and cattle can get to it doesn't mean its usable for corn and a tractor.In a lot of the developing world they let goats and sheep roam around and find whatever they can, and they make a living on it in places you need to work full time just to get a small garden going.
i'm pretty sure the amount of food wasted by individuals and households is dwarfed in comparison by the amount of food (raw materials and processed) wasted by the entire food and agricultural industries.
As I've said before, overproduction is part of the design. Yay, capitalism!
Would you prefer underproduction? As in, the food reaching this area will feed 90% of the people living there? There will never be an exact match between production and consumption, so which would you prefer, Anius? Yes, I know it is a matter of scale too, but overproduction by itself is not the problem, but rather something I hope every thinking person can agree with. Of course, it doesn't really matter what you think. The government is not going to let underproduction happen if there is literally anything they can do about it. Starving people don't die, they can still act, they are desperate, they have nothing to lose, and they will be seen as justified doing what they have to to get food. Think about Ferguson. Now imagine it was caused by starvation instead.
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Would you prefer underproduction? As in, the food reaching this area will feed 90% of the people living there? There will never be an exact match between production and consumption, so which would you prefer, Anius? Yes, I know it is a matter of scale too, but overproduction by itself is not the problem, but rather something I hope every thinking person can agree with.There's no lack of food to feed the planet. The problem is that we waste so much of it. I suspect much more than what we eat. There was a John Oliver episode about the subject that's worth watching.While I've been a vegetarian for a long time, the claims that we could feed the world if we stopped eating meat and grew plants instead is nuts.
Just because the land can support some grass and cattle can get to it doesn't mean its usable for corn and a tractor.In a lot of the developing world they let goats and sheep roam around and find whatever they can, and they make a living on it in places you need to work full time just to get a small garden going.
i'm pretty sure the amount of food wasted by individuals and households is dwarfed in comparison by the amount of food (raw materials and processed) wasted by the entire food and agricultural industries.
As I've said before, overproduction is part of the design. Yay, capitalism!
Who said I was arguing for underproduction or that overproduction in any form is always a problem? My point, clarifying the exact post to which I was replying, was that individuals and households do not collectively waste as much food as the industry itself, so a campaign to get people to stop wasting food will not solve the food waste problem because it does nothing to attack the structure of the industry.
Anyway, even in this overproducing economy, 90% of people (to use your theoretical number, not an exact one) are still being fed. More than enough food exists to adequately feed the remaining 10%, but that remaining 10% literally can't afford to eat, and food that doesn't get purchased goes to waste.
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Well, there is a world of difference between 80 years ago and a thousand [and a half] years ago.Exactly, that was what I meant :). My point was that yet, a healthy vegan diet was impossible until quite recently, but healthy diets in general were nearly non-existent until quite recently. There's a gap between them of a few decades, probably, which is a blink of an eye in terms of human history.Well, here's an example of what I'm talking about: spices and herbs were used liberally in european cuisine throughout the middle ages and even the renaissance, then later on post-renaissance, aristocratic snobbishness and increasingly awful medicinal theory (who let the four humors take root as a theory anyway?) led to spices falling seriously out of favor, and that has apparently been a problem ever since.
and another example: the working schedules required during the industrial revolution led to a radical change in the sleeping habits of the industrial world, for the worse. People started sleeping one sleep at night, without any naps in the day. Before this change, two sleeps at night (with a waking period in the middle of the night) or a shorter sleep at night with a nap in the day (siesta) were commonplace. This isn't related to food, but it's the same general idea.
Yeah, you're right in that our eating habits might have gotten worse (if that's what you're saying?), I'm not disagreeing with you. But I know here in Sweden, most people have had a crappy diet since at least the 1500's, mostly various forms of carbs. Lack of storage options, and general lack of technology to make the most of animals, meant a lot of the year a lot of the people mainly ate porridge and similar grain-based stuff (Source: Historieätarna).
But I'm not disagreeing with you in that our knowledge of medieval and ancient cuisine is limited. But with their limited understanding of our bodies, the lack of things like freezers, and in general being exposed and at the mercy of nature to a larger degree than we are in modern times, I find it likely that most of the population did not have a well-composed meal most days.
I find the lack of even common sense knowledge about how dairy farming works saddening.
If you choose not to eat meat because you don't want to kill animals but still consume dairy you are doing it wrong. It is an absolute, there's no wiggle room or rationalization of it. Calves, kids, and lambs are useless to a dairy farmer, so they get slaughtered.
Now excuse me, I need to go make some veal scallopini with lemon cream sauce.
I know how it works. But people may have stances that aren't quite as simplistic as not eating animals because you don't want to kill them. For example, my lacto-ovo-vegetarian friend has explained their stance akin to this (we've discussed it a bit, and this is not their exact words but how I understood her):
"Killing animals for food is imposing unnecessary suffering on them; there's no getting away from this. There can't be an animal meat industry that doesn't cause loads and loads of suffering. "Consumer power" is pointless liberal BS though, so not eating animals or using animal products won't directly affect the meat industry. However, eating animals normalizes and entrenches meat-eating as a cultural phenomena, making it harder to fight against the meat industry in other ways.On the other hand, eggs and dairy don't inherently require animals to suffer, so even in a post-capitalist society without industrialized animal torture having dairy and eggs is possible. Due to this, it's less important to fight against dairy and eggs as a cultural phenomena."
Now, I can find them a bit naive (maybe because I'm a revolutionary defeatist lol), but there's nothing hypocritical about it, and it in itself is not a baseless or unsound analysis. I just find the imagined end of capitalism during our lifetimes to be unnecessarily hopeful.
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This topic has really changed.
If I understand Anius's point, it's that people are getting to eat, but there are ~10% that can't afford the food (I'd argue there's a higher percentage than that worldwide, but I think the percentage is simply saying...hey...there are people that can't afford to even buy the food).
It's not that there isn't enough food, there's more than enough food that if we would give it out, everyone would have enough...it's that we would rather throw away food and have 10% of the people out there starve, than to feed everyone in the world.
Or something similar to that...do I have that correct?
For the love of the gods, people in England during the renaissance or early modern era (not sure which, it's that time with terrible hygiene, awful religion and a lot of big ships) thought that eating sauerkraut was a bad idea.
Finally, some "old wisdom" that I can agree with. Just the scent of that stuff will chase me out of an area faster than Peter Molyneux gives up on games.
Most food is difficult to transport. It rots, it goes stale, it grows bacteria, it needs cooling, it weighs a lot if it's liquids, and so on. There are exceptions, such as powdered soups, but even then, you often need water of decent quality on site to use it safely. It is a complex situation, but is manageable in places with good infrastructure. Everywhere else, it is a problem without a clear solution. And when starvation happens, the world gives aid, which pretty effectively dumps the local prices for food, knocking the local producers out of business. Which means the food shortage continues next year. I am not saying we don't know a bit better these days, but the basic issue remains.
Every country knows the food production is holy, because a lack of food is chaos. It means political turmoil, riots, and possibly revolution. This is the reason for all the tariffs on food, because each country wants to keep its own food production, no matter the cost. Same with the EU subsidies on food production. Among the most aggressive things a country can do without going to war is sending cheap food somewhere, because local producers can't compete.
Food is inseparable from politics. Overproduction is a choice, and an absolute necessity. Further, it gives you options you don't have with underproduction.
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A lot of countries where people starve are also major food exporters. See for example the countries surrounding Lake Victoria.
Food is absolutely inseparable from politics. Through allowing private firms to claim ownership over natural resources and the means to use them, we can import loads of fish from Uganda while the population eats the heads or starve.
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This topic has really changed.
If I understand Anius's point, it's that people are getting to eat, but there are ~10% that can't afford the food (I'd argue there's a higher percentage than that worldwide, but I think the percentage is simply saying...hey...there are people that can't afford to even buy the food).
It's not that there isn't enough food, there's more than enough food that if we would give it out, everyone would have enough...it's that we would rather throw away food and have 10% of the people out there starve, than to feed everyone in the world.
Or something similar to that...do I have that correct?
Incorrect in my understanding.
The correct statement would read "We would rather throw away food than pay hard earned wages to get it to the people who need it."|
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While I've been a vegetarian for a long time, the claims that we could feed the world if we stopped eating meat and grew plants instead is nuts.
Just because the land can support some grass and cattle can get to it doesn't mean its usable for corn and a tractor.In a lot of the developing world they let goats and sheep roam around and find whatever they can, and they make a living on it in places you need to work full time just to get a small garden going.
I'm not so sure. Without even knowing the numbers, I'll make a wager that humanity could make sure everyone is well fed without so much difficulty, in the unlikely scenario that some sort of remotely efficient global effort is made. Unrealistic, but then so is the idea of dispensing with the meat industry.
Significant amounts of agriculture products go to feeding other agriculture products. In the US, less meat production would mean that less soy/corn needs to be grown to feed the cattle/poultry/pork industry. While some land isn't good for growing anything other than grass, there is lots of good growing land that is used for things like poultry/pork.
Less meat production would mean less crops grown to feed those animals, less water usage, less sewage runoff, fewer chemicals and fewer chances to spread disease.
I definitely don't want meat production to go away though. I love me my bacon explosion. I make 1 or 2 a year.