> One reason we eat herbivores instead of carnivores is because the higher up the food chain you go, the more you are exposed to a concentration of heavy metals, pesticides, etc.

Whilst it's true that these concentrate in carnivores this is not a reason why we eat mostly herbivores.

Herbivores were plentiful and less dangerous to hunt. Then, herbivores are much easier and more economical to breed (you would need to breed herbivores first if you wanted to breed carnivores...)

You'll note that these decisions were made long before people even knew about heavy metals or had pesticides.

The other main reason we eat herbivores is that they're social animals that want to live in / are easy to keep in large herds

Religious texts/traditions often suggest that we should limit meat consumption. These suggestions generally predate modern science, yet seem to fairly frequently be rooted in the idea that meat -- or certain meats -- are "unclean."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unclean_animal

They're also really big on fasting, which, given the popularity of intermittent fasting and the like these days, seems an odd coincidence.

Matthew 5:6 -- "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."

Matthew 6:16 -- “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

A little more detail as to context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_6:16

It doesn't strike me as odd coincidence at all. I tend to see religion as an attempt to codify a combination of group wisdom and brilliant insights from charismatic individuals.

Fasting has been beneficial to my incurable medical condition. I'm quite encouraged by the association between fasting and religion. To me, it suggests there is something fundamentally wise about the practice and important to human health.

If there's one thing you should absorb from the Bible it's to learn some basic principles about kindness and love. Because nearly all your comments are tainted with hostility, snark, and utter rudeness. No wonder you can't hold down a job. Who would hire someone like you?

We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. Would you please stop creating accounts to do that with?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

This comment is so entirely out of place on HN.

I can’t speak for other faiths, but Judaism doesn’t really give or need a reason for dietary restrictions. It’s simply what the law is, and some laws can’t be understood by us on Earth.

> It’s simply what the law is, and some laws can’t be understood by us on Earth.

That may be the interpretation under Judaism, but outside of Judaism I think people can take a decent stab at understanding.

Because of bacteria, not heavy metals.

As a vegan this is an argument that I’ve made before unsuccessfully. When I start talking about trophic levels people’s eyes gloss over and they behave confused and disinterested. I think the reason for this is that most people don’t remember high school biology.

Now if you were to talk about ethics THAT gets a strong reaction simply because it’s much more intuitive and relatable. People’s responses can be receptive, antagonist, dismissive etc. but they certainly won’t be falling asleep in front of you.

As a non-vegan* that has in the past greatly enjoyed calimari (and octopus), I've long felt that it presents me with an ethical dilemma because of how intelligent octopus, and to a lesser degree, squid, are. However, birds have incredibly dense brain matter compared to most other land animals, so if I start worrying too much about ethics in eating meat, I know I'd have to cut out far more than just the intelligent molluscs, and the whole thing is awkward.

Most people don't like that awkwardness, so it's not surprising that you get pushback.

You sound a lot like me before I went vegetarian a few years back. I was always aware of the cognitive dissonance, knowing that I couldn't reconcile eating meat with my other values.

>I know I'd have to cut out far more than just the intelligent molluscs, and the whole thing is awkward.

I ended up just cutting out farmed meat in the end. As far as meat goes, I can eat what I kill. Apart from if someone has already got me food and didn't know, as to turn that down seems both a waste and kind of rude.

> I ended up just cutting out farmed meat in the end. As far as meat goes, I can eat what I kill. Apart from if someone has already got me food and didn't know, as to turn that down seems both a waste and kind of rude.

Pretty common rule for mendicant Buddhists, as I understand it. No meat is the general rule, but if you go a-begging and someone gives you meat, and you don't have reason to believe they killed something (or had someone else kill something) specifically for you, then you're good to eat it (or even obligated to).

To expand on your point, Theravada Buddhism allows monks to consume meat with those caveats.

There's an old joke: "How do you know if someone is vegan? Don't worry, he'll tell you."

My eyes would be glossing over in both cases. I've been confronted with this information many times in the past; often against my wishes despite the social cues I'm giving. It's not that you're wrong, or I don't care, or I don't get it. In the moment, I might even be interested. But the evangelists have burnt me out.

Getting a rise out of people for short-term gratification is usually not the best way to convince others to actually change their behavior, especially on loaded topics.

Given the choice between bored disinterest and confrontation I would say confrontation is the better tactic, at least it's memorable. Now maybe it's not the ideal method, but of the two presented here it seems the more reasonable.

Was your argument about biomagnification or energy? Because the latter is a less convincing argument: Plants are inefficient energy converters already.

There is nothing less convincing about that. It takes a lot of plants to get some meat. So a little 'inefficient energy converters' are better than a ton of them.

Efficiency of solar conversion is only important in so far as where solar energy is a limiting factor. In our case, it is not. There is plenty solar energy that reaches the earth and that we are not using.

Serious question: is this actually a concern for land animals like cows or chickens? They tend to be fed an exclusively vegetarian diet, so any bio-accumulation of heavy metals or similar should be minimal - the chain is pretty simple: sun -> plants -> meat animal. I can't say I'm aware of people getting mercury poisoning from beef, for example.

Seafood is different, since the food chain can be significantly longer and more complex.

There's still bioaccumulation from any heavy metals in the soil contaminating the plants, but yes, much less than in a more complex food chain.

> so any bio-accumulation of heavy metals or similar should be minimal

What is "minimal"? Bioaccumulation isn't a magic meter that says "everyting below this trophic level is safe to eat." It depends on the persistent toxin ( I choose the word toxin because bioaccumulation can occur for chemicals beyond heavy metals, like organochlorine pesticides ) that you're looking at, and what is the safe dose for humans.

E.g. let's say you have pesticide A and pesticide B. Cattle eat a certain amount of feed per day. At time of slaughter, pesticide A and B have a certain amount of concentration in fat tissue. It doesn't matter which has the highest concentration, it matters which is less safe to humans and at what concentration it harms us when it accumulates in our own tissues.

It may be the case for the chickens you buy in the supermarket, but backyard chickens are not exclusively vegetarian -- I have personally witnessed one eat a frog and they are really happy if they get the chance to eat a worm.

I second that. Chickens are omnivores. My mum keeps a few chickens for eggs and when she gives them meal-worms for a treat sometimes they go absolutely crazy for them.

Chickens naturally peck about for worms, insects, seeds, etc...

Chickens and/or pigs used to be how one dealt with food scraps that couldn't go back into the field/garden. After first using them to make broth or whatever, if possible. A recycling system that turns garbage into food.

I've seen chickens fight with cats over rodent and frog carcasses.

American beef is often grain fed, not grass fed. There's also the issue of cannibalistic feed. A quick google got me this video, which I only watched partway through (it indicates fish is the worst, followed by chicken and cheese):

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/cannibalistic-feed-biomagni...

IIRC, such things tend to accumulate most in the fat, fwiw.

"grain" and "grass" are both plants. The food chain isn't any more complex in either case: sun -> grain/grass -> food animal.

Plants definitely do have different rate of heavy metal accumulation, and presumably other toxins, though I'm not aware of any evidence that a typical feedlot diet of corn+soy is better than all grass with regards to potential toxin bio-accumulation. This isn't to say that there may not be other health benefits to raising pasture animals on 100% grass.

Animal-based animal feed is certainly a thing, though in my experience "100% vegetarian" diet is often the the cheapest type of meat. Organic meat, while more expensive, guarantees it will be raised "without antibiotics, added growth hormones, mammalian or avian byproducts" [0]. This does seem to exclude fish-meal type feed, which presumably is allowed to be used in organic meat production - though I'd assume its more economical to use a plant based feed in almost all cases.

[0] https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Organic%2...

I'm a bit confused because you've switched from asking my opinion, apparently in earnest, to shooting me down. But for the record:

Grass fed beef is more nutritious than grain fed (easily googled).

Grass fed beef is leaner and has a noticeably different fat composition (easily googled). This is pertinent to bioaccumulation because fat is usually where stores of toxic chemicals are at their worst, iirc.

Grain fed beef is typically fattened up in feed lots which can be vectors for disease (easily googled).

Grass fed is typically exposed to fewer pesticides. Sources:

https://nutritiouslife.com/eat-empowered/grass-fed-beef-orga...

http://www.certifiedgrassfedmeats.com

I'm not a stickler for only eating grass fed beef. However, I have gone through periods where I was extremely ill and found that it was very worthwhile to only get meat labeled "grass fed." I was much more able to tolerate it and it didn't severely acidify my system the way meat sometimes can, which is consistent with the fact that grass fed beef is much higher in Omega 3 fats.

I'm not trying to lecture anyone, dictate how they should eat, etc. I was just making the observation that if the point of the article is to persuade, then they missed a potentially big detail in terms of arguing from a position of enlightened self interest rather than morality. It's a detail that's often overlooked by people trying to persuade others to "do the right thing, eat less meat!" and another reply to me cast a bit of light on possibly why it is so often overlooked.

This is not exactly correct. The "grain" that is fed to animals in feed lots (or most other places) is typically not straight corn or whatever. It's an engineered pellet ration or a milled grain ration. In both cases it has additives in it - added nutritional components, and often also low-level antibiotics, just depending on what the folks running the feed lot prefer.

I have a sheep farm. We have to be very careful not to confuse the sheep grain ration with the chicken feed. They look exactly the same, but chicken pellet has copper in it, and sheep can't metabolize copper. We also have to be careful not to accidentally buy or feed goat ration for the same reason.

That said, "grass fed" is complicated too. In a lot of places the cattle are grazing on unimproved rangeland. It isn't even fertilized. But in some places the farmers will explicitly plant forage crops such as wheatgrass; these will typically be fertilized, and possibly treated with herbicide or pesticide. Fertilizer is usually an industrial nitrogen fertilizer, but it can also be composted manure. I know of at least some farms near where I grew up that were at points treated with concentrated sludge from sewage treatment plants, in which case you would definitely expect to get heavy metal accumulation, even in straight grass fed animals. Happily my family never went that route.

All beef is grass fed until a short period before slaughter, where American ranchers fatten them up with a diet of corn-based feed. What we call "grass-fed" beef is just "grass-finished" instead of "corn-finished."

> Though be forewarned: It's a dietary path that gets you equally harassed by vegetarians and the meat-and-potatoes crowd

What kind of people are you mixing with if they are ceaselessly harassing you for what kind of food you're eating?

The internet, I assume.

Aside from mother-in-law wanting to know why I’m not eating her (dish), I don’t think anyone in real life has ever inquired about what is on my plate and why. And who the hell really would, beyond “that looks good, what are you having?”

Exactly, there are so many people with dietary restrictions in my admittedly blue/progressive circles that no one really bats an eye at anyone else's diet.

Same here, only inverted! There are so many people without dietary restrictions in my admittedly red/conservative circles that no one really bats an eye at anyone else's diet.

Same thing in my golden libertarian circles. So many people here are trying some weird biohacking thing with their diet, no one is asking in order to not get a 15-minute talk about it.

Just did a quick search and it looks like plants can absorb heavy metals/toxins and are sometimes used for cleaning them up. Is there a reason that this wouldn't apply to the plants that people eat?

With biomagnification, if you're eating the plant you'll get some exposure to said toxin - and it's unlikely you're eating just that plant, but if you eat a herbivore that eats that plant - and a herbivore can eat a lot of a specific kind of plant, you'll be exposed to a higher concentration and then if you eat the predator of the herbivore you'll get an even more concentrated dose.

Do herbivores not have livers and kidneys?

Sounds like woo-woo to me.

Heavy metals and some toxins are practically not eliminated by livers and kidneys. That's why they bio-accumulate.

> In a world full of unprecedented levels of relatively new toxic compounds, eating less meat is a good defensive move, especially so if you have health problems.

Such as?

If you are asking about toxic compounds, we have a lot of newly created man-made chemicals in the past 100 years. We aren't sure what they do to human health and they are found all over the place.

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-02-scientists-categorize-earth-...

If someone harangues you about your dietary choices, they’re probably not worth being around.

Depends on their motivation. If they're genuinely concerned about your health they're probably a good friend.

I mean, I tend to give all of my friends a hard time about sweets and sugary drinks, and expect the same. Most everyone I know understands that it’s best to avoid sugar, but it is both truly ubiquitous and extremely addictive so it’s essential impossible. Trying to not get into an icecream/chocolate habit is a never ending battle.