I agree with everything you said vis-a-vis elitism. Having mentioned that, I just wanted to point out that for the poor in certain parts of Africa, meat is pretty hard to come by. There are a lot of people on this planet who have to eat plants or fish not for any perceived health benefit, but literally because it is the only food available to their families. It's certainly gotten much better in Africa, when I was younger there were certain places where there was no food, and you'd bring in aid that was basically all plant and legume based. Over time, I came to realize this practice probably did more harm than good but that's orthogonal to the point. Point is, there are a lot of non-elite vegetarians. Lots of people who eat such a diet simply to survive.

What does being vegetarian have to do with telling other people what they should or shouldn't eat?

I think the comment is built from the assumption that vegetarian push their ideas on others around them - like zealots

The old joke: "How can you tell if someone is a Vegetarian? They'll tell you."

How can you tell if someone is a meat eater?

They'll complain that you're a vegitarian.

Hm. Its pretty different. I don't come to a table and say "Hey! I'm a meat eater! Better supply me with meat in this meal, or I'm going to walk away!"

Clearly, on one side, we have omnivores. On the other, extra rules about food type and preparation. Its almost always more complicated to feed one, than the other.

lifestyles are typically packaged with identities, which are packaged with values

The world’s wealthiest (eg, the American middle class) have the largest carbon footprint, and would make the most immediate impact by eating less meat.

A set of mid-sized though significant quibbles.

The United States no longer has the largest total national carbon footprint. That title now goes to China, which has exploded past the US. The total carbon emissions title, since 1970 (roughly half, probably somewhat more, of the total since the Industrial Revolution, given ~30-ish year doubling rates), remains the US, though China are on track to surpass this within a few years.

Per capita, US residents still have a larger carbon footprint than China.

It's not the largest in the world, though, with that title going, depending on how you allocate, to petroleum exporting regions (e.g., Saudi Arabia), fueling and bunkering centres (e.g., Gibralter), ammonia fertiliser production (e.g., Trinidad and Tobago), or, if you're looking at direct local consumption rather than exports, largely Scandinavian countries with very large heating requirements.

Emissions by country, graph, 1970-present: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_...

2017 national vs. per-capita emissions: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_...

Cumulative emissions, 1970-2017: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_...

I’d say when we’re talking about a dietary choice an individual makes, looking at carbon on a per capita basis is the right way to look at it. Especially given that the US consumer is a very influential one in the world. China is set to put a substantial chunk of global emissions under a carbon tax in the near term, which should prove to be a market force which drives down meat consumption, among other things.

The US agricultural system has global implications — from tooling and process, to subsidies and what poor countries grow. A fundamental change in the American diet would have an enormous ripple effect across the globe.

Agreed.

Lifestyle changes can make a large difference, but the changes that make the most difference are also the hardest to implement (driving less, flying less, A/C and heating, etc.)

I try to do whatever lifestyle changes I can, but I also use Project Wren (https://projectwren.com/) to offset the remainder of my carbon footprint!

"What can" arguments are frequently blind to "what is" facts.

The bulk of present livestock animals raised for food either directly consume feed which could be eaten by humans, or consume feed which grows on land that could be used to grow foods eaten by humans.

Net grazed livestock, especially in the US, is rare. Where such livestock do exist, they tend to be on already marginal lands -- if something better could be grown there it would be. The consequence being that its carrying and feeding capacity is highly limited. And even historical herd-keeping practices have proved highly damaging to long-term land quality, helping in the destruction of forests through much of the middle east, as an example. "The pines of Lebanon" is not just an allegorical phrase.

The split between animals which do effectively forage and those which don't, I'm not immediately aware of, though

Vegetarian is lower cost and better for the environment.

Protein per calorie doesn't seem comparable.

> Vegetarian is lower cost and better for the environment

Depends on the biotope. In fertile European fields, less meat is much more efficient. In the arctic steppe or in the Sahel, animals are the more efficient way to extract calories from the land (though it doesn't scale to high population densities...)

In every conversation I've seen, this accurate fact has been the primary counterpoint to the idea that a plant-based diet is more sustainable, but what percent of the world population lives a nomadic lifestyle in the arctic steppes? I don't see even the most hardcore vegans running social media campaigns aimed at coverting remote nomadic cultures to vegetarianism. They tend to focus on middle class white people who have more options available to them. Also, reduced meat and fish consumption by rich people would leave more healthy ecosystems to sustain those who depend on them.

> doesn't scale to high population densities

that's where we are right now so anything that doesn't scale is practically irrelevant

Given the climate of our world, we have a certain amount of arctic tundra etc. The best way to extract nourishment from that is foraging by e.g. reindeer. That holds irrespective of the population density.

Also, reindeer is one of the most ethical ways of modern husbandry. Animals live out in the wild, supported by humans e.g. adding feed when there is little to eat, protecting them from carnivores etc, and then they are slaughtered in a sustainable way after living close to how they do in their natural state.

that is a very long chain of ifs, any of which can evaluate to false EDIT: there is also no precedent for what you propose and if we go by the partial match of grass-fed beef, the yield will be so small compared to the population as to be pointless

There's almost 2 million domesticated reindeer worldwide, compared to 1.4 billion cattle, so it's tiny for sure. But in most of those regions, it's regulated such that only first people/native inhabitants/etc. are legally allowed to work reindeer.

how do you propose the mindset and techniques behind first people's husbandry sustainability can be scaled and applied to profit seeking "modern" farming?

What is the net total protein yield of sustainable grazing-based non-augmented livestock production in those regions, and the equivalent global daily per-person ration?

Protein per calorie is higher in e.g. spinach but 1000 calories of spinach is like 6 bags.

(or 1 tablespoon, once cooked) ;)

I'm trying to figure this out. I see chicken breast at $3 for 450g which is about 900 calories? So 1/3 penny per calorie?

A tomato is 16 calories per 100g which cost 50 cents so what, 3 cents per calorie? Did I do that right?

"Table crops" (vegetables, fruits) are not dietary staples, that is primary sources of calories.

Grains are.

Rice. Wheat. Maize (corn). Rye. Oats. Barley. Millet. A handful of others.

A 50# bag of rice (22.7kg) costs less than $20, and provides 17,800 calories, or about 900 calories per dollar, or about 0.1 cents/calorie.

I see chicken at about $2/lb, 102cal/3oz, or 544 cal/lb. That's 2.7 cents/calorie, 27 times more expensive than rice.

(And for the nutritionists out there: kilocalories are not all that food provides, but it's the most significant start. Macros and micros as well as other factors do matter. I've been told.)

Oh: There are also root crops, especially potatoes.

I think the math isn't quite right: that's about 0.4 cents/cal for chicken? 200 cents / 533 calories

Hrm: A third of a cent?

$ units Currency exchange rates from FloatRates (USD base) on 2019-05-31 3460 units, 109 prefixes, 109 nonlinear units

    You have: 2/544 kcal
    You want: 0.01/kcal
            * 0.36764706
            / 2.72

You'd like Efficiency Is Everything.

But I was particularly talking about per calorie rather than "per dollar"

Dollars can be a pretty good measure of the 'cost' of something - energy, transportation, land use, labor. If vegetables cost more to deliver to the grocery store, that cost is pretty related to the environmental cost?