All I had to do to drop my meat consumption by 80-90% was to live with someone who introduced me to plenty of tasty meatless cuisines and meat alternatives.

Frankly, cutting meat consumption in half is usually easy and would already take us a very long way if done universally.

> All I had to do to drop my meat consumption by 80-90% was to live with someone who introduced me to plenty of tasty meatless cuisines and meat alternatives.

Great, I'm glad that works for you.

> Frankly, cutting meat consumption in half is usually easy and would already take us a very long way if done universally.

That sounds like a good idea, but it's harder to implement than you think, I think.

Why? I cut out almost all meat by simply not eating it. I eat some seafood on the rare occasion but really all it took was just choosing not to. I don't even think of myself as vegetarian, just a normal human who opts for meatless options most of the time.

Same here. I do eat meat at times, especially when eating out; I just opt for meatless option whenever it's good enough to me, which turns out to be very often. I wonder if there's some meat addiction at play there, because that's how all these "it's not that easy" comments start to sound like to me.

That said, I'm fully aware that it's easier to avoid meat in some places than in others. Living in the middle of a capital city, good meatless options were everywhere around, but after moving to suburbs of the same city there's not that much meatless stuff that I can order with delivery, for instance. It can also cost more, making it much less available for some social groups (although I hope it's just a matter of time and economy of scale, because in the end there's no reason why would it stay more expensive). Nevertheless, cutting meat intake by around half still doesn't seem that hard, it doesn't even take much effort once you already got to know the alternatives.

The British could give up tea, the Japanese could give up rice, and Indians could give up cumin. It's entirely possible to do all of those things by "simply not eating it".

Do you think the above are equivalent to what you're asking regarding meat? Why or why not?

I don't think it would be a huge challenge for the British to drink less tea, the Japanese to eat less rice and Indians to use less cumin if continuing to eat, drink and use them would pose a huge risk for the future of all humanity. All of that (and also eating less meat) can be done without damaging the culture around it.

What's much more challenging is to make people care about danger enough to be willing to change their personal behavior even in slightest ways.

> Do you think the above are equivalent to what you're asking regarding meat? Why or why not?

Of course it's not equivalent, because this thread is explicitly not about giving up meat consumption.

Except if they just start feeding the cows seaweed, there is no risk to humanity.

Conversely, if everyone went vegetarian, that would pose a severe risk to humanity in the form of well documented negative health effects.

It's also necessary for survival. "healthy veganism" is largely a myth -- we are omnivores, we need meat and non-meat to have proper nutrition. With a prohibitively expensive and labor intensive diet it is technically possible to be 100% vegan, but people who do this face a myriad of health problems: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/plant-based-diets-are-be...

Even custom-tailored meat replacement products, like impossible burger (which aren't vegan, by the way), have more calories and are worse for your health than standard beef.

Promoting veganism is like promoting minimalism to the wall street elite. Much better idea to push for better living conditions for livestock, free range, etc. That would positively impact many many more animal lives than the small amount of people who will adopt full veganism.

> Do you really think it's easy to drop meat consumption from the cultures of the world?

To completely zero? Probably not. Dropping it by (say) >50%? Much easier.

Meat, especially in large quantities and from large animals, used to be a lot rarer before refrigeration was invented. There's no reason why it couldn't be dialled down culturally.

Reminder: the perfect is the enemy of the good. Getting people more over to pork and poultry would be a pretty good win:

* https://css.umich.edu/factsheets/carbon-footprint-factsheet

I agree with what you're saying in spirit, I think.

I am trying to make a point that "eat less meat, it's like super easy right?" is not about substituting tofu/beyond/impossible meat for beef. There are cultural traditions that cannot be replaced with tofu or vegetables. As a species we'll need to move on from this, but these sorts of things are deeply ingrained in the identity and traditions of many, many people.

For example, removing the consumption of beef brisket, skirt/flank steak, tongue and tripe from the Mexican/Southern US cultures will likely not happen while my generation, or the one after mine, are alive. It will probably happen when folks naturally adopt a more vegetable based diet and eschew those traditions. If somehow we could engineer beef substitutes for these that maintained the same characteristics of how they are cooked and what they tasted like, that would go a long way in getting us there; but we don't have the technology today.

And I don't mean to be over-dramatic, but if you went into any of the many multigenerational households or ranches here specifically in south Texas and told them they could not raise or eat beef anymore - you would be making an extreme and immediate affront to their way of life that many would fight and die to protect.

Stopping world cultures from eating meat is a huge problem. But what about at a personal level: With this information you now have- are you as an individual willing to go stop eating meat? I would argue that on an individual level it actually is pretty darn easy - especially with all the alternatives popping up the last 5 years.

I'm not willing, no.

Upvoting because of your honesty, not your position. The reason you can't reduce meat consumption, in spite of data, is because you don't want to. It's selfish but at least it's honest.

I think a lot of people make choices in spite of data to the contrary. We fly on planes, buy plastic junk from Amazon overseas and replace electronics like they are going out of style. We're burning energy to have digital money and we focus on paper straws. I've done all of these things in the last year (except flying, but only because of the pandemic, not the environment).

I play with my sliders all the time; I'm just not willing to slide so far in one direction that I give up my heritage.

I challenge you to evaluate your own life choices with an equally critical lens.

Thank you for the polite discourse.

Appreciate your honesty from my personal question. I worked with a woman a few years ago who said she was interested in reducing her meat consumption but reasoned that her dad was from Texas and loved to grill so, because of that, she could never stop eating it. I’m puzzled by her thought process but it seems to explain some kind of internal need to maintain identity- and, I guess, culture.

Consider asking the Japanese to no longer eat fish or seafood. It's possible, but the Japanese would lose a big part of their identity.

I understand the point. I’m from the Midwest in the US. Corn everywhere. Cows everywhere. My family drank cow’s milk and ate meat at every single meal. It was something deeply ingrained in the culture I grew up in. This also basically went along with the norms of my heritage. I no longer eat meat or drink milk but I don’t feel any less connected to my heritage and culture. It’s different for everyone.

Impossible to reduce 100% of all meats, but maybe possible to reduce 50% of beef that's significantly worse for environment than pork/chicken.