Why would you want to eat less meat? I want to eat only red meat. It tastes great, it is the healthiest possible food, and it is the most environmentally friendly option.

> It tastes great,

Agreed:)

> it is the healthiest possible food, and it is the most environmentally friendly option.

These two require a huge citation. I've never heard of meat being the most healthy food and I've only ever heard of how its one of the worst foods for the environment due to the huge amount of land and water it takes to grow.

I've always grown up learning that greens(vegetables are the healthiest food you can eat).

What citations would you put forward to show that meat isf the most environmentally friendly food you can eat and the healthiest food you can eat?

I found this:

https://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/study-environment....

> The environmental impact of meat versus vegetables is staggering. A serving size of meat compared to a serving size of vegetables is linked to 20 times more greenhouse gas emissions. It also takes 100 times the amount of land as consuming vegetables. Unprocessed red meat has twice the water impact of nuts.

1) Agree; 2) Fine, I'll give you that; 3) Spectacularly false.

I know the new studies that walk back the "read meat is bad for your health" but I haven't heard anything about the environmental impact which puts beef at about 10x worse than chicken and 50x worse than tofu.

> it is the most environmentally friendly option

Its not. You need 30 kg of grain or other edible product to make just 1 kg of meat. We are literally turning more food to less food.

An unrelated statistic showed that if the world has increased its meat consumption just a little bit more, we would run out of food. The conversion rate is that bad.

By protein content it's a bit better for beef. 1kg of corn has 32g protein. 1kg of beef has 260g of protein.

The point was that you need 30 kg of corn to make 1 kg of beef.

Therefore 32g * 30 = 960g of corn protein to create 260g of beef protein.

You’re missing the point.

There is always some efficiency loss at every stage, but we’re turning something that is not ideal for human consumption (conventional field corn) to something that is very palatable.

No I get the point, your point misses the opportunity cost of the land that was used to raise animal feed, it could be used to grow any number of other crops for human consumption. That is unless you are of the belief that humans have an innate need to consume beef specifically.

Well that's not true. Most cattle is grass fed for the majority of it's life at which point they will have them eat at feed lots to fatten up.

Second, feed lots can use things like by-products of sugar production (molasses, beet pulp pellets, etc...) for feed. These are not human consumable and require no extra food to be grown. I've worked with a company that does over half a billion in revenue on this alone.

There is a lot more to this than your comment is indicating.

Now account for the energy, land, labor, materials, and environmental externalities required to bring a cow from birth to the table at industrial scale (all the way from birth, through the animal's ~1.5 years of life (?), through slaughter, butchering, packing, distribution to the consumer, etc.), and compare that to a proportionate amount of beans and rice.

1. Energy - The renewable folks would have us believe this is incredibly cheap 2. Land - Most of this land is not usable for other purposes. At least in the U.S. I am not speaking about globally because the problems there are largely political 3. Labor - Creating jobs and opportunities is not a bad thing 4. Environmental - With the wars going on I think we have a lot more to worry about than the 3% of emissions coming from animal husbandry in the U.S. Other than climate change impacts (which could be minimized even further with feed supplements), animal husbandry is actually beneficial to the environment.

Your 1. here is a bit of a copout.

> Well that's not true. Most cattle is grass fed for the majority of it's life at which point they will have them eat at feed lots to fatten up.

In the West, or globally? Because commercial agriculture here relies on corn/grain feed most of their life.

You may want to check your sources, because that’s not how commercial at works in the west.

Cattle are indeed raised on grass for the majority of their life, however they are fed grain to make weight for slaughter. In a sense, both positions are incorrect, because the image of cows grazing on grass most of their lives with little grain at the end is a very skewed picture (without grain the lifecycle would be substantially longer), but it is also the case that all cows do start off on grass.

The whole narrative that cows are “good for the environment” because they eat grass is fairly absurd though. The amount of land they require alone in the US is absolutely massive, and you can just take a look at the many fights over western water rights to see that even the impact of grass feeding is substantial.

> because that’s not how commercial at works in the west

You dont seem to be aware of factory farming...

https://www.worldanimalprotection.us/blogs/hidden-driver-fac...

> It is estimated that livestock consume 70% of the grain grown in the US, and that half of the water consumed in the US is used to grow grain for cattle.

I am aware of factory farming.

As I explained in my statement, cows are finished at factory farms.

It’s very clear that you have a very surface level understanding of how the American cattle industry works. At no point did I claim anything about how cows don’t consume a massive amount of grain.

Unlike chickens and pigs, the American cattle industry is decentralized. Cows are raised on a series of different types of ranching operations, traded along the way, until they end up at a factory farm at the end where they rapidly gain weight due to grain feeding.

> As I explained in my statement, cows are finished at factory farms

No. They live there from birth to death. A factory farm is not a slaughterhouse. You seem to mistake them for it.

https://thehumaneleague.org/article/factory-farmed-cows

> At no point did I claim anything about how cows don’t consume a massive amount of grain.

You actually did. You said in repeated comments to me and others that in the west the cows consume grass. And showed it as an argument against the food inefficiency criticism.

> They live there from birth to death.

Citation needed, no where in your source does it substantiate your claim that cows are reared on factory farms, where they subsequently live out their lives.

> You actually did. You said in repeated comments to me and others that in the west the cows consume grass.

Because they do feed on grass.

Look I get it, you clearly care about animal welfare, which is a good thing, but I was not making the argument you think i was making. Disagreeing with a factually incorrect statement does not mean I am an advocate for the meat industry.

The story is more complicated than you make it out to be, and it is important to have it right. Cows in America start on grass and finish on grain, this is a fact. This does no imply that there isn’t a huge amount of grain used in the process. The food inefficiency criticism is true, it is, however, untrue to say that cows spend their entire lives in CAFOs.

> Citation needed, no where in your source

Factory farming is the same everywhere. Here's another citation.

https://www.aspca.org/protecting-farm-animals/problem-factor....

Another.

https://thehumaneleague.org/article/what-is-factory-farming

Another.

https://sentientmedia.org/factory-farms/

Another extensive one with more references inside.

https://animalequality.org/blog/2022/10/14/factory-farming-f...

> Because they do feed on grass. Look I get it, you clearly care about animal welfare... however, untrue to say that cows spend their entire lives in CAFOs.

That's the old world.

You seem to have adopted a better 'factory farming' in your mind than what actually exists, in which you somehow combine old ma & pa small farms with 'some factories'.

That doesn't exist anymore. Some stragglers existing in this or that particular state and still fighting 'the man' does not a reality make. There is no competing with the cattle sector that takes in ~$40 bn subsidies and employs factory farms. That is now the reality of cattle farming in the Angloamerican West. And its a major source of conflict in between the Eu and the US because the Eu does not permit the same to be done in Europe.

And you miss the elephant in the room: Even if the cattle was 'first grass fed then shipped to factory farms to fatten' like you argue, the factory farming consuming ~70% of the grain in the US at that point would STILL make my argument. That's bad. That's inefficient. There is no defending it, even if your argument was true.

This is a long topic, and I have no interest in fighting the inaccurate but more humane perception that you have adopted. The references I provided should be more than enough to get to the bottom of this if you are interested. Good afternoon.

Not a single one do your sources refutes anything that I said. Or supports your claim that cows spend their whole lives on factory farms. All they say is that they exist and that most animals go through them. Newsflash! That’s what I have been saying all along.

> Even if the cattle was 'first grass fed then shipped to factory farms to fatten' like you argue, the factory farming consuming ~70% of the grain in the US at that point would STILL make my argument. That's bad. That's inefficient. There is no defending it, even if your argument was true.

You’re arguing against a point I never made! I never said factory farms didn’t exist, that they were good, or that the system itself is good! You’re fighting for the sake of fighting.

All I said is that it is true that cows start off on grass. That’s the beginning and end of my point. It’s a factual statement and you do yourself a disservice by continually arguing against basic factual information.

Factory farms (for meat) don’t rear animals. They buy animals from other ranches that oversee other parts of the process of raising cattle. They then take those cows and feed them a mountain of grain to fatten them up and slaughter them. It’s gross, it’s terrible for the cows welfare, etc.

If you want to criticize the system, though, it is important to understand how it actually works, or you don’t look credible. That is my point, it is incredibly frustrating to be told over and over that I support factory farming, or somehow deny its existence, because I am pointing out information that is false on your part.

I'm willing to believe that cows spend most of their lives consuming grass (I started this comment chain) but would also like to see a more compelling source than your anecdotes.

If they do spend most of their time consuming grass, I wonder if they are carbon-neutral for that period, or if that requires constant migration to fertilize new lands which might not occur.

The big development in this sector is the new seaweed supplements / additives, which should reduce methane emissions by a staggering amount. Some places are beginning to adopt it, not sure about the US. Naturally the green sphere is not thrilled, because there's so much overlap with the vegans.

>I'm willing to believe that cows spend most of their lives consuming grass (I started this comment chain) but would also like to see a more compelling source than your anecdotes.

Pretty much any industry site will openly provide an overview of the process:

https://www.pabeef.org/raising-beef/beef-lifecycle

“Calves are weaned from their mother’s milk at about 6 to 10 months of age when they weigh between 450 and 700 pounds. These calves continue to graze on grass pastures. About 1/3 of the female calves will stay on the farm to continue to grow and to become new mother cows the following year… After weaning and/or during the stocker and backgrounder phase, cattle may be sold at livestock auction market… Mature cattle are often moved to feedyards (also called feedlots). Here cattle typically spend four to six months [editorial comment, these are “factory farms”] … Once cattle reach market weight (typically 1,200 to 1,400 pounds at 18 to 22 months of age), they are sent to a packing plant“

>If they do spend most of their time consuming grass, I wonder if they are carbon-neutral for that period, or if that requires constant migration to fertilize new lands which might not occur.

As far as this goes, I personally have no idea. I think it’s a bit of a moot point, however, because the feedlots are an integral part of the process at this point and that’s where a ton of emissions happen (not to mention bio waste aka manure/runoff). Additionally the amount of rangeland cows take up is absolutely massive. Other commenters will say that there’s “no other use” for that land, as if every inch of land needs to be used for farming purposes. We need wild areas too.

There's no description of the time spent in "Stockers & Backgrounders" phase, but we can infer it. 18-22 months to cattle market weight, and 4-6 months at feedlots mean that they scarcely spend a few extra months there.

This paints a picture of indeed grazing on grass for majority of lifespan, albeit not an overwhelmingly large portion. Also that they are slaughtered at a surprisingly young age.

This is documented in Michael Pollan's story about how he raised and sold a cow in the modern US meat system https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/31/magazine/power-steer.html

As someone who has first-hand knowledge of cattle farming in the "Angloamerican West", I can confirm that the OP is correct. A substantial portion of the US beef herd is raised on grass and finished on grain as described. Anyone can see this with their own eyes in many rural areas, internet links from activist groups don't erase that reality.

Raising on grass and finishing on grain is economically optimal in many parts of the US that produce beef. It wouldn't even make sense to factory farm from birth if you cared about profit, since it would be more expensive.

The US is a large place with diverse geography. Few assertions about agriculture generalize.

> Most cattle is grass fed for the majority of it's life

Nope. The majority of cattle industry has transitioned to factory farming and the cattle in factories are fed with edible produce. Not grass. The current meat demand is not something that mere grazing can support.

Even if it was possible to do with mere grazing, that's still not an argument: Grazing is done on land that could be used for many other purposes ranging from residential urbanization to vertical farming. Its not done in the Sahara desert or Siberian taiga where the land is actually not usable for anything else.

Regarding byproducts: Such biological products are still valuable for many other purposes, leaving aside that many of them can be easily made edible through different processes.

It again boils down to this:

We are turning more food into less food. That's not a rational thing to do.

Nope, the majority of the industry has transitioned to factory farming, however cattle are still fed grass for the majority of their lives.

It’s not any less wasteful though. The system requires a massive amount of rangeland and grain to produce beef.

> Grazing is done on land that could be used for many other purposes ranging from residential urbanization to vertical farming.

Huh? Most land used for grazing and hay production is rural, remote, not suitable for crop agriculture and has little other use.

Either we feed livestock with that grass or do nothing with it.

Some vegans believe that it is unethical to kill animals, and that they should have the same rights as us. Of course, they're wrong because animals aren't able to think. Others believe that meat is bad for the environment, however I don't know if that is correct as I haven't done any research on the topic.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone suggest that "animals aren't able to think" before. Could you please explain what you could possibly mean by that?

> Of course, they're wrong because animals aren't able to think.

and you know this by what mechanism?

If not being able to think was justification for eating something, well, there's a coworker I have, but he'd probably taste bad.

Animals are mostly sentient. The degree of "consciousness" is debated. Sardines don't even have a cerebral cortex, which to me puts them on the level of insects - vegans might object, but they won't object to squashing flies and using insecticides.

As for the environment, depends on the animal - this is usually about methane (from cows) and land encroachment (also, because of soybean crops or whatever).

Vegans absolutely generally object to killing flies… Many won’t even steal the work of bees

If they really did, you'd expect to see calls to mitigate insect deaths as part of their usual dialog. They're apathetic. If you ask them, ostensibly they might object to killing insects to stay consistent, but they won't bring it up.

THat's pretty much in line with naturally expected behavior, because intuitively we don't expect much from insects.

I don't feel comfortable speaking for ALL vegans, but in my house, we gently move spiders outside. We would also be totally fine with killing a mosquito. My general theory is that it is fine to hurt an animal if it attacks you first, but it's cruel to do it whenever it can be avoided. Just like all other forms of violence.

I also avoid killing insects and spiders, especially if they aren't dangerous and aren't bothering anyone. We don't use pest control to "keep bugs away" either.

As a vegan with things like sardines and insects is that, at least currently, we can't gauge if they can suffer or not, so err on the side of caution and don't eat them.

That's as meaningful as saying you can't gauge whether plants suffer or not - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wound_response_in_plants#MAMPs...

I think we can get a pretty good ballpark estimate, by virtue that suffering categorically requires a certain level consciousness.

Plants have no brains or analog at all, plats reacting and signalling is no different than a bacteria moving along a concentration gradient.

The animals I mentioned do, even if very simple ones. If you really want to question this bivalves are a better example, as I've seen many debates in vegan circles about them.

> plats reacting and signalling is no different than a bacteria moving along a concentration gradient.

No different than pain receptors, you mean.

> Plants have no brains or analog at all

No brain, yes. But what of "no analog" if the qualifier for suffering is deliberately clouded in ambiguity?

The only reason the brain matters qua suffering is owing to the capacity for consciousness. Plants have no brain, well, sardines have no cerebral cortex.

If you're going to trivialize the cerebral cortex based on whim/feeling, you can do the same for the whole brain. By extension it makes as much sense to attribute the possibility of consciousness to insects as it does to plants, because you're throwing the particulars of the brain out the window. Some "magical unknown thing 'X'" is giving them consciousness - but there's no reason "magical unknown thing 'X'" has to be specific to a brain.

> No different than pain receptors, you mean.

Not the best argument. I don't really mind my pain receptors going off if the signal doesn't make it to my spine. Do you?

If the signal "doesn't make it", it's an ineffectual signal. Are you suggesting plants have ineffectual signals?

I'm suggesting that more localized signals are not the same as a pain response in a centralized blob of neurons.

I've seen this "argument" offered up many times, but never see a satisfying conclusion.

The goal is to minimize suffering. What could you possibly do with the information that plants feel pain? Your options are to:

1. Die

2. Decide there are no perfect options and give up on minimizing harm completely

3. Do your best to pick a diet and lifestyle which minimizes harm with actionable heuristics

What exactly do you suggest?

> What could you possibly do with the information that plants feel pain?

Keep the goalpost planted at "suffering" which requires consciousness. So we're still at #3. The analogy of the plant is just to reflect that there's sloppy conjecture used to project the capacity for suffering onto certain animals that by all the counts should not (where suffering entails a conscious awareness of pain and despair).

Agreed. My family has a long history of cardiovascular problems so I am trying to cut down on red meat myself to possibly extend my life...but dangit I want some chicken fried steak and cheeseburgers. I might use impossible burgers to satiate my cravings in a heart-healthy way, but it just isn't the same.

Chicken is not red meat, and also it's an healthy meat ( not sure if in USA chickens are pumped with weird stuff that makes them unhealthy ), you can make a light version of schnitzel by using chicken breast ( mostly protein, low fat ), some healthy oil like EVO oil to shallow fry it, and you should be good ( also if you are worried about cholesterol you can avoid eggs and use other ingredients like oil to make the breadcrumbs/panko/flour/semola stick to the meat )

PS: I'm not a doctor, to my knowledge this is a healthy dish but if you have any health issue I recommend first talking with someone with a specialisation to know how much is healthy and much you can eat of it

* * *

Yes, that is true, if your body is healthy the two type of cholesterol ( LDL and HDL ) contained in foods should balance each other and you will not have cholesterol problems. Some people can have medical conditions and can eat maximum ~3 eggs/week. I can't know if OP is one of those people, this is why I suggested a way to avoid cholesterol rich ingredients.

Edit: replaced "have cholesterol rich ingredients" with "avoid ..."

I think it's pretty well established that the dietary cholesterol to blood cholesterol link is very strong in some people, very weak in some people, and somewhere in the middle for most people. There are definitely 'hyper-responders' for whom dietary cholesterol is very, very bad. There are also people that can eat dozens of eggs a day and have perfectly normal blood cholesterol. The only way to know how those genetic dice rolled for you is to do a personal study - eat a lot of eggs for a while and see if you start to develop elevated cholesterol.

As an anecdote, I eat on average 8-10 eggs a day. They are my primary source of calories. My blood cholesterol is extremely low, like on the extreme low end of normal on most blood tests (although it is starting to creep up as I get older)

I’m just curious why you would eat 8-10 eggs daily? That seems like a very large number.

Because eggs are filling, relatively cheap, and pretty good for you. Especially if you have a body that doesn't do well with high-glycemic index foods and you don't want to eat animal meat.

meat = animal cells

egg = one animal cell

Technically the same thing

I think the main difference is that eating an unfertilized egg doesn't end the life of a viable animal.

I am personally happily eat meat, but I respect people that choose not to kill animals and at least some of them find eating unfertilized eggs to be acceptable.

In my personal worldview I view unfertilized eggs as approximately morally equivalent to eating a peanut. In practice it's difficult to make them exactly equivalent but by carefully selecting where the eggs come from you can get closer.

In case you were responding specifically to GP's mention of "chicken fried steak": it's beef, not chicken. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_fried_steak

I translated "cotoletta" into "Schnitzel" to give an immediate idea of the dish to the reader ( because Schnitzel is more famous ), but in Italian cotoletta can be both with chicken or pork or beef, the recipe is the same with every meat ( beat the meat, bread it, shallow fry it )

The chicken-based analogue to chicken fried steak in Southern United States cuisine is chicken fried chicken. Chicken Fried Steak is steak that is breaded and fried like fried chicken and covered in white gravy. Chicken Fried Chicken is the same thing, but with a chicken cutlet instead of steak in the case of Chicken Fried Steak or a piece of bone-in chicken in the case of traditional fried chicken.

The problem with red meat isn't meat per se; all meat has saturated fat, some more than others. Reducing LDL cholesterol (reducing CVD risk) means increasing fiber and reducing saturated fat, and if someone chimes in saying that it's not casual, we have an excellent mendelian randomization study that gives us a pretty good link [1]. All plant-based meat alternatives, including cheeses, have high amounts of saturated fat from coconut oil, which isn't very good either.

[1] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26780009/

Aw dang. I might just have to keep skipping burgers then and just learn some new favorite meals lol

Me too, and I believe OP is just saying that it's better to substitute your nutrition with other non-meat whole foods, instead of substituting it with heavily processed fake meat. And I agree.

I eat less (almost no red meat), but that is as far as I'll go. Taste is one thing, but also the high quality proteins and nutrition, plus I don't see the problem in killing animals in and of itself. I can't replicate this calorie-per-calorie strictly with veg without supplementation, nor do I feel as good. That approach doesn't seem "green" or financially viable for everyone, notwithstanding that some people do better on vegan diets than others. As far as I can tell, modest consumption is best for optimal health, by virtue that replacing them with.

Meat tastes really good.

That does not imply that plant-based pseudo-meat tastes better than plant-based recipes designed to use, not hide, the plant flavors.

It's so strange isn't it, there are so many vegetarian dishes that are delicious.

I've never understood the need to use a replacement that's worse across the board.

I wonder if it's a cultural thing, like "I want a steak"

If you become a vegetarian in the US, you will come to appreciate that almost no mains offered in any "American" restaurant are without meat. If you go to a popular American restaurant that your friends picked, you are lucky to have 1 non-salad non-side option.

For whatever reason, our culture has decided that if it doesn't have meat, it barely qualifies as a meal. As a result, high quality vegetarian food must be aquired by seeking out ethnic food, seeking out veg friendly places, or learning to cook.

But then in your effort to eat less meat, would you replace it with plant-based alternatives?

Personally, I cook without any alternatives and just make proper dishes with no meat. Then, once in a while, I’ll get some better locally sourced meat and make a great meat based dish.

> But then in your effort to eat less meat, would you replace it with plant-based alternatives?

Yes, 100%. I like meat, and meat based dishes. I’ve never had a vegetable based dish that compares to even something similar but containing meat.

I feel like when meat alternatives are discussed this option of just making vegetable based dishes always comes up. And I think most people agree with me here - meat makes them better across the board. If it didn’t this market wouldn’t exist and people buy much less meat.

As I’m unwilling to switch completely to vegetable based dishes, meat alternatives are the next best option.

As someone who enjoys meat well enough… I realized a while ago that meat itself doesn’t have that great of a flavor, it can be downright bland. The flavor comes from the seasonings and spices they are typically prepared with. Which are either: a) salt or b) something that came from a plant.