It isn't a 0 or 1, prob good for you health wise and for the planet to eat a little less meat and a bit more veg. Just look at the data out there.

This last year I am really decreasing how much meat I eat (ill never give it up although I am excited about ground cricket meat and trying that). I am doing it for my health, costs, and because its good for the planet long term.

Data is sort of wildcard argument. Doesn't has any value if you don't point to specific.

Cashew cheese really is not better for the planet the local organic milk cheese.

In north of Holland there huge patches of land only cow can grace the land and nothing else grows, and there is an abundance of the water. Yet everyone complains about milk and meat taking too much wayer, and that growing plants would be more efficient.

It all depends, you cant just say "data".

Same with health. You really can't claim fried soya or pea protein is healthier then ground beef from a cow that spends his summers outside.

Sure, but buying a locally raised cow that is fed on local farmland is a lot better for the environment than steak from Argentina most of the time. The data around that is pretty solid.

I don't think cashew cheese grows in nature, i would never consider it vegetables and I am not advocating for processed foods. Merely stating that cutting down on how much meat you eat and eating more veg is better for your health and the planet. Well backed by data.

Well backed by data? What does that mean.

You missed the conclusion step

Sorry bit confused, you asked what data was and I sent you a big explanation? Sorry I am a bit literal at times, what are you requesting that you can't find on Google?

Lol, at any rate you are saying a bunch of statements that seem pretty shaky, saying they are backed by data, and not linking any sources. I guess the data is in another dimension or something.

For sure :)

I live in a quite progressive modern city (in central Europe though) and at least here it can't be very widespread as I've never noticed anything like that.

I've got a few friends who are vegan but it's mostly me doing the questioning as I'm curious about developments in that field (and agtech)

what destroys the planet is not meat or non-meat. Its mass production of [insert food here]. I have fun listening the vegan arguments until they are shown how their over-consumption of avocados or soy-based foods has devastating or exploiting effects on ecosystems and people.

But people (including you it seems) don't really understand the scale at which meat production harm the environment compared to vegetables. Yes, every mass production have problems, but with meat you need multiple times the amount of everything, because you first need to produce the food the cow or whatever eats, and then the meat production.

For instance, it's multiple times less co2 impact for me eating an avocado here in Norway that's been shipped half the globe around from south america, compared to eating meat from the local farm. The scales are just so incredibly different in production (vs transportation) that it's not to "gotcha" many believe to claim that something imported is automatically bad.

You can't honestly claim buying avacado's is better for the planet, it's wreaked social & ecological havoc in multiple south American countries with dried up rivers, gangs and lack of diversification of the income of a country.

Next to that it's not always Plants vs meats. In many places only cattle can graze but not much of value can grow.

The CO2 issue is really a terrible comparison. Everything cows put out has been put in from the air. The airplanes are excreting new/old CO2 taken from fossil fuels. Some claim cows are still worse because of methane, but they forget to mention methane only had 12 years lifespan in the atmosphere.

> it's wreaked social & ecological havoc in multiple south American countries with dried up rivers, gangs and lack of diversification of the income of a country.

The produce to feed the cattle is often detrimental to the environment too. They're not cutting down rain forests in Brazil to produce soy for meat substitutes but rather for produce to feed animals.

But it's absolutely important to eat local and if you're gonna eat meat ensure that the animal was fed local produce too.

You’d really rather have them making drugs than avocados?

The question is about scales (or proportions) -- yes, most mass produced foods, (e.g. avocados) wreaked havoc, but the scope meat production does that might be way larger.

> or soy-based foods

The vast majority of soy production, particularly the environmentally destructive production that’s converting rainforests in South America into farmland, is for animal feed, not human consumption: https://ourworldindata.org/soy

Bold of you to assume I'm not growing my own food.

Campaigning (for anything) is good, I see nothing wrong about it.

Active people will (and should) win, that's the law of nature.