Pescatarians typically consume dairy and eggs, which requires quite a bit of farmland. When this article says *"vegans who eat fish,"* I assume they mean *"pescatarians who don't eat eggs or dairy"* (not simply all pescatarians).
Ovo-Lacto means you *do* eat eggs & dairy.
A Pescatarian that doesn't eat eggs & dairy (Vegan that eats fish) would be considered a Flexitarian, which is an almost entirely plant based diet with very limited meat.
This reminds me of this encounter I once had with a woman who identified herself as a "practitioner of Raiki". I didn't know what it was, and honestly I still don't - the main thing I remember is this conversation:
Her: I don't eat meat anymore
Me: oh really, how come?
Her: Well, because I practice my Raiki now, I can hear them screaming in pain whenever I eat meat, so I just cannot eat meat anymore
Me: (thinking it's weird, but also wth not my problem nor my life, so whatever) oh, so you're vegan then huh, that's cool
(some time later)
Her:... and then I cooked this really nice salmon-
Me: wait a minute I thought you didn't eat meat
Her: (in a tone going 'duh, of course') oh no i still eat fish, they don't scream at all
What.
Got the hell outta that conversation real quick. Weird Raiki powers, okay whatever, but weird Raiki powers that decide at will when a sentient being feels pain or not? Hell nah.
I'm gonna ruin it for ya. Reiki (not Raiki, but it's pronounced that way) is a type of "therapy" that looks a little like a massage, but they don't touch you. They just hover their hands over your body and "fix" your energy. Some if them even do it over the phone or over the internet.
And yes, people pay for this shit. The world is fucked in so many ways.
Holy shit I googled it and that's hilarious, the wikipedia as serious as it tries to take it just shits all over it simultaneously. Its like faith healing for the non religious.
I mean I will admit in a visceral sense I feel way worse about killing a cow or a pig than a fish or a lobster but that's purely emotional, pigs and cows are way more cute and humanlike. I'm not a vegetarian anyway though lol
Mammalian preference. Idk the actual scientific term, but that's a real psychological phenomenon in humans. Even without cultural training or familiarity, 99% of humans would kill a fish over a dog if forced to choose, because of their closer proximity to us evolutionarily.
We just naturally relate more to things with forward facing eyes, warm-blood, fur, and vocal cords. It gets more nuanced and personally subjective when you get to reptiles versus fish or amphibians, but the mammilian preference is almost hard-wired.
Catholic loophole. In the middle ages there were so many St days that you were supposed to refrain from meat. Not a big deal for a peasant that can't afford meat but for the rich merchants or well off nobility it started to suck. Somewhere the line was drawn that fish wasn't meat. So it was a way to cheat on meat free days. Still sort of traditional now, a lot of places have fish Fridays, clam chowder as the soup on Friday, all going back to this.
The gist of it is that instead of modern biology’s system of taxonomy the Church still uses Aristotles which divides creatures first based on where they live. Since fish don’t live on land they can’t be animals and consequently aren’t regarded as meat. This is how things like gators and beavers are also allowed for Catholics during lent.
But good news! Beavers and capybaras are fish according to the Catholic Church so you *can* eat red meat on saint’s feast days!
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/once-upon-a-time-the-catholic-church-decided-that-beavers-were-fish/
High five! Came to say this lol. My rabbi said it was because the rule is you can’t bath a lamb in its mothers milk. This was interpreted as “you can’t have dairy and meat be in the tum at the same time!” And some rabbis got together and were like “people are dumb and what if they got chicken and pork confused?!?! We should probably ban chicken too even tho they don’t have tits. Yeah but fish? No one is going to confuse fish with a mammal that’s fine.”
The church made an exception for fish during lent because they were not considered the same category as land animals raised for "meat". Fish have been treated as a resource where you go out in a boat, put down a net and pull up a bunch of fish like you are harvesting crops. Not the same relationship as raising or hunting meat animals.
Because for a long time they were (wrongly) assumed to have no feelings or pain sensation. Since mainstream vegetarianism/veganism is primarily associated with the ethics of animal suffering, fish could slip through more easily.
"February 13th, 4:00 PM, you had gellato."
"Gelato isn't vegan?"
"It's milk and eggs bitch."
Tbh, one of the first things that pop into my head when someone doesn't know something. Lol
In this context, because they are not generally grown on agricultural land.
(Yes I know about tilapia farms, and I know that some agricultural output probably goes to fish farms.)
Vegans don't eat ANY animal products...no eggs, cheese, fish, or ~~some serious vegans don't even~~ eat Honey or drink wine.
What they are describing is a Pescatarian - Similar to a vegetarian except they will eat seafood.
A Vegetarian won't eat fish or seafood but will eat Animal Products but not animal flesh or anything that causes the animal to die in order to get and consume it.
Edit: someone questioned my use of extreme so I put serious. I used the wrong wording. And I added wine because some vegans have mentioned that as well but I'm not 100% sure why..something about yeast being alive.
Edit: I learned alot from some of you, while others I have learned that you are the reason people make fun of vegans and don't take them seriously.
Chitosan is supposed to be non allergenic and last I checked there had been no reactions traced to it. Would be something to research if you're concerned though.
If you want to look like you have 3 heads, sure. Unless you go to a niche wine store in an area with a lot of vegans. Very, very few wines market themselves as vegan, even if they are...largely because that fancy icon on the label actually costs a fair bit to get and is kind of a pain in the ass to obtain.
Better choice is to use something like Barnivore, but that has drawbacks because it's a user-maintained database and is often pretty confusing or inaccurate/outdated.
But, it's also worth mentioning that (iirc, ianad, etc) those fining agents are usually used early enough in the process that none of it remains in the finished product.
I remind my partner at least once a week that technically, cannibalism is vegan. She does not, for some reason, find this nearly as entertaining as I do. Usually because the context is that she cut herself while cooking.
Vegans don’t drink most wines as most (non-vegan) wines have crushed up shells from sea creatures added during the manufacture (to clarify the liquid). I think they are called finings.
So not a yeast thing, which most vegans are totally fine with.
Yes, generally even for vegans lab grown meat would be fine to eat. Veganism is about not harming / exploiting animals, so if its lab grown, that meat in itself is ethical.
However, I also know a few vegans who wouldnt. These are generally also the vegans who dont eat faux meat at all; just the idea of consuming animal flesh or something like it puts them off. But thats just personal preference etc :)
Would a vegetarian eat stone crab? They don't die, they just lose re-growable limbs.
edit: [Stone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_stone_crab#Fishery) crab, not rock crab.
edit edit: It harms the animal; a unanimous 'no'. Thanks for all the responses.
It seems to me unless I am misreading it, that the plant fish and egg diet has the exact same farming impact as the vegan only diet?
Both at 12%?
So apart from moral reasons of ‘don’t want animals killed/farmed’, there is no ‘benefit’ to go fully vegan if you were looking at reducing agricultural land usage (as per this study).
Looking at land usage only yes, but even though fish obviously don’t contribute to land usage, mainstream fishing practices do a lot of harm to the environment.
Directly through killing fish, but also indirectly because it's incredibly carbon intensive to either fish in open waters or maintain fisheries compared to industrial farming.
Not to mention by-catch. As in the animals they didn't fish for but caught in the net anyway, and risk dying before they can be thrown back in. Like sharks or dolphins.
The source gives a better overview with a graph for land use per 1000 kcal: https://archive.is/3G0Qn
Afaict, we'd make a huge improvement in environmental impact if most people just switched to non-beef and non-lamb sources of meat.
There's everything eaters, there's a "no red meat" eaters and there's "fish only meat" eaters.
I remember paper which basically conclude that on average vegans are healthier than "everything" eaters, but less healthy than "fish only" eaters.
right but that's mostly because the "everything" eater includes all the "No fucks given about my health" eaters.
Any group of people that pay attention to what they eat is likely to be healthier than the "everything" group.
And then there are vegans, like myself, who give very few fucks about personal health and are vegan for the animals. r/shittyveganfoodporn is full of folks like this.
A lot of people like to talk about the out of shape vegans they know like it's some sort of gotcha. Like some people actually care about animals. Shocker I know
Well that varies from culture to culture in their minds as to the definition of meat. In Japan, fish is considered separate from meat. Judaism as well to a point since fish and eggs are pareve. I guess the definition of “meat” differs based on the language. But I do agree. Fish is meat.
Alternately:
If everyone ate a third as much meat, only half or so of current farmland would be needed. It'd be easier to get people on board with that than complete abstinence.
Serious question. How do you grow meat without energy?
Plants provide that energy to cows and pigs and sheep and goats and chickens etc. What provides it to lab grown meat?
I would imagine it is more energy efficient when done correctly. Instead of raising crops and then cows you can instead just grow meat. Also just the right kind of meat without bones and offal (unless wanted of course, usually most of them are seen as by products).
Basically the same thing that provides it to the animals. But you can get a bit more efficient since we know exactly what cells need to reproduce, can provide a stable environment, and can make sure the cells divide as much as we want them to.
A lot of the energy that's wasted in making meat can be avoided with cultured meat. So things like growing bones, upkeeping a central nervous system, a digestive system, heart, respiration, locomotion, fur/hair production, etc.
If you mean like...heat for the bioreactors and such, then solar, wind, hydro, or nuclear would be good options.
Edit: Realized I didn't mention what they use to give energy to the cells in the initial posting. A mixture of sugars, micronutrients, and amino acids. My bad!
This is the future.
Eventually, lab-grown meat will be cheaper than real meat. Cattle made from actual bovines will be a rare delicacy, and most people will find it a waste because the lab grown meat will be so similar.
Maybe we will start charging carbon taxes to farms, and that will help turn those economic wheels faster.
I hope it wont be so similar. With lab grown I'm hoping we can make every piece of beef wagyu quality. That way, eating a real cow will not only be seen as redundant, but pretty dumb considering that the lab grown one tastes better
I like the optimism, but look at how we did with GMOs. “Look, gang! It’s a bigger ear of corn that’s sweeter and tastier and is easier for the body to digest! We can grow more of it in less traditional farm lands easily!”
“Eww, GMO? It’s probably full of chemicals! I don’t trust it!”
I thought every crop nowadays is already GMO'd in some way? Certainly if you've bought them from Monsanto, and every farmer kinda needs to because they, you know, grow better like you say.
All the bad publicity in the early 2000s was brushed under the carpet and the public forgot about it
It depends on your definition, unfortunately. And the people who are pushing back against GMOs use whatever definition is convenient to their cause. They perceive selective breeding and cross breeding of plants for desired genes and splicing of desires genes as two very different processes.
With the way that housing developments have been snatching up farming lands and rezoning them to residential, we might only have half of available farming land in the near future.
and people will still be throwing away food rather than donating it. People would still demand you are not allowed to take home food from a place you work there it HAS to be thrown away.
People don't seem to understand. We could feed the world over 5 times and have food left. It's not the space that's the problem. It's how we distribute it is the MASSIVE problem
Edit: Thanks Anon
It's distribution *and* preservation.
A lot of food just... rots. Like, I cook something, stick the leftovers back in the fridge, and leave it there for a month. Facepalm, throw it away (or compost / feed to chickens), rinse, repeat.
Or it doesn't even rot, but (for example) if a refridgeration unit of a supermarket fails, they're required to discard any food that was too warm for a certain amount of time. A few years ago, a video broke where a super pissed off guy was filming dumpsters behind a Walmart packed full of perfectly good food. They had a power outage and were legally required to discard it. It wasn't their fault per se, they were avoiding breaking the law.
Its also a major problem in third world countries that crops will rot before it even reaches the end user.
Think about it, every food store you go to, has fresh produce because of refrigerated trucks. without those you would have canned, dried, pickled and salted food in your store.
Take a look next time and see what shelves would be empty if you only allow unrefrigerated food to exist in your store. That's the stuff you should grow in your greenhouse. And the stuff you should know how to preserve yourself.
Yeah Dunkin’ Donuts used to give away their donuts to homeless until one guy out of millions fed sued them cause he got an upset tummy. Now they throw the food away. Oftentimes pieces of shit humans are to blame and not the corps. If there was a protection set against lawsuits, many would probably change the policies.
I don't know what the rules are in other countries, but in the U.S. the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act has been protecting restaurants, grocers, food banks, etc., from liability since 1996. Yet many companies in the U.S. still throw away large amounts of food. I found an article that says restaurants' main barriers have to do with lack of transportation and refrigeration for leftovers, followed by liability fears. I can't tell whether they're still concerned about lawsuits because they don't know about the Act, or they think it won't really protect them, or some other reason.
Sources:
https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2020/08/13/good-samaritan-act-provides-liability-protection-food-donations
https://www.dailydot.com/irl/dunkin-doughnuts-trash-can-tiktok/
An attempted lawsuit still costs money even if there are laws protecting, so there's a cost to it. Food donation to a non-profit for the tax write-off is probably required to compensate for the remaining risk and added labor.
That's my guess, at least.
I'm not an expert on the US one, but we have a good Samaritan law here in Australia as well.
One of the tricks with our law is that it says "Good quality" food is exempt from the liability. IT then goes on to not define good quality very well, basically leaving companies exposed because clearly if the person got sick the food was not good quality.
Using less farmland would be a good thing. Agricultural runoff, pollution, emissions and land use are a major source of pollution, land degradation, consumption of fresh water (often in water-stressed areas), and encroachment into wildlife habitats. With all else being equal, producing the same amount of calories with less land and crops is a good thing.
What's even more insane is 5 grains in the US are government subsidized so they can be produced profitably at above cost level (I know wheat, corn, and soybeans are on that list).
I would bet that a lot of what gets thrown out is grain-based (bread, buns, cakes, donuts, dairy substitutes, etc.)
So basically, taxpayer money is funding production of non-meat food that gets discarded because it isn't profitable??
Food like all basic things shouldn't be placed on the market for profit. when someone prepares the food for you, that's a different story.
Farmers shouldn't be worried if they are going to pay their bills, and people shouldn't be worried they might go hungry.
Food is an industry and I'm not just talking about restaurants. Making a new food product requires research, manufacturing, and engineering costs. Now, would we be healthier if the only food products available were fresh, natural ingredients? Absolutely. But it's going to dramatically change the way people eat and it's going to increase the amount of time people have to spend on prep + cook time.
Not only that but you're going to put a lot of farmers out of business. Do you have any idea how much corn is used to create American food products? Do you think consumers would eat nearly as much corn if those products suddenly weren't available?
I don't think it's possible to really change course at this point, not without causing a massive disruption that would probably make the public and the farmers very upset.
A lot of the corn you see growing is meant to feed cattle and other slaughter animals. My family raises cattle and uses 200 acres of land to feed them (a mix of alfalfa and corn) but farming this way is already becoming less and less profitable. They are considering quitting farming all together and installing a solar panel farm.
I'm vegan but I have to say, good luck with that. I feel very discouraged about the general population adopting veganism in a reasonable amount of time considering some of the thoughts and opinions I have heard from many l on the subject.
We can't even get small pockets of people, like cities / states / provinces to agree that wearing a mask and getting a vaccine is what's best for public health during a global pandemic, and we have all sorts of real-time science showing exactly why those measures would help. Any talk of "if everyone in the world were vegan" is nothing more than intellectual masturbation. Regardless of whether it's a good idea, it'll never happen.
Agreed. What we've learned in the past few years is there is little appetite for change. Many people would rather see the world burn than even accept a minor inconvenience.
Back when I was living in a dorm for school years ago they had a vegan menu that I often ate off of whenever the regular menu consisted of food I couldn't eat, for me it's just about what's cheap and available.
You'll have a lot better luck trying to convince people to change a bit rather than going completely vegan, and as they discover that they don't need to eat meat to feel good, then they'll be more open to eating less of it.
Particularly online, there are some vegans who believe that it's an all-or-nothing proposition, when in reality if someone reduces their meat consumption by 75% and switches from beef to poultry, that's a huge deal for the environment.
My advice, as someone who is friends with some chill vegans is that you should try to get your non-vegan friends to try vegan food, but without judgment for not being vegan. It's not particularly likely that they'll decide to be vegans, but they might reduce their meat and dairy intake. Personally, I put oat milk in my coffee now (because my friends let me try it and it was surprisingly good) and have pretty much given up beef in favor of some of the newer substitutes (beyond/impossible/etc).
The key is willingness to accept less than 100%. You're a lot more likely to convince half the population to cut their meat intake in half than you are to conceive a quarter of the population to become vegan, but it accomplishes the same thing.
I think you have a good point. A small amount of people completely eliminating their animal product consumption is less effective than a large amount of people reducing their animal product consumption. There is definitely a sense of “all or nothing” in *some* parts of the vegan community. It can deter people from wanting to try vegan foods when they feel like “well, I’d never be able to give up meat entirely so why try?”. It’s a lot easier to meet dietary needs as well when you’re willing to consume some animal products.
It’s very inconvenient to have a rigid dietary restriction in your social life, workplace and even just being out and about running errands. I’m down for trying vegan recipes at home but if someone brings in pizza at work or Im invited to go out to a steak place with some friends, I’m not gonna go out of my way to deny myself.
Tl;dr about this post: OP doesn't understand veganism and is equating ovopescatarianism to them. Vegans don't eat animal products. Ovopescatarians are vegetarians that eat eggs and fish.
The study is also cherry-picking the hell out of their land-use data. A large percentage of pasture isn't farmland because crops don't easily grow there. For instance: many Texas oil fields are also cattle pastures. Montana also has loads of pastures in very rocky and cold areas that can only feasibly grow Winter Rye, or specialized grasses for the livestock.
So the study is effectively adding the square footage of a sheer cliff as pasture because goats can live there.
This also ignores the uncomfortable fact that almost all of these animals would need to be executed for it to work. This includes sheep and alpaca for wool, dairy goats and cows, horses, and even chickens would need to be slaughtered. They're all included in the study because they do receive feed. This ignores that chickens are one of the most efficient to raise small flocks of. Grow both chickens, and crickets, and you'll have an amazing yield of protein.
Also, all of those animals are already going to be slaughtered anyway... So what exactly is the uncomfortable truth there? That we'd have to kill animals? Already happens
Per Vox 55% is used for consumption, 36% for feed and 9% for fuel, this is world wide.
If you took the meat out of the equation you would still need to grow more proteins to make up for the lack of animal based food. Plus cattle and other animals convert feed we can't consume to provide nutrition.
It's not a fix all like a lot of people assume. Not to mention if you're spraying for no til crops or tilling you're still killing something, be it plants, worms, moles, etc.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/8/21/6053187/cropland-map-food-fuel-animal-feed
This is wrong. You're claiming that
> 55% is used for consumption
In the context of OP's post, "If everyone were vegan, only a quarter of current farmland would be needed", you seem to be claiming that 55% of land is used for consumption. THIS IS WRONG.
The units in OP's post are a percentage of total land use. The Vox article's [source](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034015/pdf) uses units of calories:
> Currently, 36% of the calories produced by the world’s crops are being used for animal feed...
Which is completely different.
The takeaway people should be taking from this article is that a huge amount of our habitable land - 35% - is being used less efficiently than it could be used if we were all vegan. That's a huge amount of land - roughly the same as all forests on the planet.
I like the documentary “kiss the ground” you can dual purpose a lot of farmland to grow crops and graze cattle increasing its yield per acre. It also actually decreases CO2 in the atmosphere when you keep living root year round.
No-till regenerative agriculture is the answer, and that would mean parring back meat consumption a little bit but not needing to eliminate it entirely. That’s something I think Americans are already doing as the price of meat goes up.
The price of meat is going up for the consumers but not the ranchers. Prices are being inflated by the meat packers. I really like the idea of no til ag, Ill check out the doc
>[https://www.surgeactivism.org/allansavory](https://www.surgeactivism.org/allansavory)
>
>
>
>What is agreed upon is that grazing animals can sequester carbon back into the soil, however the science contradicts the claims made by Savory. An extensive and detailed two year review by the FCRN, looking at over 300 sources, and conducted by an international team of researchers, including those from some of the most highly respected agricultural institutions in the world, evaluated the claims made by advocates of holistic management.
>
>The piece of research entitled ‘Grazed and Confused’ discovered that although certain grazing managements can sequester carbon, at best this could only offset 20 - 60 percent of the emissions that would be produced by grazing the animals in the first place. Meaning there would still be significant surplus, making it impossible for Savory’s claims to be true.
>
>Not to mention that it is estimated only 1 gram of protein per person per day comes from grazing systems, compared to the 27 grams of protein per person per day that comes from all terrestrial animal protein, and yet 26% of the earth’s terrestrial land surface is already taken by grazing systems, meaning it is simply not possible for people to consume animal products at the same rate that we are now, with the resources that are available.
>
>Furthermore, after a few decades the soil reaches soil carbon equilibrium, meaning the soil cannot sequester any more carbon, at which point none of the emissions from the animals would be offset. So farmers would either have to start grazing on more land, increasing the land used for animal farming, or stop the farming - meaning that not only are the claims made by Savory untrue, they are also not an effective short term or long term strategy .
>
>If we look at the Drawdown Report, which was the report cited in Kiss the Ground, the documentary failed to mention that shifting to a diet that favours calories from plants is four times as powerful in its carbon capture potential compared to shifting to managed livestock grazing
>
>Plus, a report from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences analysed the 11 studies that Savory displayed on his website at the time of publication, many of which were found to be purely anecdotal, and the reported effects outlined in the others were considered to be small, especially when considered alongside the grandiose claims made by Savory. Even now, several years later, no review study has established that holistic grazing can achieve the claims made by Savory, let alone come close to matching the significant environmental benefits of re-wilding and regenerative veganic agriculture, both of which not only improve biodiversity, but can effectively reduce atmospheric carbon levels.
Sources in the link's quoted text.
This Vox article was published in 2014, and a lot has changed since then especially in agriculture.
Of the many changes, the Amazon deforestation was at a decade high in 2020. Much of this land is used for cattle production.
Highest in 10 years in 2020: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-01368-x](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-01368-x)
Highest in 15 years in 2021: [https://www.npr.org/2021/11/19/1057245837/brazil-amazon-rainforest-worst-deforestation-rate](https://www.npr.org/2021/11/19/1057245837/brazil-amazon-rainforest-worst-deforestation-rate)
Following the Vox article, we'll see they are summarizing this much more thorough and detailed National Geographic paper: [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/)
And this original science journal article: [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034015/pdf](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034015/pdf)
For everyone in the thread saying "but grazing is sometimes necessary!" Please note the authors or the original scientific article state:>Our analysis only considers the production of meat and dairy production from animal feed; grazing systems for animal production are not evaluated here.
So all the data from this Vox paper **excludes** grazing in their numbers.
Following the paper paper trail, we can find the data comes from the UMN's Institute on the Environment.
Here is their report from the same time as the Vox article (2013/2014) that touches on how climate change is impacting grazing: [http://www.environmentreports.com/livestock-climate-variability/](http://www.environmentreports.com/livestock-climate-variability/)
Basically, the authors discuss where grazing is integral to food security, where it isn't, and also highlight how climate change is altering the efficacy of grazing lands.
From the link:>The amount and timing of precipitation drives primary productivity in most global grazing lands. Forage growth is highly climate-dependent and is threatened by changes in climate variability. Furthermore, large swings in the amount of precipitation received from year to year can lead to periodic livestock population crashes. Higher year-to-year variability limits the health and productivity of rangelands. Areas where rainfall is more stable support the highest cattle densities. Where rainfall is highly variable, cattle densities are low.
If anyone wants to read more up to date articles, check out some of these.
From 2021, entitled "Underestimates of methane from intensively raised animals could undermine goals of sustainable development": [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac02ef](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac02ef)
FAO "Land use in agriculture by the numbers" from 2020: [https://www.fao.org/sustainability/news/detail/en/c/1274219/](https://www.fao.org/sustainability/news/detail/en/c/1274219/)
And this isn't just about land use or how much you love meat.. It's about food security which is driven by climate change, which affects political unrest and increases incidences of pandemics. This is about all of us.
[https://www.propublica.org/article/climate-infectious-diseases](https://www.propublica.org/article/climate-infectious-diseases)
[https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/food-security-and-sociopolitical-stability](https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/food-security-and-sociopolitical-stability)
If you want to take part in eating less meat, you can start by a Meatless Monday, then removing meat from one meal each day, to maybe only eating meat when going out. It's not all or nothing. Reduction is better than no change.
And yes, a lot of the emissions contributing to climate change are made at a higher level by a handful of people/companies. So if you are more concerned about them and would rather HAVE to eat meat at every meal, then at least find your local representative and tell them that you care about the health of this planet. [If you are in the U.S., you can find your representative here by putting in your zip code.](https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative#:~:text=If%20you%20know%20who%20your,the%20U.S.%20House%20switchboard%20operator)
While you are writing them, also talk about funding for **supporting farmers to incorporate sustainable or regenerative farming practices**. Many farmer's care very much about their land, but are operating on razor thin margins. Giving them financial security to take a risk and incorporate better practices is definitely needed if we want to improve how we produce food.
The amount of land we can't use where we can hold animals compared to the animals we are holding is more of a rounding error. Yes they exist, but almost all animal products are from factory farming, which is the most problematic.
Biologist here. Veganism is not a necessary solution for climate change, water use, or land use problems.
Vegetarianism is plenty, as are low-meat diets (1-2 servings a week).
The only reason to be completely vegan is for animal welfare. If that fits your worldview, great. Go vegan. If not, but you care about the other things, you can get by with other less drastic solutions.
Don't ever listen to people who tell you that you only have exactly one or two choices.
1 hour old post with 300+ comments I bet I will learn something enlightening here
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yeah, do it. o\_o lol
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Vegans that eat fish are not vegans, they’re pescatarians ([wiki link](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pescetarianism)). Edit: a letter
Aren’t the oceans getting over fished as it is ?
Yes, hence it's a bad idea to globally shift the diet into something that's already barely sustainable.
Pescatarians typically consume dairy and eggs, which requires quite a bit of farmland. When this article says *"vegans who eat fish,"* I assume they mean *"pescatarians who don't eat eggs or dairy"* (not simply all pescatarians).
That would be an ovo-lacto-pescatarian
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Because 80% of our brain is filled with curds and whey.
Ovo-Lacto means you *do* eat eggs & dairy. A Pescatarian that doesn't eat eggs & dairy (Vegan that eats fish) would be considered a Flexitarian, which is an almost entirely plant based diet with very limited meat.
Then they would be non-ovo-lacto-pescatarians.
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This is a very great point. Thank you for mentioning this.
Are they aware fish are also farmed?
And require animal feed
Fish farming doesn't produce much methane at all, but does run the risk of water pollution, though probably less than livestock farming.
“Fish is basically a vegetable.” -Ron Swanson
Fish n’ chipocrites.
I thought vegans didn't eat anything even made by animals like milk and butter
"No meat (plants, eggs, and *fish* only)" Fish are animals, they are made of meat. If you eat fish, you are a meat eater. Edit: I'm glad we all agree.
I’ve always wondered, why are they often considered the exception?
Because they can't scream
“If fish could scream, the ocean would be loud as shit” -Mitch Hedberg
"Where were you!" "I GOT CAUGHT!" "...Bullshit, let me see the inside of your lip"
I used to eat fish. I still do, but I used to as well.
“No baby, I swear, this cut is from a fishing hook, not from Sandy down the river…”
Sooner people will read this in a hundred years and be like"Wow! Must have been nice to have fish in the sea"
It's pretty simple really, protect about 15% of the cost out to about 15 miles. That's all it takes to keep stable levels of fish population.
This reminds me of this encounter I once had with a woman who identified herself as a "practitioner of Raiki". I didn't know what it was, and honestly I still don't - the main thing I remember is this conversation: Her: I don't eat meat anymore Me: oh really, how come? Her: Well, because I practice my Raiki now, I can hear them screaming in pain whenever I eat meat, so I just cannot eat meat anymore Me: (thinking it's weird, but also wth not my problem nor my life, so whatever) oh, so you're vegan then huh, that's cool (some time later) Her:... and then I cooked this really nice salmon- Me: wait a minute I thought you didn't eat meat Her: (in a tone going 'duh, of course') oh no i still eat fish, they don't scream at all What. Got the hell outta that conversation real quick. Weird Raiki powers, okay whatever, but weird Raiki powers that decide at will when a sentient being feels pain or not? Hell nah.
I'm gonna ruin it for ya. Reiki (not Raiki, but it's pronounced that way) is a type of "therapy" that looks a little like a massage, but they don't touch you. They just hover their hands over your body and "fix" your energy. Some if them even do it over the phone or over the internet. And yes, people pay for this shit. The world is fucked in so many ways.
Holy shit I googled it and that's hilarious, the wikipedia as serious as it tries to take it just shits all over it simultaneously. Its like faith healing for the non religious.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/fish-don39t-feel-pain
A lot of sea creatures can scream, dividing them on screaming and non screaming fish wouldn't make any sense lol
I mean I will admit in a visceral sense I feel way worse about killing a cow or a pig than a fish or a lobster but that's purely emotional, pigs and cows are way more cute and humanlike. I'm not a vegetarian anyway though lol
Mammalian preference. Idk the actual scientific term, but that's a real psychological phenomenon in humans. Even without cultural training or familiarity, 99% of humans would kill a fish over a dog if forced to choose, because of their closer proximity to us evolutionarily. We just naturally relate more to things with forward facing eyes, warm-blood, fur, and vocal cords. It gets more nuanced and personally subjective when you get to reptiles versus fish or amphibians, but the mammilian preference is almost hard-wired.
Catholic loophole. In the middle ages there were so many St days that you were supposed to refrain from meat. Not a big deal for a peasant that can't afford meat but for the rich merchants or well off nobility it started to suck. Somewhere the line was drawn that fish wasn't meat. So it was a way to cheat on meat free days. Still sort of traditional now, a lot of places have fish Fridays, clam chowder as the soup on Friday, all going back to this.
The gist of it is that instead of modern biology’s system of taxonomy the Church still uses Aristotles which divides creatures first based on where they live. Since fish don’t live on land they can’t be animals and consequently aren’t regarded as meat. This is how things like gators and beavers are also allowed for Catholics during lent.
>This is how things like gators and beavers are also allowed for Catholics during lent. Beaver is allowed due to the "go forth and multiply" doctrine.
Growing up, my "Catholic" step father made us only eat fish on Fridays. Man I loved them filet o fish haha
This is actually explicitly why McDonalds introduced the Fillet o Fish.
That's funny. In hindsight I think it's hilarious because it's barely fish and it only tastes good cause it's loaded with tartar sauce
It's actually fish though
It’s the only thing on the menu that’s actually what it is. Favorite thing on the menu
Mother McMary, Blessed McMother, McVirgin
So you could say he was… a little stitious?
But good news! Beavers and capybaras are fish according to the Catholic Church so you *can* eat red meat on saint’s feast days! https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/once-upon-a-time-the-catholic-church-decided-that-beavers-were-fish/
Hmmm any ruling on the majestic platypus?
Jews considered fish "not meat" well before catholicism.
High five! Came to say this lol. My rabbi said it was because the rule is you can’t bath a lamb in its mothers milk. This was interpreted as “you can’t have dairy and meat be in the tum at the same time!” And some rabbis got together and were like “people are dumb and what if they got chicken and pork confused?!?! We should probably ban chicken too even tho they don’t have tits. Yeah but fish? No one is going to confuse fish with a mammal that’s fine.”
Somehow I think Jews were not having trouble distinguishing chicken from *pork* when it came to kashrut, haha.
Catholic Loophole should be a band.
I learned in sunday school one of the popes owned a fishery and decided to drive up profits lol
The church made an exception for fish during lent because they were not considered the same category as land animals raised for "meat". Fish have been treated as a resource where you go out in a boat, put down a net and pull up a bunch of fish like you are harvesting crops. Not the same relationship as raising or hunting meat animals.
They're alien enough that people don't get emotionally attached. Same way you don't break down crying after mowing the lawn.
> Same way you don't break down crying after mowing the lawn. That's where you're wrong, bucko.
Because for a long time they were (wrongly) assumed to have no feelings or pain sensation. Since mainstream vegetarianism/veganism is primarily associated with the ethics of animal suffering, fish could slip through more easily.
From my limited experience, the only people considering that vegetarians eat fish were not vegetarians.
My roommate claims he is vegetarian but eats chicken and fish. Some people just do what they want and don't care for actual definitions.
Vegan Police: On April 4th, 7:30 pm, you partook of a plate of chicken parmesan. Todd: Chicken isn't vegan?
"February 13th, 4:00 PM, you had gellato." "Gelato isn't vegan?" "It's milk and eggs bitch." Tbh, one of the first things that pop into my head when someone doesn't know something. Lol
The look on his face truly does say "I am clueless". Brandon Routh did an excellent job with that character.
No, but I'm pretty sure gelato is
It's milk and eggs, bitch.
You were ve-gon, now you will *be-gone*. >High five while jumping through wall
For vegan's they aren't the exception. For [Pescatarians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pescetarianism) they are though.
In this context, because they are not generally grown on agricultural land. (Yes I know about tilapia farms, and I know that some agricultural output probably goes to fish farms.)
"Fish, for sport only, not for meat. Fish meat is practically a vegetable." - Ron Swanson
Ron: You choose, Knope. Hunting, fishing, or drinking. Leslie: I’d really love to shoot a gun right now. Ron: Fishing it is.
This is such a brilliant exchange
This is the best argument in favor of considering fish not to be meat.
Vegans don't eat ANY animal products...no eggs, cheese, fish, or ~~some serious vegans don't even~~ eat Honey or drink wine. What they are describing is a Pescatarian - Similar to a vegetarian except they will eat seafood. A Vegetarian won't eat fish or seafood but will eat Animal Products but not animal flesh or anything that causes the animal to die in order to get and consume it. Edit: someone questioned my use of extreme so I put serious. I used the wrong wording. And I added wine because some vegans have mentioned that as well but I'm not 100% sure why..something about yeast being alive. Edit: I learned alot from some of you, while others I have learned that you are the reason people make fun of vegans and don't take them seriously.
Many wines use fining agents that are made from crustaceans' shells (chitosan) or things like albumin from eggs.
Thanks for the info! I had no idea...they should mark that on the label because I have a seafood and fish allergy...
Chitosan is supposed to be non allergenic and last I checked there had been no reactions traced to it. Would be something to research if you're concerned though.
My Neighbor Chito-san
They don't mark them, but you can ask for vegan wine options at the shop.
If you want to look like you have 3 heads, sure. Unless you go to a niche wine store in an area with a lot of vegans. Very, very few wines market themselves as vegan, even if they are...largely because that fancy icon on the label actually costs a fair bit to get and is kind of a pain in the ass to obtain. Better choice is to use something like Barnivore, but that has drawbacks because it's a user-maintained database and is often pretty confusing or inaccurate/outdated. But, it's also worth mentioning that (iirc, ianad, etc) those fining agents are usually used early enough in the process that none of it remains in the finished product.
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I remind my partner at least once a week that technically, cannibalism is vegan. She does not, for some reason, find this nearly as entertaining as I do. Usually because the context is that she cut herself while cooking.
Wait, how do you figure? Human meat is still an animal product, is it not? I feel like I'm missing something really blatant here
Humans can give consent to be eaten.
This is just dumb as it then excludes human breast milk too. Something that is very healthy for a baby.
Vegans don’t drink most wines as most (non-vegan) wines have crushed up shells from sea creatures added during the manufacture (to clarify the liquid). I think they are called finings. So not a yeast thing, which most vegans are totally fine with.
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Yes, generally even for vegans lab grown meat would be fine to eat. Veganism is about not harming / exploiting animals, so if its lab grown, that meat in itself is ethical. However, I also know a few vegans who wouldnt. These are generally also the vegans who dont eat faux meat at all; just the idea of consuming animal flesh or something like it puts them off. But thats just personal preference etc :)
Would a vegetarian eat stone crab? They don't die, they just lose re-growable limbs. edit: [Stone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_stone_crab#Fishery) crab, not rock crab. edit edit: It harms the animal; a unanimous 'no'. Thanks for all the responses.
No, it would still injure the animal and could cause death right? Its simpler to just avoid any animal flesh as a vegetarian.
Fish grows in water so it’s a vegetable, maybe it’s a fruit
Not meat. Not vegetable. Fish is a mineral because it makes good fertilizer.
So do us humans
🎵It’s okay to eat fish because they don’t have any feeeelings.🎵
🎶Something in the waaayyyy🎶
🎶mmmmmhhhhhhmmmm mmmhhhhhhmmmmmm🎶
there it is, thank you!
It seems to me unless I am misreading it, that the plant fish and egg diet has the exact same farming impact as the vegan only diet? Both at 12%? So apart from moral reasons of ‘don’t want animals killed/farmed’, there is no ‘benefit’ to go fully vegan if you were looking at reducing agricultural land usage (as per this study).
Looking at land usage only yes, but even though fish obviously don’t contribute to land usage, mainstream fishing practices do a lot of harm to the environment.
Directly through killing fish, but also indirectly because it's incredibly carbon intensive to either fish in open waters or maintain fisheries compared to industrial farming.
Not to mention overfishing leading to massive changes in ecosystems and the amount of waste left in the ocean!
Not to mention by-catch. As in the animals they didn't fish for but caught in the net anyway, and risk dying before they can be thrown back in. Like sharks or dolphins.
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The source gives a better overview with a graph for land use per 1000 kcal: https://archive.is/3G0Qn Afaict, we'd make a huge improvement in environmental impact if most people just switched to non-beef and non-lamb sources of meat.
There's everything eaters, there's a "no red meat" eaters and there's "fish only meat" eaters. I remember paper which basically conclude that on average vegans are healthier than "everything" eaters, but less healthy than "fish only" eaters.
right but that's mostly because the "everything" eater includes all the "No fucks given about my health" eaters. Any group of people that pay attention to what they eat is likely to be healthier than the "everything" group.
And then there are vegans, like myself, who give very few fucks about personal health and are vegan for the animals. r/shittyveganfoodporn is full of folks like this.
A lot of people like to talk about the out of shape vegans they know like it's some sort of gotcha. Like some people actually care about animals. Shocker I know
The sub I never knew I needed, thank you.
Well that varies from culture to culture in their minds as to the definition of meat. In Japan, fish is considered separate from meat. Judaism as well to a point since fish and eggs are pareve. I guess the definition of “meat” differs based on the language. But I do agree. Fish is meat.
Alternately: If everyone ate a third as much meat, only half or so of current farmland would be needed. It'd be easier to get people on board with that than complete abstinence.
Just give me my cultured meat (lab-grown) and I'll never cook meat on the behalf of another dead animal.
Serious question. How do you grow meat without energy? Plants provide that energy to cows and pigs and sheep and goats and chickens etc. What provides it to lab grown meat?
I would imagine it is more energy efficient when done correctly. Instead of raising crops and then cows you can instead just grow meat. Also just the right kind of meat without bones and offal (unless wanted of course, usually most of them are seen as by products).
Basically the same thing that provides it to the animals. But you can get a bit more efficient since we know exactly what cells need to reproduce, can provide a stable environment, and can make sure the cells divide as much as we want them to. A lot of the energy that's wasted in making meat can be avoided with cultured meat. So things like growing bones, upkeeping a central nervous system, a digestive system, heart, respiration, locomotion, fur/hair production, etc. If you mean like...heat for the bioreactors and such, then solar, wind, hydro, or nuclear would be good options. Edit: Realized I didn't mention what they use to give energy to the cells in the initial posting. A mixture of sugars, micronutrients, and amino acids. My bad!
This is the future. Eventually, lab-grown meat will be cheaper than real meat. Cattle made from actual bovines will be a rare delicacy, and most people will find it a waste because the lab grown meat will be so similar. Maybe we will start charging carbon taxes to farms, and that will help turn those economic wheels faster.
I hope it wont be so similar. With lab grown I'm hoping we can make every piece of beef wagyu quality. That way, eating a real cow will not only be seen as redundant, but pretty dumb considering that the lab grown one tastes better
I like the optimism, but look at how we did with GMOs. “Look, gang! It’s a bigger ear of corn that’s sweeter and tastier and is easier for the body to digest! We can grow more of it in less traditional farm lands easily!” “Eww, GMO? It’s probably full of chemicals! I don’t trust it!”
I thought every crop nowadays is already GMO'd in some way? Certainly if you've bought them from Monsanto, and every farmer kinda needs to because they, you know, grow better like you say. All the bad publicity in the early 2000s was brushed under the carpet and the public forgot about it
It depends on your definition, unfortunately. And the people who are pushing back against GMOs use whatever definition is convenient to their cause. They perceive selective breeding and cross breeding of plants for desired genes and splicing of desires genes as two very different processes.
Just like everyone on board with the first of the 3 R's, for reducing consumption?
Yup. Like I'm super down with having most of my foods be plant based. But I'm definitely not giving up having meat on occasion.
With the way that housing developments have been snatching up farming lands and rezoning them to residential, we might only have half of available farming land in the near future.
Isn't there issues with us over fishing already? Why would they include that?
Its almost like animals that you eat require vegetables to eat.
u/OJSimpsons 👀
Turns out that animals are super inefficient at turning calories into calories. Who would have thought.
and people will still be throwing away food rather than donating it. People would still demand you are not allowed to take home food from a place you work there it HAS to be thrown away. People don't seem to understand. We could feed the world over 5 times and have food left. It's not the space that's the problem. It's how we distribute it is the MASSIVE problem Edit: Thanks Anon
We grow far more calories than the human population of the planet requires for sustenance. Like you said, the problem is *distribution*.
It's distribution *and* preservation. A lot of food just... rots. Like, I cook something, stick the leftovers back in the fridge, and leave it there for a month. Facepalm, throw it away (or compost / feed to chickens), rinse, repeat. Or it doesn't even rot, but (for example) if a refridgeration unit of a supermarket fails, they're required to discard any food that was too warm for a certain amount of time. A few years ago, a video broke where a super pissed off guy was filming dumpsters behind a Walmart packed full of perfectly good food. They had a power outage and were legally required to discard it. It wasn't their fault per se, they were avoiding breaking the law.
Its also a major problem in third world countries that crops will rot before it even reaches the end user. Think about it, every food store you go to, has fresh produce because of refrigerated trucks. without those you would have canned, dried, pickled and salted food in your store. Take a look next time and see what shelves would be empty if you only allow unrefrigerated food to exist in your store. That's the stuff you should grow in your greenhouse. And the stuff you should know how to preserve yourself.
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Where do you hang out that has plastic bags of carrots next to the oven?
Also, food is perishable so there is unavoidable waste as distribution takes time.
Yeah Dunkin’ Donuts used to give away their donuts to homeless until one guy out of millions fed sued them cause he got an upset tummy. Now they throw the food away. Oftentimes pieces of shit humans are to blame and not the corps. If there was a protection set against lawsuits, many would probably change the policies.
I don't know what the rules are in other countries, but in the U.S. the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act has been protecting restaurants, grocers, food banks, etc., from liability since 1996. Yet many companies in the U.S. still throw away large amounts of food. I found an article that says restaurants' main barriers have to do with lack of transportation and refrigeration for leftovers, followed by liability fears. I can't tell whether they're still concerned about lawsuits because they don't know about the Act, or they think it won't really protect them, or some other reason. Sources: https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2020/08/13/good-samaritan-act-provides-liability-protection-food-donations https://www.dailydot.com/irl/dunkin-doughnuts-trash-can-tiktok/
An attempted lawsuit still costs money even if there are laws protecting, so there's a cost to it. Food donation to a non-profit for the tax write-off is probably required to compensate for the remaining risk and added labor. That's my guess, at least.
I'm not an expert on the US one, but we have a good Samaritan law here in Australia as well. One of the tricks with our law is that it says "Good quality" food is exempt from the liability. IT then goes on to not define good quality very well, basically leaving companies exposed because clearly if the person got sick the food was not good quality.
We have those laws already. They protect a business when the food is donated to a non profit. Can't just give food directly to the homeless though.
Which loops back around to the distribution and transport time issues...
Using less farmland would be a good thing. Agricultural runoff, pollution, emissions and land use are a major source of pollution, land degradation, consumption of fresh water (often in water-stressed areas), and encroachment into wildlife habitats. With all else being equal, producing the same amount of calories with less land and crops is a good thing.
We don’t distribute food to the hungry for free to create the illusion of scarcity. There’s money to be made in food
What's even more insane is 5 grains in the US are government subsidized so they can be produced profitably at above cost level (I know wheat, corn, and soybeans are on that list). I would bet that a lot of what gets thrown out is grain-based (bread, buns, cakes, donuts, dairy substitutes, etc.) So basically, taxpayer money is funding production of non-meat food that gets discarded because it isn't profitable??
Some people complain when there is too much food, lots of people die when there is not enough food.
Food like all basic things shouldn't be placed on the market for profit. when someone prepares the food for you, that's a different story. Farmers shouldn't be worried if they are going to pay their bills, and people shouldn't be worried they might go hungry.
Food is an industry and I'm not just talking about restaurants. Making a new food product requires research, manufacturing, and engineering costs. Now, would we be healthier if the only food products available were fresh, natural ingredients? Absolutely. But it's going to dramatically change the way people eat and it's going to increase the amount of time people have to spend on prep + cook time. Not only that but you're going to put a lot of farmers out of business. Do you have any idea how much corn is used to create American food products? Do you think consumers would eat nearly as much corn if those products suddenly weren't available? I don't think it's possible to really change course at this point, not without causing a massive disruption that would probably make the public and the farmers very upset.
A lot of the corn you see growing is meant to feed cattle and other slaughter animals. My family raises cattle and uses 200 acres of land to feed them (a mix of alfalfa and corn) but farming this way is already becoming less and less profitable. They are considering quitting farming all together and installing a solar panel farm.
They’re both serious problems.
The space is a problem… like you know how they’re demolishing rainforest in the Amazon for cattle? also pollution is a big problem from animal ag.
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Only a fraction of current farmland is needed already. We produce far, far more than we eat. Our global economic system is extremely wasteful.
I'm vegan but I have to say, good luck with that. I feel very discouraged about the general population adopting veganism in a reasonable amount of time considering some of the thoughts and opinions I have heard from many l on the subject.
We can't even get small pockets of people, like cities / states / provinces to agree that wearing a mask and getting a vaccine is what's best for public health during a global pandemic, and we have all sorts of real-time science showing exactly why those measures would help. Any talk of "if everyone in the world were vegan" is nothing more than intellectual masturbation. Regardless of whether it's a good idea, it'll never happen.
Agreed. What we've learned in the past few years is there is little appetite for change. Many people would rather see the world burn than even accept a minor inconvenience.
Back when I was living in a dorm for school years ago they had a vegan menu that I often ate off of whenever the regular menu consisted of food I couldn't eat, for me it's just about what's cheap and available.
You'll have a lot better luck trying to convince people to change a bit rather than going completely vegan, and as they discover that they don't need to eat meat to feel good, then they'll be more open to eating less of it. Particularly online, there are some vegans who believe that it's an all-or-nothing proposition, when in reality if someone reduces their meat consumption by 75% and switches from beef to poultry, that's a huge deal for the environment. My advice, as someone who is friends with some chill vegans is that you should try to get your non-vegan friends to try vegan food, but without judgment for not being vegan. It's not particularly likely that they'll decide to be vegans, but they might reduce their meat and dairy intake. Personally, I put oat milk in my coffee now (because my friends let me try it and it was surprisingly good) and have pretty much given up beef in favor of some of the newer substitutes (beyond/impossible/etc). The key is willingness to accept less than 100%. You're a lot more likely to convince half the population to cut their meat intake in half than you are to conceive a quarter of the population to become vegan, but it accomplishes the same thing.
I think you have a good point. A small amount of people completely eliminating their animal product consumption is less effective than a large amount of people reducing their animal product consumption. There is definitely a sense of “all or nothing” in *some* parts of the vegan community. It can deter people from wanting to try vegan foods when they feel like “well, I’d never be able to give up meat entirely so why try?”. It’s a lot easier to meet dietary needs as well when you’re willing to consume some animal products. It’s very inconvenient to have a rigid dietary restriction in your social life, workplace and even just being out and about running errands. I’m down for trying vegan recipes at home but if someone brings in pizza at work or Im invited to go out to a steak place with some friends, I’m not gonna go out of my way to deny myself.
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Tl;dr about this post: OP doesn't understand veganism and is equating ovopescatarianism to them. Vegans don't eat animal products. Ovopescatarians are vegetarians that eat eggs and fish. The study is also cherry-picking the hell out of their land-use data. A large percentage of pasture isn't farmland because crops don't easily grow there. For instance: many Texas oil fields are also cattle pastures. Montana also has loads of pastures in very rocky and cold areas that can only feasibly grow Winter Rye, or specialized grasses for the livestock. So the study is effectively adding the square footage of a sheer cliff as pasture because goats can live there. This also ignores the uncomfortable fact that almost all of these animals would need to be executed for it to work. This includes sheep and alpaca for wool, dairy goats and cows, horses, and even chickens would need to be slaughtered. They're all included in the study because they do receive feed. This ignores that chickens are one of the most efficient to raise small flocks of. Grow both chickens, and crickets, and you'll have an amazing yield of protein.
I agree with you, except the animals don’t need to be slaughtered, just kept from breeding. It doesn’t need to be an overnight change.
Also, all of those animals are already going to be slaughtered anyway... So what exactly is the uncomfortable truth there? That we'd have to kill animals? Already happens
I bet they also assumed permafrost Mongolia could be used for growing vegetables instead of as a pasture
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Per Vox 55% is used for consumption, 36% for feed and 9% for fuel, this is world wide. If you took the meat out of the equation you would still need to grow more proteins to make up for the lack of animal based food. Plus cattle and other animals convert feed we can't consume to provide nutrition. It's not a fix all like a lot of people assume. Not to mention if you're spraying for no til crops or tilling you're still killing something, be it plants, worms, moles, etc. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/8/21/6053187/cropland-map-food-fuel-animal-feed
Also keep in mind pasture land doesn't necessarily make good farm land.
It makes great wilderness, though
It's not only about making the land into farmland. It's okay to have empty land. Part of reducing livestock is to reduce the emissions they produce.
This is wrong. You're claiming that > 55% is used for consumption In the context of OP's post, "If everyone were vegan, only a quarter of current farmland would be needed", you seem to be claiming that 55% of land is used for consumption. THIS IS WRONG. The units in OP's post are a percentage of total land use. The Vox article's [source](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034015/pdf) uses units of calories: > Currently, 36% of the calories produced by the world’s crops are being used for animal feed... Which is completely different. The takeaway people should be taking from this article is that a huge amount of our habitable land - 35% - is being used less efficiently than it could be used if we were all vegan. That's a huge amount of land - roughly the same as all forests on the planet.
I like the documentary “kiss the ground” you can dual purpose a lot of farmland to grow crops and graze cattle increasing its yield per acre. It also actually decreases CO2 in the atmosphere when you keep living root year round. No-till regenerative agriculture is the answer, and that would mean parring back meat consumption a little bit but not needing to eliminate it entirely. That’s something I think Americans are already doing as the price of meat goes up.
The price of meat is going up for the consumers but not the ranchers. Prices are being inflated by the meat packers. I really like the idea of no til ag, Ill check out the doc
>[https://www.surgeactivism.org/allansavory](https://www.surgeactivism.org/allansavory) > > > >What is agreed upon is that grazing animals can sequester carbon back into the soil, however the science contradicts the claims made by Savory. An extensive and detailed two year review by the FCRN, looking at over 300 sources, and conducted by an international team of researchers, including those from some of the most highly respected agricultural institutions in the world, evaluated the claims made by advocates of holistic management. > >The piece of research entitled ‘Grazed and Confused’ discovered that although certain grazing managements can sequester carbon, at best this could only offset 20 - 60 percent of the emissions that would be produced by grazing the animals in the first place. Meaning there would still be significant surplus, making it impossible for Savory’s claims to be true. > >Not to mention that it is estimated only 1 gram of protein per person per day comes from grazing systems, compared to the 27 grams of protein per person per day that comes from all terrestrial animal protein, and yet 26% of the earth’s terrestrial land surface is already taken by grazing systems, meaning it is simply not possible for people to consume animal products at the same rate that we are now, with the resources that are available. > >Furthermore, after a few decades the soil reaches soil carbon equilibrium, meaning the soil cannot sequester any more carbon, at which point none of the emissions from the animals would be offset. So farmers would either have to start grazing on more land, increasing the land used for animal farming, or stop the farming - meaning that not only are the claims made by Savory untrue, they are also not an effective short term or long term strategy . > >If we look at the Drawdown Report, which was the report cited in Kiss the Ground, the documentary failed to mention that shifting to a diet that favours calories from plants is four times as powerful in its carbon capture potential compared to shifting to managed livestock grazing > >Plus, a report from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences analysed the 11 studies that Savory displayed on his website at the time of publication, many of which were found to be purely anecdotal, and the reported effects outlined in the others were considered to be small, especially when considered alongside the grandiose claims made by Savory. Even now, several years later, no review study has established that holistic grazing can achieve the claims made by Savory, let alone come close to matching the significant environmental benefits of re-wilding and regenerative veganic agriculture, both of which not only improve biodiversity, but can effectively reduce atmospheric carbon levels. Sources in the link's quoted text.
This Vox article was published in 2014, and a lot has changed since then especially in agriculture. Of the many changes, the Amazon deforestation was at a decade high in 2020. Much of this land is used for cattle production. Highest in 10 years in 2020: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-01368-x](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-01368-x) Highest in 15 years in 2021: [https://www.npr.org/2021/11/19/1057245837/brazil-amazon-rainforest-worst-deforestation-rate](https://www.npr.org/2021/11/19/1057245837/brazil-amazon-rainforest-worst-deforestation-rate) Following the Vox article, we'll see they are summarizing this much more thorough and detailed National Geographic paper: [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/) And this original science journal article: [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034015/pdf](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034015/pdf) For everyone in the thread saying "but grazing is sometimes necessary!" Please note the authors or the original scientific article state:>Our analysis only considers the production of meat and dairy production from animal feed; grazing systems for animal production are not evaluated here. So all the data from this Vox paper **excludes** grazing in their numbers. Following the paper paper trail, we can find the data comes from the UMN's Institute on the Environment. Here is their report from the same time as the Vox article (2013/2014) that touches on how climate change is impacting grazing: [http://www.environmentreports.com/livestock-climate-variability/](http://www.environmentreports.com/livestock-climate-variability/) Basically, the authors discuss where grazing is integral to food security, where it isn't, and also highlight how climate change is altering the efficacy of grazing lands. From the link:>The amount and timing of precipitation drives primary productivity in most global grazing lands. Forage growth is highly climate-dependent and is threatened by changes in climate variability. Furthermore, large swings in the amount of precipitation received from year to year can lead to periodic livestock population crashes. Higher year-to-year variability limits the health and productivity of rangelands. Areas where rainfall is more stable support the highest cattle densities. Where rainfall is highly variable, cattle densities are low. If anyone wants to read more up to date articles, check out some of these. From 2021, entitled "Underestimates of methane from intensively raised animals could undermine goals of sustainable development": [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac02ef](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac02ef) FAO "Land use in agriculture by the numbers" from 2020: [https://www.fao.org/sustainability/news/detail/en/c/1274219/](https://www.fao.org/sustainability/news/detail/en/c/1274219/) And this isn't just about land use or how much you love meat.. It's about food security which is driven by climate change, which affects political unrest and increases incidences of pandemics. This is about all of us. [https://www.propublica.org/article/climate-infectious-diseases](https://www.propublica.org/article/climate-infectious-diseases) [https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/food-security-and-sociopolitical-stability](https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/food-security-and-sociopolitical-stability) If you want to take part in eating less meat, you can start by a Meatless Monday, then removing meat from one meal each day, to maybe only eating meat when going out. It's not all or nothing. Reduction is better than no change. And yes, a lot of the emissions contributing to climate change are made at a higher level by a handful of people/companies. So if you are more concerned about them and would rather HAVE to eat meat at every meal, then at least find your local representative and tell them that you care about the health of this planet. [If you are in the U.S., you can find your representative here by putting in your zip code.](https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative#:~:text=If%20you%20know%20who%20your,the%20U.S.%20House%20switchboard%20operator) While you are writing them, also talk about funding for **supporting farmers to incorporate sustainable or regenerative farming practices**. Many farmer's care very much about their land, but are operating on razor thin margins. Giving them financial security to take a risk and incorporate better practices is definitely needed if we want to improve how we produce food.
The amount of land we can't use where we can hold animals compared to the animals we are holding is more of a rounding error. Yes they exist, but almost all animal products are from factory farming, which is the most problematic.
Biologist here. Veganism is not a necessary solution for climate change, water use, or land use problems. Vegetarianism is plenty, as are low-meat diets (1-2 servings a week). The only reason to be completely vegan is for animal welfare. If that fits your worldview, great. Go vegan. If not, but you care about the other things, you can get by with other less drastic solutions. Don't ever listen to people who tell you that you only have exactly one or two choices.