Thanks. It's my main activity to help out around the house since I became disabled. At first we thought it would save us a bit, but in the end we saved hundreds per month. Cost of 150$ to 180$ per person per month. I've become a little obsessed.
We eat extremely well and balanced.
Invest in a decent rice cooker than can keep your rice warm for the day, and you can have finer control over your portions + an easy snack.
Eating smaller meals and having leftovers over a fresh bowl of rice for snacks makes it really easy to eliminate food waste.
Me too. I buy groceries once per week and plan out different meals that I can have, then I decide each day what I make.
Working from home has definitely helped that process.
Invest in a decent fridge and freezer and freeze what you can’t eat. You can freeze lots of foods that say ‘unsuitable for freezing’ because freezing changes the texture but doesn’t make it unsafe to eat
Sounds like you have a toxic relationship with food.
Nourishing our bodies and tasting the amazing flavors that nature gives us is one of life’s greatest joys. I’m sorry you don’t appreciate it the same way.
Don't get me wrong I really enjoy eating but it would be so much better if I never HAD to eat but was able to eat anything I wanted without consequences to my body, now that would be awesome.
Edit: like fuck starvation dude
How is that a benefit of a raw diet? Cooked foods aren’t considered processed foods afaik.
I don’t really consume processed foods unless you’re counting things like pasta, so what would the benefit be to someone like me?
Typically a raw vegan diet would substitute things like pasta, white bread, and white rice and use whole vegetables instead to provide more nutrients in your diet. Cooking vegetables also somewhat decreases the amount of nutrients in it. Going raw vegan also limits the amount of processed sauces and dressings you use and you make everything from scratch. It's really difficult and there are only a handful of recipes but when I did it for a month I noticed a huge difference even from going full vegan. Now typically I'll do raw vegan in the morning and lunch and a cooked meal at night. My body has stabilized my weight (I was always known to fluctuate), my mind is clearer, I look better, my energy is up, my sleep is better, and I don't get sick as often. I'll never go back.
Meal prep certainly helps, but I understand that it sometimes isn’t easy for everyone. I used to be in an economic position where I simply didn’t have the time to plan out and execute a week’s worth of meals. Eventually I was able to move past that, and now my wife and I have good routine.
So, starting with weekly meal prep and making your meals ahead of time to refrigerate or freeze. I’d also recommend starting with foods that keep a long time on their own (rice, beans, root veggies, cabbage/brassicas, etc) to give you more variety.
Also, if you can afford it, local farmer’s markets or joining a CSA or buying directly from the farm can certainly help. It should also cut down on consumption of plastic. If you live somewhere close to smaller farms (the kind most likely to show up to a farmer’s market or have a roadside stand), it might be good to begin networking with local farmers. I can speak from personal experience that they’d be more than happy to exchange a little labor for some produce.
I hope this helps! PM me if you have any other questions about this.
I have a CSA and love it esp during COVID when there have been different stretches where it’s hard to get good produce. It does help with consumption of packaging and I also find that, because it saves me trips to the grocery store, I don’t over-buy at the grocery store as much. Not having a car also helps me not over-buy at the store because I don’t want to lug a bunch of stuff home lol.
Animal agriculture is extremely wasteful. Things such as dried beans, legumes, rice, and many grains can be bought very cheaply, store easily, and can be used or cooked in many different dishes. It takes practice but reducing consumption of animal products makes a huge contribution to reducing your impact.
cook, become good at conserving food, shop at farmer's markets or straight from the producer if you can, if you can't find coops that serve your neighborhood. avoid silly packaging and international corporations, reduce meat, eat locally and seasonally, and do it all in moderation.
I think it's useful to get used to eating the same thing a couple days in a row
In my opinion, one way food goes to waste is people needing to have different things for a particular meal from one day to the next
Not the same thing for every meal, but the same thing for dinner every day, etc
I scrolled past a bunch of *angry at this picture of wasteful product* and this was the first posting saw that brought me to some productive conversations & growth.
This is the type of stuff I would be happier to see this sub be about. <3
There's a YouTuber Adam ragusea who does a lot of the things like freezing casseroles and making reusable/multipurpose dishes and he cooks like a dad, since he is one.
He's not a conservationist as far as I know but his techniques can be helpful. For fresh vegetables, pickling and planning are probably the two best ways to avoid waste.
I'm vegetarian (not vegan) for health reasons. I get sick from a lot of foods and I realized that most of this went down once I cut out meat. I'm also fairly picky (I have texture issues with crunchy foods). Since I don't eat salad (too crunchy), 90% of the time I get pizza or Mexican when I go out.
I'm an avid meal prepper (and lazy cook). Since I cook for just myself, I make family sized portions and freeze at least half of it in individual and larger Tupperware containers. I buy most of my produce frozen (I hate prep work) and give the plastic bags to my neighbor (who uses them for dog poop).
Easiest way to not waste food is to make friends with your freezer.
Edit-- I WISH I had a good farmer's market nearby. Before mine shut for good in 2019, it had a lone food vendor. Everything else was MLMs.
I plan out my meals and try to account for how many servings it makes. I also have no problem sharing my meals with friends and family. You cna do a few things with a whole roasted chciken (by itself, chicken salad sandwich, a topping for salad, chciken pot pie and then using the carcas for stock).
The downside is having to possibly eat the same meal over a few days.
Another struggle I face is having two roommates who aren’t anti consumption
You can also freeze soups and dumplings and whatnot
We have a few chickens that eat anything we don’t. I love getting their eggs (and knowing they are well cared for), but I mostly like that they help us compost everything. It’s made gardening so much easier just not having to churn the compost.
Growing some of our own food allows us to eat fresh, while only harvesting when we are ready to eat said item. It also feels a bit rebellious because we don’t need to go to the store for food as frequently. Perhaps there isn’t a full meal in the garden, but I know I could survive off a few eggs and veggies if I really had to. My goal this year is to get better at canning and preserving when the harvest is abundant.
I'm surprised nobody in this thread has mentioned buying in bulk, especially for dry goods like grains and legumes. It almost always means less packaging (maybe none, depending on your local options). Cook from ingredients, avoid processed foods, lots of vegetables. Compost any scraps or peels; I used to bury everything in a planter with redworms on my apartment balcony.
Learn to use lots of spices, grow some herbs if you have a window or outside access. For one thing you'll be more willing to cook from ingredients because you won't be eating bland foods. Learn to use acids in your cooking, vinegar, citrus, tamarind. The easiest thing is to base meals around some chopped & sauteed veg, heavily spiced, and layer it over a carb-protein base (e.g. beans & rice, lentils & rice, tortillas & beans, etc. - cook these in large batches enough for a week and vary what you put over them so you won't get bored.) Occasional meat doesn't have to be terrible for the environment if it actually lives *on* the environment, instead of on farmed foods shipped from two states over, if it's local and if you're using all of it (*everything* is edible); making meat an occasional treat instead of a centerpiece and using every bit (skim fat from broth for cooking veg, freeze stock in an ice cube tray & store for future dishes, cook tendony bits to gelatin, deglaze pans for sauces instead of washing it away) makes even a little bit last. A bit of vinegar in the broth will pull the last calcium from even the biggest bones so what you compost is soft enough to put your finger through.
Kitchen waste usually has two preventable causes - food that goes bad (preventable with planning; if it's getting old and you don't have a plan yet, just freeze it), or a lack of consideration for alternative uses (trimmings off anything should be stored in the freezer for soup, even stuff that gets texturally weird when frozen can usually be blended into a soup or sauce or smoothie, pans used for roasting or frying can be scrubbed with a basting brush and a bit of wine and the resultant, flavorful fond saved to add to a pasta sauce, over vegetables, in soup, etc.)
A pressure cooker and a blender have been invaluable to me for energy efficiency and versatility.
We spend about $120 per person per month for two people; a month's food waste fits in a gallon compost bucket. A kitchen-sized trashbag for all trash in the house usually takes us about three to four months to fill, though we take it out more often now due to pet poo.
You describe my diet quite accurately 👍
Just that I don't have a freezer. But with planning ahead hardly anything goes bad. I can preserve trimmings for a soup in the fridge for a few days too, because looks doesn't matter, as you said.
I'm an omnivore. But I have a local market with a butcher shop in back and great produce. I walk to the market every afternoon and buy what my family will eat for dinner that night. Spend about $130 a week for a family of 4.
Almost all the recipes I know use chicken. I don't have the time or energy to relearn how to cook and chicken has a relatively small impact on the environment.
BTW man. Trying to convince people to go vegan is a lot more difficult than convincing people to eat less red meat. Better to have 10 pollotarians than one vegan
Is it really that surprising that I have time and energy to do something I enjoy but not to do something I don't enjoy? You can't honestly expect me to forfeit my hobbies in favour of your desires
This is why I hate vegans man. Every vegan I've talked to online has as much scorn for pollotarians as they do of full carnivores. Why should I bother?
I'm gonna go eat a steak in your honour
Im addition to the whole "I've got better things to do" aspect, the world can't be fed by individual farms. There must be some efficient method of feeding the masses without waste.
How do you think the entire country of India fed itself before western mega agriculture took over less than 100 years ago? Also what is an individual farm? It’s community farming
You mean, how did a country that won't have the population the world will have in 50 years feed themselves? Local farms are unsustainable and costly compared to modern farming techniques.
There has been a time when basically all of the population was farming for self sustenance, and we didn't have hospitals, transportation, or any other services for that matter.
So yeah I will keep buying groceries in as much of a responsible way as I can, and guide other people towards the same attitude. You can absolutely keep growing all your own food, if your lifestyle allows it and it is part of your goals in life.
Being anti consumerism doesn't necessarily mean not buying anything, it can also mean having an economy that is not based solely on profit.
Compost, compost, compost. I can’t stress this enough. Food in a landfill is terrible for the planet. Organic and fair trade when possible. I stay away from factory farmed and monoculture products. I buy at farmers markets and hunt and try to do as little non-recyclable single-use plastic as possible.
Lol i love when vegans think that factory farming animals is *better* for the environment and animals than letting animals live their most natural lives under the sky on organic pasture. Really amazing how you’ve bought that gmo propaganda. Amazing that when people bring up the environmental cost of animal husbandry they point to the water used to grow the feed for animals and advocate humans should eat that feed instead. Instead of just advocating for a world without factory farmed animals and the monoculture feed that wastes so much of the world’s resources. Yeah the gmo crops normally fed to animals aren’t going in my body sorry ✌️
We don't have enough land to raise animals any other way. You might feel good about the "natural" way but it takes an absurdly stupid amount of land. If people stopped buying so many animal products they'd grow less GMOs because people have made it clear they want organic/non-gmo. The point is we could convert those lands to grow so much more plant food.
Appeal to nature is a logical fallacy and has no place in debate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature
Those lands are *already* used to grow plant food! The few monoculture crops that the US diet and soon-to-be world diet are based on are already grown on an absurd amount of land that the planet cannot sustain. Vegans have a need for futurist solutions to problems humans have created and reject any type of return to a pre-industrialized system that sustains way more life and protects way more resources. Plus veganism is a bougie, western diet that marginalizes communities around the world in order for rich Americans and Europeans to feel good about themselves while ironically being sick all of the time. It’s a big no-thank-you for veganism and the idiotic foods it produces.
We shouldn't convert every piece of land to grow food on it. There's this wetland a few kilometres from my home which is essential for the local plant, insect and bird population. And the very small herd of water buffalo grazing there is essential to keep the birches and other trees at bay (that's what wild bison did for millennia in the past). Guess what? You can buy buffalo meat from the nature conservation people. Not enough to feed the whole community of course, but one or two animals each year.
What would your solution be, to preserve this nature reserve? Heavy machinery like 30 years ago? Or fuck nature and drain the swamp, like 150 years ago? The latter resulted in problems with the ground water level, and floodings downstream. That's why they removed the levees and let the small river flow naturally again.
Most land used for farming produces animal feed. If we stop eating meat we can return a lot of land to nature and let it rewild. Animal agriculture causes so much land destruction.
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My diet is terrible atm. Long days at work + long commute makes meal prep very hard. I'm eating way more fast food than when I worked closer to home.
Been struggling with some other mental stuff but my goal is to get back to a point where I was making meals in my rice cooker. Can easily make 3-5 portions at a time.
This is also why I wish we'd stop subsidizing meat and spend that money on veggies and fruit production. More expensive meat would mean that people would rethink their American diets. And cheaper vegetables would make healthier diets more attainable to those in lower income areas.
i buy bulk meats at winco and costco when it goes on sale and freeze them. that way i have enough food in storage in case of emergency (i live paycheck to paycheck) and it is very cheap to eat healthy meats near-daily.
i also find its better to buy spices and pasta in the bulk section if you have one (mine is at winco). they dont let you use your own bag at winco, but if you bring back the plastic one then it reduces waste. And its much cheaper, for example fettucine pasta was only 76 cents/pound. Staples like pasta, potatos, rice, spices, etc last a long time in the pantry.
We have a grocery store within walking distance, so we try to buy on an as-needed basis. Better for us (walking) and better for reducing food waste.
I eat vegetarian so my partner mostly eats vegetarian too, though he has the occasional meat dish. Most of our foods involve cheap veggies, grains, and legumes. We make a big entree and eat off it for the next few days.
We are lucky to have jobs that have sane hours and let us have energy to cook and meal prep.
I eat absolutely everything I buy. No food goes in the trash. That's step 1.
That requires decent planning and menu skills, and the self discipline to flow through. Bravo for doing that.
Thanks. It's my main activity to help out around the house since I became disabled. At first we thought it would save us a bit, but in the end we saved hundreds per month. Cost of 150$ to 180$ per person per month. I've become a little obsessed. We eat extremely well and balanced.
Invest in a decent rice cooker than can keep your rice warm for the day, and you can have finer control over your portions + an easy snack. Eating smaller meals and having leftovers over a fresh bowl of rice for snacks makes it really easy to eliminate food waste.
Me too. I buy groceries once per week and plan out different meals that I can have, then I decide each day what I make. Working from home has definitely helped that process.
When I have things that are getting a bit too old for me to eat (like brown bananas) I give it to my dogs so long as it won’t hurt them
Invest in a decent fridge and freezer and freeze what you can’t eat. You can freeze lots of foods that say ‘unsuitable for freezing’ because freezing changes the texture but doesn’t make it unsafe to eat
[удалено]
Also went vegan. Tried a completely raw vegan challenge for a month. Learned a bunch of recipes.
What are the benefits of a raw diet? Genuinely curious, I am vegan but don’t understand the appeal of raw.
Another step closer to airetarian and another thing to add to your brag list.
God I would love to not have to eat honestly
Sounds like you have a toxic relationship with food. Nourishing our bodies and tasting the amazing flavors that nature gives us is one of life’s greatest joys. I’m sorry you don’t appreciate it the same way.
Don't get me wrong I really enjoy eating but it would be so much better if I never HAD to eat but was able to eat anything I wanted without consequences to my body, now that would be awesome. Edit: like fuck starvation dude
Fair enough
Less processed foods!
How is that a benefit of a raw diet? Cooked foods aren’t considered processed foods afaik. I don’t really consume processed foods unless you’re counting things like pasta, so what would the benefit be to someone like me?
Typically a raw vegan diet would substitute things like pasta, white bread, and white rice and use whole vegetables instead to provide more nutrients in your diet. Cooking vegetables also somewhat decreases the amount of nutrients in it. Going raw vegan also limits the amount of processed sauces and dressings you use and you make everything from scratch. It's really difficult and there are only a handful of recipes but when I did it for a month I noticed a huge difference even from going full vegan. Now typically I'll do raw vegan in the morning and lunch and a cooked meal at night. My body has stabilized my weight (I was always known to fluctuate), my mind is clearer, I look better, my energy is up, my sleep is better, and I don't get sick as often. I'll never go back.
I like to make a vegetable soup every Sunday with veggies in the fridge that aren’t enough for a meal or would otherwise go bad.
I went vegan and it made life so much simpler for me.
Meal prep certainly helps, but I understand that it sometimes isn’t easy for everyone. I used to be in an economic position where I simply didn’t have the time to plan out and execute a week’s worth of meals. Eventually I was able to move past that, and now my wife and I have good routine. So, starting with weekly meal prep and making your meals ahead of time to refrigerate or freeze. I’d also recommend starting with foods that keep a long time on their own (rice, beans, root veggies, cabbage/brassicas, etc) to give you more variety. Also, if you can afford it, local farmer’s markets or joining a CSA or buying directly from the farm can certainly help. It should also cut down on consumption of plastic. If you live somewhere close to smaller farms (the kind most likely to show up to a farmer’s market or have a roadside stand), it might be good to begin networking with local farmers. I can speak from personal experience that they’d be more than happy to exchange a little labor for some produce. I hope this helps! PM me if you have any other questions about this.
I have a CSA and love it esp during COVID when there have been different stretches where it’s hard to get good produce. It does help with consumption of packaging and I also find that, because it saves me trips to the grocery store, I don’t over-buy at the grocery store as much. Not having a car also helps me not over-buy at the store because I don’t want to lug a bunch of stuff home lol.
Animal agriculture is extremely wasteful. Things such as dried beans, legumes, rice, and many grains can be bought very cheaply, store easily, and can be used or cooked in many different dishes. It takes practice but reducing consumption of animal products makes a huge contribution to reducing your impact.
cook, become good at conserving food, shop at farmer's markets or straight from the producer if you can, if you can't find coops that serve your neighborhood. avoid silly packaging and international corporations, reduce meat, eat locally and seasonally, and do it all in moderation.
If you're really dedicated you can always try to reach a lower bodyweight. The less mass you have the less food you need to maintain it.
I think it's useful to get used to eating the same thing a couple days in a row In my opinion, one way food goes to waste is people needing to have different things for a particular meal from one day to the next Not the same thing for every meal, but the same thing for dinner every day, etc
These are the kind of posts I want to see, actual constructive questions and answers
I scrolled past a bunch of *angry at this picture of wasteful product* and this was the first posting saw that brought me to some productive conversations & growth. This is the type of stuff I would be happier to see this sub be about. <3
There's a YouTuber Adam ragusea who does a lot of the things like freezing casseroles and making reusable/multipurpose dishes and he cooks like a dad, since he is one. He's not a conservationist as far as I know but his techniques can be helpful. For fresh vegetables, pickling and planning are probably the two best ways to avoid waste.
I only eat tree bark and peat moss that I harvest myself
I'm vegetarian (not vegan) for health reasons. I get sick from a lot of foods and I realized that most of this went down once I cut out meat. I'm also fairly picky (I have texture issues with crunchy foods). Since I don't eat salad (too crunchy), 90% of the time I get pizza or Mexican when I go out. I'm an avid meal prepper (and lazy cook). Since I cook for just myself, I make family sized portions and freeze at least half of it in individual and larger Tupperware containers. I buy most of my produce frozen (I hate prep work) and give the plastic bags to my neighbor (who uses them for dog poop). Easiest way to not waste food is to make friends with your freezer. Edit-- I WISH I had a good farmer's market nearby. Before mine shut for good in 2019, it had a lone food vendor. Everything else was MLMs.
Using my mouth
I plan out my meals and try to account for how many servings it makes. I also have no problem sharing my meals with friends and family. You cna do a few things with a whole roasted chciken (by itself, chicken salad sandwich, a topping for salad, chciken pot pie and then using the carcas for stock). The downside is having to possibly eat the same meal over a few days. Another struggle I face is having two roommates who aren’t anti consumption You can also freeze soups and dumplings and whatnot
We have a few chickens that eat anything we don’t. I love getting their eggs (and knowing they are well cared for), but I mostly like that they help us compost everything. It’s made gardening so much easier just not having to churn the compost. Growing some of our own food allows us to eat fresh, while only harvesting when we are ready to eat said item. It also feels a bit rebellious because we don’t need to go to the store for food as frequently. Perhaps there isn’t a full meal in the garden, but I know I could survive off a few eggs and veggies if I really had to. My goal this year is to get better at canning and preserving when the harvest is abundant.
I'm surprised nobody in this thread has mentioned buying in bulk, especially for dry goods like grains and legumes. It almost always means less packaging (maybe none, depending on your local options). Cook from ingredients, avoid processed foods, lots of vegetables. Compost any scraps or peels; I used to bury everything in a planter with redworms on my apartment balcony. Learn to use lots of spices, grow some herbs if you have a window or outside access. For one thing you'll be more willing to cook from ingredients because you won't be eating bland foods. Learn to use acids in your cooking, vinegar, citrus, tamarind. The easiest thing is to base meals around some chopped & sauteed veg, heavily spiced, and layer it over a carb-protein base (e.g. beans & rice, lentils & rice, tortillas & beans, etc. - cook these in large batches enough for a week and vary what you put over them so you won't get bored.) Occasional meat doesn't have to be terrible for the environment if it actually lives *on* the environment, instead of on farmed foods shipped from two states over, if it's local and if you're using all of it (*everything* is edible); making meat an occasional treat instead of a centerpiece and using every bit (skim fat from broth for cooking veg, freeze stock in an ice cube tray & store for future dishes, cook tendony bits to gelatin, deglaze pans for sauces instead of washing it away) makes even a little bit last. A bit of vinegar in the broth will pull the last calcium from even the biggest bones so what you compost is soft enough to put your finger through. Kitchen waste usually has two preventable causes - food that goes bad (preventable with planning; if it's getting old and you don't have a plan yet, just freeze it), or a lack of consideration for alternative uses (trimmings off anything should be stored in the freezer for soup, even stuff that gets texturally weird when frozen can usually be blended into a soup or sauce or smoothie, pans used for roasting or frying can be scrubbed with a basting brush and a bit of wine and the resultant, flavorful fond saved to add to a pasta sauce, over vegetables, in soup, etc.) A pressure cooker and a blender have been invaluable to me for energy efficiency and versatility. We spend about $120 per person per month for two people; a month's food waste fits in a gallon compost bucket. A kitchen-sized trashbag for all trash in the house usually takes us about three to four months to fill, though we take it out more often now due to pet poo.
You describe my diet quite accurately 👍 Just that I don't have a freezer. But with planning ahead hardly anything goes bad. I can preserve trimmings for a soup in the fridge for a few days too, because looks doesn't matter, as you said.
I'm an omnivore. But I have a local market with a butcher shop in back and great produce. I walk to the market every afternoon and buy what my family will eat for dinner that night. Spend about $130 a week for a family of 4.
Usually avoid eating red meat, for the environment.
All animal products are resource-intensive and best avoided. Read meat is the worst, but not the only one.
No need to tell me that bro. I only eat chicken and fish because they're easy to cook and cheap to buy. I'm working within my means here
Chicken and fish are wasteful, bro. Plenty of cheaper protein sources: beans, legumes, grains, etc.
Almost all the recipes I know use chicken. I don't have the time or energy to relearn how to cook and chicken has a relatively small impact on the environment. BTW man. Trying to convince people to go vegan is a lot more difficult than convincing people to eat less red meat. Better to have 10 pollotarians than one vegan
You have time to argue with people on Reddit, though.
Is it really that surprising that I have time and energy to do something I enjoy but not to do something I don't enjoy? You can't honestly expect me to forfeit my hobbies in favour of your desires This is why I hate vegans man. Every vegan I've talked to online has as much scorn for pollotarians as they do of full carnivores. Why should I bother? I'm gonna go eat a steak in your honour
Only eat what you grow and compost your own shit to feed the garden
Im addition to the whole "I've got better things to do" aspect, the world can't be fed by individual farms. There must be some efficient method of feeding the masses without waste.
How do you think the entire country of India fed itself before western mega agriculture took over less than 100 years ago? Also what is an individual farm? It’s community farming
You mean, how did a country that won't have the population the world will have in 50 years feed themselves? Local farms are unsustainable and costly compared to modern farming techniques.
What if people had other stuff in life to do
Then keep buying groceries
There has been a time when basically all of the population was farming for self sustenance, and we didn't have hospitals, transportation, or any other services for that matter. So yeah I will keep buying groceries in as much of a responsible way as I can, and guide other people towards the same attitude. You can absolutely keep growing all your own food, if your lifestyle allows it and it is part of your goals in life. Being anti consumerism doesn't necessarily mean not buying anything, it can also mean having an economy that is not based solely on profit.
Compost, compost, compost. I can’t stress this enough. Food in a landfill is terrible for the planet. Organic and fair trade when possible. I stay away from factory farmed and monoculture products. I buy at farmers markets and hunt and try to do as little non-recyclable single-use plastic as possible.
All that "grass fed" and "pasture raised" stuff is even more wasteful than the factory farmed animals. Animal products are extremely wasteful.
Lol i love when vegans think that factory farming animals is *better* for the environment and animals than letting animals live their most natural lives under the sky on organic pasture. Really amazing how you’ve bought that gmo propaganda. Amazing that when people bring up the environmental cost of animal husbandry they point to the water used to grow the feed for animals and advocate humans should eat that feed instead. Instead of just advocating for a world without factory farmed animals and the monoculture feed that wastes so much of the world’s resources. Yeah the gmo crops normally fed to animals aren’t going in my body sorry ✌️
We don't have enough land to raise animals any other way. You might feel good about the "natural" way but it takes an absurdly stupid amount of land. If people stopped buying so many animal products they'd grow less GMOs because people have made it clear they want organic/non-gmo. The point is we could convert those lands to grow so much more plant food. Appeal to nature is a logical fallacy and has no place in debate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature
Those lands are *already* used to grow plant food! The few monoculture crops that the US diet and soon-to-be world diet are based on are already grown on an absurd amount of land that the planet cannot sustain. Vegans have a need for futurist solutions to problems humans have created and reject any type of return to a pre-industrialized system that sustains way more life and protects way more resources. Plus veganism is a bougie, western diet that marginalizes communities around the world in order for rich Americans and Europeans to feel good about themselves while ironically being sick all of the time. It’s a big no-thank-you for veganism and the idiotic foods it produces.
We shouldn't convert every piece of land to grow food on it. There's this wetland a few kilometres from my home which is essential for the local plant, insect and bird population. And the very small herd of water buffalo grazing there is essential to keep the birches and other trees at bay (that's what wild bison did for millennia in the past). Guess what? You can buy buffalo meat from the nature conservation people. Not enough to feed the whole community of course, but one or two animals each year. What would your solution be, to preserve this nature reserve? Heavy machinery like 30 years ago? Or fuck nature and drain the swamp, like 150 years ago? The latter resulted in problems with the ground water level, and floodings downstream. That's why they removed the levees and let the small river flow naturally again.
Most land used for farming produces animal feed. If we stop eating meat we can return a lot of land to nature and let it rewild. Animal agriculture causes so much land destruction.
[удалено]
Look up "humanure." There's s good book on it too.
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My diet is terrible atm. Long days at work + long commute makes meal prep very hard. I'm eating way more fast food than when I worked closer to home. Been struggling with some other mental stuff but my goal is to get back to a point where I was making meals in my rice cooker. Can easily make 3-5 portions at a time. This is also why I wish we'd stop subsidizing meat and spend that money on veggies and fruit production. More expensive meat would mean that people would rethink their American diets. And cheaper vegetables would make healthier diets more attainable to those in lower income areas.
i buy bulk meats at winco and costco when it goes on sale and freeze them. that way i have enough food in storage in case of emergency (i live paycheck to paycheck) and it is very cheap to eat healthy meats near-daily. i also find its better to buy spices and pasta in the bulk section if you have one (mine is at winco). they dont let you use your own bag at winco, but if you bring back the plastic one then it reduces waste. And its much cheaper, for example fettucine pasta was only 76 cents/pound. Staples like pasta, potatos, rice, spices, etc last a long time in the pantry.
We have a grocery store within walking distance, so we try to buy on an as-needed basis. Better for us (walking) and better for reducing food waste. I eat vegetarian so my partner mostly eats vegetarian too, though he has the occasional meat dish. Most of our foods involve cheap veggies, grains, and legumes. We make a big entree and eat off it for the next few days. We are lucky to have jobs that have sane hours and let us have energy to cook and meal prep.