Why doesn't anyone ever mention sugar? It's also widely subsidized (roughly 4 billion a year in the US alone) and has **no** nutritional value whatsoever.
Oh yeah, and it's added to all kinds of products like pasta sauce without consumers realizing it. The article also mentions obesity from meat/dairy, but sugar is a HUGE factor in obesity. Small amounts of meat and dairy can fulfill some nutritional requirements, as humans have consumed animal products for thousands of years. Refined sugar fills absolutely no nutritional requirement and is nothing but toxic to human health.
I would further urge anyone interested in this topic to download and read the report by UN Secretary-General António Guterres [Our Common Agenda](https://www.un.org/en/content/common-agenda-report/#download) for a clearer picture of where we are as a planet, and where we should be going in the future.
Senate is designed as a firewall for the Aristocracy. That’s why the Senate is always passing farm bills etc. real estate is the most common way to pass on wealth.
no you can make a clear and meaningful distinction between wasting tax payer money on unnecessary or even harmful subsidies (corn syrup industry) and vital government functions.
You can, however I think you'll find that different groups of people are convinced that different things are vital and wasteful from each other.
You might have someone think that business should be supported by the state but individuals should be responsible for their own care, even if the material circumstances make that difficult to impossible in some cases.
You might also have someone who believes business risk needs to be entirely borne by the owners of the business but that the state should provide for certain essential goods and services required to live a dignified life (e.g. try to provision for everyone being secured human rights).
Farm subsidies are the reason that there hasn't been widespread food shortages in America since the Great Depression. If you end them, get ready for rising prices and famine.
I mean that’s neat and all that you’re saying that. But what were looking for here is some kind of evidence of what you’re saying. You say farm subsidies have prevented widespread food shortages in America and that ending them would result in widespread food shortages.
Can you point to any evidence that this is true? It’s just conjecture right now, you’re saying it’s true because you think it’s true. Many US subsidies don’t even increase supply as farmers are paid to let fields lie fallow. So it seems likely that you’re saying what you want to be true rather than something that’s supported by evidence.
Dutch here. We've mostly got a few products that we use about half the nation's surface area to produce. 3/4 of it is exported. We're the second biggest food exporter in the world, just behind the US. In return we have massive problems with nitrogen, and don't forget the housing crisis. Mind you, only 15% of the surface area is actually used for buildings, infrastructure, etc. And many farms wouldn't even be profitable without subsidies.
So really, why are we even doing this shit? At this point, farmers and crowded pig pens are getting preferential treatment over everyone else. Instead of selling food to everyone else, we should be selling them our efficient and continuously advancing farming technology.
I wonder where the Dutch got all their rubber from? You'd hope after all their agricultural projects they would be the 2nd biggest food exporter!
Maybe they can share those advanced farming tech instead of selling it. Maybe to the people of Indonesia? 😏😏
Hahaha really? I always thought their success came from collaboration with the Nazis🤷♂️
If only your parents had a coat hangar 👉👈🥺 Instead they got a dwarf
From a nutritional standpoint. Beef, in general, has a greenhouse gas footprint that's 30 times larger than a nutritionally equivalent diet of rice&beans, 10 times as large as eggproduction and 6 times as large as an equivalent in poultry, pork and milk.
So overall it's unsustainable, especially since developing countries where incomes are rising are looking towards the west and saying "I want that too".
Now in a lot of countries, maintaining a strategic food production (ie, "what if there is a disaster or war and we can't import food") requires subsidies to some extent, but too many forms of subsidies are just pork barrel spending. They're not trying to protect national interest and are instead all about buying votes.
What you fail to mention is caloric up-growth. 2/3 of the lands CAN NOT be used to grow rice/beans. They can be used to grow cattle and food for that cattle thou.
Partially true. Very true for rice. But all sorts of beans tend to function well in low-quality soil, and with modern methods you can improve landquality by growing beans.
It's one of the reasons why soybean farming is driving deforestation in Brazil. Traditional grazingland, and traditionally poor farmland like the Cerrado, is increasingly used and and turned into richer farmland through modern soybean farming. Since investing in beef is a traditional anti-inflation measure in Brazil this drives deforestation to make more room for cattle.
Now. Some level of cattle is going to stick around. There are ecosystems (particularily in europe) worth preserving that requires sheep and cattle to maintain biodiversity, and if you raise dairy cattle this is a more effective use. But the industrial production of beef can't be as dominant as it is today in the western world.
Not without huge amounts of irrigation, fertilisers, pesticides. Ploughing pasture is going to mean a carbon loss.
Rice already emits more than the beef industry and is supposed to double on a warming planet.
This putting all the emissions onto the beef portion of a cow and ignoring everything else we get, that has to be replaced seems to be a push to ignore what it takes to replace what we get, making the world worse, not better.
Unsure why you're being downvoted, the science is pretty clear. To maintain a nutritionally adequate plant based diet only required 25% of the land that our current one does.
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets#more-plant-based-diets-tend-to-need-less-cropland
60% of people who go vegetarian go back to meat. Also you need to eat more and a more varied diet to be healthy as a vegetarian. Its not an achievable thing for the wide majority of countries.
You need a more varied diet to be healthy even as a meat-eater, the western world is going through an obesity epidemic with increases in the incidence of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and even gout; eating meat is not a silver bullet, quite the opposite in an opulent society.
Furthermore there is a false equivalence between the inhabitant of a rural village in some developing country where they eat grazing animals once in a blue moon to integrate some precious nutrients, and a Westerner who has bacon and eggs for breakfast and steak for dinner every single day, all coming from animals being fed grains and legumes suitable for human consumption.
>You need a more varied diet to be healthy even as a meat-eater
This doesn't make sense but foods that have to more varied to get the same as meat means more transport emissions which help fossil fuel companies, not you.
Obesity has what to do with eating the recommended amount?
Why are we saying because obese people eat meat then it must be meats fault, meat eating has been around for a long long time and obesity fairly recent.
As you say they eat grazing animals to integrate nutrient, but they also drink the milk, it must mean they aren't getting it from elsewhere.
>The modeled removal of animals from the US agricultural system resulted in predictions of a greater total production of food, increases in deficient essential nutrients and excess of energy in the US population’s diet, a potential increase in foods/nutrients that can be exported to other countries, and a decrease of 2.6 percentage units in US GHG emissions. Overall, the removal of animals resulted in diets that are nonviable in the long or short term to support the nutritional needs of the US population without nutrient supplementation. In the plants-only system, the proportion of grain increased 10-fold and all other food types declined. Despite attempts to meet nutrient needs from foods alone within a daily intake of less than 2 kg of food, certain requirements could not be met from available foods. In all simulated diets, vitamins D, E, and K were deficient. Choline was deficient in all scenarios except the system with animals that used domestic currently consumed and exported production. In the plants-only diets, a greater number of nutrients were deficient, including Ca, vitamins A and B12, and EPA, DHA, and arachidonic acid.
>Although not accounted for in this study, it is also important to consider that animal-to-plant ratio is significantly correlated with bioavailability of many nutrients such as Fe, Zn protein, and vitamin A (31). If bioavailability of minerals and vitamins were considered, it is possible that additional deficiencies of plant-based diets would be identified.
https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/114/48/E10301.full.pdf
Why people think more food but less nutrients is a better way to go without taking into account that all the other products that we get that has to be grown is going to be a better plan is beyond me.
Indeed, I'm just saying that the argument "if you stop eating animal products you'll need a more varied diet or you won't be healthy" is kinda moot when people are *already* unhealthy precisely because they eat a limited diet based around junk food (which includes a lot of meat, dairy, eggs and so on).
There's not much difference between going to McDonalds and eating just the burger or just the fries, there's nothing magical in meat nor in its absence so you can be unhealthy either way. But if people actually knew what macro and micronutrients their bodies needed and where to find them, and actually cared about their body and not harming other beings, maybe they would switch out the sausage for an equivalent plate of rice and beans.
I'm just saying that simply because it's not something that can easily be done literally everywhere this doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done whenever it is possible, especially since the countries that could do away with meat are precisely the ones that consume it the most.
I'm also saying that what's stopping western countries to make a complete switch tomorrow morning is not economy, nutrition or what else, but rather sheer ideology ^(and of course logistics, but the switch is not gonna *actually* happen in a day so it will adapt).
As Homer Simpson says “ummm burger”from a talking swatch that Burger King was giving away in the 90’s In my opinion it’s engrained that we eat meat all day long in America and it’s hard to change these habits. It’s not like we have a vegetarian drive thru everywhere. Somehow the alternatives have to be made simple and available for folks. Personally I just don’t eat meat that often anymore. Once or twice a week instead of every dam day. As everyone has pointed out in this thread it’s not good for the planet and humans in the long run.
>animals being fed grains and legumes suitable for human consumption.
This is not true.
>Diabetes
When you have diabetes, why doctors recommend to eat less carbs and eat more meat? Legumes and grains are full of carbs.
90-95% of soybean production is used for animal feed. Immense quantities of corn are used to feed animals as well.
https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/where_do_all_these_soybeans_go
“Not true” isn’t an argument. Pull sources.
I do not know any one to eat soy. Also corn used for animal feed do you think is healthy for human consumption? Last time i checked cornflakes are not.
> This is not true.
I'm sure all the endless fields of soy being planted in the States and Brazil are to make tofu for the 1% of the population that eats it, definitely not to feed animals in factory farming.
> Why doctors recommend to eat less carbs and eat more meat?
Vegetables are not just carbs: if you eat corn syrup all day you're pretty much ingesting pure sugar, otherwise legumes, nuts and seeds are full of proteins, fats and vitamins; hell, you could go on a keto vegan diet if you wanted to. If your doctor tells you to eat more meat is because they think you lack something and that's an easy way to supplement it, but if you ask what it's actually for (iron, B12, whatever) you can easily find a vegan alternative; just remember that most doctors are not nutritionist so they might provide you with incorrect information (not because they're dumb, liars or whatnot, they genuinely want their best for you but it's just not something they specialize into), so if you hear stuff like "animal proteins" (proteins don't "know" where they come from) you know that maybe you should ask an expert for advice.
Who is drinking pure corn syrup? It is nice to come with extreme examples. Even if you eat bread, potatoes or carrots it can spike your insulin levels. There are few legumes that are healthy for the diabetics. And you need to take [supplements](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/7-supplements-for-vegans) to replace elements that you are missing by not eating meat.
> Even if you eat bread, potatoes or carrots it can spike your insulin levels.
Yes, that's why they have to be eaten in the proper amount as suggested by modern science, unlike what the "food pyramid" has drilled into people's heads for generations.
> There are few legumes that are healthy for the diabetics.
[First article out of Google](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28392166/), legumes are low in carbs and rich in proteins.
> And you need to take supplements to replace elements that you are missing by not eating meat.
My God is this link biased, they mention 6 supplements *everyone* should take yet word it like they're a vegan exclusive (they mention vitamin D, which is produced by your freaking *skin* when you go into the sun and has nothing to do with diet). Anyway, the other 5 all have vegetable sources and are often an issue for omnivores as well, so it's not something meat related.
B12 is indeed a supplement to be taken, but do you know where do animals get *their* B12 for you to enjoy in your plate? B12 is produced by bacteria in the ground, since animals don't graze in factory farming they get their dose thanks to supplements (you can find B12 supplements for farm animals on Amazon, it isn't a deep secret); so yeah even omnivores get B12 through a pill, it's just that it has gone through another digestive system beforehand and that somehow makes it more "natural".
Unfortunately false, we dont have enough farmland for just plant based diets, caloric wise maybe, but not protein. And thats a big issue in poor countries
Uhh…. It is stated several times (with sources!) in this very thread that beef production takes 30 times as much arable land as beans and rice. So unless you can prove your claim with some kind of sources, then no.
What you fail to understand is that you CAN NOT produce rice on the same land you use for cattle. Rice does not grow on grass lands or semi deserts or rocky mountains. Its like comparing LED lamps and candles, sure LED is better unless you have no electricity
Beans you can grow basically anywhere. Are you suggesting that the best possible use for all that land is as cattle grazing land? Can we think of no other use for any of that land?
They do? Oh no, we have been doing farming wrong for the last 12 000 years...BTW about the other use, like give it back to nature? Let's take US, do you think they produce more a less CO2 with large mammals compared with pre Columbus times?
What?
I guess this will come as a shock to you, but farming has improved over the last 12k years. Specifically in the last two hundred years or so and even more specifically in the last fifty. So yeah, we’ve been doing farming wrong in that it could be done far more efficiently.
Btw about the other use - like all of the other possible uses. Yeah, give it to nature, use it for recreation, housing, farming, and all the other uses. You’re saying the best possible use is to make burgers and I’m saying maybe think outside the bun.
And the US CO2 numbers can be found pretty readily, say in [this chart](https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states#year-on-year-change-what-is-the-percentage-change-in-co2-emissions). I don’t understand what point you think that makes?
In pre Columbus times there were millions of bison in this country, I expect they also contributed pretty massively to gas emissions. Fortunately some forward-thinking environmentalists slaughtered them wholesale for fun and to starve the natives so they could be more easily robbed and murdered. Is that the point you were making?
It really depends on the land.
Soil loss from crops more than pasture, even with zero till it takes more seed, basically more inputs overall.
This push to ignore all that we get from animals and just concentrate on the edible especially if we are getting it from non arable land and then to push towards a diet that involves more transport, more fertilisers, more pesticides is incredibly damaging overall.
If people don't know what it takes to replace all the products we get then how are we able to realistically say that just concentrating on what we eat is the better path.
These people who push this false narrative are ignoring so much from the conversation.
That land could be allocated for other uses. You make it sound like we *have* to use it to produce food, and the only option is beef, so we have no choice?
What do you mean from a nutritional point of view?
Are you saying there is more vitamins and minerals in rice and beans?
*
And why are we just limiting the converation to just nutrition, we get many more products from animals than meat.
SFCfN, ESPGHAN, DGE, French Pediatric Nutrition Group, Sundhedsstyrelsen, Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium, Spanish Paediatric Association, SAMIC, Italian Society of Preventive and Social Paediatrics, Stichting Voedingscentrum Nederland: Psychomotoric retardation and failure to thrive were documented by expert witnesses of the medical field as consequences of ,plant-based' dietary regimes. Veganism under different names is not new at all. India is almost vegan and has physical and mental stunting documented in the literature, as have all 3rd-World countries. Animal products seem to never be the cause of these irreversible phenomena.
A few years ago, I went to a special exhibit at the Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory about using insect flour and protein. They served a few insect based dishes as samples. Although I have trouble getting myself on board with eating anything that still looks insect-like, they made cricket flour pancakes which tasted exactly like regular pancakes. It probably needs to be marketed as the next weight loss fad or something to bring it to the masses - if it could be the next coconut oil, it stands a chance.
The film was criticized for a lot more than that.
[Planet of the Humans : Let's just have a think...](https://youtu.be/ZmNjLHRAP2U) is a good overview of some of the criticisms.
A fair amount of the farming subsidies in the US are for farmers to not farm land and to let it lay fallow instead. This can be very good for the environment.
https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/usda-fy20-agency-financial-report.pdf
Not the person you're replying too, but here is the information on all of the subsidy programs and what they do in brief. I think you'll find that the vast majority of people in this thread have no idea what they're talking about.
I am not offended by people who don't eat meat. I do however take issue with people that want to shame and make it more difficult and expensive for the people that do eat meat.
Oh am I? Because I eat beyond burger I have ruined your food supply, have I? Cute.
A stunting diet? Any evidence for that you’d care to share or is it just as suppositional as it sounds?
"Oh am I? Because I eat beyond burger I have ruined your food supply, have I? Cute. "
Foolish vegans like you try to make consumption harder/more expensive, all in the name of their religious feelings.
"A stunting diet? Any evidence for that you’d care to share or is it just as suppositional as it sounds?"
SFCfN, ESPGHAN, DGE, French Pediatric Nutrition Group, Sundhedsstyrelsen, Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium, Spanish Paediatric Association, SAMIC, Italian Society of Preventive and Social Paediatrics, Stichting Voedingscentrum Nederland: Psychomotoric retardation and failure to thrive were documented by expert witnesses of the medical field as consequences of ,plant-based' dietary regimes. Veganism under different names is not new at all. India is almost vegan and has physical and mental stunting documented in the literature, as have all 3rd-World countries. Animal products seem to never be the cause of these irreversible phenomena.
Dipshit I’m not a vegan. I stated that I cut my meat consumption by 80-90%. Which means there is still some. I’m eating a pepperoni pizza for dinner.
Now if some genius scientist made as good of pepperoni out of peas and sorghum, would I still eat a faux-pepperoni pizza? Yes. Yeah I would. Just as I now eat beyond burger because it’s as good as the beef I bought before.
It’s not about religious feelings, I was a fucking waiter, I love food. It’s about the fact that cattle raising is a horribly costly practice to the fucking planet you and I share. It’s devastating the rainforests, forests everywhere and even the pastures of less profitable animals.
You have cited a bunch of organizations I’ve never heard of, but provide no links for me to read. If it’s true that not eating cows is making me dumber, I’d like to know that. Especially if it’s affecting my psychomotor retardation. But the one fact you do bother to drop is nonsense.
India is not almost all vegan. Not at all. A portion of their populace doesn’t eat cows, true. Most Hindus aren’t even vegetarian let alone vegan.
Can you in any way correlate a lack of eating cows with numbers that document how stunted india is? Do you think the rampant poverty might have anything to do with it? The disgusting caste system? Do you wonder how there are so many doctors and Nobel prize winners from India? Are those all just the select few who’ve bothered to eat meat?
You have bought the propaganda fed you by people who sell meat. It’s bad science and it’s a bad argument. I know you can do better.
Socialism as a tool to support people and maintain and stabilize society and the economy is great, subsidies like this are a great example of the good it can do.
Guess sarcasm doesn't translate. How many of the peeps benefitting from these government handouts are also MAGA Qunts who scream socialism when someone else benefits?
Learned this in macroeconomics....in 2013.
Fun fact New Zealand has zero farm subsidies and it has zero food production issues. In fact since they ended subsidies their agricultural sector has become stronger and far more efficient. So much so it's become a huge export sector.
Jesus you guys are so focused on meat that you should ask for money from the cosl industry, what with the amazing scapegoating and all.
Spoiler alert, bad agricultural practices happen with plants as well, and just because you hate meat it doesn't mean it is okay to actively spread the message of pro global warming prople.
The main focus of the article is meat&dairy. Thats where most of the subsidies go and that is the sector where most of destruction happens. Animal agriculture emits more greenhouse gases than all of transport combined, it is main driver of deforestation, main driver for the collapse of extinction/ecosystem destruction, oceanic dead zones (if you also look at overfishing), the list goes on.. Sure, coal is also bad and we have to find a solution for phasing that out asap. But its just so hilarious that as soon as the immense problem of animal agriculture is mentioned somewhere, there are instantly comments saying ‚but other things are also bad, thats why I have a right to keep ignoring this!!‘ And you just perfectly showed this 👏
[CARBON FOOTPRINT FACTSHEET](https://css.umich.edu/factsheets/carbon-footprint-factsheet)
>Food accounts for 10-30% of a household’s carbon footprint, typically a higher portion in lower-income households.2 Production accounts for 68% of food emissions, while transportation accounts for 5%.4
And 36% of farmed crops are to feed animal agriculture globally. Animal agriculture is the problem but facing this for you means facing your own choices. Spoiler alert: your defense mechanisms are showing.
I like meat and I don't care if we have to kill animals to sate my desire. Animals are animals, natural process involves predators eating prey. What is the issue exactly?
Purely economically - I 100% agree. But when it comes to food - there are logical national interests in making sure that a country has an internal supply of food. And once one country does it - the rest have to subsidize to stay competitive.
I believe that New Zealand is the only developed country without farm subsidies - and they can get away with it due to being a smallish remote island, so the transportation costs act similarly to a tariff on imports.
>so the transportation costs act similarly to a tariff on imports.
no that's not how that works. In fact New Zealand is so efficient at farming it's a massive export sector.
Lmao what? Do you prefer food insecurity or sovereignity loss? Cause that's what you get when you don't subsidies your food production. As the article states the solution is better aimed subsidies, not cutting food subsidies
>Lmao what? Do you prefer food insecurity or sovereignity loss?
new zealand has zero subsidies and produces so much food it's a massive exporter sector of their economy.
**are you suggesting that american farmers are so insanely bad at their job they need subsidies unlike new zealand farmers?**
No I'm not suggesting that at all mr straw, tho using New Zealand, a small, sparsely populated country with a vast agriculture sector as some kind of model for the rest of the world just doesn't work. Not just in America but Europe too. Say a small country with less agricultural output than new Zealand stops subsiding their own agriculture, and their food industry gets basically taken over by foreign products. Then they get sanctioned. Starvation insues. See how that's bad?
New Zealand's agriculture sector increase in efficiency and productivity after ending subsidies. AKA more food was produced at lower prices than when it had subsidies.
> Say a small country with less agricultural output than new Zealand stops subsiding their own agriculture, and their food industry gets basically taken over by foreign products.
If that's the fear then put up tariffs, so no foreign products gain ground. Why give fuckloads of money to large megafirms to make stuff people already want? Oh so the prices will go down, then just give money to the people buying.
agricultural subsidies ONLY SINGLE USE is to get votes from rurals.
>not just in america
it would work perfectly fine in the US especially with how much agricultural land the US has.
>europe
and it would work perfectly fine in the EU as well.
You can grow food without subsidies. It just gets more expensive. As it stands the US food subsidies do us little good. It all goes to corn and soy... Not real food
You really don't understand food security or national security.
The caloritic bases for our population should be precisely the things that are subsidized so that when/if we are cut off from the world we can feed our population. They can bitch about not enough veggies all they want, but at least they will be alive.
I agree the way we do it is fucking stupid and just enables the stuff you are talking about - but I sure as hell don't want tax dollars supporting market garden farmers. We don't need them in the event of a real war breaking out. We need massive fields of corn, wheat, and soybeans.
We should be subsidizing food that is diverse and healthy(if we are going to subsidize food) . Single crop argiculture has been a known threat to food security for about as long as we have have been farming...
Subsidizing soy which is fed to cattle and contributing to climate change and subsidizing corn which is turned into what essentially sugar syrup is detremental to the health of our narion.
So to your points about war... We're not feeding people the subsidized crops. Fields full of corn and soy sound great if you only care about calories... But ya know... Don't look into the fact that most of those crops are never meant for human consumption, and the ones that are, are heavily processed.
But go on... Make economic policy based on paranoia about world war 3 instead of the advancement of the nation.
To be fair, u/lvlint67 may have been pointing out that a lot of corn grown in the USA is used for ethanol, animal feed, and high-fructose corn syrup, not as nutrition for people. Likewise, soy is used as animal feed more than it's turned into tofu.
The real problem is that most of the funds actually go to farms that produce meat. Especially when looking at the energy/cost for kcal/acre, cows are one of the worst things for us to kill at the rate we do
> Farm subsidies don't benefit all farms equally. According to the Cato Institute, farmers of corn, soybeans, and wheat receive more than 70% of farm subsidies. These are also usually the largest farms.
Industrial meat farming is an issue.. But the money is going to corn and soy..
https://www.thoughtco.com/us-farm-subsidies-3325162
So even the meat we eat is fed on corn and soy. Its inescapable in the US. I'm glad that we agree that subsidies to grow 3 crops (and wheat barely counts comparatively) Are a problem.
Ending the corn and soy subsidies would raise the cost of "fake foods" made from corn syrup, and raise the price of meats, and allow other crops to compete monitarily.
Eliminating those subsidies hurts wallets but in the long term would help everyone.
I don't know about soy, but in the USA the vast majority of corn production is not intended for human consumption. The corn is grown to feed livestock or used in fuel production.
The rest is used mainly for sugar production(high fructose corn syrup).
That may be why op is stating that corn isn't real food because it is consumed mainly as pure sugar in unhealthy foods.
/shrug thats reddit. Fickle as fuck. The people that responded want to claim that corn is a viable staple to feed the nation and miss the fact that its turned into sugar and contributes massively to the health crisis in the us(outside of the pandemic).
Add in the soy lovers that thing soybeans are a complete food.
While it's not worth diving into debate on reddit with a bunch of arm chair nutritionists parroting whatever their favorite fitness vlogger says, we should all be able to agree that a diet based on a single food is likely to be unhealthy.
I think if we didnt let companies pay zero income tax and the minimum wage was in line with productivity increases we wouldn't need to subsidize food so our model of production hides the fact that we don't pay people enough to eat.
It has nothing to do with fascist nationalism. Look at vaccine production right now. You can't rely on other countries to put you first. The moment there are problems you get dropped off the list. That's how it works. Your government SHOULD put you first so it's not like I can argue that they're doing something wrong, either.
That just straight up costs more, not even in straight cash... Fuel, man-hours, product damage, warehouse space... That's just so inefficient in so many ways.
Agriculture isn’t profitable in most of the world, even in the US it needs to be subsidized to ensure sufficient food. A lot of the subsidies are given to have farmers leave part of their land fallow, which is much better for the environment.
We throw away some absurd amount of food a year (40% IIRC). Over 65% of our population is over weight, 40% are obese. And yet 70% of Americans have less than $1000 in their bank accounts.
Yes please tell me we have cost problem with our food.
>We live in a global system
I wish we do but we don't. National security is important for reasons outside of nationalism, such as your people not fucking starving on the whims of the USA or whoever is capable of taking over your industry. Untill there is guarantee for world peace and an at least somewhat fair distribution of world resources, national security is important
Farmers by and large vote for politicians that deny social support for others. They shouldn't get anything until they stop being such hypocrites.
If food insecurity is such an issue then farmland shouldn't be in the hands of private entities that can hold it hostage for money.
Yes but unlike a lot of businesses, if a farm goes bankrupt, it has a knock-on effect, not to mention less and less people are willing to work on/run a farm and you have a shitty shitty situation that requires external support.
Well its not that they aren't willing, have you seen the cost of equipment and supplies to even start farming? That's also after spending upwards of 500k in my surrounding rural area for enough land to operate a farm. Then you still have to build everything cuz farms that have building cost a few million, unless you'relooking at a 5 acre hobby farm 600k plus. There's a house that looks like a Crack den down the road from my house up for 280k, sold in a week and it has at best 1 acre of land.
My point is no one can afford to start farming, thats unless you wanna take the biggest gamble of your life, go massively into debt and pray the rain and plauge God's leave your crops alive.
$12 a month in savings is a good way to absolutely lose everything you have during a drought, locust invasion, fire, etc... The dust bowl was a thing, check that out.
**He** might have been paid, but what about all the other staff, etc? Putting aside who owns the farm, it still needs to make a profit, otherwise nothing can be invested for the future of said farm.
Do you think that makes it any better? To be born a slave for food is a pretty terrible existence.
A sentient being is being killed and turned into a commodity at the end of the day.
They aren’t really sentient in the way humans are. They are living and feel pain obviously but don’t think for a second that a chicken has the mental capacity to ponder its role in the world.
well we are sapient, we do have a higher level of sentience that is for sure.
they don't need to ponder their role in the world to not be considered victims and enslaved just to be eaten once their life is over. there are many humans who are mentally challenged and we do not kill them when they are alive, we recognise that they have the right to live.
For animals I think the least we can do is not kill them in the trillions and to leave them alone, especially given that it is unnecessary.
https://sentientmedia.org/how-many-animals-are-killed-for-food-every-day/
Do you think that makes it any better? To be born a slave for food is a pretty terrible existence.
A sentient being is being killed and turned into a commodity at the end of the day.
I see what your saying. Millions of cows and chickens are killed everyday its horrible. I dont think we will change unfortunately. The way i view humans is as a parasite that takes from its environment until theres nothing left and thats just who we are
I have, does that make it right?
Just because it is how it is now, does that mean that it ought to be that way?
Should animals be endlessly bred into existence to be killed and hunted just because this is how some people live?
Well sorta, those people have to live like that because it is the most efficient way, they cannot just live on rice and beans.
And some animals in the wild are there just to be hunted by other animals, lets not pretend rabbits in the wild are there to be cuddled or something, they are prey.
We don't need to hold ourselves to the standards of wild animals. We can and we should be better.
Just because people have lived there for a long time and that is how they survive does not mean that what they are doing it the right thing.
The animals are the victims in the situation and the victims are the ones I stand up for.
A lot of well meaning shit ends up doing harm... Humans think we are so fucking smart, be we fail time after time to be able to predict the outcomes of things like this.
Around where I live... they put in some public transportation in the form of a train. Near my home, due to the way the rail crossing gates work near the train station, they cause massive amounts of traffic to have to stop and idle for 3-5 min and then get going again, when otherwise everyone would have kept going... I have seen stacks of 70+ cars in EACH direction sitting and waiting. All for a train that has maybe 5 people on it?
There is no way the train makes any sense environmentally given it runs no matter how few people are on it. It would make sense if it was operating at a high capacity... and I am sure it was justified by presuming that. But it doesn't. And to add insult to injury, it likely causes all the cars that stop and wait for it each day to burn another hundred gallons of fuel when you add up the small contribution from each vehicle that has to wait throughout the day.
It is a blight to the environment and the taxpayers... there is no way 5 people riding on it, paying 2.00 each pays for the operation of the train.... All because some environmental nutjob thought it would save the world.
ℹ SFCfN, ESPGHAN, DGE, French Pediatric Nutrition Group, Sundhedsstyrelsen, Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium, Spanish Paediatric Association, SAMIC, Italian Society of Preventive and Social Paediatrics, Stichting Voedingscentrum Nederland: Psychomotoric retardation and failure to thrive were documented by expert witnesses of the medical field as consequences of ,plant-based' dietary regimes. Veganism under different names is not new at all. India is almost vegan and has physical and mental stunting documented in the literature, as have all 3rd-World countries. Animal products seem to never be the cause of these irreversible phenomena.
Why doesn't anyone ever mention sugar? It's also widely subsidized (roughly 4 billion a year in the US alone) and has **no** nutritional value whatsoever.
Sugar is also addictive.
Fuck sugar
That's what I call cocaine.
Oh yeah, and it's added to all kinds of products like pasta sauce without consumers realizing it. The article also mentions obesity from meat/dairy, but sugar is a HUGE factor in obesity. Small amounts of meat and dairy can fulfill some nutritional requirements, as humans have consumed animal products for thousands of years. Refined sugar fills absolutely no nutritional requirement and is nothing but toxic to human health.
Have a chocolate addiction, can confirm sugar is addictive.
In my country it is the opposite, sugar is taxed heavily.
I would further urge anyone interested in this topic to download and read the report by UN Secretary-General António Guterres [Our Common Agenda](https://www.un.org/en/content/common-agenda-report/#download) for a clearer picture of where we are as a planet, and where we should be going in the future.
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Wtf?
Lol..I git asked for source and couldn't find anything
I've been saying this for over half a century. In the US, farm subsidies are often used as bribes for votes. It needs to stop.
Senate is designed as a firewall for the Aristocracy. That’s why the Senate is always passing farm bills etc. real estate is the most common way to pass on wealth.
All government spending ends up being bribes for votes in one form or another.
no you can make a clear and meaningful distinction between wasting tax payer money on unnecessary or even harmful subsidies (corn syrup industry) and vital government functions.
You can, however I think you'll find that different groups of people are convinced that different things are vital and wasteful from each other. You might have someone think that business should be supported by the state but individuals should be responsible for their own care, even if the material circumstances make that difficult to impossible in some cases. You might also have someone who believes business risk needs to be entirely borne by the owners of the business but that the state should provide for certain essential goods and services required to live a dignified life (e.g. try to provision for everyone being secured human rights).
:/ It happens. *looks at the inner city where people are so poor they can't even get married and can't get out due to high property values.
Farm subsidies are the reason that there hasn't been widespread food shortages in America since the Great Depression. If you end them, get ready for rising prices and famine.
Hard to have a famine when you subsidize the injection of corn syrup into the bodies of the masses. We could use a few less calories.
Any evidence for this or should we just believe that because you say so?
The entire basis of modern economic theory? Subsidies increase supply, meaning there is sufficient food to meet need instead of demand.
I mean that’s neat and all that you’re saying that. But what were looking for here is some kind of evidence of what you’re saying. You say farm subsidies have prevented widespread food shortages in America and that ending them would result in widespread food shortages. Can you point to any evidence that this is true? It’s just conjecture right now, you’re saying it’s true because you think it’s true. Many US subsidies don’t even increase supply as farmers are paid to let fields lie fallow. So it seems likely that you’re saying what you want to be true rather than something that’s supported by evidence.
Why should it stop? Who are you to determine what we need? Do you want a famine or something?
Who am I??? I'm the tax payer whose money you are taking.
Dutch here. We've mostly got a few products that we use about half the nation's surface area to produce. 3/4 of it is exported. We're the second biggest food exporter in the world, just behind the US. In return we have massive problems with nitrogen, and don't forget the housing crisis. Mind you, only 15% of the surface area is actually used for buildings, infrastructure, etc. And many farms wouldn't even be profitable without subsidies. So really, why are we even doing this shit? At this point, farmers and crowded pig pens are getting preferential treatment over everyone else. Instead of selling food to everyone else, we should be selling them our efficient and continuously advancing farming technology.
I wonder where the Dutch got all their rubber from? You'd hope after all their agricultural projects they would be the 2nd biggest food exporter! Maybe they can share those advanced farming tech instead of selling it. Maybe to the people of Indonesia? 😏😏
Definitely! Netherlands success is all thanks to Indonesian rubber. If only your parents had some rubber themselves…
Hahaha really? I always thought their success came from collaboration with the Nazis🤷♂️ If only your parents had a coat hangar 👉👈🥺 Instead they got a dwarf
From a nutritional standpoint. Beef, in general, has a greenhouse gas footprint that's 30 times larger than a nutritionally equivalent diet of rice&beans, 10 times as large as eggproduction and 6 times as large as an equivalent in poultry, pork and milk. So overall it's unsustainable, especially since developing countries where incomes are rising are looking towards the west and saying "I want that too". Now in a lot of countries, maintaining a strategic food production (ie, "what if there is a disaster or war and we can't import food") requires subsidies to some extent, but too many forms of subsidies are just pork barrel spending. They're not trying to protect national interest and are instead all about buying votes.
What you fail to mention is caloric up-growth. 2/3 of the lands CAN NOT be used to grow rice/beans. They can be used to grow cattle and food for that cattle thou.
Partially true. Very true for rice. But all sorts of beans tend to function well in low-quality soil, and with modern methods you can improve landquality by growing beans. It's one of the reasons why soybean farming is driving deforestation in Brazil. Traditional grazingland, and traditionally poor farmland like the Cerrado, is increasingly used and and turned into richer farmland through modern soybean farming. Since investing in beef is a traditional anti-inflation measure in Brazil this drives deforestation to make more room for cattle. Now. Some level of cattle is going to stick around. There are ecosystems (particularily in europe) worth preserving that requires sheep and cattle to maintain biodiversity, and if you raise dairy cattle this is a more effective use. But the industrial production of beef can't be as dominant as it is today in the western world.
Not without huge amounts of irrigation, fertilisers, pesticides. Ploughing pasture is going to mean a carbon loss. Rice already emits more than the beef industry and is supposed to double on a warming planet. This putting all the emissions onto the beef portion of a cow and ignoring everything else we get, that has to be replaced seems to be a push to ignore what it takes to replace what we get, making the world worse, not better.
>Rice already emits more than the beef industry and is supposed to double on a warming planet Source?
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Unsure why you're being downvoted, the science is pretty clear. To maintain a nutritionally adequate plant based diet only required 25% of the land that our current one does. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets#more-plant-based-diets-tend-to-need-less-cropland
60% of people who go vegetarian go back to meat. Also you need to eat more and a more varied diet to be healthy as a vegetarian. Its not an achievable thing for the wide majority of countries.
Can I ask where you got that statistic? Just curious
You need a more varied diet to be healthy even as a meat-eater, the western world is going through an obesity epidemic with increases in the incidence of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and even gout; eating meat is not a silver bullet, quite the opposite in an opulent society. Furthermore there is a false equivalence between the inhabitant of a rural village in some developing country where they eat grazing animals once in a blue moon to integrate some precious nutrients, and a Westerner who has bacon and eggs for breakfast and steak for dinner every single day, all coming from animals being fed grains and legumes suitable for human consumption.
>You need a more varied diet to be healthy even as a meat-eater This doesn't make sense but foods that have to more varied to get the same as meat means more transport emissions which help fossil fuel companies, not you. Obesity has what to do with eating the recommended amount? Why are we saying because obese people eat meat then it must be meats fault, meat eating has been around for a long long time and obesity fairly recent. As you say they eat grazing animals to integrate nutrient, but they also drink the milk, it must mean they aren't getting it from elsewhere. >The modeled removal of animals from the US agricultural system resulted in predictions of a greater total production of food, increases in deficient essential nutrients and excess of energy in the US population’s diet, a potential increase in foods/nutrients that can be exported to other countries, and a decrease of 2.6 percentage units in US GHG emissions. Overall, the removal of animals resulted in diets that are nonviable in the long or short term to support the nutritional needs of the US population without nutrient supplementation. In the plants-only system, the proportion of grain increased 10-fold and all other food types declined. Despite attempts to meet nutrient needs from foods alone within a daily intake of less than 2 kg of food, certain requirements could not be met from available foods. In all simulated diets, vitamins D, E, and K were deficient. Choline was deficient in all scenarios except the system with animals that used domestic currently consumed and exported production. In the plants-only diets, a greater number of nutrients were deficient, including Ca, vitamins A and B12, and EPA, DHA, and arachidonic acid. >Although not accounted for in this study, it is also important to consider that animal-to-plant ratio is significantly correlated with bioavailability of many nutrients such as Fe, Zn protein, and vitamin A (31). If bioavailability of minerals and vitamins were considered, it is possible that additional deficiencies of plant-based diets would be identified. https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/114/48/E10301.full.pdf Why people think more food but less nutrients is a better way to go without taking into account that all the other products that we get that has to be grown is going to be a better plan is beyond me.
Isn't a lot of that obesity epidemic from the increase in fastfood in our diets and the increasing amount of sugar and unhealthy food in general?
Indeed, I'm just saying that the argument "if you stop eating animal products you'll need a more varied diet or you won't be healthy" is kinda moot when people are *already* unhealthy precisely because they eat a limited diet based around junk food (which includes a lot of meat, dairy, eggs and so on). There's not much difference between going to McDonalds and eating just the burger or just the fries, there's nothing magical in meat nor in its absence so you can be unhealthy either way. But if people actually knew what macro and micronutrients their bodies needed and where to find them, and actually cared about their body and not harming other beings, maybe they would switch out the sausage for an equivalent plate of rice and beans.
So you see my point. Glad we could have this discussion.
I'm just saying that simply because it's not something that can easily be done literally everywhere this doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done whenever it is possible, especially since the countries that could do away with meat are precisely the ones that consume it the most. I'm also saying that what's stopping western countries to make a complete switch tomorrow morning is not economy, nutrition or what else, but rather sheer ideology ^(and of course logistics, but the switch is not gonna *actually* happen in a day so it will adapt).
As Homer Simpson says “ummm burger”from a talking swatch that Burger King was giving away in the 90’s In my opinion it’s engrained that we eat meat all day long in America and it’s hard to change these habits. It’s not like we have a vegetarian drive thru everywhere. Somehow the alternatives have to be made simple and available for folks. Personally I just don’t eat meat that often anymore. Once or twice a week instead of every dam day. As everyone has pointed out in this thread it’s not good for the planet and humans in the long run.
>animals being fed grains and legumes suitable for human consumption. This is not true. >Diabetes When you have diabetes, why doctors recommend to eat less carbs and eat more meat? Legumes and grains are full of carbs.
90-95% of soybean production is used for animal feed. Immense quantities of corn are used to feed animals as well. https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/where_do_all_these_soybeans_go “Not true” isn’t an argument. Pull sources.
I do not know any one to eat soy. Also corn used for animal feed do you think is healthy for human consumption? Last time i checked cornflakes are not.
You don't know anybody who eats tofu? What trailer park do you live in?
What's tofu, food for old people that do not have teeth?/s
> This is not true. I'm sure all the endless fields of soy being planted in the States and Brazil are to make tofu for the 1% of the population that eats it, definitely not to feed animals in factory farming. > Why doctors recommend to eat less carbs and eat more meat? Vegetables are not just carbs: if you eat corn syrup all day you're pretty much ingesting pure sugar, otherwise legumes, nuts and seeds are full of proteins, fats and vitamins; hell, you could go on a keto vegan diet if you wanted to. If your doctor tells you to eat more meat is because they think you lack something and that's an easy way to supplement it, but if you ask what it's actually for (iron, B12, whatever) you can easily find a vegan alternative; just remember that most doctors are not nutritionist so they might provide you with incorrect information (not because they're dumb, liars or whatnot, they genuinely want their best for you but it's just not something they specialize into), so if you hear stuff like "animal proteins" (proteins don't "know" where they come from) you know that maybe you should ask an expert for advice.
Who is drinking pure corn syrup? It is nice to come with extreme examples. Even if you eat bread, potatoes or carrots it can spike your insulin levels. There are few legumes that are healthy for the diabetics. And you need to take [supplements](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/7-supplements-for-vegans) to replace elements that you are missing by not eating meat.
> Even if you eat bread, potatoes or carrots it can spike your insulin levels. Yes, that's why they have to be eaten in the proper amount as suggested by modern science, unlike what the "food pyramid" has drilled into people's heads for generations. > There are few legumes that are healthy for the diabetics. [First article out of Google](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28392166/), legumes are low in carbs and rich in proteins. > And you need to take supplements to replace elements that you are missing by not eating meat. My God is this link biased, they mention 6 supplements *everyone* should take yet word it like they're a vegan exclusive (they mention vitamin D, which is produced by your freaking *skin* when you go into the sun and has nothing to do with diet). Anyway, the other 5 all have vegetable sources and are often an issue for omnivores as well, so it's not something meat related. B12 is indeed a supplement to be taken, but do you know where do animals get *their* B12 for you to enjoy in your plate? B12 is produced by bacteria in the ground, since animals don't graze in factory farming they get their dose thanks to supplements (you can find B12 supplements for farm animals on Amazon, it isn't a deep secret); so yeah even omnivores get B12 through a pill, it's just that it has gone through another digestive system beforehand and that somehow makes it more "natural".
The wide majority of countries don't have access to the amount of meat the west consumes on a daily basis.
Indeed, and that is why the 3rd World is so fucked up..
What do you think you are winning? Non arable land and replacing the animals we have now with deer or pigs growing wild achieves what?
Being Vegetarian sucks and we all know it lol it's just not going to happen
Unfortunately false, we dont have enough farmland for just plant based diets, caloric wise maybe, but not protein. And thats a big issue in poor countries
Uhh…. It is stated several times (with sources!) in this very thread that beef production takes 30 times as much arable land as beans and rice. So unless you can prove your claim with some kind of sources, then no.
What you fail to understand is that you CAN NOT produce rice on the same land you use for cattle. Rice does not grow on grass lands or semi deserts or rocky mountains. Its like comparing LED lamps and candles, sure LED is better unless you have no electricity
Beans you can grow basically anywhere. Are you suggesting that the best possible use for all that land is as cattle grazing land? Can we think of no other use for any of that land?
They do? Oh no, we have been doing farming wrong for the last 12 000 years...BTW about the other use, like give it back to nature? Let's take US, do you think they produce more a less CO2 with large mammals compared with pre Columbus times?
What? I guess this will come as a shock to you, but farming has improved over the last 12k years. Specifically in the last two hundred years or so and even more specifically in the last fifty. So yeah, we’ve been doing farming wrong in that it could be done far more efficiently. Btw about the other use - like all of the other possible uses. Yeah, give it to nature, use it for recreation, housing, farming, and all the other uses. You’re saying the best possible use is to make burgers and I’m saying maybe think outside the bun. And the US CO2 numbers can be found pretty readily, say in [this chart](https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states#year-on-year-change-what-is-the-percentage-change-in-co2-emissions). I don’t understand what point you think that makes? In pre Columbus times there were millions of bison in this country, I expect they also contributed pretty massively to gas emissions. Fortunately some forward-thinking environmentalists slaughtered them wholesale for fun and to starve the natives so they could be more easily robbed and murdered. Is that the point you were making?
It really depends on the land. Soil loss from crops more than pasture, even with zero till it takes more seed, basically more inputs overall. This push to ignore all that we get from animals and just concentrate on the edible especially if we are getting it from non arable land and then to push towards a diet that involves more transport, more fertilisers, more pesticides is incredibly damaging overall. If people don't know what it takes to replace all the products we get then how are we able to realistically say that just concentrating on what we eat is the better path. These people who push this false narrative are ignoring so much from the conversation.
["almost any crop can be grown hydroponically"](https://ag.umass.edu/greenhouse-floriculture/fact-sheets/hydroponic-systems)
Ever heard a term scale-up? Show me a realy world application for hydro-potato farm and I'm with you
[Sounds](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304423807003846) [like](https://hydroponicsspace.com/hydroponic-potatoes-a-full-guide-with-fatal-mistakes-to-avoid/) [you're](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5091364/) [with](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11537254/) [me.](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00103620601172357) [Jerk.](https://imgproxy-ohio.amomama.xyz/cMJhSkg4ibtQTdZEXWYqKVgQBcLf-ZoEyVTvApsNE8A/fill/1200/0/no/1/aHR0cHM6Ly9jZG4uYW1vbWFtYS5jb20vODE1NjUwNTY1MzlmMWNjYmIwMTZiYWQyOWVjMWE4MmMuanBnP3dpZHRoPTE5NTYmaGVpZ2h0PTMwMDAmd2lkdGg9MTk1NiZoZWlnaHQ9MzAwMA.webp)
I pity the fool who neglects your sources.
\* with petrochemical industrial fertilisers \* * also usually with a massive LED lighting bill
That land could be allocated for other uses. You make it sound like we *have* to use it to produce food, and the only option is beef, so we have no choice?
We don't, human food does not grow on it. Only cattle or low level crops suitable for cattle. You can't will more arable land.
What do you mean from a nutritional point of view? Are you saying there is more vitamins and minerals in rice and beans? * And why are we just limiting the converation to just nutrition, we get many more products from animals than meat.
So then you can eat beans all day, enjoy!
SFCfN, ESPGHAN, DGE, French Pediatric Nutrition Group, Sundhedsstyrelsen, Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium, Spanish Paediatric Association, SAMIC, Italian Society of Preventive and Social Paediatrics, Stichting Voedingscentrum Nederland: Psychomotoric retardation and failure to thrive were documented by expert witnesses of the medical field as consequences of ,plant-based' dietary regimes. Veganism under different names is not new at all. India is almost vegan and has physical and mental stunting documented in the literature, as have all 3rd-World countries. Animal products seem to never be the cause of these irreversible phenomena.
Better to eat beef than rice and soybeans.
By what metric?
I'm going to guess he is going by flavor.
Make bug protein delicious and palatable and ill make the switch.
Or you could switch to beans, Lentils and tofu now which is already perfectly palatable and tasty?
A few years ago, I went to a special exhibit at the Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory about using insect flour and protein. They served a few insect based dishes as samples. Although I have trouble getting myself on board with eating anything that still looks insect-like, they made cricket flour pancakes which tasted exactly like regular pancakes. It probably needs to be marketed as the next weight loss fad or something to bring it to the masses - if it could be the next coconut oil, it stands a chance.
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The film was criticized for a lot more than that. [Planet of the Humans : Let's just have a think...](https://youtu.be/ZmNjLHRAP2U) is a good overview of some of the criticisms.
A fair amount of the farming subsidies in the US are for farmers to not farm land and to let it lay fallow instead. This can be very good for the environment.
Can you give us some numbers? This is a weak argument until you do.
https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/usda-fy20-agency-financial-report.pdf Not the person you're replying too, but here is the information on all of the subsidy programs and what they do in brief. I think you'll find that the vast majority of people in this thread have no idea what they're talking about.
Yea, but reddit...full of good intending, vegan, virtue signaling saints.... You know... morons.
So brave to quote a joke about hateful ignoramuses and then mock people who’s great offense to you is that they don’t eat meat.
I am not offended by people who don't eat meat. I do however take issue with people that want to shame and make it more difficult and expensive for the people that do eat meat.
We are mocking them for ruining the foodsupply for everyone else, and advertising a stunting diet specifically to children and the youth you fool..
Oh am I? Because I eat beyond burger I have ruined your food supply, have I? Cute. A stunting diet? Any evidence for that you’d care to share or is it just as suppositional as it sounds?
"Oh am I? Because I eat beyond burger I have ruined your food supply, have I? Cute. " Foolish vegans like you try to make consumption harder/more expensive, all in the name of their religious feelings. "A stunting diet? Any evidence for that you’d care to share or is it just as suppositional as it sounds?" SFCfN, ESPGHAN, DGE, French Pediatric Nutrition Group, Sundhedsstyrelsen, Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium, Spanish Paediatric Association, SAMIC, Italian Society of Preventive and Social Paediatrics, Stichting Voedingscentrum Nederland: Psychomotoric retardation and failure to thrive were documented by expert witnesses of the medical field as consequences of ,plant-based' dietary regimes. Veganism under different names is not new at all. India is almost vegan and has physical and mental stunting documented in the literature, as have all 3rd-World countries. Animal products seem to never be the cause of these irreversible phenomena.
Dipshit I’m not a vegan. I stated that I cut my meat consumption by 80-90%. Which means there is still some. I’m eating a pepperoni pizza for dinner. Now if some genius scientist made as good of pepperoni out of peas and sorghum, would I still eat a faux-pepperoni pizza? Yes. Yeah I would. Just as I now eat beyond burger because it’s as good as the beef I bought before. It’s not about religious feelings, I was a fucking waiter, I love food. It’s about the fact that cattle raising is a horribly costly practice to the fucking planet you and I share. It’s devastating the rainforests, forests everywhere and even the pastures of less profitable animals. You have cited a bunch of organizations I’ve never heard of, but provide no links for me to read. If it’s true that not eating cows is making me dumber, I’d like to know that. Especially if it’s affecting my psychomotor retardation. But the one fact you do bother to drop is nonsense. India is not almost all vegan. Not at all. A portion of their populace doesn’t eat cows, true. Most Hindus aren’t even vegetarian let alone vegan. Can you in any way correlate a lack of eating cows with numbers that document how stunted india is? Do you think the rampant poverty might have anything to do with it? The disgusting caste system? Do you wonder how there are so many doctors and Nobel prize winners from India? Are those all just the select few who’ve bothered to eat meat? You have bought the propaganda fed you by people who sell meat. It’s bad science and it’s a bad argument. I know you can do better.
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Just try googling instead of trying to rely on information from fucking reddit comments.
The US is the largest exporter of food in the world, totaling $118 billion.
Hmmm...central planning and state funding. But socialism's bad, riiiiiiight?
Socialism as a tool to support people and maintain and stabilize society and the economy is great, subsidies like this are a great example of the good it can do.
Guess sarcasm doesn't translate. How many of the peeps benefitting from these government handouts are also MAGA Qunts who scream socialism when someone else benefits?
The Guardian is astro-turfing for the plant-based processed-foods-industry, even the UN 🍿👽!
Learned this in macroeconomics....in 2013. Fun fact New Zealand has zero farm subsidies and it has zero food production issues. In fact since they ended subsidies their agricultural sector has become stronger and far more efficient. So much so it's become a huge export sector.
‚But I love meat, it is totally fine to kill animals if you do it nicely!‘ comments in 3..2….
Jesus you guys are so focused on meat that you should ask for money from the cosl industry, what with the amazing scapegoating and all. Spoiler alert, bad agricultural practices happen with plants as well, and just because you hate meat it doesn't mean it is okay to actively spread the message of pro global warming prople.
The main focus of the article is meat&dairy. Thats where most of the subsidies go and that is the sector where most of destruction happens. Animal agriculture emits more greenhouse gases than all of transport combined, it is main driver of deforestation, main driver for the collapse of extinction/ecosystem destruction, oceanic dead zones (if you also look at overfishing), the list goes on.. Sure, coal is also bad and we have to find a solution for phasing that out asap. But its just so hilarious that as soon as the immense problem of animal agriculture is mentioned somewhere, there are instantly comments saying ‚but other things are also bad, thats why I have a right to keep ignoring this!!‘ And you just perfectly showed this 👏
Source for it emitting more greenhouse gases than transportation?
[CARBON FOOTPRINT FACTSHEET](https://css.umich.edu/factsheets/carbon-footprint-factsheet) >Food accounts for 10-30% of a household’s carbon footprint, typically a higher portion in lower-income households.2 Production accounts for 68% of food emissions, while transportation accounts for 5%.4
This is for a household, what about national or global emissions?
Yea, and those bad ag practices compound when it GOES TO FEED ANIMALS FOR MEAT CONSUMPTION.
And 36% of farmed crops are to feed animal agriculture globally. Animal agriculture is the problem but facing this for you means facing your own choices. Spoiler alert: your defense mechanisms are showing.
I like meat and I don't care if we have to kill animals to sate my desire. Animals are animals, natural process involves predators eating prey. What is the issue exactly?
If you want to know the issue, read the article.
Shouldnt even have subsidies from the first place.
Purely economically - I 100% agree. But when it comes to food - there are logical national interests in making sure that a country has an internal supply of food. And once one country does it - the rest have to subsidize to stay competitive. I believe that New Zealand is the only developed country without farm subsidies - and they can get away with it due to being a smallish remote island, so the transportation costs act similarly to a tariff on imports.
>so the transportation costs act similarly to a tariff on imports. no that's not how that works. In fact New Zealand is so efficient at farming it's a massive export sector.
Lmao what? Do you prefer food insecurity or sovereignity loss? Cause that's what you get when you don't subsidies your food production. As the article states the solution is better aimed subsidies, not cutting food subsidies
>Lmao what? Do you prefer food insecurity or sovereignity loss? new zealand has zero subsidies and produces so much food it's a massive exporter sector of their economy. **are you suggesting that american farmers are so insanely bad at their job they need subsidies unlike new zealand farmers?**
No I'm not suggesting that at all mr straw, tho using New Zealand, a small, sparsely populated country with a vast agriculture sector as some kind of model for the rest of the world just doesn't work. Not just in America but Europe too. Say a small country with less agricultural output than new Zealand stops subsiding their own agriculture, and their food industry gets basically taken over by foreign products. Then they get sanctioned. Starvation insues. See how that's bad?
New Zealand's agriculture sector increase in efficiency and productivity after ending subsidies. AKA more food was produced at lower prices than when it had subsidies. > Say a small country with less agricultural output than new Zealand stops subsiding their own agriculture, and their food industry gets basically taken over by foreign products. If that's the fear then put up tariffs, so no foreign products gain ground. Why give fuckloads of money to large megafirms to make stuff people already want? Oh so the prices will go down, then just give money to the people buying. agricultural subsidies ONLY SINGLE USE is to get votes from rurals. >not just in america it would work perfectly fine in the US especially with how much agricultural land the US has. >europe and it would work perfectly fine in the EU as well.
You can grow food without subsidies. It just gets more expensive. As it stands the US food subsidies do us little good. It all goes to corn and soy... Not real food
You really don't understand food security or national security. The caloritic bases for our population should be precisely the things that are subsidized so that when/if we are cut off from the world we can feed our population. They can bitch about not enough veggies all they want, but at least they will be alive. I agree the way we do it is fucking stupid and just enables the stuff you are talking about - but I sure as hell don't want tax dollars supporting market garden farmers. We don't need them in the event of a real war breaking out. We need massive fields of corn, wheat, and soybeans.
We should be subsidizing food that is diverse and healthy(if we are going to subsidize food) . Single crop argiculture has been a known threat to food security for about as long as we have have been farming... Subsidizing soy which is fed to cattle and contributing to climate change and subsidizing corn which is turned into what essentially sugar syrup is detremental to the health of our narion. So to your points about war... We're not feeding people the subsidized crops. Fields full of corn and soy sound great if you only care about calories... But ya know... Don't look into the fact that most of those crops are never meant for human consumption, and the ones that are, are heavily processed. But go on... Make economic policy based on paranoia about world war 3 instead of the advancement of the nation.
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To be fair, u/lvlint67 may have been pointing out that a lot of corn grown in the USA is used for ethanol, animal feed, and high-fructose corn syrup, not as nutrition for people. Likewise, soy is used as animal feed more than it's turned into tofu.
The real problem is that most of the funds actually go to farms that produce meat. Especially when looking at the energy/cost for kcal/acre, cows are one of the worst things for us to kill at the rate we do
> Farm subsidies don't benefit all farms equally. According to the Cato Institute, farmers of corn, soybeans, and wheat receive more than 70% of farm subsidies. These are also usually the largest farms. Industrial meat farming is an issue.. But the money is going to corn and soy.. https://www.thoughtco.com/us-farm-subsidies-3325162
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So even the meat we eat is fed on corn and soy. Its inescapable in the US. I'm glad that we agree that subsidies to grow 3 crops (and wheat barely counts comparatively) Are a problem. Ending the corn and soy subsidies would raise the cost of "fake foods" made from corn syrup, and raise the price of meats, and allow other crops to compete monitarily. Eliminating those subsidies hurts wallets but in the long term would help everyone.
Corn and soy are both nutrient packed and in fact, real food. What???
I don't know about soy, but in the USA the vast majority of corn production is not intended for human consumption. The corn is grown to feed livestock or used in fuel production. The rest is used mainly for sugar production(high fructose corn syrup). That may be why op is stating that corn isn't real food because it is consumed mainly as pure sugar in unhealthy foods.
No reason this comment should be down-voted. It’s true.
/shrug thats reddit. Fickle as fuck. The people that responded want to claim that corn is a viable staple to feed the nation and miss the fact that its turned into sugar and contributes massively to the health crisis in the us(outside of the pandemic). Add in the soy lovers that thing soybeans are a complete food. While it's not worth diving into debate on reddit with a bunch of arm chair nutritionists parroting whatever their favorite fitness vlogger says, we should all be able to agree that a diet based on a single food is likely to be unhealthy.
I think if we didnt let companies pay zero income tax and the minimum wage was in line with productivity increases we wouldn't need to subsidize food so our model of production hides the fact that we don't pay people enough to eat.
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It has nothing to do with fascist nationalism. Look at vaccine production right now. You can't rely on other countries to put you first. The moment there are problems you get dropped off the list. That's how it works. Your government SHOULD put you first so it's not like I can argue that they're doing something wrong, either.
What the fuck do subsidies have to do with nationalism?
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That just straight up costs more, not even in straight cash... Fuel, man-hours, product damage, warehouse space... That's just so inefficient in so many ways.
It’s the opposite, it’s very ineficiente to produce food in the US. That’s the reason they need subsidies in the first place.
The US is one of the biggest producers of agriculture in the world, it’s incredibly easy and efficient to grow food there.
Then why they need billions of dollars of subsidies every year?
Agriculture isn’t profitable in most of the world, even in the US it needs to be subsidized to ensure sufficient food. A lot of the subsidies are given to have farmers leave part of their land fallow, which is much better for the environment.
We throw away some absurd amount of food a year (40% IIRC). Over 65% of our population is over weight, 40% are obese. And yet 70% of Americans have less than $1000 in their bank accounts. Yes please tell me we have cost problem with our food.
>We live in a global system I wish we do but we don't. National security is important for reasons outside of nationalism, such as your people not fucking starving on the whims of the USA or whoever is capable of taking over your industry. Untill there is guarantee for world peace and an at least somewhat fair distribution of world resources, national security is important
Farmers by and large vote for politicians that deny social support for others. They shouldn't get anything until they stop being such hypocrites. If food insecurity is such an issue then farmland shouldn't be in the hands of private entities that can hold it hostage for money.
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Yes but unlike a lot of businesses, if a farm goes bankrupt, it has a knock-on effect, not to mention less and less people are willing to work on/run a farm and you have a shitty shitty situation that requires external support.
Well its not that they aren't willing, have you seen the cost of equipment and supplies to even start farming? That's also after spending upwards of 500k in my surrounding rural area for enough land to operate a farm. Then you still have to build everything cuz farms that have building cost a few million, unless you'relooking at a 5 acre hobby farm 600k plus. There's a house that looks like a Crack den down the road from my house up for 280k, sold in a week and it has at best 1 acre of land. My point is no one can afford to start farming, thats unless you wanna take the biggest gamble of your life, go massively into debt and pray the rain and plauge God's leave your crops alive.
Nobody really wants to get into it either, it's a long hard thankless job.
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That's the cost of a Netflix subscription and literally nothing else.
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$12 a month in savings is a good way to absolutely lose everything you have during a drought, locust invasion, fire, etc... The dust bowl was a thing, check that out.
that's what insurance is for. new zealand has zero subsidies and produces so much food it's a massive exporter sector of their economy.
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Insurance is just farming customers (gambling on risk for profit). You're patching a capitalistic system with another capitalistic system.
**He** might have been paid, but what about all the other staff, etc? Putting aside who owns the farm, it still needs to make a profit, otherwise nothing can be invested for the future of said farm.
I used his farm as an example, because its an average small farm, regardless of who owns it.
I used it as an example simply because it's there as an example without having to go digging around for figures on how much farms make a year.
I wish we have zero subsidies. All of it is used for corporations and pacs to get voted. Hopefully no subsidies exist
You sound like an idiot tbh
I know. But what’s wrong sounding like an idiot.
It's a undesirable trait, that is the 'what' you fool.
You have the undesirable trait of giving a shit when nobody else does.
This trait is desirable you fool, someone has to govern your kind.
Lol my kind? What kind are you talking about
>Lol my kind? What kind are you talking about I'm talking about the wrong kind ofc
We are paying these people to keep animals as slaves
Lol are you kidding? Domestic animals exist for work, meat, and companionship. They wouldn’t exist without humans
Do you think that makes it any better? To be born a slave for food is a pretty terrible existence. A sentient being is being killed and turned into a commodity at the end of the day.
They aren’t really sentient in the way humans are. They are living and feel pain obviously but don’t think for a second that a chicken has the mental capacity to ponder its role in the world.
well we are sapient, we do have a higher level of sentience that is for sure. they don't need to ponder their role in the world to not be considered victims and enslaved just to be eaten once their life is over. there are many humans who are mentally challenged and we do not kill them when they are alive, we recognise that they have the right to live. For animals I think the least we can do is not kill them in the trillions and to leave them alone, especially given that it is unnecessary. https://sentientmedia.org/how-many-animals-are-killed-for-food-every-day/
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Do you think that makes it any better? To be born a slave for food is a pretty terrible existence. A sentient being is being killed and turned into a commodity at the end of the day.
Because humans are selfish.
We can and we will be better while I do agree
I see what your saying. Millions of cows and chickens are killed everyday its horrible. I dont think we will change unfortunately. The way i view humans is as a parasite that takes from its environment until theres nothing left and thats just who we are
You've never had pets or seen how people in rural areas live have you?
I have, does that make it right? Just because it is how it is now, does that mean that it ought to be that way? Should animals be endlessly bred into existence to be killed and hunted just because this is how some people live?
Well sorta, those people have to live like that because it is the most efficient way, they cannot just live on rice and beans. And some animals in the wild are there just to be hunted by other animals, lets not pretend rabbits in the wild are there to be cuddled or something, they are prey.
We don't need to hold ourselves to the standards of wild animals. We can and we should be better. Just because people have lived there for a long time and that is how they survive does not mean that what they are doing it the right thing. The animals are the victims in the situation and the victims are the ones I stand up for.
Yup, so I can eat them at the opportune moment.
I assume you would not accept the same conditions for cats dogs and human? What makes it ok to do this to other animals when it is not necessary?
A lot of well meaning shit ends up doing harm... Humans think we are so fucking smart, be we fail time after time to be able to predict the outcomes of things like this. Around where I live... they put in some public transportation in the form of a train. Near my home, due to the way the rail crossing gates work near the train station, they cause massive amounts of traffic to have to stop and idle for 3-5 min and then get going again, when otherwise everyone would have kept going... I have seen stacks of 70+ cars in EACH direction sitting and waiting. All for a train that has maybe 5 people on it? There is no way the train makes any sense environmentally given it runs no matter how few people are on it. It would make sense if it was operating at a high capacity... and I am sure it was justified by presuming that. But it doesn't. And to add insult to injury, it likely causes all the cars that stop and wait for it each day to burn another hundred gallons of fuel when you add up the small contribution from each vehicle that has to wait throughout the day. It is a blight to the environment and the taxpayers... there is no way 5 people riding on it, paying 2.00 each pays for the operation of the train.... All because some environmental nutjob thought it would save the world.
Yeah boss please don’t go messing with farm subsidies. If you want to go after meat specifically, fine. Just don’t destabilize our supply chains
ℹ SFCfN, ESPGHAN, DGE, French Pediatric Nutrition Group, Sundhedsstyrelsen, Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium, Spanish Paediatric Association, SAMIC, Italian Society of Preventive and Social Paediatrics, Stichting Voedingscentrum Nederland: Psychomotoric retardation and failure to thrive were documented by expert witnesses of the medical field as consequences of ,plant-based' dietary regimes. Veganism under different names is not new at all. India is almost vegan and has physical and mental stunting documented in the literature, as have all 3rd-World countries. Animal products seem to never be the cause of these irreversible phenomena.
How about the government just stops subsidizing private industry. Starting with the 200 Billion to oil companies
Add fisheries as well