Grass does take up a huge area. What would you do with that area considering it’s too dry or too infertile to grow anything other than grass, and it can only manage grass when there’s animals fertilising it
Any grass eating animal makes methane. Rot on idle land makes methane. If all the cows were killed deer would equal their biomass quickly. Cows are managed and there are plans for modifying their microbiome to completely process their food to CO2. This is the same weight of carbon that the grass regrows. Methane effectually breaks down to CO2 so castle are carbon neutral, but the time as methane is a problem
Animal welfare. Indeed a long list. I would love to see many types of animal agriculture banned. Some are far too cruel for a wealthy nation
I don’t believe you.
I’m not saying everyone must eat only meat, and lots of it. Why should I be restricted from what you can’t afford?
It is necessary to eat animals of you wish to thrive and do not wish to take supplements. Look up the list of what vegans sold supplement to be healthy; it’s a much longer list than a person on a mixed diet
Mixed diet required supplements:
; empty list
Vegan required supplement list:
Vitamin B12
Vitamin D (unless you produce enough cholesterol and get enough sunlight)
I just provided some other reasons to not eat grass-fed animals. Seems you have a single sided view on all of them. A fully nuanced overview would take books to write, so I’ll abbreviate it to some counter arguments:
Humans should not exploit the whole planet, we’re already causing the 6th mass extinction as it is. Lots of current grass land would have forests or marshes grow back. When nature grows back instead of monocultural grass, this is not only good for biodiversity, it also captures CO2, which lowers global temperatures. Like what happened in the Little Ice Age from 1400-1800, when epidemics in Europe and the Americas reduced human population, with less land required for food production.
Grass requires fertilizer to restore the depletion of minerals in the soil taken out by cattle and humans. And fertilizer requires huge amounts of energy to make, heating up the planet. Further, letting other plants grow than only grasses moves animals away from rumination and associated methane production.
Grass fed animals are slaughtered in the same houses as where the rest of cattle is malhandled, as time is of the essence for profits, which induces violence and often leads to animal awareness during slaughtering. These animals also lead a life in captivity and have been bred to be a mere shadow of the wild animals they once were.
There are lots of studies and websites that support my claim. But people are funny when it comes to belief, they can (dis)believe almost anything.
Money generally influences people’s choices, even when they have enough of it.
As you may have guessed I don’t eat animals, the only supplement I take is vitamin B12 once a week, the rest I get enough of through my daily diet. There’s really no need to eat animal products, grass fed or not.
If 2 is correct, how are the permaculture farms I get meat from increasing the carbon stored in their soil? Does your fod come from permaculture farms?
3 isn’t true unless the animals were raised in the same area, which they often are not.
4 I’m in a meat eating community which was often trolled by people. The vegan studies they shared were not convincing, they were predominately based on for frequency questionnaires, that’s why I’m not convinced. Do you know of any RCTs or even just well controlled studies? They’re unfortunately not common enough for diet - they have trouble randomly assigning someone to a diet for long enough to make a difference
Googling for Sydney diet heart study gives you an at-first-glance correct AI summary of that test. It was suppressed in the '70s when the data was collected, but accidentally found and republished using modern statistic techniques in 2013. You haven’t heard of it because it says margarine is more dangerous than butter
Would you expect a carnivore dieter to be most at risk from heart disease? The sporty carnivores have cholesterol 5x the upper edge of the guidance. This worried one enough to raise money, start a research foundation, and fund some research. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772963X2400303X the AI summary isn’t good on this, it didn’t get the 2024 update.
5. Meat is expensive compared to plants and fungus kilo for kilo, you ought to be happy.
If you get night blindness, urgently start supplementing retinol (vitamin A) people who previously ate meat have about a 5 year supply stored in their fat, I guess obese people have much more, but I doubt there are many obese vegans; I don’t think there are obese carnivores either, except those who have only just started it in order to lose weight
I don’t think your choice is significantly worse than mine for someone who can afford supplementation. I’m sure just like in carnivore people talk about all the health problems that are caused by the current terrible common food but are fixed by the diet change.
Thank you for your lengthy answer, which adds and makes me brush up on my current knowledge. Still, we’re merely skimming the surface here, as everything is interconnected and there’s too much knowledge available to handle and weigh everything.
You’re right that population is the main cause of humans causing trouble on a planetary scale. 95-97% of land-based mammals are either humans or cattle, according to current estimates. Nature is then left with the small percentage of mammals left as part of a viable natural ecosystem. The strain on it is not difficult to see.
Still, the current global population can be sustained by our planet provided we move away from eating meat, as approx. 75-80% of the global agricultural area is used for cattle. Including dairy, that is.
The carbon that plants use comes mainly from the air, not from the soil, through CO2. Permaculture is an improvement compared to common agricultural monoculture, but mainly relies on cattle to resupply the minerals in the soil, human waste is generally no part of the intended circularity. It used to be, some centuries ago, before sewers became commonplace. Presently it’s more difficult and therefore costly to regain all those minerals among all the toxins in sewage systems, so we don’t. We just have fertilizer factories on one end of the system and flush it down the toilet on the other end. Problem with that is that it heats up the atmosphere. (Solutions for this still to be worked out.)
I don’t get the statement on animal wellbeing and them being raised in the same area. Is that about family bonds between animals? Anyway, how people treat animals in the agricultural industry is not so pretty, the more knowledge I gain on that over the years, the worse it gets. Animals are just used for human pleasure, either on our plates or as pets. I’ve reached a point where it would be best when animals are not kept at all by humans. Only have wild animals to live their lives however they see fit, with as little human intervention as possible. I know it’s quite a radical stance that I will not witness in my lifetime, but it is still a point on the horizon to aim for. At least there’s still some nature left where this is true, quite often even in urban areas, where wild animals freely roam their environment, surviving on whatever they come across.
Health is quite a topic altogether, meat eating is correlated not only with certain types of cancer but also with coronary and vascular problems. The study you refer to is but one and deals mainly with replacing saturated fats with omega-6 types, I’ve understood that it’s more about the ratio between omega 6 to omega 3 in our diets. These can come from fish oil, but then includes heavy elements and microplastics that fish filter out from whatever’s floating around in the oceans. Vegetable oils can also be used for cholesterol management, e.g. rapeseed oil seems to have a good balance in fatty acids.
But health is of course also affected by caloric intake, exercise, minerals, sugars and other carbohydrates, etc. All recommended levels can be met without the use of meat. There was even a study on fish having health benefits, not because fish are so healthy, but they replace meat, which is unhealthy. See e.g. https://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/we-should-be-eating-more-tasty-little-forage-fish-study-finds/
Thanks for your recommendation on vitamin A, I’ll keep an eye open for that. :o)
And I’m quite happy, despite all the problems we’re having and facing up ahead. It seems that whenever humans need to choose between good and bad, we generally tend to choose the bad, time and time again. Still, this doesn’t affect my appreciation of life too much. It remains a great gift to be alive in this universe, as far as we can see.
I hope you can find happiness as well, wherever you may go.
It is necessary to eat animals of you wish to thrive and do not wish to take supplements. Look up the list of what vegans sold supplement to be healthy; it’s a much longer list than a person on a mixed diet
Mixed diet required supplements:
; empty list
Vegan required supplement list:
According to https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/7-supplements-for-vegans#6-Zinc
I would add creatine to the list, since it’s seeming more and more important and only occurs in meat.
Funny that herbivores don’t need supplementation, but we do, even though we can eat so many different plants than most herbivores.
I just provided some other reasons to not eat grass-fed animals. Seems you have a single sided view on all of them. A fully nuanced overview would take books to write, so I’ll abbreviate it to some counter arguments:
As you may have guessed I don’t eat animals, the only supplement I take is vitamin B12 once a week, the rest I get enough of through my daily diet. There’s really no need to eat animal products, grass fed or not.
1 seems to be a population comment.
If 2 is correct, how are the permaculture farms I get meat from increasing the carbon stored in their soil? Does your fod come from permaculture farms?
3 isn’t true unless the animals were raised in the same area, which they often are not.
4 I’m in a meat eating community which was often trolled by people. The vegan studies they shared were not convincing, they were predominately based on for frequency questionnaires, that’s why I’m not convinced. Do you know of any RCTs or even just well controlled studies? They’re unfortunately not common enough for diet - they have trouble randomly assigning someone to a diet for long enough to make a difference
Googling for
Sydney diet heart studygives you an at-first-glance correct AI summary of that test. It was suppressed in the '70s when the data was collected, but accidentally found and republished using modern statistic techniques in 2013. You haven’t heard of it because it says margarine is more dangerous than butterThis is the paper if the summary isn’t enough: https://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.e8707
Would you expect a carnivore dieter to be most at risk from heart disease? The sporty carnivores have cholesterol 5x the upper edge of the guidance. This worried one enough to raise money, start a research foundation, and fund some research. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772963X2400303X the AI summary isn’t good on this, it didn’t get the 2024 update.
5. Meat is expensive compared to plants and fungus kilo for kilo, you ought to be happy.
If you get night blindness, urgently start supplementing retinol (vitamin A) people who previously ate meat have about a 5 year supply stored in their fat, I guess obese people have much more, but I doubt there are many obese vegans; I don’t think there are obese carnivores either, except those who have only just started it in order to lose weight
I don’t think your choice is significantly worse than mine for someone who can afford supplementation. I’m sure just like in carnivore people talk about all the health problems that are caused by the current terrible common food but are fixed by the diet change.
Thank you for your lengthy answer, which adds and makes me brush up on my current knowledge. Still, we’re merely skimming the surface here, as everything is interconnected and there’s too much knowledge available to handle and weigh everything.
You’re right that population is the main cause of humans causing trouble on a planetary scale. 95-97% of land-based mammals are either humans or cattle, according to current estimates. Nature is then left with the small percentage of mammals left as part of a viable natural ecosystem. The strain on it is not difficult to see. Still, the current global population can be sustained by our planet provided we move away from eating meat, as approx. 75-80% of the global agricultural area is used for cattle. Including dairy, that is.
The carbon that plants use comes mainly from the air, not from the soil, through CO2. Permaculture is an improvement compared to common agricultural monoculture, but mainly relies on cattle to resupply the minerals in the soil, human waste is generally no part of the intended circularity. It used to be, some centuries ago, before sewers became commonplace. Presently it’s more difficult and therefore costly to regain all those minerals among all the toxins in sewage systems, so we don’t. We just have fertilizer factories on one end of the system and flush it down the toilet on the other end. Problem with that is that it heats up the atmosphere. (Solutions for this still to be worked out.)
I don’t get the statement on animal wellbeing and them being raised in the same area. Is that about family bonds between animals? Anyway, how people treat animals in the agricultural industry is not so pretty, the more knowledge I gain on that over the years, the worse it gets. Animals are just used for human pleasure, either on our plates or as pets. I’ve reached a point where it would be best when animals are not kept at all by humans. Only have wild animals to live their lives however they see fit, with as little human intervention as possible. I know it’s quite a radical stance that I will not witness in my lifetime, but it is still a point on the horizon to aim for. At least there’s still some nature left where this is true, quite often even in urban areas, where wild animals freely roam their environment, surviving on whatever they come across.
Health is quite a topic altogether, meat eating is correlated not only with certain types of cancer but also with coronary and vascular problems. The study you refer to is but one and deals mainly with replacing saturated fats with omega-6 types, I’ve understood that it’s more about the ratio between omega 6 to omega 3 in our diets. These can come from fish oil, but then includes heavy elements and microplastics that fish filter out from whatever’s floating around in the oceans. Vegetable oils can also be used for cholesterol management, e.g. rapeseed oil seems to have a good balance in fatty acids. But health is of course also affected by caloric intake, exercise, minerals, sugars and other carbohydrates, etc. All recommended levels can be met without the use of meat. There was even a study on fish having health benefits, not because fish are so healthy, but they replace meat, which is unhealthy. See e.g. https://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/we-should-be-eating-more-tasty-little-forage-fish-study-finds/
Thanks for your recommendation on vitamin A, I’ll keep an eye open for that. :o)
And I’m quite happy, despite all the problems we’re having and facing up ahead. It seems that whenever humans need to choose between good and bad, we generally tend to choose the bad, time and time again. Still, this doesn’t affect my appreciation of life too much. It remains a great gift to be alive in this universe, as far as we can see.
I hope you can find happiness as well, wherever you may go.