Wow! I’m astonished. I’m certainly not keeping up my share of this! Most days, I don’t eat meat at all (except in the form of processed stuff, like chicken ramen.)
It makes me think of the horrible datum that Americans, on the average, read one book a year. Since I read dozens and dozens, that suggests there are a good many people who don’t read any at all!
One thing that occurs to me is that the original figure I’m quoting (270 lbs per year) also includes waste which is actually a lot. It’s the same difference in terms of any arguments about the environment, but a good piece of that quarter pounder is often winding up in the trash.
Even so the point remains, curtailing the excess doesn’t necessarily mean becoming a vegan. The average person can make a pretty big difference with small choices and practically no compromises in the things they like to eat.
Definitely agreed. Over-packaging is a huge source of waste – and wasted energy too, from generating the packaging to burying it in landfills. We certainly need to get more thrifty in this. Over-processing of food is also detrimental. (Which, alas, is a bummer. I loves me them Pringles!)
Fucking babies need to man up.
I don’t have it here so I can’t give the numbers, but a recent article in OCU’s magazine (the main Consumers Union in Spain) had figures for “how much space and energy goes into different types of meat”. Beef was much higher than lamb, rabbit, pork or chicken, emphasis on much; my first reaction was mild surprise but I think it makes sense if only because all those other species get killed for their meat a lot younger than beef cattle are.
Even if the numbers were kind of wobbly, if the order holds true it means that simply eating meat other than beef requires less resources. More varied diet and lower use of resources, yay so long as you’re not in the beef industry.
I think the actual consumption amount is less than half of the 270lbs/year figure. I’m pretty skeptical that the waste figure would be so high. Do you have a cite? I look at a cite like this which says both:
And this:
Now, I could be reading this wrong, but those two items don’t seem to reconcile. Here is a separate study that estimates the amount closer to 4.5 oz/day.
Of course, the time period is different and it looks like there may have been a ramp up in the 08/09 period with a steep drop off after that.
So, do you have a cite for the figures you’re using? Waste figures, consumption figures, etc.
Making me hungry - I think I’ll have some steak tonight.
Yes onecite I already provided is the research linked in post #32 of this thread.
You seem to be changing the goalposts so we can argue the exact details of various factoids instead of acknowledging the bigger, obvious, white elephant in the room - that excess consumption is a huge factor in any discussion of the downsides of livestock production.
But to answer this since it does figure in to the big picture, roughly 1/3 of all food produced in the world is wasted. What percentage of that is meat in North America specifically, I don’t know but it’s certainly more than zero and less than 270 lbs per person. I would wager that consumers waste much more produce than meat. But a large part of what gets wasted is in production and packaging. Whatever goes off the cutting board into the trash is also counted as waste.
Without considering any waste or production numbers at all though, in the general big picture do you not agree that a continent approaching 40% obesity that consumes the majority of the meat in the world, could not help mitigate any environmental or ethical concerns about livestock production by simply cutting down a little on the meat lovers pizzas?
So I see the 270 figure in that cite, but not anything regarding waste which you acknowledge is a part of it. I think it’s fair to say that the 270 consumption figure is not accurate.
It’s not moving goalposts because I never set goalposts to begin with. I’m curious and interested in actual information. The lack of citation doesn’t help in that effort. I did provide a cite that contradicted that figure quite significantly. That cite could be wrong, misinterpreted, etc. so for now I’ll say I’m still skeptical.
Without a cite, I’d say this above is not useful. Going back to the cite you did provide, it concludes by talking about demand management. Well, as the costs of this high consumption manifest, the demand side should be impacted. Although, if we mute that demand side feedback by say, socializing the costs, then less so.
Not necessarily. An alternative approach could be to encourage people to exercise more and burn off excess calories, and consume even more meat! The idea that reducing meat intake to save the environment is just not very persuasive.
Does all this mean we can eat Pandas now?
Sure, if the problem you were approaching wasn’t related to environmental or ethical considerations of livestock production.
Everything I’m suggesting is based on the idea that you already know livestock production is a major danger to the environment and that we eat too much of it, and is based on an assumption that you’re concerned about that problem but don’t exactly want to become a vegetarian or anything radical to help solve it.
You’re starting out with a belief that it isn’t any harm to the environment and there aren’t any ethical considerations important to you at least in terms of the animals, so what exactly is your argument here? We know you like hamburgers and steak. So does most everyone else reading this.
I shouldn’t need to prove the basic premise of this discussion: overproduction, overconsumption, environmental mayhem. If you’re not on board with that much we really have nothing to debate.
What’s the difference between killing an animal for food and killing a plant for food? Why don’t you feel like a monster for the latter?
Could you define “excess consumption” (sorry if you have and I missed it).
I’ve lost weight (then regained it) by following an ultra-low carb diet (Dukan diet). I ate nothing but meat for a few weeks. Excessive? Why? I was craving salad, but really enjoying limitless meat. Didn’t seem “excessive” to me.
That obviously depends on your frame of reference.
Are you asking what is excessive if your goal is to reduce demand for livestock production or what is excessive if your goal is to survive without eating any carbs?
In case of the former, I guess an example of excessive might be if you eat bacon and sausage with eggs, potatoes, toast and juice for breakfast every day as many do. You could just eliminate the bacon and sausage and you really wouldn’t be creating any deficit in your diet.
The meat lovers pizza I mentioned upthread could probably always qualify as excessive from the perspective of wanting to lower demand for livestock without making any real personal sacrifices. I think a pizza with any 2 or 3 meat toppings would probably get you through the night.
If you consider that North Americans on average eat more, and out of what we eat, we eat more meat, and out of all we eat we waste tons of edible food daily, and that almost half of us are clinically obese, excess could simply be assumed by looking at our passports.
It’s difficult to give a specific amount with so many possible frames of reference. I would say each person, if actually concerned and hoping to help create a change from within their own situations would know what they could give up without really missing and what they simply cannot or will not do without.
This idea of “over-xyz”, or even mayhem - those rather subjective as you note. So you want to assume all of your premises, and continue with the conclusion as if it’s obvious because hey, all of the premises are assumed. I’m not sure what fallacy that is, but you’re right that it’s not debate. Witnessing maybe so at least the right forum.
Not at all. The thread isn’t about environmental mayhem it is about an ethical conflict with killing animals for meat.
I’m advocating for people who are concerned with that, or those who aren’t, to also consider that the environmental impact that totally unnecessary overconsumption is having as another ethical consideration, related to but separate from that question.
That shouldn’t require rehashing the entire body of research on climate change, water shortages, pollution and waste. Those are all very well established problems with the livestock industry. Anyone wanting to argue that it doesn’t contribute to those problems should probably open a new debate and see how it goes. But I didn’t sign up for that debate when I joined this one.
Less Bergman, more Sjöman…
The moral issue I have with eating meat is why can’t it be done more humanely?
I watched a video once of some village of people who had a ceremony to slaughter their cow. The children all decorated the cow and fed it treats and kissed it and thanked it for its gift of food, and then a man lovingly held the cows head and slit its throat and it bled out so quickly I don’t think it felt more than 20 secs of discomfort before it lost consciousness.
I want the animals I eat to die like that, in fact I wouldn’t mind dying like that.
FWIW, I grew up on a cattle-ranch, and the killing, for slaughtering, was done with a rifle. A properly-placed shot to the skull kills pretty much instantly. This specific practice is about as humane as killing ever can be.
(Alas, it sometimes goes wrong, and that’s ugly and nasty. That is, we may be thankful, quite rare.)
I can’t find a PhilPapers type poll of academic philosophers, but vegetarianism is one of those topics that sees a convergence of support. Factory farming and meat eating strikes me as an obvious candidate for a common thing that people in the future will disapprove of when they look back at this time period, especially some of the most common excuses, e.g. “it tastes good.”
Chalk it up to the SDMB not being as liberal as advertised. Is Peter Singer ever referenced?
Animals don’t have the cognitive capacity to be moral agents in the way humans are. Humans are not obligate carnivores. Just because someone else does something immoral doesn’t excuse your own actions. This reminds me of when people ask why Western countries can’t act in certain ways and then bring up beheadings in Saudi Arabia or executions in China as justification.
Plants don’t have nervous systems or emotional states comparable to that of farm animals. If plants do suffer their moral consideration would most likely be at the bottom of a ranked order with humans and other mammals at the top and fish, arthropods, and plants somewhere near the bottom.
Give some.
About the best I’ve seen aren’t arguments in favor, but arguments for making it more ethical by improving farm conditions. That or saying something like poor people should be able to eat meat to survive, which isn’t generally in question.