[askaboutit]

The problem with trying to replace meat. Is the unknowns about why we survived as carnivores for thousands upon thousands of years and our current obsession to suddenly play god with a food supply.

We don’t know what we don’t know. And impossible doesn’t know why there would be side effects. Or they do and you’ll not know.

Buy grass fed organic meat and eat less of it. We already eat too much.

[fcarraldo]

I think Buddhists would disagree that humanity has survived solely as carnivores for thousands of years. Plenty of other cultures have existed on solely vegetarian/vegan diets as well, throughout history. Peasants within meat-eating cultures also did not always have frequent access to meat, and thus ate primarily vegetarian, or perhaps pescatarian. The idea that humans have always eaten meat and that it’s an essential part of the human diet is a myth.

[gorilla_fight]

What are these cultures which existed solely on vegan diets? Honest question, I searched but couldn't find the answer, there was a response on Quora which mentioned some Buddhists are vegan by default, and some Hindus and Essene Christians are vegetarian, but she "wasn't aware of any 100% vegan cultures."

I can understand vegetarian cultures surviving, since they can acquire essential nutrients through the animal products found in diary, but would be intrigued to find a vegan (plant-based only) culture. Was there perhaps one in the distant past or ?

[ppseafield]

You used to be able to acquire B12 from crops because some of the natural bacteria flora contained the cyanobacteria that make it. Modern farming's use of industrial pesticides means we can't use that as a source anymore.

The Jain's diet is largely plant-based. It allows for dairy, but only in the case that the cows aren't hurt as part of the process.

http://www.jainfoodie.com/jain-food-restrictions/

[fcarraldo]

I’m not an expert in the subject, but I don’t think we know. “Vegan” didn’t exist as a term until a few decades ago. Many Buddhist monks lived entirely vegan lifestyles, or so it is believed, but veganism doesn’t have a strict definition among vegans today. I probably should’ve just used the term “vegetarian”, but then I thought about the monks.

[420basteit]

Grass fed organic meat will solve all of our problems right?

Except for the fact that it is too expensive for most to afford, meaning only the upper class can eat the stuff and feel good about it; also it produces much more methane per pound of meat than the corn-fed and hormone-injected equivalent; and finally it requires MUCH more space -- space that could be used for more sustainable agriculture like soy farms or chicken factories.

Environmentally and economically it seems like America should be engineering it's meat. Ethically, this is a different story, especially with the torturing of animals that often accompanies this meat engineering process.

The reason that I personally stand behind the development of meat alternatives like the impossible, and cultured meat, is that these are attempts to continue increasing the environmental and economic viability of meat while simultneously eliminating the ethical issues completely.

Yes the alternative meat field is young and not effective right now, but that's no reason to abandon all hope that cheap sustainable meat-like sustenance is possible. Impossible should be lauded and encouraged to improve their product. Their very name is a clue that what they are trying to do is not easy, but I think if successful, it could pay off big for society.

[jlebar]

Given the choice, I'd rather we play God a little more with weird foods and a little less with the futures of billions of people who will be driven from their homes of much worse by climate change.

[mindslight]

Semantic nit: not "playing God" with the "billions who will be driven from their homes" would mean leaving them to that fate.

[kalleboo]

Meh, lots of "meat" foods we eat today are heavily processed and filled with completely unnatural preservatives, I don't see "fake meats" as any different than say, cheap hotdogs.

We've been playing god with our food supply since forever (salting meats to preserve them [salt is bad for you! right?], agriculture, the list goes on...)

[GW150914]

The one sure thing about humans in terms of diet is opportunistic omnivorousness. We were never herbivore or carnivores, and the fact that we would gladly chew leaves, eat fruit in season, and suck the marrow from a bone we found all contributed to our lasting success. We’re definitely not, and have never been dietary specialists.

Eat meat or don’t (I do), but don’t kid yourself about some historical or dietary imperitive, and don’t ignore a couple of million years of our and our ancestors’ omnivorous history. It’s also unwise to argue from a historical precedent that has little or no relevance unless you’re cranking out kids in your teens, hunting and gathering, and dying young. We’ve spent a lot of time and energy removing ourselves from the demanding lives of our distant ancestors, and plenty of them ate mostly plants and thrived. Remember gladiators? https://archive.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/gladiator.htm...

Yeah, eating meat is a choice we make, and only one some of us are lucky to be able to make. History is full of us eating meat, and full of us (especially the poor in all ages) eating mostly or exclusively grain, pulses, and vegetables with some diary I’d they were lucky.

[throwaway5752]

Thank you. It's obvious in several ways that we've evolved to be omnivorous. We have pronounced molars. We have relatively long digestive tracts. We can synthesize basic nutrients from plant diet precursors that are common in meat diets.