[esotericn]

8% for the sake of what amounts to a flavour in your mouth is pretty earth shattering.

Consider: would you spend 8% of your entire financial budget on beef? On an income of $30K, say, you'd spend $2400 on beef, ignoring all other food and other expenses?

I'd even flip it around - take a random person off the street, in the UK, say, and tell them you'll give them 2 grand a year to stop eating beef. How many people do you think would take you up on that who don't even care about the environment?

It's stark raving bonkers.

[jimmaswell]

I'd be spending about $15/day on beef at that rate on my salary, which isn't very far off from my fast food habits.

[esotericn]

I'm a bit confused by this - are you saying that it'd end up being 100% of what you eat, or that it's actually a reasonable estimate of your beef consumption?

(as an aside - $15 on fast food a day! for your sake I hope it's relatively healthy stuff!)

[jimmaswell]

I haven't been to the grocery store much lately, and a Wendy's and McDonald's are within bicycling distance. I'll go to them once or twice a day often nowadays. When I first moved out, eating out so much would have felt like an intolerable budget failure, but I've found myself caring less and less over time.

I try to stick to just the burgers, not soda or fries often. The jalapeno bacon fries at Wendy's have been an exception though.

I feel like it's not really that unhealthy considering fat's actually not bad for you and dietary cholesterol doesn't become blood cholesterol, which was surprisingly still good for me despite this diet last it was tested. Results vary depending on the genetic lottery.

[sk5t]

You should probably aim for one visit to Wendy's or McD's a week... or one a month... or one a quarter. What you're doing now is like rationalizing vodka over beer.

[barry-cotter]

This is wrong. A burger is bread, meat and vegetables, maybe with some cheese or another meat. Between carbohydrates, protein and some vegetables an all burger diet is unlikely to lead to any noticeable health effects compared to a normal Western diet. Fries are vastly worse for you than burgers or pizza, whether you’re looking at macronutrients alone or tracking vitamins and minerals as well.

http://www.businesspundit.com/the-mcdonalds-weight-loss-prog...

> A US woman claims to have lost 33 pounds by eating nothing but McDonald's for 90 days.

> Merab Morgan, of Henderson, North Carolina, began her diet because she found the Super Size Me film insulting.

> In the documentary, film maker Morgan Spurlock put on 25lbs after eating excusively at McDonald's for just one month.

> Ms Morgan, 35, memorised the calories in almost every menu item, and limits herself to 1,400 calories a day, reports the Detroit Free Press.

> "It's kind of like the poor man's diet," said Morgan, who has tried Weight Watchers and Atkins but failed because of the time and money those plans required.

[benj111]

A burger doesn't have enough veg for a healthy diet, I'd be amazed if its better than the average western diet.

I'm thinking a generic McDonalds burger here with a wilted piece of lettuce, a slice of tomato and some gherkins. You could probably construct a healthy veg burger, I have no idea where you'd buy one. Something like subway seems like a better bet.

[esotericn]

Well, good luck.

I'd recommend you go and buy some real food. Regardless of macros, McDonalds is full of garbage, especially in the US.

[ehnto]

If you are going to eat out all the time, try to make it places that use whole foods like real chicken breast in their burgers. At least you're not getting all the processing guff that ends up in processed meat blends. Also give Japanese, Korean or Thai cuisines a go. You can eat pretty healthy and still eat out constantly with a lot of East/South East Asian cuisines.

[nitrogen]

What is the "guff" that goes into a chain fast food burger?

[cosmodisk]

I spend about 15-20% of my salary on food.Probably a little bit less than half of it goes towards buying meat, including beaf. So,yes,I would.Do I really need to consume that much meat? Well, that's a different questions,but most likely not.

[m0zg]

>> you'll give them 2 grand a year to stop eating beef

I think the vast majority of people would turn down your offer. There's too little enjoyment in life as it is. Life without steaks and beer is not worth living for most people.

[throwaway3627]

I bet this is unfortunately, uncomfortably true. There are major behavioral changes needed that can't be left to incentives or voluntary changes when survival is at stake. ICEs, meat agriculture, airline travel, unconfined clinker manufacturing and fossil fuel extraction must end if we're to survive this climate emergency. In addition, Be/CCS must happen, such as ferrous ocean seeding and seaweed extraction for contained burning with underground carbon emissions sequestration. Mexico is already dealing with an incredible volume of seaweed arriving daily on prime tourist beaches... which would be perfect for CCS if we were to burn it to generate power, reduce its volume and bury captured emissions very deep.

[m0zg]

>> There are major behavioral changes needed that can't be left to incentives or voluntary changes when survival is at stake.

This was tried several times in different contexts (prohibition, war on drugs, etc), and it fails every time.

Make alternatives appealing and people will run to them in droves. That is the only feasible path forward if you're hoping any change will be adopted by a large majority of people.

Very few people will give up steaks or Hawaii vacations when all is said and done, unless you offer them a better alternative.

[lentil_soup]

What's ICE, CCS, Be?

[thinkcontext]

Internal Combustion Engine, cars.

Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture and Sequestration, most common type I've seen is burning wood or other biomass for energy, capturing the CO2 and pumping it underground so that it doesn't cause warming in the atmosphere.

[pbhjpbhj]

We can afford steak a couple of times a year, but minced beef (which I think is what's called ground beef in USA) is a major source of protein for us.