What I don't get about fake meats is that they even exist. There is absolutely no reason why humans need to eat meat. 20+% of India's population is vegetarian and has been for generations. They have full lives without meat.
People don't have to be 100% vegetarians. The real game changer is to get the world's population to reduce their meat intake by eating more vegetarian meals. Vegetarian meals can be very tasty and satisfying. There's no need for synthetic meat.
Fake meats take a lot of resources. It's just another way to make a buck by getting people to consume something they don't need. In the same way, as soda is nice to have but you don't want to get behind it as a way to save the world. Fake meats are equivalent to snacks not world saviors.
When you get time to read the article, you'll see that this point was addressed and that it turns out people won't change their behavior despite knowing for decades that meat can be cruel and terrible for the planet. You need to give people and easy low-friction alternative, and eating beans and rice in place of a juicy burger isn't going to cut it.
That is why filming on factory farms and slaughterhouses is a jailable offense in Australia and why the meat industry spends billions on handouts worldwide.
Very simple changes like reducing meat in media, mandating a listed vegetarian option at restaraunts, forced transparency on the harms involved, and lowering the massive subsidies would reduce meat consumption considerably.
Or you could do the same thing that was done to almost completely stop the influx of new smokers. Lock the meat behind a cabinet out of sight and include a picture of the animal at the place and time of its death on the packaging.
There were numerous tantrums after the cigarettes. If you ignore them and the measures are only a mild inconvenience and you don't have to get people to do something actively they get tired of it and shut up
No, they aren't really addressing the point, they point out that eating more vegetables is better but they don't address the point that creating more satisfying dishes with out having to produce a super processed product that does not resemble a vegetable and requires so many resources is so much better than fake meats at any level.
Yes unprocessed vegetables are more sustainable than fake meat. The problem is that we as a society need to reduce the amount of meat that we eat. Fake meat is a drop-in replacement and is more sustainable. Your argument isn’t helping anything except for the meat industry.
It’s not a drop in replacement. It doesn’t taste like meat and it’s expensive.
Everyone I know has tried it and no one has replaced meat in their diet. I know some vegetarians who use them.
If we had a drop in, then I agree with you. But fake meats aren’t going to do it. I think it’s better to have more realistic health campaigns and subsidies.
I suspect this is just these new fake meat startups spending PR to get subsidies set up.
I mean it’s a drop in replacement in the way that an impossible burger easily replaces a beef patty, not that it’s a 1:1 replacement.
I would love better health campaigns and subsidies as well but no one wants be told to not eat meat or to lose the subsidies that make their meat cheap so it’s not going to happen.
Do you think that fake meat companies shouldn’t get subsidies?
> Vegetarian meals can be very tasty and satisfying.
As someone who grew up never eating a single piece of meat until about the age of 20, yes, but that's not the full picture.
After I started eating meat I ate pretty much ate the amount the average American does for about a decade. Nowadays I eat a lot less meat, and certainly don't require it every meal. I _can_ go a few days without it, but after that I get real cravings to the point that meals start to feel empty with out it. More so if I have been working out a lot.
Despite not eating meat for a few years now, I like the flavour of meat. So I personally welcome fake meats any time of the week, as long as they aren't prohibitly expensive to the environment.
Pastoral lands are pastoral, and not arable, usually because they are not suitable for arable cropping. There is either too little rainfall, or the wrong kind/timing of rainfall, or the soils are wrong. For rainfall reasons forests are out too.
Articles that go on about how ${large_number} percent of the world's non-desert, non-mountain, non-arctic land is used for grazing animals, all omit these inconvenient facts.
The "Sand Hills" region in Nebraska is typical. Dry, could in theory support arable farming, for a while, by drawing down the Ogallala aquifer. But for the fact that that the soil is just sand, and it doesn't give good crop yields. Pouring on the amounts of fertilizer that would be required for cropping would poison the aquifer for everyone else. (In the Sand Hills, the aquifer is highly connected to the surface because of the porosity of the, er, sand.)
Leaving these pastoral lands fallow (without herds of wild ruminants, with their global warming emissions) would just result in continual grass fires.
That said, feeding ruminant animals grains (soy, maize/corn, wheat) is a Bad Idea environmentally as far as I can tell. So is bulldozing the Amazon rainforest to grow soy and cattle. And it might be a Good Idea to re-wild quite a bit of pastoral land. I don't know. Persuading people to leave money on the table is difficult.[1]
> Pastoral lands are pastoral, and not arable, usually because they are not suitable for arable cropping.
There is plenty of livestock raised on arable land though. The exact number of "arable land used to raise livestock" will probably differ widely per region; pretty much all of the Netherlands is arable as one extreme example. Many of the hills in, say, Ireland or Britain where sheep are grazing are not.
More importantly however, as you mentioned you need a multitude of arable land for any pastoral land since your livestock has to eat. You don't need this, but no way we can raise enough livestock to meet demand on self-sustainable pastoral lands, and it's more expensive too so there's that.
I don't think it's not mentioned because it's "inconvenient", but because it's a red herring and not really very important.
> There is either too little rainfall, or the wrong kind/timing of rainfall, or the soils are wrong. For rainfall reasons forests are out too.
No. Forests create rain. Missing forests (thanks to animal husbandry) are partly responsible for droughts and irregular/extreme weather events. Please don't pretend that grazing is the only thing these lands are good for. Almost any land can be reforested easily (if it has some dirt, and it's not just sand/rock desert, then it's harder, but not at all impossible).
> Leaving these pastoral lands fallow (without herds of wild ruminants, with their global warming emissions) would just result in continual grass fires.
We've taken away the ability of those lands to reforest itself with continual grazing / fire burning. We have to supply some seeds (see fukuoka method) and let the land be. Nature will do the rest.
> Pastoral lands are pastoral, and not arable, usually because they are not suitable for arable cropping.
> Persuading people to leave money on the table is difficult.
Your premise is that all land must have a commercial value. It's a fallacy. We should rewild those areas and return that land to forests & wild animals (we've stolen it from them).
We need to stop subsidizing bad/harmful things (e.g., oil industry, meat/dairy production, sea exploitation, plastic production) and start subsidizing the right things (e.g., alternative energy sources/savings, plant based foods, reforestation efforts).
30% or more of Switzerland is not useable for any kind of farming other than cattle. Fertilizers in the Alps are heavily discouraged. Less than 5% of the food for cows is imported. The far majority is produced trough the same grass the herds spent their time on.
And to round this up there is a relatively okish label jungle so you can know exactly which kind of farming you support.
Just because beef isn't the solution for the world hunger doesn't mean it's not the best possible and probably even most ecological solution in some areas.
We would not need cca 75% of our agricultural lands if stopped overindulging in meat/dairy.
Those 30% you're talking about is not the only land your cattle herds need ... there is also corn/seeds/alfaalfa etc. produced somewhere.
Beef needs 120x more land than plant-based foods for the same amount of calories.
Western countries are a model for developing countries. If we base our diets on meat/dairy, they will want the same. We're developed, we have to set a positive/meaningful example.
We would need several Earths to feed the world same diet as westerners eat. It's simply short-sided and selfish to insist upon current practices to the detriment of everybody else (& Earth & wild animals & biodiversity etc.).
There is no point in not using the land tho. Especially as cows even play a role in keeping the Alps tourist friendly. The meat I personally buy doesn't contain any crops grown elsewhere. It's 100% from the land around here, there is no need for power crops in cow food if the grass has actual biodiversity.
I totally agree that this isn't sustainable on a bigger scale. I also realize that some people can't afford this kind of meat and the 'dirty' market is always way bigger.
But it's not about a global solution. It's about finding a sustainable way of living where you are.
Reforest it. The tourists will come, and maybe your glaciers will stop melting. Then even skiers may keep coming.
> Especially as cows even play a role in keeping the Alps tourist friendly.
Yes, violet milka cows. We've all seen them. They are the ones which give milk in perpetuity without being forcibly raped every year with their young taken away the first day they're born, milked to their death in five short years (instead of 20+ it would be otherwise), and then sent to the slaughtehouse, because they can't even walk. Serene.
> I also realize that some people can't afford this kind of meat
Sure ... but I don't want to subsidize your food preferences. Without subsidies only the top 0.1% would be able to purchase grass-fed beef. Strangely enough, I'm all for that :)
Yes, they are more sustainable but they are in no way replacements. I've had a few but I wouldn't make it a habit to replace meat with it. But I would surely replace one of my meals with 100% vegetables if it was easy to get and tasty. One that comes to mind is a bean and rice burrito with salsa. It's delicious. That's the type of replacements that should be pushed, not fake meats.
The idea that fake meat is so much better is crazy. It's just a new way to make a buck.
As a vegetarian, having fake meat options is really great. Sometimes you just want a burger, or you need something that can be cooked on a grill at a social gathering. Just the fact that I can get fast food that isn't Taco Bell when I want to is a big deal.
Cool, have a fake meat option. It's a snack food option. But please don't tell me it's going to save the planet. It's not even close to doing that. It's just a way to sell another money making snack. I love French fries and eat them a few times a month but in no way am I kidding my self into thinking that I'm saving the planet.
As a former vegetarian, I loved boca burgers as they were cheap and high in proteins and minimally processed.
The new fake meats aren’t that great over existing meat substitutes and I’m frustrated that their price is so high and has not been coming down over the years available. I don’t see these being viable as they cost more than beef.
At least at Burger King, Impossible Whoppers are only like $1 more. Most restaraunts, yeah they are the most expensive option by a couple of dollars. Very frustrating. Still good to have the option though, because the alternative is often a crappy house salad or sides.
It is a bit like in the Matrix. If it tastes the same and you have a good feeling when you bite into it, is there really a difference?
I mean aside from the fact that we are now entering times where the water consumption of each unit of meat produced will become a serious issue and threaten the actual survival of people.
> Yes, they are more sustainable but they are in no way replacements.
Yes, they are (source: am vegan).
> a bean and rice burrito with salsa. It's delicious. That's the type of replacements that should be pushed, not fake meats
If you're not vegan, please don't pretend you know what you're pushing for. Beans are superb, but a little variety won't harm anyone. If you'd eat burgers all your life, and then stop eating meat for the animals/health/earth, you might crave a burger now and then. Then you'd welcome all new "franken-meats" in the supermarket/burger joint.
Making a plant based meat that's not ultraprocessed is in fact a very simple thing to do. DIY plant-based meat may have minimum ingredients (protein, water & vegie-stock) and costs a fraction of the store-bought stuff.
And please stop pretending that omnivores don't eat processed crap, because they do.
Meat/dairy is full of harmful things (pesticides, herbicides, bacteria/toxins, antibiotics, all animals are scared/stressed for hours/days before slaughtering ...). If you're eating it, you're not eating healthier diet.
I'm not a vegan. Fake meat is sold as replacement for people like me. Give me a choice between fake meat and a vegie plate. I will pick the vegie plate 100% of the time. It's not a replacement for me.
I guess my real issue is that people think this will somehow help the planet. It won't. It's expensive so most people in the world will never be able to afford it. People with the money will mostly pick meat over it. It's a niche product at best. But the product is being sold as a the answer to save humanity. It's just a bunch of people trying to make a buck. All this when just reducing your meat intake would be so much better. It's just frustrating to me.
That reply makes no sense to me. The post you are replying to suggested replacing meat with veggies (instead of fake meat). Why do you think eating veggies will "kill the planet"?
It is unlikely they will get radically worse, but its possible they won't get radically better.
However, on-the-hoof meat production has some ideas which can be remarkably transformative: the seaweed additive would reduce methane burp burden immensely.
Nothing much alters the water burden of different organisms. Beef is high. Almonds are amongst the highest in plant foods. Sustainable fake meat will want to be significantly lower than Almonds. Its already significantly lower than beef.
This has been an idea for years and afaik there is only one farm in Australia feeding their cattle seaweed. Keep in mind it is a specific kelp and to supplement the diets of the world cattle population with seaweed it would need to be farmed with exponential growth to the point of being a major or close to major crop.
I’m amazed that people are still considering almond milk as a replacement of milk. Both beverages share basically nothing except maybe that they are white and people still compare them.
In reality, you can reduce/stop cow milk consumption without replacing it. And if you want to replace it, almond milk is a pretty bad choice.
I like both but to me it’s like comparing coffee with chocolate arguing that you can (or should) replace one with the other.
If you want to stop cow milk for [insert reason] and, by the meantime, you are worried about the water consumption of almond milk, just don’t drink both.
People don't have to be 100% vegetarians. The real game changer is to get the world's population to reduce their meat intake by eating more vegetarian meals. Vegetarian meals can be very tasty and satisfying. There's no need for synthetic meat.
Fake meats take a lot of resources. It's just another way to make a buck by getting people to consume something they don't need. In the same way, as soda is nice to have but you don't want to get behind it as a way to save the world. Fake meats are equivalent to snacks not world saviors.