why milk/cheese and beef dairy are two different charts?
YSK that apart from not having a car, the single greatest thing you can do for the climate is simply eating less red meat
Submitted 8 months ago by Wulri@lemmy.world to youshouldknow@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/3041d99b-25ff-4dac-8c2f-21bda6a1210d.png
Comments
brachiosaurus@mander.xyz 8 months ago
backgroundcow@lemmy.world 8 months ago
No shade on people trying to make sustainable choices, but if the solution to the climate crisis is us trusting everyone to “get with the program” and pick the right choice; while unsustainable alternatives sit right there beside them at lower prices, then we are truly doomed.
What the companies behind these foods and products don’t want to talk about is that to get anywhere we have to target them. It shouldn’t be a controversial standpoint that: (i) all products need to cover their true full environmental and sustainability costs, with the money going back into investments into the environment counteracting the negative impacts; (ii) we need to regulate, regulate, and regulate how companies are allowed to interact with the environment and society, and these limits must apply world-wide. There needs to be careful follow-up on that these rules are followed: with consequences for individuals that take the decisions to break them AND “death sentences” (i.e. complete disbandment) for whole companies that repeatedly oversteps.
Sniatch@feddit.org 8 months ago
Eating meat also means lots of animals have to suffer just for yout pleasure. I know people get triggert real fast if you mention how bad eating meat really is. It’s like a drug for some people.
tdawg@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Does the graph include how palm farms are built on precious forest land that has since been burned down? and that the land primarily being burnt is some of the most important land for storing carbon and providing oxygen?
xeekei@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
I like chicken more anyway.
Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Billionaires have the carbon footprint of 30k families and this one here is saying I have to give up my car and my burgers.
What a stupid post to get blocked over.
Jackhammer_Joe@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Not quite the reply that you would hope for - but the general direction isn’t that wrong
InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Its true that the economy of scale to reduce emissions is at the factories and such, but the point of the other things on a personal level are important; largely because they instill a culture of caring about the matter. For example, for better or worse, the marine corps puts a lot of emphasis on the proper wearing and display of the uniform, so the consequence is that it is taboo to not shave or have unshined shoes. If you are the only one in a party using a plastic straw or the only one rolling coal; you’ll be more than a sore thumb; you’ll be shunned at a deeper level and by the wider community not just environmentalists.
No one is even saying no beef, but we are saying reduction in it. That statement is not only a false dichotomy, but preventing a real start to our movements.
plyth@feddit.org 8 months ago
This needs to be normalized by calories. Soymilk and soybean oil shouldn’t be that far apart.
Echofox@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
And not having any children!
Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Fun fact, antinatalists are literally insane!
myotheraccount@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Nuts are nuts!
Jackhammer_Joe@lemmy.world 8 months ago
So are strawberries!
myotheraccount@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Can’t argue with that
JaceTheGamerDesigner@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
We could really use a movement to get more people to try adding beans, peas, and tofu to their grocery list. I wasn’t able to stick to not eating meat, but sticking to eating less meat by adding alternatives to my grocery list turned out to be quite easy.
cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 8 months ago
I gonna be honest: Tofu is a completely underrated food. If done right it tastes absolutely fucking awesome. You can also put it onto bread and there are plenty of different flavoutlrs that you can easily buy in a supermarket.
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The trick is to find the right message and tone for the moment. I also think change like this is necessarily incremental. It’s possible that with enough doom-and-gloom around a pending “market correcting event”, that helping everyone reduce grocery bills by eating vegetarian a few nights a week, would be the right message.
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
I eat a legume for pretty much every meal:
- Peanut butter on regular rotation for convenience foods
- Peas or beans or snap peas as a component in pasta dishes or salads
- Blanched peas or green beans as a vegetable side when I’m eating dinner with a main and sides separate.
- Edamame with Asianish noodle dishes, including instant ramen
- Snow peas or snap peas as a component in stir fries
- Beans in salads (things like kidney beans or black beans)
- Lentils or beans in fast casual rice bowls of a Mediterranean influence
- Some kind of lentil or chickpea dish with South Asian food.
- Beans with Mexican food because duh
- Dried beans with my braises (cassoulet, chili, other random assortments of ingredients in a braising pot/dutch oven), only you gotta be conscious of how dried beans don’t cook properly in acidic environments.
I personally don’t care for tofu. I’ll eat it when it’s a component of a dish I happen to already be eating, but I rarely seek it out to be the star of the dish I order or make, with only a few exceptions.
But adding legumes/pulses to your meals is an easy way to get more protein, including amino acids (like lysine) that aren’t present in traditional grains like wheat or rice. And they’re generally a good source of certain types of soluble fiber good for gut health. I’m also generally less hungry (and get full faster) when I’m eating plenty of fiber and protein, so legumes help with both of those.
I eat a lot, so I still eat a decent amount of meat overall, but as a percentage of my 3500-calorie diet it’s probably smaller than the average Westerner.
Schmeckinger@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I managed to get off of meat by trying out good meat replacements before quitting. But I still consume a lot of cheese especially mozzarella.
BigBenis@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I’ve got a special trick where I can make pretty much the entire internet rage at me. Check it out:
I’m vegetarian.
PetteriSkaffari@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Imagine how being vegan makes you the most horrible pariah. Change of diet was not difficult at all, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the social consequences.
wabasso@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Haha nice!
This chart theoretically demonstrates the validity of vegetarianism if that beef herd line is truly the outlier it appears to be.
KingGimpicus@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Beef is overrated. Pork, poultry, and wild caught shrimp are where it’s at.
untuned@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
I guess it’s a good thing that the lone star tick is moving north
drsilverworm@midwest.social 8 months ago
The single best thing you can do for the climate is not existing. The next best thing is not having kids. The lifetime of consumption of a person is out of the equation without that person. Until we figure out how to live sustainably on this earth, overpopulation is a real problem.
theacharnian@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
You first, buddy.
If not, this is just a slippery slope arguent to “those other people shouldn’t exist/have babies”. That’s just the door to eco-fascism.
drsilverworm@midwest.social 8 months ago
I’m not calling out any single group, but speaking broadly about all humans. How does that jump to “those other people”?
tdawg@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I mean maybe. A lot of people today aren’t having children bc of the general state of things and concerns around climate factor into that
DicJacobus@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Im sorry if it makes me an ecofascist, but that Trailer park welfare mom with 6 kids and 4 baby daddies is a problem. and there’s plenty of other cultures with a similar problem of having too many kids and not being able to provide for any of them.
SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Would you rather have ecofascism or the extinction of all macroscopic organisms?
That being said limiting birth rates is a responsible thing to do, and we can see clearly when wealth inequality forces people to have fewer resources they will just choose to not have children. Otherwise every country wouldn’t be whining about birth rates being too low.
wabasso@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
I dunno, can’t it still be a good thing to put this option into the zeitgeist, in an otherwise pro-natal by default society?
Even though I know that on an intellectual level having kids is a choice, it still feels like a big adulting checkbox. That feel may be biological, but it’s influenced by society too.
Tautvydaxx@piefed.social 8 months ago
Are bilionairs white meat?
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Probably more like pork, though I’d finish them on apples and acorns because a normal human diet makes them not taste vary good.
Also you need to castrate the males a month before you eat them or they’ll taste off
cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 8 months ago
Also you need to castrate the males a month before you eat them or they’ll taste off
That sounds like someone has experience with this…
Jamablaya@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Jesus. Noe of this actually matters, the cargo ships dwarf the output of a continent
trepX@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Not going to claim it really matters that much. Everyone chooses their own principles and battles to make themselves feel better. We trie to cut out as much meat as possible.
Beef, because it pollutes the most globally.
Most pork because they’re clever and the nitrate pollution in my particular part of the world due to pig manure threatens the local ground water
So our chicken consumption went up a bit, but mostly the tofu consumption. Doesn’t mean we’re religious or even the least bit of preachy about it, god I hate those ppl. But it makes you feel better if you think you’re at least a bit in control of some things. Like your own diet.
RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Which continent? Antarctica? It wouldn’t surprise me, but it seems like an entirely useless comparison to make.
Maalus@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Not really, check out their claim on google. Ships are polluting a shitton. They have huge engines that run on the crappiest fuel known to man. It’s so bad, that they have to switch to diesel by law when comming close to the shore / port so as to meet any semblence of environmental law. Something like the top 10 ships pollute more than all cars on Earth combined (exhaust gasses, not tire wear / brake dust).
BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
IDK why you’re getting downvoted, large cargo ships can emit the same amount of co2 as 50 million cars maritimepage.com/cargo-ship-co2-emissions/
Perhaps the people downvoting you are the same kind of people without a sense of proportion, who think that turning off an LED light bulb saves the environment.
It could also be that you don’t provide a solution. So here it goes: want to cut co2? Buy locally produced goods. If you live in the northern hemisphere strawberries aren’t in season in January, and it’s a good chance that neither are tomatoes or avocado.
Jamablaya@lemmy.world 8 months ago
My solution might involve genociding redditors and every second lemmy “genius”
remon@ani.social 8 months ago
IDK why you’re getting downvoted
I mean, your own source kind of debunks what the previous poster said …
Maalus@lemmy.world 8 months ago
They’re getting downvotes for “not like it matters”. Every little bit matters and “limit eating red meat” helps too. You don’t need to completely stop.
Also the claim sounds weird to people who don’t know facts about shipping and how horrific it is for the environment. Most people think “plane bad” not “ship bad”.
threeduck@aussie.zone 8 months ago
The entire worlds cargo ships emit 3% of the planets GHG emissions.
Animal agriculture is 15-20%. It’s equal to the ENTIRE transport sector (cars, trucks, boats, planes etc).
As a consumer you can’t easily change your cargo ship usage, or cars or planes, but you can absolutely change your diet, literally today.
I did! And I grew up on a dairy farm in rural NZ.
Jamablaya@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Oh look a Lying Fuckwit appears.
hans@feddit.org 8 months ago
all of agriculture is only about 20%. animal agriculture is just a facet of that
pupbiru@aussie.zone 8 months ago
i’ve replaced beef in my diet with kangaroo for exactly this reason… it’s not the same, but it’s great in its own right and contains a load of iron. makes cutting beef out much easier
bonus: roo populations have to be managed otherwise in modern australia they tend to multiply uncontrolled and it’s a problem, so it’s either eat the meat or waste it… roo meat isn’t farmed
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 8 months ago
This is why I’m mostly okay with hunting deer, here in the US. We displaced their predators so it’s on us to make up the balance. I say “mostly” since, like others are saying in this thread about taking habitat away from kangaroos, the better answer is to give them an actual functional ecosystem to live in.
threeduck@aussie.zone 8 months ago
Roos are culled mostly because they compete for pasture availability and water access for livestock, especially because we reduced their predators (again, to protect animal livestock).
It’s certainly better to eat roo than cow, but a diet that doesn’t include killing animals at all is objectively better.
pupbiru@aussie.zone 8 months ago
a diet that doesn’t include killing animals at all is objectively better.
assuming animals wouldn’t be killed either way, yes… but even if they’re killed for other livestock, that’s going to continue regardless of eating them or not so the difference is practically nothing
and also, something is better than nothing… i think for most people not eating meat just isn’t going to happen. subbing out beef for roo (and chicken and pork) is a very good trade, and i’ve switched a lot of people to do the same. it’s pretty easy to convince people to do that. it’s very difficult to convince people to eat exclusively vegetarian
HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
Americans are trying to ban it.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 8 months ago
We have the same problems in America, but with deer, and the same solutions to that problem.
But those same nutjobs who want to ban roo meat also want to ban deer hunting. Because they are idiots.
pupbiru@aussie.zone 8 months ago
i heard about that… it’s wild lol… and their argument is basically “it’s cute”
Jamablaya@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Plus it’s delicious, it either tastes exactly like white tail deer or perhaps i was scammed
pupbiru@aussie.zone 8 months ago
i’ve heard it does taste like that yes, but haven’t tried myself because idk where to get venison in aus! roo is literally available in mince, diced, steaks, sausages, etc in supermarkets here :p
Dasus@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I myself eat venison, moose and reindeer. Sometimes horse when it’s off-season, but that’s kinda janky as it’s not really game, but the incentives for “farming” horses don’t really exist so…
Anyway, my local butcher’s has some frozen 'roo. I’ve had some on a pizza when drunk once, but don’t really recall it that well for my BAC was kinda high. I do remember feeling a tad absurd eating a pizza with kangaroo on it while a guy rode past on a unicycle. I’m not imagining that, although I may have also been high at the time.
Anyway, my point is how’d you compare 'roo to beef in texture and taste?
I hated lamb for instance (and generally don’t buy it because the morality is horrible, just had a chance to taste and didn’t like). Venison, moose, reindeer, horse, all awesome. Reindeer most gamy, moose second, then venison and horse on a pretty similar level. All really lean usually.
pupbiru@aussie.zone 8 months ago
how’d you compare 'roo to beef in texture and taste
it’s pretty gamey, so i wouldn’t say it’s a direct replacement… i do like a roo bolognese though: adds a bunch of depth
imo roo steak is absolutely amazing though
it’s very low fat, so you have to cook it fast and not well done etc otherwise it gets really tough really quickly
oh also roo curries are incredible too!
i’ve heard that roo it pretty close to venison in taste, but haven’t tried venison so not sure
poplargrove@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Mmm, close to 700 comments. Have fun yall.
Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
What bother’s me about these sorts of posts is they don’t give people a consumption goal. Blindly telling everyone to consume less isn’t exactly fair. Say, for example, there’s person A who consumes 1 unit of red meat per month, and person B who consumes 100 units of red meat per month. If you say to everyone “consume 1 unit of red meat less per month”, well, now person A consumes 0 units of red meat per month, and person B consumes 99 units of red meat per month. Is that fair? Say, you tell everyone “halve your consumption of red meat per month”, well, now person A consumes 0.5 units of red meat per month, and person B consumes 50 units of red meat per month. Is that fair? Now, say, you tell everyone “you should try to eat at most 2 units of meat per month”, well now person A may happily stay at 1 unit knowing that they’re already below the target maximum, they may choose to decrease of their own accord, or they may feel validated to increase to 2 units of red meat per month, and person B will feel pressured to dramatically, and (importantly, imo) proportionally, reduce their consumption. Blindly saying that everyone should reduce their consumption in such an even manner disproportionately imparts blame, as there are likely those who are much more in need of reduction than others. It may even be that a very small minority of very large consumers are responsible for the majority of the overall consumption, so the “average” person may not even need to change their diet much, if at all, in order to meet a target maximum.
SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 8 months ago
I feel like this objection makes the most sense in a particular context, like a culture that views beef as some sort of prize, or a marker of being ahead in the competition for social status with one’s neighbors. (U.S. culture very much views it that way.)
If Person A eats only 1 unit of beef per month, what would make dropping to zero “unfair” is if we assume that they are too poor to afford more (“losing”), or engaging in asceticism, but holding on to that one unit as a vital connection to the status game, or a special treat that they covet.
But what if it’s just food? Person A may just not be that into beef, and probably not even miss it, just like Person B probably also wouldn’t notice a difference between 100 units and 99 units. In the sense that neither A or B really would notice a small change all that much, it’s fair
Anyway, random thoughts from somebody who thinks steak is just kind of meh.
DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz 8 months ago
I don’t think it’s necessary to compare yourself to others here. The consumption goal should just be to consume less and every effort makes a difference. If you eat red meat every day, then try every other day. If you already do that, try once a week. If you feel you can consume even less then have it as a rare treat or just cut it out entirely.
CannedYeet@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Perspective matters. There’s a couple things you can do to majorly reduce your carbon footprint. Beyond those it gets increasing difficult to have smaller and smaller effects. At some point the next most effective things to do with your time and effort become
- do activism
- earn more money
- to buy offsets
- to donate to activist charities
The time and effort you spend living like a weirdo has an opportunity cost that you could be doing those things. Furthermore it looks bad. There was a study that found that when you tell people that tackling climate change requires major sacrifice, they became more likely to deny climate change is even real.
ReiRose@lemmy.world 8 months ago
One or two meals with any meat at all per week, never any red meat at all.
Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
[…] never any red meat at all.
How come?
markko@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The bulk of your post is probably the reason why consumption goals aren’t given - it’s not going to be the same for everyone.
Anyone who only eats 1 steak per year is unlikely to see a general statement like “reduce your red meat consumption” and think “oh no, I’m eating too much red meat”, because they are likely well aware of how much the average person eats compared to them.
RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
“A sustainable diet leaves room for 2 chicken breasts a week”
(Really, 2 servings of fish / poultry per week. No red meat.)
The average person outside of developing nations vastly outpaces this consumption rate.
The small, single-digit percent of the population that’s vegetarian/vegan, as well as people who are experiencing food insecurity and do not have consistent access to meat are ahead of the curve from a sustainability perspective.
When 95+% of people who have the means to dictate their meal choices do not achieve the target reduction it’s generally safe to say everyone who eats meat needs to cut back.
Tronn4@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Save the planet! Eat Deez Nutz!
dontbelasagne@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Finally, me being gay can actually be useful
jaykrown@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I stopped eating beef about 4 years ago. It was a great decision. I much prefer pork/poultry anyway.
blarghly@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I continued eating beef 4 years ago. It was also a great decision.
threeduck@aussie.zone 8 months ago
Why would someone proudly glout about that? Like, you saw the OPs image right? It’s one of the worst things a consumer can do for the climate. What a bizarro banner to fly.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
If you don’t have a car and rarely eat red meat
To be fair, only one of these is a choice in many parts of the world.
ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 8 months ago
I’ve been the bane of chickens all my life…
rizzothesmall@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Looks like the traditional Irish diet of potatoes, root veg, and onions is carbon-friendly af.
sndmn@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
You forgot number one: By far, the best thing you can do for the climate is not have children.
lemmus@szmer.info 8 months ago
Literally the opposite, more people -> faster growth -> new technology that saves people (as it happened past many times in the past already)
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 8 months ago
Increasing the bag limit on “billionaire” to something greater than “0” would have a much more appreciable effect on the climate than a thousand families forgoing children.
blarghly@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Kill all the billionaires -> another crop step in to fill the power vacuum - likely more likely to hire excellent security teams.
Revolution, overthrow capitalism -> the power hungry psychopaths who wanted to be billionaires pivot and seek positions in seats of government power. They continue living lives of opulant luxury on the public largess, and propagate fossil fuel and factory farming industries since this is one of the ways they skim their wealth from the public coffers.
Reform, throw out all the opulant bureaucrats. Maybe murder them. Introduce a new level of transparency in government. Install leaders who follow the public will, even to their own detriment. But the public will likes things mostly the way they are, and doesn’t want to give up their cars because they are used to them and see them as a symbol of their success in achieving whatever socioeconomic status, and doesn’t want to give up meat because meat is delicious. Because everyone likes getting things for free and the elected representatives do exactly what the public demands, entitlement programs grow rapidly while taxes stay the same or get lower. No one does work, because perfect communist utopia provides people with all their needs, so people just spend all their time driving cars and eating meat. A few do-gooders talk about how we are destroying the environment and going bankrupt. Everyone tells them to shut up and stop being nerds.
Economy collapses due to no incentive to work. Everyone admits that capitalism was pretty flawed, but was still pretty good at getting people to build houses and shit even when they would rather be driving cars and eating meat. Start capitalism again, but with better rules about lobbying and regulatory capture and all that jazz. Also, better education and support for children so the next generation grows up less fucking stupid. Elect good politicians who are good at spinning necessary hardships to their constituents. Apply a carbon tax to meat and gas and give people the tax money directly, because most people feel like they come out ahead when they get free money.
Semester3383@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Remove the bag limit, put a bounty on them. Anyone that murks a billionaire wins a 2000 ft^2 home (or condo, whatever) in the location of their choice, with all taxes, fees, and utilities paid for as long as they live there.
lemsip@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
I am so confused by this comment.
What’s a bag limit? Why would you apply it to the word “billionaire”, and why would increasing the limit help the climate?
Are you saying billionaires should use less bags? Because I doubt that would help more than having 1000+ less humans on this planet.
TwinTitans@lemmy.world 8 months ago
No thanks.
fuck_u_spez_in_particular@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Looks slightly off TBH, sources? Nuts being lowest, while Palm oil being quite high. Nuts are efficient, especially when considering caloric value, but I’m pretty sure something like a potato is better per kg. Palm oil AFAIK is a very efficient (most efficient vegetable) oil, might be that the destruction of highly carbon rich forest is factored in there maybe…
LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Idk tree nuts have pretty low c02 impact because they aren’t farmers as intensively I think. Like, trees don’t need as much fertilizer as annual crops. Maybe.
SpaceCheeseWizard@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Coffee is a big one for me along with cheese. I’m waiting for cheese to get better with vegan alternatives, the last time I tried shredded vegan cheese it melted and tasted like plastic, although that was 3 years ago now, and I am willing to try again.
Coffee is something I think can be helped if people were more picky on what brands they chose from. I do not believe Starbucks is the most sustainable coffee brand, as they trained me when I worked there to believe.
bigbabybilly@lemmy.world 7 months ago
No. The SINGLE best think you can do for the planet is not reproduce. Then something about not eating red meat and international travel. But the planet HATES your 5 kid family.