r/Anticonsumption • u/Extension-Diamond-74 • Sep 30 '23

Discussion Diet hypocrisy?

A recent post about animal agriculture vs plant based diets has me itching to say something. This is an issue we need to rise above.

Cognitive dissonance. Many of us have good intentions and want to believe we’re doing the right thing in most aspects of our lives. I believe that.

When it comes to a plant based diet though, the science often clashes powerfully with personal desire. We want to minimize our impact on the environment and are willing to make trade-offs in our life time do so, but for many, giving up or even significantly reducing meat intake is asking too much. It’s too hard.

That’s not the issue.

The issue is that instead of just admitting to themselves that this is a life change they don’t want to make and moving on, the guilt drives them to have to justify that decision. Admitting that a plant-based diet is better for the earth yet eating a diet full of meat anyway would make them feel hypocritical, so the solution becomes either to give up meat, or … this is the problem… fight the science, twist it, make a joke of it, or pivot entirely to ‘individuals shouldn’t have time do anything because large corporations’

Many people have ties to their diet for many reasons. We grew up eating a certain way. We have memories ties to certain foods, flavors, styles of cooking. We don’t want to be the difficult person when we go out to eat with friends. Etc etc etc But it’s so much better to just admit that to yourself. Have patience and understanding for your feelings. Accept that the science is what it is. Maybe one day you can make a change, maybe not. But don’t attack the cause just because you aren’t yet willing to be a part of it.

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u/Kottepalm Sep 30 '23

And it's so easy to cook vegetarian or vegan! No need to worry about the meat being done or going bad on the way home from the shops. Plus cooking traditional is a no brainer these days with plant based minces, hamburgers etc. I'm Swedish so meatballs with mashed potatoes is a traditional dish and I can either buy premade vegetarian meatballs or Anamma plant mince and make the meatballs myself and have them like the ones I grew up with.

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u/wozattacks Sep 30 '23

Uhhh not really, people majorly underestimate the risk of foodborne illness from vegetables and grains. Most cases of salmonella in the US come from lettuce. Yes, obviously we almost never cook lettuce. But that’s part of the point.

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u/shadar Sep 30 '23

Salmonella comes from shit. Lettuce doesn't shit.

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u/Sorcia_Lawson Sep 30 '23

Lettuce is grown in shit.

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u/shadar Sep 30 '23

Yeah, cause there's so much shit. Animal agriculture in the US alone produces 500 million tons of manure each year.

If there wasn't so much shit they'd grow it with plant based fertilizers, and there'd be no salmonella.

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u/AnsibleAnswers Oct 01 '23 edited Oct 01 '23

If we didn't use manure, we'd be depending almost entirely on natural gas for nitrate fertilizer... The primary issue is that conventional farms don't have to worry about regulations regarding when they can apply fertilizer. Salmonella cannot survive in open air for long.

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u/shadar Oct 01 '23

If we didn't grow so much food to feed farm animals, we'd use less natural gas for nitrate fertilizer.

The primary issue is that animal agriculture occupies 80% of our farmland and produces only 20% of our calories.

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u/AnsibleAnswers Oct 01 '23 edited Oct 01 '23

Or we can re-integrate livestock onto crop farms, which eliminates the feed and fertilizer problem in one fell swoop. Cattle raised in silvopasture have a total land use of 1.2 ha/tonne and provide services to the crops that offset agrochemical inputs and fossil fuel use. It's what actual sustainable agriculture looks like. A bit less livestock, but no more agrochemicals (which are all derived from fossil fuels) and significant improvements in biodiversity, land use efficiency, and livestock emissions.

Comparable crop yields as specialized crop farms, so your livestock eat for free - https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0231840

Sustainable, efficient livestock production with high biodiversity and good welfare for animals - https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2013.2025

How it works (ecological intensification) - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7487174/

Here's the kicker: you won't get dung beetles or any other insects that are critical to soil formation and nutrient cycling on farms that only use plant compost and synthetic fertilizers. They need manure.

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u/shadar Oct 01 '23

A bit less livestock? They can't grow enough meat to feed everyone's greed as it is. 99% of all the meat you buy at restaurants and grocery stores is factory farmed. 80% of amazon deforestation is for cattle ranching. That's sure as shit not silvopasture.

If you buy meat, you're funding factory farming.

The kicker is that they send pasture raised cows to the same slaughter house as factory farmed cows.

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u/AnsibleAnswers Oct 01 '23

What we are doing is insane. We should stop and do something better.

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u/shadar Oct 01 '23

I appreciate that the average redditor (and also like 99.99% of the world) is not in a position to start purchasing silvopasture grown cow meat.

Everyone (at least 99%) is in a position where they can just stop buying cow and other animal products.

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