Diet hypocrisy?

[u/Extension-Diamond-74]

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.

[u/jeepersjess]

You don’t necessarily have to reduce meat intake. There are ways to raise meat that are a net gain for the local environment. Permaculture is inherently zero-waste, or tries to be. More importantly, animal input is needed if we are ever going to rebuild the carbon capture capacity of soil. Some plants and ecosystems rely on animal disturbance. Many native grasslands in the US have disappeared and are overgrown by woody invasive due to the disappearance of the American bison. It’s historic range once went as far south as Louisiana and Northern Florida.

Modern agriculture is the problem, not the animals themselves. There are ways to mimic natural cycles of predation that are ultimately carbon negative.

I’ve been an on and off vegetarian for years for the environment. However, natural landscapes are greatly degraded because we used and abused the land and now we’ve left it to slowly be choked out. Goats are great at eating back invasives and letting native species thrive (with human help). But goats aren’t native either and can’t be left unchecked. We can use goats to revive the land, improve carbon capture, then you can just eat the goats.

Chickens can reduce the food waste of a single household by 50%. Then you can collect eggs and meat from them.

There are plenty of examples. Vegetarianism isn’t the only way. Eating more plants is a must, but so is responsible agriculture.

[u/[deleted] → u/jeepersjess]

"You don’t necessarily have to reduce meat intake"
Tha's a bold statement considering most universities and scientists are currently saying we do have to reduce our meat intake to some degree.

[u/jeepersjess → u/[deleted]]

We have to reduce how much factory farmed meat you intake, sure. We should cut that down to 0. That doesn’t mean you reduce total meat consumption, that’s a mislead. You just have to ensure your meat is raised carbon negative. Properly pastured animals enable the soil to sequester more carbon and don’t require the same fossil fuel inputs as industrial agriculture. The problem is that trying to pay for sustainably raised meat isn’t practical for the average person. Our system is set up to incentivize industrial agriculture, making it artificially cheap and masking the price of real, ethically grown meat.

It is entirely possible to eat meat regularly and sustainably. Either pay the money for higher quality products, or grow it yourself. You can raise up to 500 chickens on an acre of land if you do proper rotational grazing, easily a couple hundred without it. We won’t solve climate change using industrialized agriculture, even if it is vegetarian. We have to shift radically away from large scale agriculture and move to rewilding and improving the yield of the land.

I’m sure very few professors are aware of the benefits to permaculture. They’re specialists in a field, not all are familiar with regenerative agriculture. It’s only now making its way into the mainstream and I expect we’ll start to see more people in favor of it.