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Earth

Plant-Based Meat: By Far the Best Climate Investment, Report Finds (wionews.com) 304

Posted by EditorDavid from the green-ham-and-eggs dept.
An anonymous reader shares this article from WION: A report from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has revealed that investments in plant-based meat alternatives lead to far greater cuts in climate-heating emissions than other green investments. The improved investment in the production of meat and dairy alternatives resulted in three times more greenhouse gas reductions compared with investment in green cement technology, seven times more than green buildings and 11 times more than zero-emission cars, The Guardian reported citing the report.

"Widespread adoption of alternative proteins can play a critical role in tackling climate change," Malte Clausen, a partner at BCG told the UK-based newspaper. "We call it the untapped climate opportunity — you're getting more impact from your investment in alternative proteins than in any other sector of the economy."
From the Guardian's report: Investments in the plant-based alternatives to meat delivered this high impact on emissions because of the big difference between the greenhouse gases emitted when producing conventional meat and dairy products, and when growing plants. Beef, for example, results in six-to-30 times more emissions than tofu.

Investment in alternative proteins, also including fermented products and cell-based meat, has jumped from $1bn (£830m) in 2019 to $5bn in 2021, BCG said. Alternatives make up 2% of meat, egg and dairy products sold, but will rise to 11% in 2035 on current growth trends, the report said. This would reduce emissions by an amount almost equivalent to global aviation's output. But BCG said meat alternatives could grow much faster with technological progress resulting in better products, scaled-up production and regulatory changes making marketing and sales easier...

"There's been a lot of investments into electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels, which is all great and helpful to reduce emissions, but we have not seen comparable investment yet [in alternative proteins], even though it's rising rapidly," he said. "If you really care about impact as an investor, this is an area that you definitely need to understand...."

Scientists have concluded that avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet and that large cuts in meat consumption in rich nations are essential to ending the climate crisis.
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Plant-Based Meat: By Far the Best Climate Investment, Report Finds More

Plant-Based Meat: By Far the Best Climate Investment, Report Finds

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  • maybe one day (Score:3, Informative)

    by bloodhawk ( 813939 ) on Saturday July 09, 2022 @10:47PM (#62689296)
    the problem is the healthy plant based alternatives taste like shit and the ones that taste ok are packed full of so many additives, salts and processed shit they are bloody awful for you.

    • What fast food does yo beef is a crime. I'll gladly let burger King have all the fake meat if I can keep my steak.

      McDonald's has such a hard on for consistency they hide the beef flavor

      Replace all the garbage burgers, it's a good start. And no they aren't supposed to be healthy. That was never a goal.

    • Re:maybe one day (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bb_matt ( 5705262 ) on Sunday July 10, 2022 @12:12AM (#62689432)

      the problem is the healthy plant based alternatives taste like shit and the ones that taste ok are packed full of so many additives, salts and processed shit they are bloody awful for you.

      That's a fairly broad assessment.

      As someone who became a vegetarian 3 years back - and no, I ain't gonna preach and never do - I have tried a variety of such things.

      Many of them do indeed taste terrible and are packed with additives - but no more so, than a lot of products which contain meat.
      Ironically, the same companies are behind the production of both.

      Over here in the UK, it's somewhat of a joke that one of the larger sausage producing companies, Richmonds, who make super low grade processed pork sausage, introduced a line of meat free sausages.
      The joke being, nobody could tell the difference, because their pork sausages contain so little pork.

      One of the better products, is the "Beyond meat" ones - and I will admit, I'm not that much of a fan of those either, but you can do the math on those in terms of whether they are worse for you or not.
      They are totally worse for you than a lean beef steak, but are not as bad for you as mass produced beef burgers.

      A lot of this "meat free" produce that has flooded the market is really just filling a gap in those being "trendy" - the manufacturers have seen a demand and reacted, as they always do.

      If you decide to make the choice to stop eating meat, then why do you continue to chase the idea of eating meat?
      Why even bother with these products?

      Just explore the world of food - and you'll soon find, it's totally possible to have exceptionally tasty and interesting meals, without meat.

      And if you want to continue meat and help save the planet, heck, the answer is so simple it beggars belief - just eat less of it.

      Not exactly rocket science, right?

      • Over here in the UK, it's somewhat of a joke that one of the larger sausage producing companies, Richmonds, who make super low grade processed pork sausage, introduced a line of meat free sausages.
        The joke being, nobody could tell the difference, because their pork sausages contain so little pork.

        Not true. "Pork Sausage" is a regulated product in the UK and has a legal requirement of 42% meat.

        The ones you want to watch out for are the ones labelled things like "British Bangers".

        You think they call them that because the marketing department is having a bit of fun? Nope, it's to avoid the legal requirements that go along with writing the word "sausage" on the packet.

      • If you decide to make the choice to stop eating meat, then why do you continue to chase the idea of eating meat?

        Because a lot people's decisions about whether it's right to eat meat an not related to their desire to eat meat. People are making the decision based on what they believe is best not what they want. Some people don't eat meat because they believe killing animals for meat is unethical. Others because they believe that raising meat to be eaten is so environmentally destructive that it cannot be jus

        • The absolute best plant-based burgers are equivalent to a mediocre-to-lousy cowburger. It won't be the end of society if beef goes away, but it's frankly complete bullshit to claim that the plant burgers are as good as the real thing. Only someone who didn't like meat very much to begin with could possibly believe that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The issue for a lot of people with going meat-free is that it greatly reduces options and increases preparation time for food. It also requires more effort to meet the nutritional requirements people have.

        People often don't have a lot of time to spend preparing good anymore. The days of the wife staying home to cook are long gone, these days both partners probably work full time, maybe with childcare on top. Modern life is the problem, in other words.

      • Three years is not very long to learn vegetarian cooking. I am still learning after more that forty years. For example, one thing I learned a long time ago is that soybeans, just soaked and simmered, taste pretty horrible. One the other hand, unflavoured TVP mince, which is made from soybeans, is very useful. You can flavour it with a home made vegetable stock. There are some pulses which generally taste nice when simmered and served with a flavoursome sauce. Red kidney beans are good. Chick peas take a lot

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tom ( 822 )

      They try too hard to be "like meat".

      So everything is based on making a simulation of meat - by looks and texture, etc. - because that what matters in the supermarket. Once you've bought it, how well it tastes doesn't matter. I'm serious, it actually doesn't matter shit.

      Because there's two kinds of people who buy this garbage. a) people like you and me who are thinking "let's try it out, maybe I can do something for the environment" and b) fanatics

      a) will buy this shit once and never touch it again. So it on

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bongo ( 13261 )

        I agree it's most exciting for investors. The people who deeply care about living in harmony with nature, well some of them just herd cattle around the grasslands in Africa. Something like that.

        It was what, 1900s ish that they invented hydrogenation and realised they coukd make fake fats, and early advertising industry did a lot around selling the stuff. The copywriters used to work writing religious magazines and they devised advertising around the new fats being clean and pure and healthy, whilst demonisi

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jma05 ( 897351 )

      They taste close enough but no one cares for the planet enough to make minor changes for it.
      Everyone just proposes that others change.

    • The most palatable analogues are in my opinion the high moisture extruded strips of soy protein. One example for sale here for instance has soy protein, some natural flavour concentrate (ie. something glutamate rich), sunflower oil, B12 and salt (1g per 100g) as ingredients. Shame about the goitrogenics in soy, but other than that the ingredients and processing are pretty mild.

      • that is sarcasm right? but just in case, you do realise 1g per 100g is extremely high salt content, anything over 400mg is considered high. daily TOTAL salt intake is recommended to be between 1.5 and 2.5g.

        • That's salt content, not sodium content.

          It's not any more than I put on chickenbreast/thigh when I pan fry it.

          • Table salt is just sodium plus some other stuff, but it's the sodium that's actually bad for you, so not sure what you are getting at here.
            Straight from the FDA website:
            "You’ve probably heard that most Americans eat too much sodium. Your body needs a small amount of sodium to work properly, but too much sodium can be bad for your health. Diets higher in sodium are associated with an increased risk of developing high blood pressure, which is a major cause of stroke and heart disease.

            Despite what many p

    • Even worse is vat-grown "meat". Here's how I understand the drawbacks ... 1) It lacks the nutrient profile of animals that evolved 2) It's specifically tailored to making muscle meat - the most common thing marketed - without organs 3) Growing a cell culture is notoriously tricky. D'you imagine that when it's mass produced, they'll toss a batch if it's "a little off"? 4) The energy in chemical inputs are likely to make plant based protein seem like a good deal, ecologically. 5) And it's likely that it

    • Re:maybe one day (Score:4, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday July 10, 2022 @11:12AM (#62690556)

      the problem is the healthy plant based alternatives taste like shit and the ones that taste ok are packed full of so many additives, salts and processed shit they are bloody awful for you.

      Yeah I too pass judgement on everything based on something that I tried 20 years ago.

      Seriously go out and try them. Not every processed shit tastes good, not every healthy alternative tastes bad. There are not so many options out there that any singular statement you make sounds asinine. It's like saying "meat" tastes bad, ignoring that we could be talking about a filet mignon, or a fucking undercooked bat in China (trust me bats do not taste good, take it from a try anything once kinda guy).

  • India (Score:4, Informative)

    by ghoul ( 157158 ) on Saturday July 09, 2022 @10:49PM (#62689300)
    A nation with 30% vegetarians and 70% who eat meat but not everyday. It is able to support a much larger population on the same land mass than if people ate meat everyday. Heck its able to export food. If everyone started eating meat everyday it would have to import food like China does.

  • Meat or beef? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mkwan ( 2589113 ) on Saturday July 09, 2022 @11:02PM (#62689328)

    These kind of articles are misleading. They claim that meat is bad for carbon emissions, then only quote numbers for beef emissions.

    Beef emissions per gram of protein are 7-8x higher than pork, chicken and farmed fish, and 5x higher than dairy. So meat, in general, isn't as bad for the environment as they claim. Only beef is.

    • Re:Meat or beef? ... all, actually (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bb_matt ( 5705262 ) on Sunday July 10, 2022 @12:02AM (#62689420)

      These kind of articles are misleading. They claim that meat is bad for carbon emissions, then only quote numbers for beef emissions.

      Beef emissions per gram of protein are 7-8x higher than pork, chicken and farmed fish, and 5x higher than dairy. So meat, in general, isn't as bad for the environment as they claim. Only beef is.

      It's somewhat of a moot point you make, as pork & chicken are still worse than plant based meat in terms of emissions.

      But this is only part of the story.

      Intensive farming practices have led to huge increases in environmental pollution.
      Factory chicken farming, in particular, can be devastating to the environment if planning regulations are left unchecked - which they usually are.

      Have a look at stories about the River Wye in the UK.
      Over the decades, the volume of chicken farms that have sprung up in the area, have all but killed the river.

      The waste produced by the chickens is spread on fields as manure, which then gets washed off the land, into the rivers.

      Nature can cope with a reasonable volume of such waste, it cannot cope with the volume it gets in areas such as this.

      This is an issue that isn't restricted to just one region of the UK, nor to just chicken farming - it's a global issue.

      Intensive farming of livestock can result in pollution which decimates river systems.

      Is it preventable? Sure. Is it prevented? Sadly not.

      • Unfortunately everything you say also applies equally well to plant based farms. Hint: We don't douse our animals with fertiliser, the pollution of which is a major source of problems for your own decimated river systems, and in some cases even coastal ocean regions.

        The reality is farming practices need to change across the board (or we need to egg on Putin a bit more and maybe when a few bombs get lobbed around the world and the population drops by half then we'll be a sustainable species on this planet, a

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by angel'o'sphere ( 80593 )

      Beef is not really bad either. It produces methane, and? The fucking methane would be produced same way by rotting plants.

      It is basically a zero sum game, with the only problem: the level is higher if more cattle is risen. But that is a constant level, not an increasing one.

      The only other thing where cattle/beef is an issue to climate change is the transportation of the meet with trucks, and thats it.

      • It is basically a zero sum game, with the only problem: the level is higher if more cattle is risen. But that is a constant level, not an increasing one.

        I would like to see a proof of that. The bacteria in a cow's gut, that produce methane as a result of digesting grass, are not the same as the bacteria that break down dead plants, or at least, I don't think so. How much methane would an area of grass with no cows grazing produce, compared to the same area heavily grazed by cows. My experience of a non-grazed area of grass (a local common) is that you don't get piles of rotting stuff, whereas heavily grazed pasture is plastered with bovine waste product.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by HiThere ( 15173 )

          The aren't the same, and often the dead plants would be digested to carbon dioxide. But the claims ARE inflated. And the methane will be converted to carbon dioxide over about a decade anyway. It *is* significant, but not as significant as many claim.

          OTOH, feed lots should be banned. If for no other reason (and there are lots of other reasons) they are inhumane. I also don't think that grain or sugar should EVER be a major part of a bovine diet. It should be treated like candy, and strictly limited.

    • Re:Meat or beef? Regenerative agriculture? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Invisible Now ( 525401 ) on Sunday July 10, 2022 @01:59AM (#62689574)

      With regenerative agricultural practices where cattle are grazed wisely over natural grasslands the healthy soil that is restored sequesters many tons of atmospheric CO2. So the practice is a net good for the planet.

      • With regenerative agricultural practices where cattle are grazed wisely over natural grasslands

        So Africa? Most of the rest of the world was forested in human memory, until we cut down the forests. Even more of the USA was forested, and natives burned down forests to increase range for Bison.

      • Ah yes, those mythical regenerative cows with fusion reactors in their fifth stomach. Regenerative farming is a scam and relies on fertilizer inputs from real farms by proxy, usually through chickenfeed. The chickens get supplemental feed from real farm and fertilize the soil.

        With fossil fertilizer input and low density of cattle you can build up organics in the soil, big whoop, nothing regenerative about it. The only sustainable farming uses humanure.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dargaud ( 518470 )
      And also there are so many other factors. Beef/cows do produce meat, yeah, but also milk and cheese, which are also difficult to replace.
      And the elephant in the room is that no single place is the same: I live in the mountains where cultivating anything is not interesting (too many rocks for plowshare, too many slopes for tractors, season to short for an interesting yield, not competitive with lower nearby lands); but it's easy to let cattle and sheep and goats roam, milk them and eat them. Little effort, s

    • So meat, in general, isn't as bad for the environment as they claim. Only beef is.

      The problem is that as people become more prosperous, they tend to eat more beef, in preference to meats that have less of a land and greenhouse gas impact, such as pork and chicken. There is also the problem that beef, which used to be a weekly treat for moderately prosperous families before WW2, is now considered an everyday item in the diet, and in increasing quantities.

  • It isn't "meat" (Score:3, Informative)

    by Chas ( 5144 ) on Saturday July 09, 2022 @11:13PM (#62689344) Homepage Journal

    I find referring to plant based meat substitutes as "meat" is deceptive (translation: IT IS A LIE)
    The meat industry needs to take this to court for deceptive business practices.

    If people wish to eat it, more power to them.

    I've tried it.
    I'd rather starve.
    Also the fact that, with all the chemicals and additives used to simulate meat texture and taste, it's arguably LESS healthy for you than meat.

    • Re:It isn't "meat" (Score:4, Informative)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Saturday July 09, 2022 @11:37PM (#62689378)

      You're far from alone. I still remember the meat shelf at the market at the worst of the pandemic. Everything was gone, except for processed plant crap marketed as "meat" that was fully stocked.

      When options are "that crap or nothing", most people choose nothing.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
      It's weird to see people on a technology site freaking out about chemicals and additives. Also you probably don't want to know what's in most processed meats. By processed I mean just about anything you buy at a grocery store. If you're not driving down to a farm and having them slaughter the animal there for you you're getting some chemicals. Pink slime is just the beginning.

      As for calling them meat you know we call the insides of most savory fruits a meat right? As long as the ingredients are clear on

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Entrope ( 68843 )

        By processed I mean just about anything you buy at a grocery store.

        Ah, you're using a non-standard definition of a critical word again.

        If you buy a raw steak or filet or ground beef / pork / poultry, that's not processed. It needs to have something more done to be called processed: https://www.bbc.com/news/healt... [bbc.com] ... and in that sense, "plant-based meat" is a heavily processed food, it's just not processed meat in the usual sense of "meat". And, as others have pointed out, plant-based meats have lots of unhealthy fats and sodium and other things. Plus they might be ha

      • It's weird to see people on a technology site freaking out about chemicals and additives.

        No, that's completely ass-backwards. It's weird to see people on a technology site not freaking out about chemicals and additives. Tons of the approved food additives have serious drawbacks. I had to stop eating Costco "croissants" (which aren't really) because they started to make my stomach foam up — all fucking day. It turns out there's an enzyme commonly used in croissants which has been implicated in multiple health issues [sciencelearn.org.nz] and to which you can become more sensitive over time. I'd use one as the b

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        "If you're not driving down to a farm and having them slaughter the animal there for you you're getting some chemicals"

        Even if you go down to the farm and pick out your moving meat, you don't know where it's been and what it's been eating. The farmers themselves use chemicals and frequently do not even know what chemicals drift in from the outside.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
      I was a vegetarian for a decade. Some of the pseudo-meats are pretty decent, some are terrible, and this means that if you want to eat meat substitutes you need to do significant research and testing. I didn't actually find that I craved meat substitutes, though.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tom ( 822 )

      I find referring to plant based meat substitutes as "meat" is deceptive (translation: IT IS A LIE)
      The meat industry needs to take this to court for deceptive business practices.

      There've been a few tries to cut down the deception, but largely it's gone the other way.

      I agree with everything you said, but I don't think we'll manage to end this scam. Maybe the best is to get on the bandwaggon and accelerate it, so that the proponents think they've got a winner and they don't need the deceptive marketing anymore?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jma05 ( 897351 )

      I can guarantee you that you would not rather starve.
      If you think that, you just never experienced actual hunger.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Chas ( 5144 )

        Let's just say you don't want to make bets on ANYTHING you've just said.

  • My friends who have tried the "impossible burger" have not been impressed. The idea of cultured meat is more appealing.

    • Re:Basically soy burgers from the school cafeteria (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Saturday July 09, 2022 @11:45PM (#62689390) Homepage

      Your friends may be biased. Frankly, I can't tell the difference between the Impossible Whopper and the regular Whopper. I don't know if that says how good the Impossible Whopper is, or how bad the regular one is, but they are very close. Instead of relying on your friends' opinions, why don't you try one yourself?

      • My friends who have tried the "impossible burger" have not been impressed.

        Your friends may be biased.

        Yes, against bullshit.

        Frankly, I can't tell the difference between the Impossible Whopper and the regular Whopper. I don't know if that says how good the Impossible Whopper is, or how bad the regular one is

        It's obviously the latter, as anyone who has had a good burger knows. There are no good fast food burgers, there are only fast food burgers which are not completely horrible. And the whopper is not among them. Whatever "seasoning" they put on it to make it taste like a real burger is fake as fuck. After I eat one, I'm still burping up smoke additive while I'm eating dinner.

        Instead of relying on your friends' opinions, why don't you try one yourself?

        I've tried one and it's edible but underwhelming, which does make it a good substitute for a shitty fast food burg

      • If you put an Impossible burger and a fast food burger on a plate there would of course be a difference. But one you put it on a bun with lettuce, tomato, pickles, cheese and Special Sauce the difference is not dramatic. Iâ(TM)ll eat an Impossible burger anytime.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by quenda ( 644621 )

        Frankly, I can't tell the difference between the Impossible Whopper and the regular Whopper.

        Come on. Fake meat may be bad, but is it really that awful?

  • Go to Burger King and order an impossible whopper. You'll find it's pretty much indistinguishable from a real one. And it'll have the benefit of zero cholesterol (cholesterol only comes from livers) and a little bit of fiber too (fiber only comes from plant matter).

    • Re:just try it yourself (Score:4, Informative)

      by techno-vampire ( 666512 ) on Sunday July 10, 2022 @01:17AM (#62689532) Homepage
      cholesterol only comes from liveers

      In a word, no [wikipedia.org]. Cholesterol comes from most animal foods, with liver being higher in cholesterol than most of them.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by lsllll ( 830002 )

      cholesterol only comes from livers

      What kind of moronic statement is that? Not that I don't like liver, but eating a cheeseburger does not entail eating liver, at least in most reputable eateries.

    • Go to Burger King and order an impossible whopper. You'll find it's pretty much indistinguishable from a real one. And it'll have the benefit of zero cholesterol

      There are no benefits to that. Eating cholesterol doesn't raise your cholesterol count, you numpty. That was a lie perpetrated by the processed foods industry, whose products do raise your cholesterol. In fact, if you literally eat lard, it will lower your HDL counts. We learned all this back during the Atkins diet craze, because the only time we spend money on basic health research is when there's money in it.

  • Stable population is better (Score:5, Interesting)

    by vivian ( 156520 ) on Saturday July 09, 2022 @11:33PM (#62689368)

    The real problem the climate has is with our dependence on perpetual economic growth, which is mostly underpinned b perpetual population growth.
    Until we figure out how to live with a steady state population, we are never going to solve climate issues. regardless of the technology we use to produce energy and feed ourselves.

    Sooner or later, we will run into hard limits for this planet, and growth will have to stop - even if we colonize Mars and all the other planets in the system, there's only so much material that can be brought back and forth, so although human population may continue growing off Earth, there will be a limit on Earth. We have to decide where we want that limit to be - and how few resources there will be per person to share is acceptable.
    Right now that would be about 9300 sqm or 2.3 acres per person - just under 1 hectare. Most of that land is not very productive land, with only 180 sqm of it arable land and which is gradually getting polluted. Your average global living space of 20 square meters is built on the very best most productive part of it.
    Do we want to wait until these values are half that per person. or a quarter of that per person?

    I'm not saying we need to start putting in population control measures - the population growth in some parts of the world is curbing by itself naturally - certainly in the west, and in japan they actually have a shrinking population. Currently this scenario is looked at as a total disaster.

      We have to make more use of the population we have - allow people to keep working if they want to, and get rid if ageist policies that discriminate against older employment, and figure out a better way to distribute our resources so that investors. innovators and entrepreneurs still get rewarded for their efforts, but not to the ludicrous extent where you have the top level management now earning 300x what the average employee earns, compared to the 70's when it was about 30x
    All that said, I still like a steak every now and then. I really hope the guys working on growing those from scratch figure out how to do it, so I don't have to eat tofu burgers.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Miles_O'Toole ( 5152533 )

      Wherever you raise the standard of living and give women control over their fertility, population declines. Oddly, a lot of human females object to being treated as baby factories.

      By the way, 100% agree that it would be really neat to be able to grow steaks in vats. I don't particularly want to kill cattle, but I do love a steak every now and again.

      • I don't particularly want to kill cattle, but I do love a steak every now and again.

        If only more people took that attitude, we would not be in the (cow)shit now. I don't expect people who are used to eating meat to suddenly become vegetarians. The message about meat should be quality rather than quantity. This policy would include meat-free days, and treats of good meat cooking.

        My armchair economist/psychologist analysis is that excessive meat consumption is a symptom of displaying conspicuous wealth. There is a great deal of wasteful resource use that could be attributed to that. A busine

      • Re:Stable population is better (Score:4, Interesting)

        by FeelGood314 ( 2516288 ) on Sunday July 10, 2022 @11:23AM (#62690580)
        As a father of 5 I totally disagree with women choosing fewer babies. Women will have babies and lots of them if they have a stable life at a young age. So a man with a good job and a house. The fact that most women will want a man with a better education than themselves, that it takes young people into their late 20s now to have a stable career and the median age of buying a first house is now over 30 in most of the western world means that women who plan their family don't have their child till they are past 30. If we didn't have the scam that you need a college degree to get past HR for a job and if we built housing near where there were job opportunities then I'm pretty sure we would see a lot more families of 3 or 4 children. Believe it or not most people like their offspring. 4 of mine are amazing.

        • As a father of 5 I totally disagree with women choosing fewer babies.

          Wow. Tell us something surprising.

          Believe it or not most people like their offspring. 4 of mine are amazing.

          80% isn't bad, I guess. Do other people also like your offspring, or is it just you?

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by jeff4747 ( 256583 )

          Unfortunately for your beliefs, we have reality to measure them against. Every time a country starts educating its women to a high-school level, birth rate drops a lot.

          It's not waiting until they're 30, nor is it some bullshit about men no longer being worthwhile. No matter how much you want to pretend you're a superior specimen.

    • The problem is that you are fixated on the ideas that are incorrect. I get it, humans have been farming for thousands of years so your brain can't process that there are other ways to make nutrients and food. The fact is we don't need farms at all.
      1. Food can be grown indoors stacked powered by nuclear energy.
      2. Food (proteins, carbohydrates) can be synthesized chemically with enzymes, bioreactors, or other methods.
      A human needs about 2500 watts of energy per day in proteins and carbohydrates. A sma

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tom ( 822 )

      The real problem the climate has is with our dependence on perpetual economic growth, which is mostly underpinned b perpetual population growth.

      Population in 1st world countries has been stable or even declining for a few decades now, yet the economy keeps growing.

      I'm with you that "growth" as a religion is a huge problem. I'm with you that there are already too many people and they keep getting more and that's a problem. I don't think the two are as closely connected as you say.

    • Did they do a study on how much CO2 emissions will be cut by eating the rich? I'm pretty sure it is far more effective than impossible burgers.

    • The real problem the climate has is with our dependence on perpetual economic growth...

      I totally agree with that, but I do not know of a solution. I could just say that people should stop being so greedy, but I can't see that being a part of any government policy, including socialist governments.

      ... which is mostly underpinned by perpetual population growth.

      I would dispute that. The heavy consumers in the wealthy industrial world are actually experiencing population decline, which is indicated by an increasingly aged population. There is plenty of evidence the middle income majority of industrial economies have enjoyed a massive increase in resources pe

  • Abuse of language (Score:3, Interesting)

    by systemd-anonymousd ( 6652324 ) on Saturday July 09, 2022 @11:40PM (#62689384)

    From a purely linguistic standpoint it's offensive to the palate: there's no such thing as plant-based meat. It's not meat, by the very definition.

    • I suppose the researchers are correct then.

      Imaginary things are best for the environment.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      That depends on what century you're picking your definition from. In some of them "meat" was roughly equivalent to "food". (Perhaps that was figurative usage, though. Certainly "bread" was often used that way.)
      If I'm deriving things correctly, "meat" originally meant something roughly like "the central part", but Google says that it originally meant "food in general". There seems to be a bit of argument about the actual derivation, though. Still, they all meant "food in general" until perhaps the 13th

  • Stop calling it meat. People who want meat wonâ(TM)t eat it and people against meat donâ(TM)t want meat.
  • Meat isn't the problem, the problem is the amount of meat we consume. The meat industry has brainwashed us to believe that we need to eat huge portions of meat at each of our multiple meals every day, where six to eight ounces is more than enough, unless you're a body builder. I've tried the fake meat, and, to me, it has a vinegar or chemical taste that is overpowering, and I find the texture is nothing like real meat.

  • Quite simply, neither of the best known "meat substitutes" are, in fact, anything like meat. "Bean burger" is about the best I could say about them -- and there is no solid meat version at all (no rib roast etc).

    The headline "Plant-Based Meat:..." is of course ridiculous (the summary correctly adds the word "substitute") - the only "plant based meat" that is available is created from ingredients like grains and alfalfa etc, processed by processing plants commonly referred to "cow", "sheep", "pig", "chicken"

  • Not really keen on phytoestrogens in my food, thanks.

  • We had meat balls made out of soy 40 years ago. They tasted terrible that time, they also taste terrible now.

  • I'd rather we stop pretending that individual action is the solution and go after heavy industry and billionaire's private jets and yachts which pollute far more than individuals do.

  • Boston Consulting Group (Score:3)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Sunday July 10, 2022 @08:45AM (#62690188) Journal

    A report from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has revealed that investments in plant-based meat alternatives lead to far greater cuts in climate-heating emissions than other green investments.

    The Boston Consulting Group is a global management consulting firm that does a lot of work for fossil fuel companies.

    They are also known for doing business with Angolan diamond companies and oil exploiters Sonangol and are closely associated with Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.

    They think it's a good idea for you to stop eating those nice rib eyes and New York strip steaks and hamburgers as long as you keep pumping that petrol. Shocking.

  • Worst for human health (Score:3)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Sunday July 10, 2022 @12:35PM (#62690774) Journal
    You know what else would be best for combating climate change? Killing off 90% of the humans alive on the planet right now, which is about as absurd an idea as fake-ass 'plant based meat'.
    Humans have been hunting and eating meat for hundreds of thousands of years. Our species has never been herbivores. Most primates are not herbivores either, they at least eat insects. There's even evidence suggesting that the development of higher human intelligence is due to eating meat, because of the superior overall nutrition. There's also evidence to suggest that strict vegetarians, vis-a-vis 'vegans', experience a literal shirnkage of their brains over time, and an accompanying cognitive deficit. Then there's the fact that if you feed a developing child a strict vegetarian diet, they will fail to develop properly, usually sicken, and in some cases die; doctors caution vegetarian parents to not feed their children strict vegetarian diets, and parents who refuse to comply with this, if their children are deemed unwell because of it, are usually reported for child abuse/child endangerment.
    Humans are not herbivores. Never have been, never will be, and no 'act of will' will change our genetics.
    Furthermore, they somehow think that we'll use less agricultural land growing all this vegetable matter to feed the world that instead of meat? Disproven.
    Also, all this 'plant based meat substitute' is incredibly highly processed. Highly processed foods are generally unhealthy. They're also incredibly expensive.
    This is just a bad idea. Good thing it'll never catch on as a mainstream idea. It's just a fad that will pass.

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