Europe's Farming Lobbies Recognize Need To Eat Less Meat in Shared Vision Report (theguardian.com) 139
Europe's food and farming lobbies have recognized the need to eat less meat after hammering out a shared vision for the future of agriculture with green groups and other stakeholders. From a report: The wide-ranging report calls for "urgent, ambitious and feasible" change in farm and food systems and acknowledges that Europeans eat more animal protein than scientists recommend. It says support is needed to rebalance diets toward plant-based proteins such as better education, stricter marketing and voluntary buyouts of farms in regions that intensively rear livestock. The stakeholders also agreed on the need for a major rethink of subsidies, calling for a "just transition fund" to help farmers adopt sustainable practices, and targeted financial support to those who need it most.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, who commissioned the report to quell furious farmer protests at the start of the year, said the results would feed into a planned vision for agriculture that she will present in the first 100 days of her new mandate. "We share the same goal," said Von der Leyen. "Only if farmers can live off their land will they invest in more sustainable practices. And only if we achieve our climate and environmental goals together will farmers be able to continue making a living." Animal agriculture is one of the biggest drivers of climate breakdown and the destruction of natural habitats, but European leaders have made little effort to steer diets heavy in meat and milk to whole grains and plant-based sources of protein. The report did not set targets for meat production, such as culling herds, but called for support to help shift dietary habits, such as free school meals, more detailed labels, and tax reductions on healthy and sustainable food products.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, who commissioned the report to quell furious farmer protests at the start of the year, said the results would feed into a planned vision for agriculture that she will present in the first 100 days of her new mandate. "We share the same goal," said Von der Leyen. "Only if farmers can live off their land will they invest in more sustainable practices. And only if we achieve our climate and environmental goals together will farmers be able to continue making a living." Animal agriculture is one of the biggest drivers of climate breakdown and the destruction of natural habitats, but European leaders have made little effort to steer diets heavy in meat and milk to whole grains and plant-based sources of protein. The report did not set targets for meat production, such as culling herds, but called for support to help shift dietary habits, such as free school meals, more detailed labels, and tax reductions on healthy and sustainable food products.
Tell everyone in the EU "No steak for you" (Score:2)
Re: Tell everyone in the EU "No steak for you" (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
So "less meat" means no steak which then means a whole giant slippery slope of shit, is that what you're saying?
Yes, for anything they set up for this the wealthy will probably be able to side step it. You see this in SoCal where they charge through the rough for excessive water usage. The wealthy dont care, they have more than enough money to keep their giant lawns green. The rest of your post is just an illustration of the slippery slope logical fallacy in action though.
Re: (Score:2)
Read it here (Score:3)
Stakeholders wanna be the only steak holders (Score:2)
Cultural Suicide (Score:2)
Why are Europeans trying to kill themselves off in every way they can think of?
Re: (Score:2)
Why are Europeans trying to kill themselves off in every way they can think of?
I didn't realise you would die by eating one less steak a week. Shit am I dying right now? BRB need to go slaughter a cow.
Re: (Score:2)
What people will be pushed to do when this gets converted into taxes/prices is brain drain out of Europe. First the meat eaters with the ability to leave will find some place you don't have to be rich to eat meat, the vegetarians and vegans won't be far behind.
People don't want to eat the bugs and live in the pod in far-northern-Africa.
PS. I think allow killing of animals is a moral failure, but I fail a lot.
Re: (Score:2)
Why are Europeans trying to kill themselves off in every way they can think of?
Unfortunately we are following right along behind them (and "leading" the way in some ways) here in the United States.
The insane drive to feminize society and demonize the people who make up the majority of the productive population here is cultural suicide on a level I am not sure can be measured using mundane scales.
When there is eventually a violent pushback here (maybe a ways off, maybe close, who knows), I just hope that I'm not living in town anymore.
Re: Cultural Suicide (Score:2)
It's just lip service (Score:2)
From the article: "The report did not set targets for meat production, such as culling herds, but called for support to help shift dietary habits, such as free school meals, more detailed labels, and tax reductions on healthy and sustainable food products."
Anyone seen the actual report as opposed to another bullshit Guardian article from msmash?
Whatever justifies MORE government intervention (Score:2)
They do, eh? Who are those scientists, what are the scientific studies, on which the recommendations are based? Have they been reproduced [nature.com]?
And even if they have — and humans really are eating more meat, than is good for us, why is it anyone's business to force us to stop, at our own expense?
Note, how conveniently all of these measures l
Animals aren't the problem; How you feed them is. (Score:2)
It's frustrating to see the push against animal agriculture, particularly for ruminants like Cows, Sheep, and Goats. These critters are extremely carbon negative if you feed them grass in high density managed intensive grazing systems. The ground stays covered, minimizing erosion, and runoff is drastically reduced because of the way hoof pressure, manure, and soil critters interact to increase water's ability to soak in.
We have real-world examples of these systems turning old "used up" land into high quali
Re: (Score:2)
It's frustrating to see the push against animal agriculture, particularly for ruminants like Cows, Sheep, and Goats. These critters are extremely carbon negative if you feed them grass in high density managed intensive grazing systems. The ground stays covered, minimizing erosion, and runoff is drastically reduced because of the way hoof pressure, manure, and soil critters interact to increase water's ability to soak in.
We have real-world examples of these systems turning old "used up" land into high quality farmland from the carbon they put in the soil, and the same process has been shown to work in in desert and mine-reclamation moonscapes too.
People want to believe that animal agriculture is the problem. It's not. The real problem is how we're feeding them.
Add to that grazing herds on grasses also prevents the need to inject them with antibiotics or idiotic hormones to keep them from dying because they aren't able to digest corn properly. Many of the things that are done in intensive cattle and poultry production is beyond ludicrous.
Re: Animals aren't the problem; How you feed them (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They still need antibiotics if they get sick, but that's less likely when they are on fresh pasture every day because you've moved the herd. Stocking densely, moving them often, and giving land long periods of time to recover are the keys to MIG. As to hormones, that is still a thing. When you castrate a bull, they have very little sex hormones, estrogen or testosterone, and grow slower. A subdermal estrogen chip raises the estrogen level to slightly less than a heifer and helps that growth issue. I don't have a significant issue with this, but do understand if it makes people uncomfortable. Another solution would be to not castrate them, but they have instincts to fight that make them dangerous to themselves and others.
I should have phrased better, yes antibiotics if they are sick, I was instead referring to the practice of giving them proactively when cows are fed corn-based diets.
The better off people are, the more meat they eat (Score:2)
Developing countries all over the world increase their meat consumption as they grow richer. https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]. People like to eat meat. How about instead of eating less, we find ways to reduce the impact on the environment?
Re: (Score:2)
Ferris Beuller said it best (Score:2)
"I'm not European. I don't plan on being European. So, who cares if they're socialists or not? They could be fascist anarchists for all I care. It still doesn't change the fact that I don't own a car."
EU politicians pushing industry agendas (Score:2)
As soon as politicians claim they're doing it for science, everyone forgets they're politicians with their own agendas.
It's time to get very sceptical about what they're pushing.
Diet is a complex topic, hence the deep disagreements. If a diet is healthy then it should be demonstrable for life, from cradle to grave, and that kind of study is just too expensive to do for real. There's lots of confounders.
By all means, experiment with your diet and see what works for you.
This is not an area where governments s
The usual load of emotional climate nonsense (Score:2)
"And only if we achieve our climate and environmental goals together will farmers be able to continue making a living." Animal agriculture is one of the biggest drivers of climate breakdown and the destruction of natural habitats, but European leaders have made little effort to steer diets heavy in meat and milk to whole grains and plant-based sources of protein."
The what exactly the "climate and environmental goals" are is not defined. But we can say that any climate goals the EU has can have nothing to d
I want engineered milk (Score:2)
I drink a ton of milk, and I'm not likely to stop. As I eat less meat, I add milk protein (or whey when I can't buy milk protein--whey doesn't contain casein so it's less like actual food) to my diet. Some quick googling says milk production is half as harmful to the environment as beef production. This is still not great. However, since milk is a homogeneous liquid, it should be easier to synthesize than meat.
And it could taste better--my country does a lot of UHT milk, and the processing messes up the tas
"It says support is needed..." (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:what bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Man developed his large brain largely due to the discovery of fire and using it to cook MEAT as his primary source of protein.
There's the old joke that "Hey, I didn't get to the TOP of the food chain, to only eat a salad..."
But in some ways, this is true.
I believe in a balanced diet...especially if you give up the fucking processed foods. And, we know what "processed" means....it isn't chopping up a tomato, it can be readily found in the center aisles of your grocery store in boxes with labels of chemicals you have no clue how to pronounce....and that the shelf life of eternity.
Good sources of animal protein are important for most humans....supplement these with good fruits and veggies, and in general a healthy, normal human should thrive.
But no....being a vegetarian is not the way for most people to live....you need complete protiens, essential nutrients.
And finally...there is no such thing as an "essential carbohydrate".....
Re:what bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
First off, broccoli has a higher ratio of protein to calories than ground beef. Plants as a general rule are not low protein, they're just low dry-mass density.
Secondly, the whole "complete proteins" thing is built on a base of truth, but what's built on that base of truth is a complete fiction. Yes, there are certain amino acids that are needed in certain quantities for health. No, it's virtually impossible for a person with a remotely diverse modern diet, vegetarian or not, to not get enough of all needed amino acids. This is only an issue of concern if, like, you're a subsistance farmer eating almost exclusively one single staple crop. It's not happening to people in developed economies.
Man developed his large brain also for avoiding large predators, to create intricate stone tools, for the constant need to navigate and recognize diverse landscapes while migrating across continents, for cooperating in small hunter-gatherer groups for mutual survival, to recognize plants for their fruits, seeds, roots etc, to recognize subtle environmental clues about upcoming changes in weather and to adapt for them, to prepare for times of scarcity, and many other things that have little or no relevance to the modern day.
I don't know how to break it to you, but the year isn't 400k BC. You're not hunting for an impala while trying to evade a leopard. What selective factors led to early hominid evolution are entirely irrelevant.
Don't worry, "top of the food chain", there are plenty of small things that will be more than happy to eat you in the future, and if you eat a diet rich in red meat, you can expect to be eaten by them several years earlier.
Here's the facts: humans are omnivores and can live perfectly healthy lives on extremely varied diets. If you look at hunter-gatherer societies, most of the calories are usually plant-based - in some cases, to extreme degrees, such almost entirely sago. And where game is taken, it's usually small game, and insects aren't uncommon (for example, sago usually comes with sago grubs ;) ). But societies vary, including some tropical peoples (the Maasai for example eat no shortage of meat), but especially arctic peoples, who traditionally eat predominantly meat. Despite such hugely varied diets, which have been hugely varied ever since we emerged from the African plains and quite possibly well before that, humans thrive.
(There may be some local adaptations to different diets of course, so check your ancestry. For example, coconut oil is pretty solidly linked to a number of health conditions in general western populations, yet Polynesian people seem to thrive with lots of it in their diets.)
There are some basic rules that need to be respected. Don't eat just a single staple crop. This is irrelevant to developed countries, but you know... don't do it. If you don't eat meat, but do eat dairy or eggs, and otherwise eat a "normal" developed world diet, you'll be fine (and probably live longer than a person who consumes lots of red meat), with better cholesterol levels, etc, but your iron may be a bit on the low side. If you don't consume dairy or eggs, in addition to iron, and possibly a few other things, you fundamentally must consume B12 supplements**. No plants or fungi produce it, only certain (non-dietary) species of bacteria and archaea. The human body stores years of it and the quantities needed are minuscule, but eventually you have to replace it. But that said, this too is rarely an issue for someone eating a modern diet, as B12 supplementation is common in modern foods, esp. those marketed to vegans.
** How different vegetarian animals get their B12 is IMHO intere
Re:what bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
"First off, broccoli has a higher ratio of protein to calories than ground beef. Plants as a general rule are not low protein, they're just low dry-mass density."
This is so fucking funny man. How do you people come up with this shit?
A pound of broccoli has 12 grams of protein. That's about 4 cups of chopped broccoli, or about 1/4 a gallon. It's enough to fill you, and due to the fiber content, it will take a great deal of time to digest, preventing you from getting anything into your body that's nutrient dense.
That's the same as an ounce, maybe 2 ounces of beef.
That is low protein, particularly when a the FDA recommends a person eat 0.8 grams per pound of bodyweight. For a healthy person such as myself weighing 200lb, that means I'd have to eat... 14 pounds of broccoli a day. So fucking funny.
Nevermind eating that much fiber is going to be extremely bad for your digestive tract and encourage colon cancer. Good luck!
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, and a similar calculation on ground beef would show you eating 2.5 lb of ground beef (3800 Calories). Uh, assuming for strawman reasons you used 30% ground beef and chugged the drippings, but nevermind that. If you broiled it and discarded the drippings you'd only need 1800 Calories worth.
In answer to your question, it's popular these days to use facts like a drunk uses a lamp post: for support rather than illumination.
And of course broccoli still beats the broiled ground beef in protein to calorie rat
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure what you're going on about "drippings" and calories.
The 'blood' that comes off red meat when you cook it is actually hemoglobin. It's rich in both protein and iron. Eat it.
Re: (Score:2)
You got me, as I was clearly advocating for a diet of 100% broccoli *facepalm*
Rather than, you know, pointing out that if you care about protein vs. calories, eat your veggies, of which broccoli was selected as being something people very much would not think of when it comes to protein, rather than just e.g. picking vegan foods that are almost all protein (for example, seitan).
Secondly, your numbers are wrong. The FDA recommends 50g of protein per day [fda.gov], for everyone over age 4. This is not minimum consum
Re: (Score:2)
You got me, as I was clearly advocating for a diet of 100% broccoli *facepalm*
Rather than, you know, pointing out that if you care about protein vs. calories, eat your veggies, of which broccoli was selected as being something people very much would not think of when it comes to protein, rather than just e.g. picking vegan foods that are almost all protein (for example, seitan).
Of course, that's gluten, which a lot of people can't deal with. But yes, there are better ways to get protein from plants than broccoli. :-)
Secondly, your numbers are wrong. The FDA recommends 50g of protein per day [fda.gov], for everyone over age 4.
This is the same part of the government that told us that we should consume less fat and dietary cholesterol, which was the primary cause of our obesity crisis today. Excuse me while I don't trust them as far as I can throw them.
Using the 0.8 grams per kilogram number, a person weighing 180 pounds needs to consume 65 grams of protein per day just to avoid losing musc
Re: (Score:2)
That may be true for most adults, but I happen to be one of the exceptions who has to take it daily. Why? Because I've had a low platelet count in my blood for over a decade, and been hospitalized because of it twice. Guess what the body needs to pr
Soy excess = less testosterone = boys ill affected (Score:3)
Soy contains higher levels of female estrogen like hormones, affecting boys negatively, reducing the onset of puberty and causing girls to enter puberty sooner.
Highly processed foods also have endocrines mimicking female estrogen, also harming boys
Forgot, I waded into a nigh-religious discussion (Score:2)
Meat vs non-meat shunts into a near religious discussion overly fast.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, the great Soy Panic of 2019.
This all stems from a misunderstanding of an old study about sheep. Yeah, sheep, not humans. It found that eating large quantities of grass caused the *plant* oestrogen to affect their hormone levels a little. But humans are not sheep, and *plant* oestrogen doesn't have the same effect as human oestrogen on them.
Eating soy will not make you a "soy boy" or feminize you.
Re: (Score:3)
> First off, broccoli has a higher ratio of protein to calories than ground beef. Plants as a general rule are not low protein, they're just low dry-mass density.
I'm not sure what you just said here...but it sounds incorrect. I might have misunderstood this sentence, but I don't think so, so let's analyze and compare brocolli and beef, generally.
To get 50 grams of protein from beef, you would need to eat 192grams of beef, which is about 500 calories depending on how fatty or lean the beef is.
To get 50 gr
Re: (Score:2)
Response to the first part here [slashdot.org]. Your ground beef numbers are very low (must be some very lean ground beef). I'm using the numbers that come up top of a Google search for 70% lean ground beef:
Re: (Score:2)
Secondly, the whole "complete proteins" thing is built on a base of truth, but what's built on that base of truth is a complete fiction. Yes, there are certain amino acids that are needed in certain quantities for health. No, it's virtually impossible for a person with a remotely diverse modern diet, vegetarian or not, to not get enough of all needed amino acids. This is only an issue of concern if, like, you're a subsistance farmer eating almost exclusively one single staple crop. It's not happening to people in developed economies.
I respect you and all, but isn't this, umm, not true? I mean the words are true but the conclusion does not follow.
Say I'm an older adult and I am risking becoming frail. Or I'm recovering from an injury and I'm trying to avoid becoming atrophied. Or I'm losing weight and I'm trying to avoid muscle loss. I want to get 100 g of protein today. Getting 100 g of protein from plants just won't be equivalent to 100 g of protein from animal sources, since it will be limited by whichever essential amino acid is low
Re: (Score:2)
See here [slashdot.org], and the post linked therein [slashdot.org].
The "incomplete protein" thing ("limited by whichever amino acid is lowest") thing is a myth. It does not happen to dieters in the developed world. It does not happen to sick people in the developed world (unless they're basically starving to death). It doesn't happen. It's an issue for subsistence farmers eating just one staple. If you eat just rice, yes, you'll have an incomplete protein. If you eat just beans, yes, you'll have an incomplete protein. If you eat
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for your reply.
I can't find anything online that substantiates the idea that limiting amino acids is a myth. And if they weren't limiting, they wouldn't really be essential, would they?
Also, I took your claim for the daily required amount of leucine (simply because it's a more "famous" amino acid) and googled. The amount I found recommended per day was a whopping 3-5 g, not the amount you suggested. And when I reverse that number by noting that 8.8% of animal protein is leucine, I get that amount of
Re:what bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
& you really can't feasibly argue that the typical north American "meat & carbs" diet means eating less carbs than the traditional Mediterranean diets. That's nonsense.
Re: (Score:2)
100%.
Gluconeogenesis is a thing.
Plants are food for our food. Mostly.
What they're really aiming for isn't less meat, it's going to be meat from insects instead of yummy animals. I know, shrimp and lobster are yummy insectish, but my body runs better on pig and cow.
Re: (Score:2)
Eating only meat is the gold standard for elimination diets.
Re: (Score:2)
You're half right on the second point, and completely wrong on the first.
Most people need to eat a significant amount of meat as it's the only way to get enough bioavailable protein and nutrients, and many people do quite well eating only animal products. That's the default for most of humanity, and grain sensitivity is a thing (particularly when it's not been properly fermented, or when it's been treated with all manner of pesticides and herbicides which do make it into the food).
It's not so much that eati
Re: (Score:3)
Because diabetes was just so amazingly common for the millenias when humans ate vastly less meat than today. Modern rise in diabetes is happening at the same time as the modern rise in mass consumptions of meat. Do you have meat at every single meal? That's a new thing only for the last century or two. Meat is a luxury, suitable for occasional eating rather than for three meals every day.
Re:what bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
Because diabetes was just so amazingly common for the millenias when humans ate vastly less meat than today. Modern rise in diabetes is happening at the same time as the modern rise in mass consumptions of meat. Do you have meat at every single meal? That's a new thing only for the last century or two. Meat is a luxury, suitable for occasional eating rather than for three meals every day.
The increase in diabetes is caused by changes to the diets of modern humans, not by the increase in meat consumption. The vegetables we eat today have almost nothing in common with what your ancestors ate, everything now is highly hybridized to grow larger, faster and with more sugar content. What we call "feed corn" today would be the corn available to the native people in the United States at the time of the founding, and it is considered too gross for human consumption now. Naturally you would only have access to many vegetables at certain times of the year, and to fruits (which are very sugar dense) for even shorter periods. It is only because we intensively farm crops and freeze or ship them all over the world that you are able to go to the supermarket and buy tropical fruit in a snowstorm.
Our modern diets are too full of sugars, many added to foods for no reason other than to cover up the fact that all the flavor and nutritional value has been destroyed by too much cooking and (in the case of things like flour) bleaching it to make it keep longer. We also eat way, way too much; far more than we actually need. In the developed world we are used accustomed to not living with the feeling of being hungry, when we get hungry we eat so it goes away. If you allow yourself to be hungry for a while, and maybe drink some water, or if you get involved doing something else, the feeling will often go away on it's own after a time. I didn't realize this myself until I started doing fasting periods for my blood sugar and realized that the FEELING of hunger largely goes away after a while, it comes back off and on but isn't a constant thing unless you are surrounded by other people eating or preparing food and the smell makes you hungry.
We live in a very strange world where we suffer physically not because of want, but rather for lack of it. Our abundance causes us harm. This makes a lot of sense, your body is optimized to survive in a hostile world where it must adapt to use whatever food is available, not for eating three square meals a day made up of sweet, starchy, highly processed foods.
As a funny anecdote, "enriched" flour that a lot of cooking is done with has to have vitamins artificially added into it because in order to store large quantities of the stuff it is bleached with chlorine so that it won't rot. I did a couple small contracts at an ADM yard and got to be around the handling of the stuff. Not only does it not rot, but bugs and animals don't often even want to eat it because it tastes like nothing, and it can make the rats sick if it's all they are eating since it is so devoid of nutritional value.
Re: (Score:3)
Because diabetes was just so amazingly common for the millenias when humans ate vastly less meat than today. Modern rise in diabetes is happening at the same time as the modern rise in mass consumptions of meat. Do you have meat at every single meal? That's a new thing only for the last century or two. Meat is a luxury, suitable for occasional eating rather than for three meals every day.
The last century or two? Hahahah. No.
At least in the United States, the massive upsurge in obesity (which is a major factor in adult-onset diabetes) occurred starting in roughly the mid-1980s — 40 years ago, not 100 to 200 years ago.
The root cause of that obesity epidemic is the "low fat, low cholesterol" nonsense that was pushed by so-called dietary experts in the 1980s without any actual scientific basis to support it. The timing correlation is about as clear a signal as you can get. When compan
Re: (Score:2)
What isn't fallacy is that it is none of governments business what a person chooses to eat. If the government goes against the wishes of the people, they need to be voted out. Making an choice available is absolutely fine. But stopping support of farmers, who actually need government support to survive or trying to force people into going another way against their wishes should not be tolerated.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
What about... hear me out, it's radical... just less meat? No need to go full vegan here or even vegetarian. Just realize that you don't need a cheeseburger at every meal. Stick in a meat free meal once or twice a week.
Re: Vegan protein is not an option (Score:2)
Only works for those living off vitamin pills. And DO NOT ask where the vitamins come from
Re: (Score:2)
Only works for those living off vitamin pills. And DO NOT ask where the vitamins come from
There are plenty of vegan vitamins. The trickiest components are B-vitamins, but they are now sourced from yeast. It's technically a different kingdom from plants, but I doubt many people care about that.
Re: (Score:2)
Some of the plant based meat substitutes are decent too. Some are awful, like IKEA vegetarian "meatballs", but some like the Impossible Burger are quite good for satisfying the craving for some flesh.
Re: (Score:3)
I've had people in my social group who were vegans. They do indeed eat way too many carbs, and much of it is the highly-processed variety, which is even worse for you, and they either don't get enough high-quality (i.e., posessing all the essential amino acids in sufficient quantities) protein, or just plain don't get enough protein at all, resulting in less-than-great
Re: (Score:3)
all this will lead to is increased occurences of diabetes due to way too much consumption of carbs.
That's a false dichotomy. Eating less meat does not automatically mean more carbs. People could eat more vegetables. That is an option.
Re: (Score:2)
all this will lead to is increased occurences of diabetes due to way too much consumption of carbs.
That's a false dichotomy. Eating less meat does not automatically mean more carbs. People could eat more vegetables. That is an option.
Many vegetables have a lot of carbs, too — particularly root vegetables, such as potatoes and carrots. Potatoes have about 19 grams of non-fiber carbs per 100 grams. Sweet potatoes have about 17 grams. Carrots have about 7 grams. Pretty much all of those should be avoided if you're on a keto diet, a carnivore diet, or other similar carb reduction diet.
So it isn't adequate to just eat more vegetables. You have to eat more above-ground vegetables, and in particular, more green vegetables.
Re: (Score:2)
Why is this a western problem? Billions of Asian people aren't getting fat from eating rice with every single meal.
Re: what bullshit (Score:2)
Thatâ(TM)s utter bull. Diabetes is one of the most common ailment in Madagascar⦠where all they have to eat is whole grain rice
Re: (Score:2)
Billions of Asian people aren't getting fat from eating rice
in Madagascar⦠where all they have to eat is whole grain rice
Madagascar isn't in Asia, genius.
I'm pretty sure they were comparing the diet part and not the region part...
Re: (Score:2)
Billions of asian people _weren't_ getting fat from eating rice every single meal ... when they were calorie limited by their circumstances and basically malnourished. But, e.g. their growth was also stunted.
As they've gotten wealthier they got both taller and fatter. Basically they're now in the same boat as we are.
Several outlets, including nationalist tabloid the Global Times and broadcaster CCTV, ran reports about a study – published last year in The Lancet medical journal – that analyzed the evolution of average heights worldwide. Of the countries examined, China saw the largest male height increase – between 1985 and 2019, the average height of 19-year-old men in China increased by nearly 3.5 inches (9 centimeters).
(https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/11/china/average-height-mic-intl-hnk/index.html )
Also the richer Indians, including those who are vegeterian for religious reasons, are also having obesit
Re: (Score:2)
Why is this a western problem? Billions of Asian people aren't getting fat from eating rice with every single meal.
In the highly developed areas in Asia, diabetes rates are rising, and indeed most of the people with diabetes on the global scale are actually in Asia.
https://diabetesjournals.org/c... [diabetesjournals.org]
I also thought it was odd when I first learned about this, considering the primacy of rice as a food staple in many of those regions.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a great statement to show how little you know about diet and nutrition. Our ancestors didn't eat nearly the amount of meat we do today and the meat they did eat was hunted and had to be worked for. We, humans, do need to eat less meat. Mostly beef, that is by far and above the largest contributor to a waste of environmental resources and pollution. More land is used and destroyed to grow food to feed cattle among other animal industries than anything else. Less cows, means less land destroyed by
Re: (Score:2)
Re: what bullshit (Score:2)
It's not that hard to get protein from plants as long as you don't mind all the methane you'll be releasing afterwards. And of course there's the relentless drum beat from eccentric attention-seekers who are happy to point out that we can get all of our protein from crickets and silkworms. But yeah, I'll stick to pork and beef personally. As long as it wasn't processed by Boar's Head. (Though I suspect other brands are just as foul; it just hasn't bit them in the ass yet.)
Re: (Score:2)
We're omnivores, evolved to eat a little bit of this and a little bit of that.
It's not that we should all go vegan, it's that we eat more meat than is healthy for us. We could cut back quite a bit before having to think about alternative sources of nutrition to compensate for a deficit.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not that we should all go vegan, it's that we eat more meat than is healthy for us. We could cut back quite a bit before having to think about alternative sources of nutrition to compensate for a deficit.
I would actually argue the opposite. Most of us eat way more grain than is healthy for us and way less meat and dairy and other sources of dietary fat than are healthy.
Case in point, I've tried dieting, I've tried massive amounts of exercising, and I've been unable to lose weight until very recently. I switched to some approximation of a carnivore diet (with OJ in my water so I don't die a horrible death from dehydration, completely ignoring calories in things like barbecue sauce, occasionally slipping in
Re: (Score:2)
And of course there's the relentless drum beat from eccentric attention-seekers who are happy to point out that we can get all of our protein from crickets and silkworms.
The only people who always bring that up are conservatives. I'd love to even know the origin of the study or statement.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
all this will lead to is increased occurences of diabetes due to way too much consumption of carbs.
Weird, according to actual medical advice [mayoclinic.org] in order to treat/avoid diabetes you should eat less animal protein and more fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, and some fish.
Re: (Score:2)
all this will lead to is increased occurences of diabetes due to way too much consumption of carbs.
Weird, according to actual medical advice [mayoclinic.org] in order to treat/avoid diabetes you should eat less animal protein and more fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, and some fish.
That particular diet is bullshit, to be kind of blunt. I stuck to that diet extremely closely for months and months to get my blood sugar down, what they fail to mention adequately is that most common vegetables and almost all common modern fruits are high in either fructose (which is basically the same as eating table sugar) or are quite high in carbs due to having a lot of starches in them, being many types of nuts, most legumes, rice, nearly all root vegetables, etc. If you eat rice, potatoes or another
Re: (Score:2)
Diet is complex and has a much larger interaction with our brains than people realize. So I can definitely see why a lot of people have far more success with something like Keto and/or low carb. Even if there is a perfect mix of micro & marco nutrients for the human machine that's probably not something that works for a lot of people in practice.
But that doesn't mean that the standard "healthy" diet is bullshit. I know people who were borderline obese and developing diabetes, they followed the doctor's
Re: (Score:2)
Diet is complex and has a much larger interaction with our brains than people realize. So I can definitely see why a lot of people have far more success with something like Keto and/or low carb. Even if there is a perfect mix of micro & marco nutrients for the human machine that's probably not something that works for a lot of people in practice.
But that doesn't mean that the standard "healthy" diet is bullshit. I know people who were borderline obese and developing diabetes, they followed the doctor's orders and have since spent several years thin and healthy. People need to find what works for them.
The standard "healthy" diet, at least as most people seem to implement it, really is bulls**t, because what people don't realize is that you have to very carefully pick and choose your vegetables or it doesn't work. If you mostly eat peppers, green beans, lettuce, broccoli, and other green vegetables, yeah, increasing that and eating less meat reduces your calories and you'll lose weight. If you mostly eat starchy root vegetables, then increasing that and eating less meat will almost certainly make you ga
Re: (Score:2)
all this will lead to is increased occurences of diabetes due to way too much consumption of carbs.
The opposite of meat is not carbs. No one is proposing you forgo the steak and eat just the fries on the side.
Re: (Score:2)
Nonsense, centrally planned food management has never failed us before. Not once.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
All the vegetarians I know struggle with low energy levels and insufficient musculature. All the vegetarians I know who started that diet in childhood eventually developed thyroid problems by middle age. Balance is important in all things.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Try telling that to, say, Kendrick Farris [google.is], Barny Du Plessis [google.is], or Nimai Delgado [google.is], to pick a couple. Are Venus Williams and Novak Djokovic "low energy"? Do Kyrie Irving and Nate Diaz suffer "insufficient msculature"? Is Lewis Hamilton out for the count due to thyroid problems?
Hint: "the vegetarians you know" may not be representative. That's what studies are for. And they simply don't show problems. There are entire countries that are vegetarian.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, they don't have "vegetarian food". It's just tasty tasty food. Which happens to be vegetarian.
Re: (Score:2)
Hint: "the vegetarians you know" may not be representative. That's what studies are for. And they simply don't show problems. There are entire countries that are vegetarian.
I'd also wager that the number of vegetarians that they know ranges between zero and maybe one or two at the most.
Re: (Score:3)
What I'm getting from you is that people flush with cash who have coaches to manage their diets and nutrient intake can make a vegetarian diet work. That's REALLY not the flex you think it is.
Re: (Score:2)
Again, sorry to directly contradict you so directly, but this comment is dead wrong. "The people I know" is always a more random sample than "the examples you cherry-picked", unless I am in a deep subculture or you are a statistician.
Re: (Score:2)
All the vegetarians I know struggle with low energy levels and insufficient musculature. All the vegetarians I know who started that diet in childhood eventually developed thyroid problems by middle age. Balance is important in all things.
I knew a raw food vegan in her 50s who still competed in national level endurance competitions against athletes in their 20s.
Keep a varied died, do some vitamins to be safe, and you'll be fine.
Re: (Score:2)
It depends largely on the person and what they were doing before. Your body can survive a surprising amount of time without proper nutrients but eventually osteoporosis will set in. You could obviously supplement, which is what most vegan/vegetarians do, but you're just taking the nutrients out of animal sources, putting them in pill form and then pretending you're not consuming animal sourced products.
If you're vegetarian you certainly need to be a bit more careful about what you consume (and probably take some supplements), but the number of people who pull if off and perform at a high levels shows that it's certainly possible.
On the other hand, most if not all plant food are highly reliant on (artificial) animal assistance, whether it is avocado and animal farmers in California "renting" bees, fertilization, composting, critters moving seeds, worms.
I tried this line of argument with a vegan years ago... and felt like a complete idiot after.
There's a big difference between animals and insects being involved (even killed) as part of the production process and the animals themselves being the thing consumed.
Re: (Score:2)
So vegans can eat insects? Because that's what you do in a lot of cases when you eat produce.
I guess it depends on your flavor and reason for being a vegan, most vegans do it for animal or as a quasi-religious "for the climate" and the like. But you can't call yourself vegan if you willingly/knowingly eat animals and insects which they should realize the idiocy of their line of reasoning when you explain the fact we are omnivores and not herbivores.
Again, there's a reason why I felt like an idiot after making that same argument years ago.
Humans, rightfully, but a lot of emphasis on intent. Insects are killed, and sometimes consumed, as part of a vegan diet. But that is not the intent, the death of animals and insects in plant agriculture is a byproduct of farming, but not the core purpose. And one could, in theory, grow plants for food without harming animals and insects.
But when you're eating a steak it's very difficult to claim that the death of the
Re: (Score:2)
And all the steak and potato eaters I know are taking cholesterol medications. So take that anecdote!
Re: what bullshit (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
All the vegetarians I know struggle with low energy levels and insufficient musculature.
Well if you're America all the meat eaters you know are statistically overweight and have heart problems. That's the problem with observer bias. Go get to know some better vegetarians who know how to eat properly.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not the meat that's causing folks to be overweight...if that were the case, it would be the folks on the carnivore diets that would be the fattest of us all....no, that elimination diet seems to work to cause weight loss.
It is the overconsumption of carb, especially highly processed foods wi
they said the same about gluten (Score:2)
All the vegetarians and vegans I know all seem to be in better heath that most meat eaters (who tend to be obese, among various other problems). Do you have any actual evidence of a higher-incidence of diabetes among plant-eaters, because I don't think you actually do and you are just making that up.
Vegetarians and vegans are mindful of what they eat. It's not removing meat that's helping them...it's that they think about their meals more than the default population. I assure you that people on any diet are healthier than those who are not...even if the diet is pure bullshit. I know 5 people without Celiac's disease that were convinced gluten was the cause of their ailments back when that was trendy. One lost 50lbs by giving up gluten.
I think you and I both know gluten wasn't making him fat...h
Re: (Score:2)
Also, most elite athletes and the healthiest people I know pretty much all eat meat to some extent. Again, if vegetarian/vegan lifestyles were so much healthier, every olympic and professional athlete would be strict vegans...anything to get that tiny edge to get the gold.
I don't think this is necessarily true.
Two main reasons (there may be more):
1) I don't think you can conflate the word "healthier" with elite sports performance. What are your metrics for health? They might not be the same as the success metrics for most sports. For example, sumo wrestlers and NFL linemen and powerlifters are elite athletes in their 20s. What are their health outcomes at 50, 60, 70, when compared to, say, a vegetarian with an office job who bikes their suburban trails twice a week?
2) You a
Re: (Score:2)
All the vegetarians and vegans I know all seem to be in better heath that most meat eaters (who tend to be obese, among various other problems). Do you have any actual evidence of a higher-incidence of diabetes among plant-eaters, because I don't think you actually do and you are just making that up.
I have no cultural/political opposition to vegetarianism/veganism, but I suspect this issue is heavily distorted by confounding factors and survivorship bias.
Remember how in the late 1980s everyone started saying stuff like, "On average, people with a bachelor's degree make $20,000 more per year than HS grads; people with a Master's degree make $40,000 more, and people with a PhD make $60,000 more. Therefore, everyone should go to college so you can be wealthy!" So all the Millennial/GenZ kids did everythin
Re: (Score:2)
What's the changes that this organization is related to or gets funding through, in some fashion...the WEF?
Re: (Score:3)
They can eat less meat if they like. I'm not standing in their way.
You actually have very little influence on what you like or not. It's a learned reaction based on marketing and supply chain economics (and for some people religion, but leave the loonies out of this). The plan here has nothing to do with forcing you to make any decision, it's based entirely on the supply side - what it is that influences you.
You can see that in action in some places where some action has been taken against over consumption of meat. E.g. some places have banned the advertising of it, some p
Re: need to eat less meat (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Two questions:
1) Why would the WEF want to destroy society?
2) Once society is destroyed, then what?
Re: (Score:2)
Create a new society filled with peons without the power to oppose the neo-feudalists who know best how to run the world.
Re: (Score:2)
I smoked a brisket on Monday along with some St. Louis cut spare ribs...yum.
I actually have a bit of leftover smoked brisket from previous cook, I'm about to make it into some yummy smoked brisket boudin sausages....
As you can see, I too am doing MY part!!