Uplifting News
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Even if you don't go meatless, dropping or severely limiting beef is a huge start.
My family realized that most meals we have meat was just kind of an unnecessary element? Cut out meat and it was still delicious.
Our meat consumption dropped to ground turkey once a month and beef maybe once every 6 months when our to eat? i really feel like limiting is the way to go for most people, but too many suggest all or nothing.
I feel like meat only on weekends would be a pretty great compromise for the near term.
If enough people did that, meat would stop being the default with every meal and it'd end up easier to go farther.
And I think people are more likely to stick with a dramatic reduction than to go all the way.
Simply being selective with meat can go a long way as well. Cattle grazing on regenerative farms is in a completely different category from generic CAFO beef from the grocery store (at least if you're in the US). The main issue is finding it locally.
And yes it's more expensive, but also more nutritionally dense so you end up using less anyway. Plus it actually tastes like beef. We should be paying more for meat IMO, considering the resources going into its production.
Grass fed cattle uses way more land and resources and produce more emissions than the efficient hell on earth we call "intensive life stock farming".
I'm under no delusion that we should replace all beef with grazing cattle at current levels of consumption. It should be what the land can support, ideally. If they're part of a closed regenerative system, net-zero emissions and even net climate benefits can be possible. Cattle aren't going away anytime soon, why not bring responsible stewardship mainstream?
And we stop eating meat until this is reality, deal?
I would support anyone making that choice. But there's no way around the fact that some people are going to want to eat meat, and I think that's fine. Good luck trying to change other people based around your own personal dogma - especially when it's around what people eat, they don't like it and they might think you're an ass. Along with wanting to eat meat, most people don't like to be told what to do. In fact they often do the opposite. So no. In the same vein, please don't take the following as an attempt to persuade you or anyone to change your eating habits. It's simply a window into my thoughts on the matter.
It's the level of consumption, amount of waste and all the harmful externalities that I'm not ok with.
The fact is that meat farming, at a small enough scale in a closed loop system can improve the land instead of destroying it. It can also be net-zero or even provide net-negative emissions. That's not to say there are no emissions. We'll likely never see a cow that doesn't burp or fart. Cows expel quite a lot, I'm certain you know, mostly methane. There are ways to reduce it somewhat. The goal is take the harmful stuff we don't want and either harness it as an input for something else down the line, or offset it somewhere. This is difficult, it requires hella discipline and commitment, but we've learned quite a lot about how to do it. That's not to say there are one-size-fits-all systems or methods. Beef cattle need water and a lot of it. They need space and a lot of it. Grass. They produce waste and a lot of it. If you can't provide the proper inputs or reduce the outputs enough to reach net-zero (or my favorite cop-out: "net-zero... someday") is not going to happen. If you choose to do it anyway and profit from that, then you're a real piece of shit IMHO. Do something else.
If meat farming in a regenerative system is done correctly (which is going to look a bit different on every farm), meat animals are not mistreated and live the life they're meant to live, they're providing outputs for other parts of the system, customers get their (appropriate and healthy amount of) meat locally, the farmer gets a decent livelihood and can leave behind a legacy of land that's been improved, and community is built through interacting with that food system.
Meat eaters don't have any connection with the animals they consume and that's a real tragedy right now. Mass-produced meat as a concept is completely abstracted away. You grab that Styrofoam tray of chicken or whatever and that's the extent of it. Most brands greenwash the shit out of their meat, and the propaganda works.
If you're a Person Who Cares™️, maybe you spend the extra $2 on the "organic" line or you only buy "cage-free" eggs that come with a cute little booklet an unpaid intern made 10 years ago. Maybe you allow yourself to imagine happy animals peacefully grazing away in some pastoral scene replete with red wooden barns and shit. People really think like that!
But it would do some good to actually restore some connection to the animals we depend on. Go to the farm, go on tours and events. Hang out with the animals. Volunteer to help out with the baby sheep/goats/cows when they come. And speak up if something can be improved or doesn't seem ok. Form a bond with your food that actually starts at the beginning and not the end. Hunting is another (but very different) way to access that connection. As a bonus, hunters are helping with management and learning useful skills. It's not for everyone obviously, and that's ok. I'm not saying you should have to personally kill your meat or even watch that happen. It takes a certain type of person to safely carry that kind of burden. I'm not saying everyone who hasn't done this today is somehow bad. It's not the average person's fault we have such a shitty, rickety, exploitative food system (at least in the US where I'm at).
But if the idea of "meeting your meat", and taking part in its life while it's actually alive makes you uncomfortable, queasy or you'd just rather remain ignorant, yeah, you might want to take a deep look and examine whether you should be eating it at all. You (the person I'm replying to) have simply made that choice ahead of time, which is totally cool. I don't presently care about your reason for it, nor do I need to know, but you're welcome to share. What you don't have is the right to make that choice for others.
Just be mindful of replacing it with another source of protein. Just removing meat and leaving your diet as is might not do. Depending on your diet, it might not be an issue. If you're from Latin America for example, you probably already eat a lot of beans. But you are less likely to regularly eat a vegetarian source of protein if you live in a more northern region of the world.
True. We have a lot of beans now lol