Vegans and vegetarians can move along and enjoy their day. You're cool already, and off the hook.
Cows are ruminants. That's a group of animals that are specially adapted to eat nutritionally-useless grasses. That's their whole deal. If you're living in a pastoral or premodern farming society then that's great because you can't eat grass and you can eat cows, so it's free food. But instead you live in a society (insert meme) where we grow food specifically for cows then ship it to cows. Again, the animal that's specialized in eating things that have no nutritional value, so we're going out of our way to grow plants with no nutritional value, and then ship enough of it around to feed an animal anyway.
What does that mean? It means by whatever metric you choose, cow meat is worse than half as efficient as other common sources of animal protein.
Feed conversion ratios. Enough feed to make a pound of beef is enough to make 2.5 pounds of pork or 5 pounds of chicken.
CO2 per calorie. 1000 calories of beef costs 13.8 kg of CO2. 1000 calories of pork costs 4.45kg CO2. 1000 calories of chicken costs 3.37kg CO2. Also note lamb topping the charts, which will be a running theme. (Also an extra reason not to use broccoli as your primary calorie source, if eating 13 pounds of broccoli a day wasn't a good enough reason on its own.)
Land use per year per calorie. How much land did that 1000 calories take? You'll need 119 square meters for beef, 7.26 square meters for pork, or 6.61 square meters for chicken. Note lamb topping the chart again. (Also apparently prawns can be farmed super dense, that's something interesting that I didn't know.)
Why do sheep show up so high on some of these charts? Because they're also ruminants. Don't eat sheep either.
I figure anyone who's going to be convinced by vegan/vegetarian arguments has already been convinced. The reason I made this thread is because, by the numbers, cutting cow meat from your diet has a big chunk of the environmental benefits of vegetarianism, while being easier. So you're exactly the kind of person I'm trying to convince to eat chicken instead.
So, no amount of individual consumer action is going to fix climate change. The problems are there because they're cheaper for the owning class, who have to maximize profits. When I see the "rethink everything!" slash "everyone in the west needs to restructure their day to day lives!" stuff I roll my eyes, since it's putting the blame on individuals and letting the actual culprits - capital - off the hook. People frame it as if unsustainable practices are for our benefit, but since when has capital done things for our benefit?
That said, while a lot of problems go away if we abolish capitalism, some don't. I think a socialist economy can sustainably and semi-ethically provide meat to everyone who wants it. But I don't think there's any way to physically produce enough beef to satisfy current consumer habits without making a mess of climate change. So I think it's important to start getting used to some changes already.
Good point on the chicken over beef for the methane production from cows. I mean the ethical aspect is the same as chickens are super intelligent and have personalities.
Good thread, saw it this morning and it made me defensive & angry but that's worth critically examining within myself, basiaclly priviledge, entitlement, and disgust at asceticism.
I think fish isnt a good option either as I feel over fishing means the rest should be for cultural/subsistance and farmed fish is horrid.
I do firmly believe that if someone does make the choice to eat meat they definatly should see how the animals are butchered, be physically present for a slaughter and eat/utilize the entire animal.