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posted by mrpg on Thursday June 07 2018, @12:03AM   Printer-friendly
from the cows-and-poultry-agree dept.

[...] Agricultural data from 38,700 farms plus details of processing and retailing in 119 countries show wide differences in environmental impacts — from greenhouse gas emissions to water used — even between producers of the same product, says environmental scientist Joseph Poore of the University of Oxford. The amount of climate-warming gases released in the making of a pint of beer, for example, can more than double under high-impact production scenarios. For dairy and beef cattle combined, high-impact providers released about 12 times as many greenhouse gases as low-impact producers, Poore and colleague Thomas Nemecek report in the June 1 Science.

[...] The greatest changes in the effect of a person’s diet on the planet, however, would still come from choosing certain kinds of food over others. On average, producing 100 grams of protein from beef leads to the release of 50 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions, which the researchers calculated as a carbon-dioxide equivalent. By comparison, 100 grams of protein from cheese releases 11 kg in production, from poultry 5.7 kg and from tofu 2 kg.

[...] Producing food overall accounts for 26 percent of global climate-warming emissions, and takes up about 43 percent of the land that’s not desert or covered in ice, the researchers found. Out of the total carbon footprint from food, 57 percent comes from field agriculture, livestock and farmed fish. Clearing land for agriculture accounts for 24 percent and transporting food accounts for another 6 percent.


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday June 07 2018, @01:25AM (14 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday June 07 2018, @01:25AM (#689661)

    Anecdotal evidence, but:

    I'm a second-generation vegetarian. Both my sister and I were solidly near the top in mental abilities by available objective measures. Physically, I'm reasonably healthy, she's doing triathlons for fun. So I'm not convinced that a vegetarian diet = unhealthy or underdeveloped.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @02:47AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @02:47AM (#689693)

    You might be smart. If you don't short yourself on nutrients, you have a chance for this.

    Mental development is more than just being capable of intellectual pursuits. For example, with maturity comes a change in priorities. Additional changes happen as people settle down and raise families.

    From numerous things you've posted on SoylenNews, we see that you retain some immature viewpoints past childhood. You fit the soyboy stereotype pretty well in fact. You're a leftist; that is an immature viewpoint.

    Sadly, it isn't easy to run a proper controlled experiment on you. We'd have to make a few hundred clones of you, then raise them on different diets.

    It would be even better if we could run the experiment with the clones born in the same time and place as you, but that requires time travel and extra universes. Maybe the clones fed more meat would end up very different than you are today: They'd support UKIP, BNP, Trump, LePen, or similar. They'd each own 42 guns. They'd have more money. They'd have beautiful stay-at-home wives and huge families.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @12:31PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @12:31PM (#689829)

      that requires time travel and extra universes.

      String theory can provide this.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by boltronics on Thursday June 07 2018, @03:08AM (11 children)

    by boltronics (580) on Thursday June 07 2018, @03:08AM (#689698) Homepage Journal

    I'm 36. Been vegan for 5-6 years, and vegetarian for many years before that - easily the majority of my adult life. I'm a sysadmin as my day job. Strava says I ran a total of 208km last month, and 306km during April (I recently purchased a Garmin watch to start tracking). I've also been riding to and from work for years. I deliberately don't own a car so I force myself to ride my bike more often.

    You don't need to eat meat products to be healthy. It's a myth. What you do need is a well balanced diet and exercise. I'm typing this on my lunch break eating a bowl of carrots, bean shoots, capsicum, bok choy, corn, broccoli and some mashed up veggie burger. For breakfast I ate plenty of Weet-Bix with muesli and soy milk. I also eat a lot of nuts, seeds and fruit every day.

    I take vitamin tablets just to be safe, but I'm pretty sure that's just overkill. Feeling great, aside from currently being sore from over-training!

    --
    It's GNU/Linux dammit!
    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:08AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:08AM (#689721)

      Question: is it the bike riding or the vegan diet that made you into a whiney bitch?

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @08:39AM (7 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @08:39AM (#689775)

      You don't need to eat meat products to be healthy.

      But you've eaten meat during your development period, mate, isn't it so?

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by boltronics on Thursday June 07 2018, @11:00AM (6 children)

        by boltronics (580) on Thursday June 07 2018, @11:00AM (#689807) Homepage Journal

        Have you not reached maturity?

        --
        It's GNU/Linux dammit!
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @12:15AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @12:15AM (#690125)

          I don't like assertions that are supposed to be true no matter the circumstances, even more when they are supported by a single anecdote.
          I would have said nothing if your claim sounded like

          At my age, I don't need to eat meat products to be healthy.

          Notice any shift in meaning?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @01:05AM (4 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @01:05AM (#690142)

          My mother, over 75 yo, an observant orthodox christian, used to fast until recently on Wed and Fri - nothing of animal origin.
          This needed to stop, though - her body started to eat its own muscles - shown by the physiological and pathology analyses (ketonic compounds through the roof in her blood with visible muscles atrophy).

          I guess you'll see how your diet goes for you in 40+ years time.

          • (Score: 2) by boltronics on Friday June 08 2018, @01:48AM (3 children)

            by boltronics (580) on Friday June 08 2018, @01:48AM (#690152) Homepage Journal

            When you say "fasting", is that all she cut out? Did she cut out other food that normally goes with meat too? What did she replace that with?

            I can tell you that I eat a *lot*. I'd never use the word "fasting" to describe my diet because that (to me anyway) implies just skipping some or all food, as opposed to replacing it with alternatives.

            --
            It's GNU/Linux dammit!
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @02:48AM (2 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @02:48AM (#690174)

              When you say "fasting", is that all she cut out?

              The rules of fast on Wed and Fri in christian orthodoxy [abbamoses.com]

              Unless a fast-free period has been declared, Orthodox Christians are to keep a strict fast every Wednesday and Friday. The following foods are avoided:
              Meat, including poultry, and any meat products such as lard and meat broth.
              Fish (meaning fish with backbones; shellfish are permitted).
              Eggs and dairy products (milk, butter, cheese, etc.)
              Olive oil. A literal interpretation of the rule forbids only olive oil. Especially where olive oil is not a major part of the diet, the rule is sometimes taken to include all vegetable oils, as well as oil products such as margarine.
              Wine and other alcoholic drink. In the Slavic tradition, beer is often permitted on fast days.

              ---

              Did she cut out other food that normally goes with meat too? What did she replace that with?

              Unfortunately, she did - restricted herself on two meals on those days (skipping breakfast).

              • (Score: 2) by boltronics on Friday June 08 2018, @03:54AM (1 child)

                by boltronics (580) on Friday June 08 2018, @03:54AM (#690191) Homepage Journal

                Understood. Sorry, I wasn't aware.

                I figure vegans probably need to eat a lot more food than normal to keep up their health as a general rule, but I'm no health expert.

                I used to skip breakfast for years (but would easily make up for it in other meals). These days though, with all the running I've been doing, I have a strong craving for food at breakfast time.

                --
                It's GNU/Linux dammit!
                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @04:12AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @04:12AM (#690193)

                  Sorry, I wasn't aware.

                  No apologies needed.
                  Just keep in mind "an anecdote doesn't a dataset make" next time you are tempted by "You don't need to eat meat products to be healthy." kind of generalizations.

    • (Score: 2) by mrpg on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:16PM (1 child)

      by mrpg (5708) Subscriber Badge <reversethis-{gro ... yos} {ta} {gprm}> on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:16PM (#689902) Homepage

      Study Finds No Benefit to Taking Multivitamins and Some Other Supplements
      https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/05/30/0153253 [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday June 07 2018, @07:19PM

        by Thexalon (636) on Thursday June 07 2018, @07:19PM (#690029)

        Vegetarians are sometimes advised to take iron supplements, because meat is an important source of iron. It's entirely possibly to get enough iron via a vegetarian diet, but you have to pay some attention or risk getting anemia.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.