The Guardian: Why You Should Go Animal Free

[CatLady78]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/19/why-you-should-go-animal-free-arguments-in-favour-of-meat-eating-debunked-plant-based

Whether you are concerned about your health, the environment or animal welfare, scientific evidence is piling up that meat-free diets are best. Millions of people in wealthy nations are already cutting back on animal products.

Of course livestock farmers and meat lovers are unsurprisingly fighting back and it can get confusing. Are avocados really worse than beef? What about bee-massacring almond production?
The coronavirus pandemic has added another ingredient to that mix. The rampant destruction of the natural world is seen as the root cause of diseases leaping into humans and is largely driven by farming expansion. The world’s top biodiversity scientists say even more deadly pandemics will follow unless the ecological devastation is rapidly halted.

Food is also a vital part of our culture, while the affordability of food is an issue of social justice. So there isn’t a single perfect diet. But the evidence is clear: whichever healthy and sustainable diet you choose, it is going to have much less red meat and dairy than today’s standard western diets, and quite possibly none. That’s for two basic reasons.

First, the over-consumption of meat is causing an epidemic of disease, with about $285bn spent every year around the world treating illness caused by eating red meat alone. Second, eating plants is simply a far more efficient use of the planet’s stretched resources than feeding the plants to animals and then eating them. The global livestock herd and the grain it consumes takes up 83% of global farmland, but produces just 18% of food calories.

So what about all those arguments in favour of meat-eating and against vegan diets? Let’s start with the big beef about red meat.

[handmade34]

1. I will give

you a hug now... you may need it later... unless people have mellowed some

"the over-consumption of meat is causing an epidemic of disease"

[CatLady78]

3. But that is why I posted it in this forum

Last edited Sun Jul 5, 2020, 08:23 AM - Edit history (1)

So it wouldn't piss anyone off..

[yonder]

2. Good post, welcome to DU and hold on to your hat.

[CatLady78]

4. Hmmm

I actually didn't realize it would be controversial in this forum. I wouldn't post it in GD.
I plan to run off and hide...I am a solidly flight not fight club member .
I don't mind civil disagreement but I quake at acrimonious arguments.

[yonder]

5. Your post is fine and in the right place as near as I can tell. I expected some pushback to it

which was the reason for my possibly ill-advised hat holding comment. I've seen some disagreements to your view and offered it only for your benefit.

Seriously, welcome to this board and please don't run off and hide. This IS a safe haven.

[CatLady78]

6. Heh thanks

Last edited Mon Jun 29, 2020, 04:52 AM - Edit history (5)

I know what you mean. I posted it here to share the counter arguments (e.g. the stuff about almond milk or soy) with the resident vegans and vegetarians rather than to proselytize to the general public.

I guess it isn't that I quake at pitched online battles so much as that I find them unpleasant and jarring. Quake sounds overly craven . It is just that I prefer to save my ammunition for important conflicts (e.g.: big agra, factory farms, right wing economists, creeps/sleazebags/far right heavy weights etc.) and not on testy interchanges with other DUers or other petty conflicts.

This is a safe space which is why I come here.
. Nice to meet you yonder.