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Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #100 on: May 17, 2017, 09:10:30 PM »
The importance of labels.  ;D

Quote
A climatarian, a reducetarian, and a sustainatarian walk into a bar.

It sounds like the beginning of a joke (and it is*) but it’s also the world we live in now. Those words are just the tip of the iceberg lettuce when it comes to words to describe semi-vegetarians. Any quipster with a keyboard and internet access can coin a new one. Perhaps you prefer vegavore or carnesparsian?

Beneath their silly-sounding veneer, these words reflect a shift in our understanding of what food choices mean. A decade after The Omnivore’s Dilemma planted a stake in the vast middle ground between carnivore and vegan, the quandary of what to eat for dinner hasn’t gotten any simpler — and neither has the quest for the right word to describe the ethical moderate....
http://grist.org/food/climatarian-vegavore-reducetarian-why-we-have-so-many-words-for-cutting-back-on-meat/
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Neven

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #101 on: May 20, 2017, 11:51:11 PM »
I couldn't find that article where they explain how much meat you 'can' eat, CO2-wise, but maybe it was based on the stuff described in this NewScientist article from 2011: Just how much meat can eco-citizens eat?

Quote
Butler showed that if every person in the world ate 50 g of red meat and 40 g of white meat per day by 2050, greenhouse gas emissions from meat production would stabilise at 2005 levels – a target cited in national plans for agricultural emissions. That’s about one burger and one small chicken breast per person every two days (The Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/S0140- 6736(07)61256-2).

Butler’s 2007 figures didn’t take into account the fact that we throw out a lot of the animal mass produced because we consider it inedible. Western countries are the biggest offenders: while many cultures are not fazed by a meal of brains or testicles, Butler estimates that Americans and Australians throw out up to half the cow mass they produce.

At New Scientist‘s request, he updated his calculations. He estimates that globally we discard between 5 and 10 per cent of the animal. This means we can only allow ourselves 80 to 85 g of red and white meat, or one burger and one chicken fillet every three days.

That’s an upper limit. Emissions may need to be cut further.

Based on this, I probably still eat slightly too much meat. I think for the three of us we buy around 60 kg of beef per year, and around 30 kg of poultry.

I don't want to talk about the dog (75-100 kg beef per year)...  :-X

Looks like we're going to have to get rid of our CNG-powered car in the coming year and buy better bikes to compensate.
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Tor Bejnar

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #102 on: May 21, 2017, 12:03:56 AM »
With your new bikes, you'll have to eat more to power them (and we've all been taught by the agricultural industrial complex the importance of eating lots of iron-rich red meat for energy)!  ::)
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sidd

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #103 on: May 21, 2017, 05:46:25 AM »
Find a farmer you like. Get meat off him. Use it as flavoring. A little goes a long way.

I just got two (dressed, with giblets) whole chickens, four dozen eggs, couple pounds smoked sausage from happily raised animals (well until they were quickly and mercifully killed ...) for twenty five US$.

Will last me awhile.

sidd

Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #104 on: June 28, 2017, 03:15:14 PM »
Veganism Skyrockets by 600% In America Over 3 Years To 6% Of Population
Quote
The report also touched on German consumers, showing that 44 per cent of this group now follows a 'low meat' diet - another huge increase from 2014's stat of 26 per cent.
https://www.plantbasednews.org/post/veganism-skyrockets-by-600-in-america-over-3-years-to-6-of-population
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #105 on: August 13, 2017, 09:05:12 PM »
Meet the 'vegan mafia,' a secret group of investors betting on the future of food
- The vegan mafia invests in companies that aim to take animals out of the supply chain.
- Its members are powerful former financiers, entrepreneurs and bio-tech investors.
- This group isn't interested in kale and tofu (well, sometimes it is).
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/11/vegan-mafia-food-investor-network-includes-bill-maris-kyle-vogt.html
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Bob Wallace

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #106 on: August 13, 2017, 10:31:37 PM »
I'm really interested in animal-free meat. 

We aren't going to get most people to give up meat.  But if we can offer them something that is meat at a lower price then we can free up vast amounts of land for forestation and greatly lower methane emissions.

The inputs for factory meat must be cheaper than the cost of raising and processing animals.  Make the meat close to the market and things get even more efficient.

Maybe we won't be able to grow 'steak' (at first) but if we can offer people ground beef at an excellent price the demand for steak will drop.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #107 on: August 15, 2017, 03:30:35 AM »
Warning: graphic descriptions and images.

Never mind CCTV in slaugherhouses, we need to end the meat and dairy industry altogether
It isn’t just horrific for the animals, producing meat also has a huge effect on the environment and health consequences to humans – even those of us who are vegan

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/meat-dairy-vegan-slaughterhouses-vegetarian-a7891046.html?amp
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rboyd

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #108 on: August 16, 2017, 05:01:28 AM »
With the right level of carbon taxes, the price difference between veggies and meat (produced by feeding veggies to animals at a rate of 10:1 for each pound of meat) will significantly increase. Demand follows price.

TerryM

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #109 on: August 16, 2017, 06:02:01 AM »
I probably eat <1# of beef/an. Pork however is a favorite of mine, and eggs.
At my age I'm not going to change my dietary habits. I've considered beef to be bad because of the damage done to riparian lands and basically quit eating them long before I learned of the methane situation.
I think many of us do much better with a high protein diet than with carbs, and I'm not sure that bacon and eggs will ruin the atmosphere. Can we make room for those who like me, eschew our steaks, but chow down on baby back ribs?
Terry

sidd

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #110 on: August 16, 2017, 06:47:02 AM »
Re: eggs and pigs

Chickens are smart. Pigs are smarter. It sickens me to think of the conditions in Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO)

Find some farmers who raise humanely and kill mercifully. It's gonna cost you more, and you might have to eat less meat, but you will sleep better at night, and so will I.

sidd

TerryM

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #111 on: August 16, 2017, 07:13:51 AM »
Re: eggs and pigs

Chickens are smart. Pigs are smarter. It sickens me to think of the conditions in Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO)

Find some farmers who raise humanely and kill mercifully. It's gonna cost you more, and you might have to eat less meat, but you will sleep better at night, and so will I.

sidd


My pork guy keeps litters together in their own sheds until the day comes. He has tours through his farm, which is unusual for Mennonite farmers, and from all accounts they live a decent family life, until the day.
The pork doesn't cost any more than that purchased at the big box stores, but it certainly tastes better. Sausage is a market day treat that his wife and daughter BBQ for the crowd.


Rest easy  ;)
Terry

sidd

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #112 on: August 16, 2017, 08:08:33 AM »
Killing an animal ain't easy. The guidelines for halal/kosher are actually quite reasonable. Sever carotids, jugular and trachea with very sharp knife and bleed out. Temple Grandin has some humane suggestions.

Eat less meat.

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numerobis

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #113 on: August 17, 2017, 03:46:44 PM »
I think many of us do much better with a high protein diet than with carbs, and I'm not sure that bacon and eggs will ruin the atmosphere.

The carbon intensity of foods is a major research topic. Wikipedia has a nice graph from a recent meta-analysis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-carbon_diet#/media/File:Clune2016_food_lca.svg

(A warning: if you download the Clune 2016 paper from the link in wikipedia, page 20 seems to hang all my PDF readers. Make sure to skip that page.)

Unfortunately that's per kg of foodstuff, not per calorie or per g of protein: notice that 1kg of cheese is deemed to be about 3x worse than 1 kg of milk. But cheese is milk with two thirds of the water driven out -- that process accounts for almost all the difference in CO2e intensity.

When I cross-reference some of their foods with the USDA nutrient database, I get numbers like these:

Per kilo of stuff, g protein, kcal, and kg CO2e:

beef: 194.2 protein / 1980 kcal / 26.61 CO2
        137.02 g CO2 / g protein
         13.43 g CO2 / kcal

chicken: 174.4 protein / 1430 kcal / 3.65 CO2
        20.93 g CO2 / g protein
         2.55 g CO2 / kcal

pork: 168.8 protein / 2630 kcal / 5.77 CO2
        34.18 g CO2 / g protein
         2.19 g CO2 / kcal

egg: 125.6 protein / 1430 kcal / 3.46 CO2
        27.55 g CO2 / g protein
         2.42 g CO2 / kcal

milk: 34.8 protein / 510 kcal / 1.29 CO2
        37.07 g CO2 / g protein
         2.53 g CO2 / kcal

tree nuts (mixed nuts): 155.2 protein / 6150 kcal / 1.20 CO2
        7.73 g CO2 / g protein
        0.20 g CO2 / kcal

chick peas (dry): 223.9 protein / 3870 kcal / 0.77 CO2
        3.44 g CO2 / g protein
        0.20 g CO2 / kcal


In other words: beef is terrible, milk, egg, pork, and chicken are comparable, nuts and chick peas way better than any animal products.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #114 on: September 02, 2017, 04:38:27 PM »
Quote
"You have a choice Houston, starve to death...or eat vegan."

(ENTIRE CITY OF HOUSTON TAKES A BIG SWIG OF WHISKY)
"I'll see you in hell."
https://mobile.twitter.com/mattoswaltva/status/903834627768324096
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Paddy

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #115 on: September 29, 2017, 04:15:54 PM »
Cows produce more methane than previously thought: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/29/methane-emissions-cattle-11-percent-higher-than-estimated

This article finds me at the tipping point of actually turning vegetarian. (And cutting way back on dairy).

sidd

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #116 on: October 06, 2017, 01:31:17 AM »
Greenwald has a stomach turning article on the horrors of factory farming and the powers behind them.
 
https://theintercept.com/2017/10/05/factory-farms-fbi-missing-piglets-animal-rights-glenn-greenwald/

sidd


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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #117 on: October 06, 2017, 11:09:20 PM »
Quote
"You have a choice Houston, starve to death...or eat vegan."

(ENTIRE CITY OF HOUSTON TAKES A BIG SWIG OF WHISKY)
"I'll see you in hell."
https://mobile.twitter.com/mattoswaltva/status/903834627768324096

i have serious doubts whether vegan is really healthy  but then when i see all this processed food in that image perhaps vegan is healthy, just not that way LOL

i'm not an expert in vegan nutrition but this is just what crossed my mind when i saw that shelf.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #118 on: March 11, 2018, 04:52:36 PM »
Swedish Meat Consumption Plummets to 30-Year Low
Quote
According to a report from the Swedish Board of Agriculture, average meat consumption dropped by 2.6 percent, or about five pounds per person, last year.

Beef saw the biggest drop, with consumption down around 2.4 pounds per person, followed by pork and then poultry.

Åsa Lannhard Öberg, a spokesperson for the Swedish Board of Agriculture, said in a statement:
There are many explanations for the reduced consumption of meat, but the trend of vegetarianism, debates about climate change, health aspects and ethical reasons are some.

It’s no wonder McDonald’s chose Sweden as one of only two countries to test out its new McVegan sandwich late last year. According to FoodNavigator, the fast-food giant sold over 150,000 McVegans in the first month at locations in Sweden and Finland. The plant-based burger was such a hit that McDonald’s made it a permanent menu item. ...
http://www.mercyforanimals.org/report-people-in-sweden-are-ditching-meat
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SteveMDFP

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #119 on: March 11, 2018, 05:28:15 PM »

i have serious doubts whether vegan is really healthy  but then when i see all this processed food in that image perhaps vegan is healthy, just not that way LOL

i'm not an expert in vegan nutrition but this is just what crossed my mind when i saw that shelf.

Vegetarian/vegan diets are unquestionably healthier.  One does need to pay attention to a B-12 source, and vegan diets don't offer benefits of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids (unless an algae source is incorporated).  But the main health problems of modern living are pretty clearly reduced.
Beyond meatless, the health effects of vegan diets: findings from the Adventist cohorts
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24871675
" Vegetarian diets confer protection against cardiovascular diseases, cardiometabolic risk factors, some cancers and total mortality. Compared to lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets, vegan diets seem to offer additional protection for obesity, hypertension, type-2 diabetes, and cardiovascular mortality. Males experience greater health benefits than females."

Other studies have indicated a lower risk of Alzheimer's among vegetarians.

Personally, going without meat is easy.  The stuff is esthetically revolting.  But going without dairy products is a challenge.  Goats milk products would be environmentally better, but not as available or inexpensive.

Somebody should market dairy products from cows fed that seaweed that prevents bovine methane emissions.  Though marketing something called "green cheese" may not be so successful with the masses.  ;-)

Bruce Steele

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #120 on: March 11, 2018, 07:56:21 PM »
I read through the article on Sweden reducing the red meat in their diets. The article also says they have increased meat in their diets by 41% over the last couple decades. Sweden's average meat consumption is 180.4 lbs and 66 lbs. of fish. The US meat consumption is 222 lbs. and their fish consumption is 15lbs. so meat consumption is actually higher in Sweden.
 I am not trying to rationalize the high meat diets of either country and reducing meat is a relatively easy way to reduce your carbon footprint. Growing all your own food is a better way to proceed but if easier is better then by all means reduce the meat in your diet.
 For what it's worth my wife and I have simply quit eatting hamburgers ... They are a ubiquitous part of American lifestyles and not eatting them is both simple and somewhat challenging.

 https://www.thelocal.se/20180302/meat-consumption-in-sweden-drops-by-record-amount

Sleepy

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #121 on: March 11, 2018, 09:34:42 PM »
Sweden hasn't plummeted at all, when it comes to our meat consumption. A 2.6% drop is nothing but a slight decline at best. And that's not thanks to McDonald's vegan burger.  ;D
If you really must be lazy we have other much more modern options here, like Max:
https://www.max.se/sv/Om-MAX/Presscenter/Nya-grona-burgare-hojer-takten-ytterligare/

A 41% increase is correct but beef consumption increased by 51% between 1990-2016.
Here is the real background:
http://www.jordbruksverket.se/amnesomraden/konsument/livsmedelskonsumtionisiffror/kottkonsumtionen.4.465e4964142dbfe44705198.html
And this pdf for beef:
http://www.jordbruksverket.se/download/18.3d2c6fbb15cac007a856135/1497537819137/Marknadsrapport%20n%C3%B6tk%C3%B6tt%202017.pdf
Adding the first graph from that one. Yellow=consumption
As you can see, we import more beef than we produce.

Second image, OECD comparison between different countries and consumption.
Nötkött=Beef, Griskött=Pork, Fågelkött=Poultry, Lammkött=Lamb
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #122 on: April 18, 2018, 05:01:53 PM »
Beyond Meat just debuted their new Beyond Sausage.

Quote
Despite having no meat, gluten, soy, or GMO ingredients, the sausage gets its pork-like flavor, juiciness, and texture from the protein extracted from peas, fava beans, and rice plus color from beets and juiciness from coconut oil. Weaving those ingredients together using heat and pressure (to mimic the fibers of meat), the ground protein is all wrapped up in a casing “derived from algae” to keep it all vegan. Each link contains 16 grams of protein (two grams more than pork sausage) and 43 percent less fat than your standard pork sausage. Whoa. ...
https://www.brit.co/beyond-meat-sausage-review/
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Sebastian Jones

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #123 on: April 18, 2018, 05:49:09 PM »
Beyond Meat just debuted their new Beyond Sausage.

The ingenuity, effort and energy deployed to pretend we have not gone vegan...It is so illogical; why would one want to create a more or less faithful simulacrum of that which one has voluntarily foregone? 

Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #124 on: April 18, 2018, 06:17:36 PM »
Beyond Meat just debuted their new Beyond Sausage.

The ingenuity, effort and energy deployed to pretend we have not gone vegan...It is so illogical; why would one want to create a more or less faithful simulacrum of that which one has voluntarily foregone?

Only a small percentage of people are already vegan.  The main customer for this product will be meat-eaters sampling or attempting to trend in the vegan direction.
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #125 on: April 23, 2018, 09:47:46 PM »
Impossible Foods wants to completely replace animals as a food production technology by 2035.

Meet the Founder of Impossible Foods, Whose Meat-Free Burgers Could Transform the Way We Eat
Quote
Brown says he’s not interested in offering vegans another option; instead, he wants to win over omnivores with plant-derived products that are so delicious, nutritious, and affordable they completely replace meat from animals by 2035.
...

Tell us what you are working on now. I’ve heard there’s a fish replacement in the works?

Impossible Foods made the decision to start with raw ground beef as our first product because it’s the most popular single kind of meat in the U.S., and it’s iconic. But the technology platform is not at all focused on ground beef. In fact, we’ve learned how to make pork, chicken, and even fish flavors; we’ve figured out the basic chemistry and we have patents on those. Beef is the worst in terms of its destructive environmental impact, but fish is a close second. Right now, humans are absolutely strip-mining the oceans to meet the high demand for fish. The total population of fish in oceans and rivers and lakes is less than half of what it was 40 years ago and some species are down more than 90%. Demand is still going up, so fish is a super high priority for us. ...
http://time.com/5247858/impossible-foods-meat-plant-based-agriculture/
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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #126 on: April 24, 2018, 10:08:47 AM »
Posted a snippet from the We Don't Have Time conference with a comment about impossible foods by MAX CEO, Richard Bergfors at the end of the second video, here:
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1021.msg151572.html#msg151572
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Bruce Steele

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #127 on: April 24, 2018, 08:04:35 PM »
France bans meat terminology from vegan products labeling. No more vegan steaks or sausage. Ban also includes vegetable based ( milk ) products.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43836156

Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #128 on: April 24, 2018, 08:16:20 PM »
France bans meat terminology from vegan products labeling. No more vegan steaks or sausage. Ban also includes vegetable based ( milk ) products.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43836156

Because heaven forbid someone eats vegan by accident. ::)
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Bruce Steele

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #129 on: April 24, 2018, 08:47:36 PM »
Sigmetnow, If taste and nutrition are comparable then I don't see labeling as an issue but there are lots of mislabeling issues with seafood that do cause problems. If meat were labeled as vegetable would you see it as an issue of concern?  What portion of your average beef patty at a fast food purveyor is beef?  Maybe getting labeling issues settled early in the introduction of vegan/meat product rollout isn't a bad idea.
 I still think growing your own food is the easiest way to avoid pesticides, GMO, mislabeling , misrepresentations, excess packaging , carbon footprint issues with food miles , and animal confinement practices . There is an awful lot of problems with food production that is hidden behind
marketing and food labels and it is virtually impossible for the public to get an honest answer on what is offered at the grocery market. 

Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #130 on: April 24, 2018, 09:19:33 PM »
Sigmetnow, If taste and nutrition are comparable then I don't see labeling as an issue but there are lots of mislabeling issues with seafood that do cause problems. If meat were labeled as vegetable would you see it as an issue of concern?  What portion of your average beef patty at a fast food purveyor is beef?  Maybe getting labeling issues settled early in the introduction of vegan/meat product rollout isn't a bad idea.
 I still think growing your own food is the easiest way to avoid pesticides, GMO, mislabeling , misrepresentations, excess packaging , carbon footprint issues with food miles , and animal confinement practices . There is an awful lot of problems with food production that is hidden behind
marketing and food labels and it is virtually impossible for the public to get an honest answer on what is offered at the grocery market.

No argument here that knowing exactly what you are eating helps you make better choices.  And for those who eat meat, direct sourcing is the best way to know what you are eating.

But most food is processed, so we make choices based on labels, habits, and experience.  Additionally, we need more people to consume less meat, to save the planet.  So, going after casual meat-eaters by labelling that says, essentially, “In place of your usual meat sausage, here is an alternative sausage-like product you might enjoy that potentially causes less harm to the environment” is a great way to get people to try it.  Rather than, “Here’s this alien product you probably won’t like because it is strange and really nothing like sausage even though it may look like it,” which serves only to protect the meat industry.
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TerryM

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #131 on: April 25, 2018, 12:02:14 AM »
I'm on Bruce's side on this one.
I don't want to be tricked into doing the right thing, I want to be convinced.
Terry



Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #132 on: April 25, 2018, 12:34:54 AM »
I'm on Bruce's side on this one.
I don't want to be tricked into doing the right thing, I want to be convinced.
Terry

OK, but which of these would you be more willing to try:  “vegan sausage” or “plant-based fatty cylinders.”  ;)  ;D
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #133 on: April 25, 2018, 12:36:07 AM »
More skeptics try the Impossible Burger:

People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #134 on: April 25, 2018, 01:03:50 AM »
I want one.

I was a vegetarian for over 12 years.  I now eat some, but not a lot of meat.

Give me burgers, Italian sausage for spaghetti sauce, taco filling and meatloaf and I'll go back to being a vegetarian.

be cause

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #135 on: April 25, 2018, 01:28:07 AM »
I love my butter too much to be vegan (yet) but today ground elder joined my top 10 green things to eat .. a seasonal and seasoned plant ,this is their season :) . b.c.
Conflict is the root of all evil , for being blind it does not see whom it attacks . Yet it always attacks the Son Of God , and the Son of God is you .

TerryM

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #136 on: April 25, 2018, 02:14:29 AM »
I'm on Bruce's side on this one.
I don't want to be tricked into doing the right thing, I want to be convinced.
Terry

OK, but which of these would you be more willing to try:  “vegan sausage” or “plant-based fatty cylinders.”  ;) ;D
Personally I'd as soon skip lunch. :(
I love crab meat, but whatever they replaced it with has pretty well cured me of experimenting with concoctions that supposedly taste like something they are not.
Why do they keep "Soy Milk" in the dairy section - false advertising.


I'm an omnivore. 8)
Terry

Bruce Steele

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #137 on: April 25, 2018, 05:32:36 AM »
Sigmetnow, " But most food is processed "
We choose to eat the way we eat. During this years "acorn challenge " I noticed that we didn't have trash for the weekly trash run. Food packaging is a ridiculous waste . Buying bulk dried foods and cooking at home can reduce carbon footprint and waste output. Takes more effort ,planning ,and time to soak some beans and cook them than using the can opener . So carbon footprint or ease of making dinner? It's not a concious choice for the most part but the cost of fast food adds up.
 

sidd

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #138 on: May 31, 2018, 10:35:30 PM »
Eat less meat.

"The new analysis shows that while meat and dairy provide just 18% of calories and 37% of protein, it uses the vast majority – 83% – of farmland and produces 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions."

" “A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use,” said Joseph Poore, at the University of Oxford, UK, who led the research. “It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car,” he said, as these only cut greenhouse gas emissions. "

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth

From the paper:

"Moving from current diets to a diet that excludes animal products (table S13) (35) has transformative potential, reducing food’s land use by 3.1 (2.8 to 3.3) billion ha (a 76% reduction), including a 19% reduction in arable land; food’s GHG emissions by 6.6 (5.5 to 7.4) billion metric tons of CO 2 eq (a 49% reduction); acidification by 50% (45 to 54%); eutrophication by 49% (37 to 56%); and scarcity-weighted freshwater withdrawals by 19% (−5 to 32%) for a 2010 reference year. The ranges are based on producing new vegetable proteins with impacts between the 10th-and 90th-percentile impacts of existing production. For the United States, where per capita meat consumption is three times the global average, dietary change has the potential for a far greater effect on food’s different emissions, reducing them by 61 to 73% [see supplementary text (17) for diet compositions and sensitivity analyses and fig. S14 for alternative scenarios]. "

doi: 10.1126/science.aaq0216

I attach fig 3.

sidd


Bruce Steele

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #139 on: June 01, 2018, 02:25:49 AM »
Sidd, The abstract from the paper makes a proposal to measure each farms emissions and suggest ways each producer might improve. It also suggests each consumer have the ability to choose those products with the least impacts and if I might interject support those producers that employ low emissions food production. (Labeling emission density of caloric production ... I guess)
 
 Abstract
Food’s environmental impacts are created by millions of diverse producers. To identify solutions that are effective under this heterogeneity, we consolidated data covering five environmental indicators; 38,700 farms; and 1600 processors, packaging types, and retailers. Impact can vary 50-fold among producers of the same product, creating substantial mitigation opportunities. However, mitigation is complicated by trade-offs, multiple ways for producers to achieve low impacts, and interactions throughout the supply chain. Producers have limits on how far they can reduce impacts. Most strikingly, impacts of the lowest-impact animal products typically exceed those of vegetable substitutes, providing new evidence for the importance of dietary change. Cumulatively, our findings support an approach where producers monitor their own impacts, flexibly meet environmental targets by choosing from multiple practices, and communicate their impacts to consumers.

 I would love to see those last four words etched in stone somewhere but in more ways than one we are so willing deceived .  Seems simple enough to just avoid beef and dairy and any labeling would make that very clear. What's the chances of that ? 
 Without trying to be self righteous pigs & chickens look rather benign. As a challenge I would like to compete against other producers especially if it meant someone was accuslly willing to buy food from a farm that was a carbon sink rather than a source... I mean buy food at a premium.
 Publishing the methodology of how you measure such things to any farmer willing to read and pursue improving their impacts might be a good start. But alas we are fire walled . If anyone out there could publish this studies methodology on how they measured the individual  impacts of those forty thousand farms I would appreciate it.

sidd

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #140 on: June 01, 2018, 02:48:41 AM »
Corresponding author on that paper is Poore

joseph.poore@queens.ox.ac.uk

emailing him should get you the paper, (in all these decades i have been refused once, and a co-author in that case sent me a copy ...)

But I believe the supplementeraies are open access and very, very informative.

sidd

Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #141 on: June 04, 2018, 03:28:25 AM »
Your Food Choices Can Have a Big Climate Impact, So Be Picky, New Study Says
A sweeping study of the food chain, from farm to table, singles out choices that can cut greenhouse gas emissions. The biggest impact: switch to a plant-based diet.
Quote
The researchers found that shifting from current diets to a diet without animal products would cut greenhouse gas emissions by nearly half, or about 6.6 billion metric tons. In the U.S., shifting to a plant-based diet would cut emissions by 620 million metric tons, or about 61 percent of the country's emissions from food. ...
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31052018/environmental-impacts-food-production-climate-change-meat-vegetarian-vegan-diets-global-warming-study
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ghoti

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #142 on: June 04, 2018, 05:10:57 AM »
Ecotricity sponsers a football team, the Forest Hill Rangers, which they say is the only Vegan football club. They talk about this and the all wood stadium they plan to build:



Food sold at the stadium is vegan and the players are fed vegan food at practices and games.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #143 on: July 23, 2018, 01:47:41 AM »
Beef statistics.

“If cattle were a nation, they would rank third behind China and the United States among the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters.”
“Americans eat about 10 billion burgers each year. Replacing 30 percent of the beef with mushrooms would have the same impact as taking 2.3 million cars off the road.”

Should your workplace ban meat?
https://mercury.postlight.com/amp?url=http://news.trust.org/item/20180718184902-769ih
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #144 on: July 25, 2018, 09:11:37 PM »
Impossible Burger's key ingredient wins FDA approval
The meatless burger's "heme" is safe to eat, regulators say.
Quote
The key ingredient in the Impossible Burger, the meatless burger that bleeds and browns when cooked, has finally passed muster with federal regulators.

Impossible Foods, the Redwood City, California-based startup behind the plant-based burger, said Monday the key ingredient in the burger had been determined to be generally recognized as safe (GRAS) to eat by the US Food and Drug Administration. That ingredient, soy leghemoglobin, or "heme," had reportedly been under review by the FDA as a potential allergen.

Impossible Foods is part of a vegan meat movement, in which products made from faux beef, chicken, pork and fish are produced in a high-tech lab to replicate the taste, look and smell of the real thing. Other companies include Beyond Meat, which makes meat-free chicken strips, and New Wave Foods, which sells fishless fried shrimp.

One of the main things that contributes to its appeal with diners is that it "bleeds" like a regular burger.

"Heme is identical inside a plant and in the muscle tissue of an animal. It is the taste of blood," Celeste Holz-Schietinger, Impossible Foods' principal scientist, told CNET's Dara Kerr during a 2016 visit to the company's lab. ...
https://www.cnet.com/news/impossible-burgers-key-ingredient-wins-fda-approval/
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sedziobs

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #145 on: July 25, 2018, 09:57:24 PM »
I tried an impossible burger last week.  Not bad at all.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #146 on: August 15, 2018, 06:18:48 PM »
Borderline on topic.  For now....
Do animals have rights?  Here’s the next court case to decide.

A horse was neglected by its owner. Now the horse is suing. - The Washington Post
Quote
Allowing Justice to sue could mean any animal protected under Oregon’s anti-cruelty statute  — a class that includes thousands of pets, zoo animals and even wildlife — could do the same, he said. (Livestock, lab animals, hunting targets, rodeo animals and invertebrates are exempted.) If this approach were adopted elsewhere, Cupp said, a stampede of animal litigation could overrun courts.

”Any case that could lead to billions of animals having the potential to file lawsuits is a shocker in the biggest way,” Cupp said. “Once you say a horse or dog or cat can personally sue over being abused, it’s not too big a jump to say, ‘Well, we’re kind of establishing that they’re legal persons with that. And legal persons can’t be eaten.’”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2018/08/13/feature/a-horse-was-neglected-by-its-owner-now-the-horse-is-suing/
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jacksmith4tx

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #147 on: August 15, 2018, 09:35:02 PM »
Michael Pollan is a popular food science writer (The Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Rules: An Eater's Manual).

How to Change Your Mind: Michael Pollan on How the Science of Psychedelics Illuminates Consciousness, Mortality, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
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One good way to understand a complex system is to disturb it and then see what happens. By smashing atoms, a particle accelerator forces them to yield their secrets. By administering psychedelics in carefully calibrated doses, neuroscientists can profoundly disturb the normal waking consciousness of volunteers, dissolving the structures of the self and occasioning what can be described as a mystical experience. While this is happening, imaging tools can observe the changes in the brain’s activity and patterns of connection. Already this work is yielding surprising insights into the “neural correlates” of the sense of self and spiritual experience.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/07/11/how-to-change-your-mind-michael-pollan/

There is definitely a subset of humanity that could benefit from a little 'brainwashing'.
Science is a thought process, technology will change reality.

mostly_lurking

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #148 on: August 16, 2018, 10:15:28 AM »
Is there a vegan of long date here ? Any comments ? Don't be afraid, we won't bite... we are respectful carnivores...


Just saw this thread , answering an old question, but anyway... I'm vegan for 6 years.

sark

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #149 on: August 16, 2018, 11:37:19 AM »
What's the difference in terms of tonnes of CO2 per year?  Are you going from a Max of about 6 tonnes per annum in diet alone, down to what, 2 or 4 tonnes?  If you are nothing but locally grown staple crops, with a little bit of out of season cheating, maybe you get down to less than 2 tonnes per annum due to diet alone?

The rest of human activities tend to dwarf food choices imho.  It's a great place to reduce co2 and farmers markets in particular I thank everyone for, but if the goal is co2 reductions I would be thinking travel, shipping, and concrete