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Laurent

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Becoming Vegan
« on: April 07, 2016, 06:36:26 PM »
A great story about a Manhattan restaurateur who decided to follow his conscience.
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/#6a8e47c556d7
« Last Edit: February 03, 2020, 12:47:50 PM by Neven »

Laurent

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #1 on: April 07, 2016, 06:48:40 PM »
Nice video about a pro vegan explaining his thoughts.
Gary Yourofsky

Neven

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #2 on: April 07, 2016, 10:18:33 PM »
Nice video about a pro vegan explaining his thoughts.
Gary Yourofsky


I don't find it so nice. I find it cocky-American and confrontational. I'm also not so sure about the arguments, a bit too one-sided to my taste. But he may be right, I don't know.

What I do know, is that you need to have a good nutritional plan as a vegan, or else you're going to run into health problems sooner or later, depending on what kind of individual body you have. My impression is that most people give up.
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Laurent

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #3 on: April 08, 2016, 11:17:52 AM »
Is there a vegan of long date here ? Any comments ? Don't be afraid, we won't bite... we are respectful carnivores...

The problem is our societies have developed cultures that completely ignore Veganism, it is just recently (at least for me) that we hear about it. I am testing things and I am 100 % sure that there is loads of very interesting food that have to be considered. They are just under our noise but we don't see them, for example, I have more than 500 kilos of wheat stored nearby and It just come recently to me that I could germinate them (I am trying to make beer), not only the germinated seed are very healthy but if your pushing a little more you have a stuff that is full of sugar (could eventually replace horrible commercial sugar ?). If you malt (80°c in a oven) you can make beer but you can also mix it with anything else, it does bring an unusual taste that can enhance things (or not). that is were cooking begin and I love this idea, I have been collecting recipes for ages but now that I want to avoid meat at all cost, I had to throw nearly all of them, if I count recipes with too much sugar even less and without milk and eggs, there is nothing left...zig. Germinating is not black and white thing so you can blend things, use different seeds like peas , soy, chickpea, barley, oat, etc... I really enjoy this idea of a new world of senses to experiment. We have to introduce bacterias, yeast and other beats ( in our diet), I am testing fruit Kefir , it is very nice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kefir
I am making my bread with living yeast and would love to master fermented soy, I didn't try yet or to be more precise I have bought some soy in a bio shop but they do not germinate...
« Last Edit: April 08, 2016, 04:48:35 PM by Laurent »

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #4 on: April 08, 2016, 04:27:55 PM »
Quote
The problem is our societies have developed cultures that completely ignore Veganism

I think the eating habits of many people in the industrialized world are changing for the better.  Even those...such as myself....who could NEVER give up eggs or cheese (and so...could never go vegan)....are changing our eating habits and eating more healthy:

1)  I eat far less red meat than I used to
2)  I NEVER drink carbonated drinks....EVER (gave that up about 5 years ago...and almost puked once when I tried a Coke again)
3)  Far less sugar and chocolate than I used to eat
4)  More veggies....
5)  More seafood.....which is why I also couldn't be a vegan

 
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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #5 on: April 08, 2016, 06:47:02 PM »
Nice video about a pro vegan explaining his thoughts.
Gary Yourofsky


I am hiking along as I said but I do drop in and read stuff a few days a week.  I have little time to comment...but!

I listened to this total crap.  This is totally unscientific and almost completely wrong in everything he said.  He is like the nuts you see on TV marketing herbal, exercise and such supplements.  Or vitamins.  He is just flat a liar.

If you want to learn about how humans evolved and our former and current nutritional needs and ability to process different types of foods there is a host of academic information out there that clearly demonstrates how much of what this guys says is just not factual.

All scientific research has indicated that humans as far back as we have data on  (circa 50,000 years) have been omnivores.  Some populations in some areas almost totally carnivores and others in different places almost totally herbivores.  But all of that due to local food supplies.  When all sources are present we always have eaten all of them.

If you go back millions of years you can find ancestors of humans which consumed only vegetation.  But evolution continues its march trough time.  Our nearest ancestors from the primate family consume animal protein also (and lots of insects as well - there is a paleo diet for you!).  To show how fast people evolve consider the consumption of milk.  Several thousand years ago almost all adults were lactose intolerant (est 85%) whereas today the percentage is basically reversed with about 85% being able to consume milk with no issues.  We domesticated livestock and took advantage of the new source of food and adapted to it.

The arguments in favor of being vegetarians are largely political and social and not based upon any sound nutritional basis. Not that they do not have import, but it needs to be balanced with common sense.  For a great many of the Earth's population eating meat is perfectly fine in a climate change/ecological sense.  CAFO agricultural operations are a big problem to be certain.  Raising your own chickens in the backyard or if you have sufficient grazing land to raise larger livestock naturally is no problem.  On my farm I had a pond with 5 species of fish in it, 4 of turtles.  Should I not be eating them?

To echo a bit of what Neven said...I know a lot of vegetarians and the vast majority of them eat diets much worse than the standard omnivore like me.  I eat more vegetables than most of the vegetarians I know.  I call them pastatarians and most of them laugh and admit it is true.  People don't take time to cook real meals any more (like I do when I am at home) and go for the quick and easy rice, noodle dishes, soy, couscous stuff.  My son and his wife are both vegetarians (political justifications) and eat almost no vegetables at all (they don't like the taste of vegetables) and huge amounts of sweet stuff.  I'll probably out live them.

Course right now I am eating 50% carbs, 40% fat and about 10% meat (mostly sausage and bacon which helps get the fat content up where I need it). But I am hiking 20+ miles most days with a pack in the mountains.  Not a diet for the sedentary.
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Laurent

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #6 on: April 08, 2016, 08:31:39 PM »
I found a french article which criticize Gary Yourofski, I think it is fair so here is the translation strait from google :
I must admit that even thought his discourse is globally false, that doesn't change the fact that we are omnivores so we have the choice to choose our diet. I don't want to become a vegan that eat loads of industrial stuff, so it would have to be local, homemade and tasty with as little energy as possible.

http://hitek.fr/actualite/homme-est-il-omnivore_7437

Hello young bipeds, have you already done serious scientific studies? If so, the answer to the question of the article you must appear quite obvious. Unfortunately, everyone does not study and a lot of bullshit are broadcast on the net so that it even affects the nature of man and the animal world. And bullshit number 1 released online, Gary Yourofsky is the perfect example of a big problem Humanity ie lie. Indeed, this individual made a video where he is in an amphitheater where he explains that Man is herbivore. The problem is not to explain this kind of thing, everyone can give arguments, whether false or not, the problem is that it had nothing to do here.


Indeed Gary Yourofsky according to Wikipedia is "American activist for the cause of animals" and when you look good, we do not see ANY SCIENTIFIC TRAINING, he's just a journalist and has only the rights associations and it allows talk about science to students as if he was a teacher. That is the problem number 1 of our planet, people who do not know what they are talking is used to express the greatest number. So today we will all take some of his "arguments" and see their validity, which will answer the question posed in the title of this article, I do not therefore evoke the theme of animal suffering because that's another subject. Just for the record, said Gary Yourosky seriously that women who wear fur deserve to be raped, now we can start the article. But first, I will introduce myself, just to not do like Gary. So I'm Yoann Negro, I'm 23 I make popular science and Hitek on Youtube, and I'm studying License Biology, Microbiology specialty and I am convinced Darwinist.
Slavery, possession, profit, are the exclusive dominion of the human race?

It is with this question "rhetoric" that the gentleman's speech begins, if I specify in quotes that is rhetoric, it is because for more rights is the worst animal on Earth dominates the other and seeks only his profit blah ... So no, the man is not the worst animal, it is right at the top of food webs (yes we are not told Food chain because the relationships between people on Earth do not limited only to eat), making there no other species can do worse on a large scale. But if we had a natural predator, it is clear that it would be much worse than us.

For slavery, then there are ants who practice slavery, for example on plants where they will cut the buds to make it to the plants there is a threat, and the plant will recruit ants to defend by giving them food. This is a common scenario in the equatorial forest. The concept of possession, profit and domination, we will quote all viruses (yes viruses are living beings, a research team in Illinois has proved that at the beginning of October of this year, so c is very recent) protozoa that will parasitize the cells for their own proliferation. Another rule, all animals are making territorial domination, like my hamster, dogs, cats, primates, for example, there are sexual domination, with all the cats who abuse their female so that they are their faithful and kill all the little ancient Alpha males when they take their place. I give a few examples, because if I have to make a list, I'm not finished. It is just the introduction of speech and we already see the gaps sir.
Let a child choose between an apple and a rabbit, he will not play with the apple eating rabbit

While this argument implies that children are pure beings and they do not like violence. So if that was the case, there would never have been violence and harassment at school, but why not, after all we are not in reality but in a Disney movie everybody knows. This argument is horribly wrong and false tripling, why?

1. Because it is a packaging issue, put an apple and candy, and the child will eat the candy. Also you can put Brussels sprouts and a rabbit in front of a child, I do not think that rabbits will survive long.

2. If you have to take things in their natural state, the apple is the top of an apple tree and rabbits on the ground. So if we eat quickly, it will be eaten rabbit.

3. A child may not be able to feed itself, that's why we need to look after them.
We have flat teeth like herbivorous

Well, this individual never really had to look at his teeth, but we will compare 4 jaws, those of a human, a cow, a cat and a pig. Why pigs? Because it is omnivorous.

As we can see, we have the same teeth as pigs, which are omnivores. Sorry Gary, but science, this is not to say random things.
The length of our intestines is 7 to 13 times larger than our trunk as for herbivores and the carnivores only 3 to 6 times the length of the trunk, it allows carnivores to have a quick transit to get rid animal protein, cholesterol, saturated fat, trans-fatty acids. Enzymes which was for digestion are present only in herbivorous.

Here we begin to read shameful things. So we'll start with something very simple BOWEL DO NOT TAKE CARE OF DIGESTION! So we will summarize the digestion:

1. With your teeth, you grind your food. Salivary glands will make the saliva will wet the food they spend more easily in the stomach and saliva contains an enzyme called alpha-amylase which digests starch which is found in plants. I guess it speaks of this enzyme then. Except that the enzyme is found in omnivores too so it means nothing. (Http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26043446 if you can read English and that you're interested, I put this link because it is a fairly recent article)

2. The pharynx and esophagus, they only carry the crushed food, so like the death of a set of Game Of Thrones, who cares.

3. The stomach has PH = 2 what does it mean? Is that if you put a bone in your stomach, it will dissolve. In addition, there are enzymes, such as pepsin (which cut the protein) or a gastric lipase (it cuts triglycerides, but it is a minority). These enzymes are present in all stomachs.

4. The role of the small intestine is TRANSPORTER nutrients obtained, and there you'll say "But it's not absorb?" Indeed, it does not absorb, not actively anyway. In reality, there are two bodies that will play the role in absorption. Pancreas, which will synthesize pancreatic lipase (such as gastric, it will cut the fatty acid triglyceride) and the liver, which will synthesize bile whose role is to form a layer around the fatty acids (or emulsify for those who love big words) which will allow them to be absorbed by the cells of the intestine.

5. The colon. At this stage, 90% of the nutrients were absorbed and the bacteria will fecal matter. But not only ! Bacteria in the colon will degrade the cellulose, which is the main constituent of the plant, to make methane and hypothetically water to hydrate the colon, we do not really derive energy. And faeces will be evacuated through the rectum and anus.

extremely important, herbivores digest completely differently. In fact they have no stomach but a rumen, which is like a fermentation tank where bacteria will degrade cellulose to make energy. As we do that makes us do as methane. Ah, but wait! There are bacteria that do this kind of fermentation in the Appendix, except that with the evolution, the appendix only regress. So the only thing that actually brings us closer to a herbivore has only to regress since the appearance of man. So this argument of digestion and enzyme is only the fruit of poor scientific knowledge. Moreover, if we really compare the digestive systems, we have the same system as the pig is omnivorous. We continue ?

Carnivores do not sweat. Carnivores and omnivores have claws, not herbivores which have nails or hooves

Well no, all mammals sweat, and mammals there are the cats, which are carnivores. So that all carnivores have claws and consider that the nails are not claws, this is a level of high-level stupidity. But otherwise just like that sharks do not have claws yet in movies and Reunion, one often sees accidents with sharks, carnivorous plants also have not either. And if we compared with our closest cousins, namely chimpanzees? Are herbivores? Well, no, they are omnivorous because they eat insects and consume meat, meat also is used as a gift to the females in exchange for sex (http://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2009/04/08/589346-femelles-chimpanzes-aiment-males-offrent-viande.html, because this is truly epic I think)
I challenge you to catch a squirrel without artifice, to kill and eat the whole (eyes, nose, face, toes, tail, anus, blood and fur and all organs)

Then there is sadness key. Because this individual appears to have never had a philosophy course of his life, I will quote Aristotle, who was certainly a bad scientist and a great philosopher do not forget: "Man on the contrary [of other animals ], has many defenses, and it is always open to him to change and even having the weapon he wants when he wants. for the hand becomes claw, green, horn or lance or sword or other weapon or tool. It can be all of that, because it is able to just grab and hold everything. " (Aristotle, Parts of Animals)

This means that the "tricks" that are used are just part of our human nature, because they are an extension of our hand and the result of using our brains. So at least not human, we must use our devices to drive, otherwise it's like telling a lion kill a prey without using his claws. To say this is to forget the anthropological studies that point to the fact that our ancestors were formidable hunters, patient and good with their weapons. Besides, for that matter, there was a human species only herbivore, Paranthropus boisei like, which died out there 1.34 million years. Welcome to Darwinism, in nature, when an individual is not adapted to its environment, it disappears. Can we say that the omnivorous human species survived for millions of years as herbivores or carnivores quickly disappeared, because they were more adapted to survival? Yes.

Small food biochemistry lesson, physiology and evolution. You should know that the brain size of the line of homosexuals has increased significantly during evolution. Our current brain uses 20% of our energy to operate. What does it mean ? That during the evolution we had to bring more energy to our brain for over generations, it can develop and grow. You should know that the energy provided by the nutrients is specific to the food, meat and this energy input much higher than the vegetables (except some like soy for example). For example 100 grams of green beans bring to the body 31 calories and 100 grams of ground beef provides the body with 204 calories. Obviously, the protein content of the food is different, but be aware that the energy provided by a food is due to the degradation of proteins and lipids into energy. So even if the nutrient intakes are different, meat provides more energy. Why am I telling you this? As you can see on this chart from the site hominides.com which is the reference site on anthropology, our meat consumption has increased over time. One can clearly infer that intake of meat in our eating habits has contributed to the evolution of our brains in time. Sorry Gary, but had to study before making conferences.

Where do you think most of our current diseases come from? Broccoli? Blueberries? Cabbage? Raspberries ? Spinach ? Lawyers ? Shit! Human or animal shit.

It evokes salmonella, cholesterol problems and poisoning due to Escherichia coli. While Escherichia coli is a bacterium that lives in our gut and when it causes poisoning is due to consumption of undercooked animal products, raw or fresh fruits and vegetables as emphasized the Pasteur Institute. And for cholesterol, it is an exaggeration of reality. The meat does not cause cholesterol problems, but over-consumption of animal fat causes cholesterol problems. But be aware that cholesterol is produced by the body and serves as a precursor for synthesis of steroid hormones like testosterone, for example, as well as the rigidity of our cells. In addition, cholesterol problems are linked to a control problem of the synthesis and degradation of cholesterol by the body. That's why we give to patients with cholesterol drugs problems will inhibit cholesterol synthesis in addition to a decrease in the consumption of animal fats.
Animal protein is too acidic for the human body. 1/3 meat eaters suffer from cancer. People who eat more meat suffer more from osteoporosis and cancer.

I tried to understand what he meant, but for once, it does not mean anything. I think he said it because there are amino acids such as asparagine and glutamine, but it makes no sense to say that it is too acidic for the human body because the animal protein (casein for example), such as vegetable proteins, consist of all amino acids. vegetable consumption or meat brings in both cases protein so it is absolutely not an argument to say no to meat consumption.

I expect Yoann interrupt you, but WHO said the meat was carcinogenic as tobacco!

This is false, processed meat such as salami, sausages and bacon are considered carcinogenic. More red meat is classified as probably carcinogenic and white meat presents no problem. And for tobacco, it is not comparable because as recalled in the UK Cancer Researcher, tobacco is linked to 19% of all cancers and red meat and processed meat are associated with 3% of all cancers . So this is not comparable even if the risk of over-consumption of these products turned out. I do not know where Gary released his third, but probably not a scientific study.

And for osteoporosis, we must not forget that it is a disease whose risk factors are associated with age, fracture history, a body mass index lower, reduced physical activity, lack of vitamin and calcium, smoking or a high alcohol consumption (http://osteoporose.comprendrechoisir.com/comprendre/osteoporose-causes). Only PETA, which says it is linked to the meat. And as we have already mentioned in a discussion, the Japanese do not eat meat and do not have a health problem. The fish is not meat how long anyway? I do not know who studied at PETA, but it's not lying to people that their cause will win into consideration. Although animal suffering is another topic that will not be discussed here.

I think we did the question of the tower, on food, and one thing is evident and demonstrated, we are omnivores. This allowed us to evolve and adapt to climatic events such as glaciations for example. I can understand that people decide to change diet for ethical reasons, it is their choice, and since we're omnivores, they have the ability to precisely choose their diet. But tell lies to want to convert people, it is unfortunate. The real problem of our diet, is over-consumption that makes you eat anything, anyhow and this with a lot of mess. But cease to want to say that man is not omnivorous, that's two million years that humans consume meat, if we were not able to eat it, evolution would have us do would eat more meat for a long time. With that, this article is finally finished I hope that you will have learned something! Kisses.
« Last Edit: April 09, 2016, 08:51:54 AM by Laurent »

wili

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #7 on: April 08, 2016, 09:36:52 PM »
The earth doesn't need pure vegans.

It needs people who see meat mostly as a special treat (unless one is raising or hunting it oneself).

Not that there's anything particularly wrong with being a pure vegan.

It's just that the earth sustain the whole global population even if not one of them is vegan.

What it can't sustain is a whole world where everyone is living on the average American (or Danish...) level of industrial meat (and cheese) consumption.

And I agree with Jim that we should ignore people peddling pseudo-science, whether it is in the area of diet, or climate, or any other area.

I will point out that the average diet of the average Indian or Chines before about 1960 would have been considered vegan (with occasional 'cheating') by most modern carnivorous Americans. They only ate a few kilograms of meat a year (iirc) on average, mostly essentially flavoring--and that's the average. Presumably most of the poorest 3/4 of the population ate much less meat than that. And in the Chinese situation especially, they would not have had any milk products either. So some eggs perhaps, and the occasional little bits of meat or bones for flavoring soups  or other dishes would have been the norm.

This was/is still the norm for most of the poor in the world, and has been the case in most societies through history since the ag revolution. Beans, grains and veggies form the basis for most traditional diets around the world. Meat was usually added if you had guests, or for flavoring, or for special occasions when you could afford it. Restaurants are the equivalent of having guests, so people get skewed impressions of what everyday diets of most people in most cultures are.

In short, for most people, in most cultures, most of the time, they were mostly vegan.

And 'mostly vegan' is mostly what the world needs from most of us, not necessarily some kind of purity.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2016, 09:45:23 PM by wili »
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Laurent

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #8 on: April 10, 2016, 10:38:34 AM »
For more informations and an official wesite :
https://www.vegansociety.com/

For people who live in Europe and near big cities, there was recently a veggie fair in Paris. M
http://veggieworld.de/en/

Laurent

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #9 on: April 12, 2016, 09:40:32 AM »
You want a bit of sausage ? mmhhh so good !!!
https://www.facebook.com/gary.yourofsky/videos/465201000201820/

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #10 on: April 12, 2016, 01:11:59 PM »
Quote
You want a bit of sausage ? mmhhh so good !!!

That's good.  And TRUE.  You know what they say:  "Out of sight....out of mind."

I watched a well known chef in the US on a television program one time....describing how he killed his first hog.  He is a chef that utilizes EVERY part of every animal he uses in his restaurants.  You could see the look on his face as he described the killing of the hog.  He didn't take it lightly.

Will we humans....as a society....at some point not eat meat?  Afterall....killing a salmon or a shrimp is no different than killing a hog, chicken, or cow.

It is amazing....when you personalize something like that (like the little pigs in the grocery store) that it "changes things."

Now....back to my eggs and bacon.

   
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Laurent

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #11 on: April 24, 2016, 07:44:40 PM »
If consumers knew how farmed chickens were raised, they might never eat their meat again
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/24/real-cost-of-roast-chicken-animal-welfare-farms
Quote
he year 2012 marked a leap forward for animal welfare in the European Union. Farmers were no longer allowed to keep egg-laying hens in barren battery cages smaller than an A4 sheet of paper. Instead, the minimum requirement now is that hens are kept in a cage the size of an A4 sheet of paper, with an extra postcard-sized bit of shared space that allows them to scratch and nest. These are known as enriched cages.

You can buy a cheap chicken today, but we all pay for it in the long run
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/24/cheap-chicken-we-all-pay-in-the-long-run-patrick-holden :-X
Quote
ave you ever asked yourself why an everyday “value” chicken can now be cheaper, pound for pound, than bread? Cheap chicken has become the “healthy” meat of choice for most shoppers and sales are booming, up 20% since 2000 in the UK. But is it really either cheap or healthy?

Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #12 on: May 05, 2016, 07:02:10 PM »
Welcome to the Era of Plant-Based Meat
Quote
Yesterday, chef Traci Des Jardins dropped by the Food & Wine Test Kitchen to make burgers. If you'd been present, you would have seen her form patties, season them with salt and pepper and sear them in a little canola oil. You would have seen fat emerge from the patties as they cooked. You would have smelled the scent of cooking meat. When she was finished, you would have tasted a perfectly medium-rare burger and thought, that’s a darn tasty beef burger. You would have thought wrong. Des Jardins wasn’t cooking beef—she was cooking Impossible Foods' Impossible Burger, a revolutionary new product that, if successful, might help save the world.

What is the Impossible Burger? Not a veggie burger, its makers say. They call it "plant-based meat," and it truly is far more complex and sophisticated than any existing non-animal patty. It contains coconut oil to simulate beef fat, which is solid until heated. It has potato proteins, which helps it achieve a beautiful crust when seared. And it's got heme, a compound that gives color to red meat, which the Impossible Foods team extracts from yeast. Welcome to the future, where a vegetarian burger can bleed like the real thing.
http://www.foodandwine.com/blogs/welcome-era-plant-based-meat
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sidd

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #13 on: May 06, 2016, 06:56:13 AM »
re:battery raised chicken

I went past two large scale chicken operations and one egg operation today, and as always, i spared a prayer for  the poor creatures therein and their hellish lives. I was carrying one of their kin, kindly raised and humanely slaughtered by a neighbor and I am glad to pay the difference. The idea is to eat far less meat than in a typical western diet, use sparingly for savor.

sidd

Laurent

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #14 on: May 19, 2016, 08:08:32 PM »
Farms Cause More Pollution Than You Might Think
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/farms-major-source-pollution_us_573cad02e4b0646cbeebc91b?ir=Green&section=us_green&utm_hp_ref=green

Quote

It’s not just factories that belch nasty pollutants into the atmosphere. Crop fields and cow pastures are major polluters too.

New research from Columbia University’s Earth Institute shows that farms are the biggest contributors to fine particle air pollution in much of the United States, Europe, China and Russia.

Farms don’t emit particulates directly. Animal poop and nitrogen-based fertilizers, which many farms rely on, generate ammonia fumes that rise into the atmosphere and mingle with nitrogen oxides and sulfates, often emitted from factories and vehicles, to produce nasty grit that can lodge in people’s lungs and contribute to heart and lung disease.

nukefix

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #15 on: May 19, 2016, 09:49:22 PM »
Plant-based agriculture is murder as the clearing of fields leads to the destruction of complete ecosystems and, of course, dead animals, plants, insects and whatnot. Therefore, being vegan is murder too, no question about it.

Laurent

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #16 on: May 20, 2016, 11:01:56 AM »
10 tips on going from vegetarian to vegan
https://www.vegansociety.com/whats-new/blog/10-tips-going-vegetarian-vegan
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I was vegetarian for the animals, but I was once guilty of thinking that veganism was ‘extreme’. My excuses were that I couldn’t give up cheese, it seemed too hard and… sound familiar? Luckily all it took was a bit of research before making the commitment: I know you can do it too!

You can try these recipes for cheese :

I am using this recipe for cheese, 30g cashew + 70g almond + 1 tea spoon dry garlic + 1 tea spoon salt + 2 tea spoon of dry onion (I dry them myself, can't find it)  blend and  that's it. It works pretty well, just try, it is very good.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #17 on: May 22, 2016, 08:46:40 PM »
"Easing into a vegetarian diet" while caring for animals on his sanctuary farm.

Jon Stewart's beautiful 12-acre farm is now a safe haven for abused animals.
http://www.upworthy.com/jon-stewarts-beautiful-12-acre-farm-is-now-a-safe-haven-for-abused-animals
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #18 on: May 24, 2016, 07:48:33 PM »
Hampton Creek wants to become a vegan conglomerate, with special products for kids.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-24/eggless-mayo-maker-taps-investors-to-become-vegan-conglomerate
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Laurent

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #19 on: June 19, 2016, 11:24:35 AM »
Jay Rayner: thou shalt eat veg!
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jun/19/jay-rayner-thou-shalt-eat-veg
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A weekday lunchtime and I am standing by my stove doing something appalling. I have done bad things with food before, of course. I once ate two Pot Noodles for dinner, and didn’t even feel guilty. I am a man of appetites and sometimes those appetites make me do things. You cannot have one part of me without the other.

What I am doing now is not in character. It goes against everything in which I believe. But still I am doing it because, if I’m going to make a convincing argument about what non-meat cookery should and shouldn’t look like, I first have to stand in another person’s shoes. And so: I am cooking with Quorn. I am cooking with a meat substitute, made using a fungal growth called mycoprotein, which is meant to have a meaty texture that recalls the muscle mass of something which once had a pulse.

I am doing this properly. By the manufacturer’s own admission Quorn doesn’t taste of much unless introduced to other flavours, so first I am making a tomato sauce: chopped onions and garlic cooked down in glugs of olive oil with a tin of good tomatoes, and generous amounts of salt and cracked black pepper. In another pan I fry off some cubes of Quorn™ Meat Free Chicken Pieces. I sauté these eager-to-please little squares until they’ve started to colour, and wonder whether this might be an approximation of the Maillard reaction, the caramelisation of meat which gives it that savouriness carnivores like me crave so desperately. I try a piece. It isn’t. It is just slightly crunchy over-used mattress filling.

Eventually, despite my willing it otherwise, the cooking is done. The food must be tasted. I introduce the Quorn to the sauce and stand by the stove, forking it away. I close my lips and press the pieces of mock chicken against the roof of my mouth and stare sadly at the pan.

I could now lurch into hyperbole. I could rant on about this piece of cookery being where both hope and calories go to die; I could say I would prefer to have my tongue lacerated by a threshing machine, or spend nine hours in a lift with Donald Trump. But I won’t, because these Quorn dishes are so much worse than that.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #20 on: July 15, 2016, 09:21:38 PM »
Revealed: the story of the war against eggless mayonnaise.

This Bill Could Keep the Government From Plotting Against Vegan Mayo Again
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Last year, a Freedom of Information Act request revealed the nefarious lengths to which the American Egg Board went to protect the egg industry from Hampton Creek, a small, Silicon Valley-based maker of eggless products. Calling the company a “major threat to the future of the egg product business,” Egg Board President Joanne Ivy raced to confront the possibility of consumers choosing eggless mayonnaise.

Ivy approved a plan to get the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to take action against the company, wanted to pay a contractor to get its products out of Whole Foods, and aided Unilever with a lawsuit against the startup (which it would eventually drop). She was even part of an e-mail thread in which an egg executive asked, “Can we pool our money and put a hit on him?” in reference to Hampton Creek CEO Josh Tetrick. 
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-14/this-bill-could-keep-the-government-from-plotting-against-vegan-mayo-again
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #21 on: July 23, 2016, 12:40:31 AM »
Italian Mayor Plans to Make Turin Italy’s First Vegan City
http://vegnews.com/articles/page.do?pageId=8134&catId=1
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #22 on: August 03, 2016, 02:25:30 AM »
Vegan Big Mac Sells Out at Canadian Barbecue Rib Festival
Double-decker plant-based burger is a smash hit among the meat-eating crowds at Canada’s largest barbecue festival.
http://vegnews.com/articles/page.do?pageId=8192&catId=1
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mati

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #23 on: August 03, 2016, 08:29:27 PM »
you can in fact as a human do just fine on a vegan lifestyle.
however there are many areas on earth where the only way to survive
is to eat meat protein:  grasslands -> we cannot eat grass, but cows can and we can eat cows.... arctic tundra -> we cannot eat arctic fungi, but reindeer can and we can eat reindeer...
and so it goes

Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #24 on: August 21, 2016, 02:54:36 AM »
Millennials Driving a Rise of Veganism
Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. are all seeing an increase in the number of vegans, and millennials are leading the charge.
http://www.seeker.com/rise-in-veganism-more-young-people-care-where-their-food-comes-from-1978795333.html
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #25 on: September 26, 2016, 06:36:38 PM »
Plant-Based Industry Bolsters US Economy by $13.7 Billion
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The report cited that the sector contributes $1.1 billion annually to the US economy through the payment of federal and state taxes—which is estimated to reach $13.3 billion over the next decade. “This new data, combined with recent environmental research showing that meat substitutes produce 10 times fewer greenhouse gas emissions than similar beef products,” PBFA executive director Michele Simon says, “points to why public policies should support the growing plant-based foods industry.”
http://vegnews.com/articles/page.do?pageId=8400&catId=1
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mati

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #26 on: September 26, 2016, 08:05:15 PM »
sooooo how do the saami and inuit become vegan?
there are large areas of the planet where humans cannot grow food that we can eat, but animals can convert to usable protein.
and so it goes

Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #27 on: September 26, 2016, 08:43:18 PM »
sooooo how do the saami and inuit become vegan?
there are large areas of the planet where humans cannot grow food that we can eat, but animals can convert to usable protein.

Sadly, in a few decades they may find their land has warmed enough to grow some crops.  :'(
And by then, their traditional lifestyle will likely be a fading memory.
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #28 on: May 03, 2017, 02:41:09 PM »
Vegan sausage -- in Germany!

Are Germans leading a vegan revolution?
Quote
(CNN)When thinking of a typically German meal, two particular items probably spring to mind: bratwurst sausage and a tender schnitzel.

Both are traditional, and both are made of veal, beef or pork, occasionally chicken.

But today, these classics have been transformed, going meat-free to embrace the growing number of vegetarians and vegans across Germany and to fuel the vegan movement itself.

"These new food products are quite tasty," said Stefan Lorkowski, vice president of the German Nutrition Society. "It's tremendous what food technologists can do."

In 2016, Germany launched more vegan food products than any other country, according to research agency Mintel, and vegan products as a whole have been soaring over the past few years. Mintel's data show that 18% of all global vegan product launches were in Germany in 2016, many of which were substitute versions of traditional meat dishes.
...
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/03/health/germany-vegan-vegetarian-diets/index.html
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DrTskoul

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #29 on: May 03, 2017, 08:33:26 PM »
Vegetarian + eggs, cheese etc good... Vegan? Way too much for most people...

wili

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #30 on: May 03, 2017, 08:52:20 PM »
Most people most of the time through most of history (at least since the Agricultural Revolution) have been mostly vegan.

It's more like the norm that is occasionally deviated from than some weird beyond-the-fringe freak nouveau lifestyle.

Just sayin'
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Bob Wallace

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #31 on: May 03, 2017, 09:06:13 PM »
(Perhaps this was asked earlier...)

Could one eat lab grown meat and still be a vegan? 

wili

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #32 on: May 03, 2017, 09:21:07 PM »
Most long-time committed vegans are not particularly interested in eating anything that is like meat. For many, eating meat is essentially eating a family member. They don't want to do it, and they don't want to do anything that reminds them of doing it or that imitates doing it.

These meat-like vegan products are mostly for those who, for whatever reason, would like to reduce their meat consumption but still yearn for those flavors, there are an increasing number of options. For example this place opened not too long ago not too far from my house: https://www.theherbivorousbutcher.com/

I'm not sure why lab produced 'meat' would be seen as much different, depending on how it was produced. Again, many long-term, committed vegans would just say, 'Gross.'

Others would choose it or not based on why they were choosing to avoid meat in the first place.
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

wili

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #33 on: May 03, 2017, 09:32:00 PM »
Up thread, JimD, in an otherwise reasonable and well thought out screed, said: "When all sources are present we always have eaten all of them."

Actually, as I understand it, the exact opposite is true. Because we are omnivores, we form a good part of our identity over what we choose not to eat.

Pretty much every culture has taboos against eating some potentially nutritious and available species in their local, in spite of the fact of it being a 'source' that is 'present.'

The Jews and Muslims don't avoid pork because it is impossible to grow pigs where they live. Americans (mostly) avoid eating insects, which are obviously readily available...
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Bob Wallace

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #34 on: May 03, 2017, 10:13:33 PM »
Most long-time committed vegans are not particularly interested in eating anything that is like meat. For many, eating meat is essentially eating a family member. They don't want to do it, and they don't want to do anything that reminds them of doing it or that imitates doing it.

These meat-like vegan products are mostly for those who, for whatever reason, would like to reduce their meat consumption but still yearn for those flavors, there are an increasing number of options. For example this place opened not too long ago not too far from my house: https://www.theherbivorousbutcher.com/

I'm not sure why lab produced 'meat' would be seen as much different, depending on how it was produced. Again, many long-term, committed vegans would just say, 'Gross.'

Others would choose it or not based on why they were choosing to avoid meat in the first place.

Lab grown meat starts with some cells taken from an animal.  Just a sample from a live animal should be enough.  No need to kill.

From then on there are no animals involved.  The cells are grown by feeding them plant based nutrients.  No animals are killed.  No 'family members' slaughtered. 

Growing meat would be just another way to process vegetable matter rather than eating it in its original form.  Like making bread out of grains.  (Except with bread billions of little yeasties have to die.)

Bob Wallace

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #35 on: May 03, 2017, 10:19:16 PM »

The Jews and Muslims don't avoid pork because it is impossible to grow pigs where they live. Americans (mostly) avoid eating insects, which are obviously readily available...


I had an anthropologist friend tell me that a common explanation for how the ban on eating pork arose was because pigs in the oak forests were ruining wood production as they aggressively rooted for acorns. 

An environmental decision hundreds of years ago. 

"In order to have wood for construction and furniture we have to stop eating pork."  Religions are often used for social control.  "Follow this rule or you'll suffer eternal damnation or your willie will fall off or something else bad will happen...".

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #36 on: May 03, 2017, 10:29:41 PM »
Is there a vegan of long date here ? Any comments ? Don't be afraid, we won't bite... we are respectful carnivores...

carnivores..... as you say are most of the time respectful and tolerant towards veg... with whichever ending, the other way around is the much greater issue as most of the time is the case with any minority that has a tendency to acquire a "religion like" attitude.

my mother is vagan and lives next door and my dad and me are extreme "carnivores..." even though on the path of reducing due to the way meat is produced nowadays and the environmental impact. no issues so far but even inside family, if there is ever any tension with newcomers and outsiders it's coming from mom and not them who just ask and try to learn and understand, and with tension i don't mean open hostility but exactly that, tension which one can feel but most of the time is held in check since we're all educated people and way beyond mid of life LOL

wili

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #37 on: May 03, 2017, 11:15:36 PM »
BobW: Thanks for the fuller explanation of the lab meat thing. Again, people have various reasons for being vegan/vegetarian. For some, it's avoiding causing harm to beings with a central nervous system. In those cases, I would think lab meat would be just fine. But those who consider eating meat as basically like eating their sister or brother...they would presumably replicates the experience without actually harming the sister/brother. (Instead of 'it tastes just like chicken,' I guess it would be 'it tastes just like your close relative'!  :))

As for pork prohibitions, Marvin Harris was the anthropologist who was most famous for his explanations of various prohibitions, at least back in the day when I was paying much attention to those things. I just want to make clear that I wasn't saying there was no reason for those prohibitions. Just that they go against the (false, as far as I can see) generalization that humans always eat everything that is not poisonous.

IMHO, I think we should loosen some of these taboos (against, say, insect eating), and tighten or create ones against meat and dairy, in most cases under most circumstances for most people.

As far as I can see, that is an absolute necessity if we are going to have any chance of a future that does not involve mass starvation and that includes some sort of equity. Of course, that is not the only requirement for such a future by any means...but exploring those would take us further away from the thread topic.

mag: As an carnivore, you of course notice negative attitudes toward meat eating than you do negative attitudes toward veganism or vegetarianism. In my experience, especially on line, it is 'committed' meat eaters who tend to get the most overheated in defense of their favorite 'meals with faces.'

One might even say that they 'doth protest too much' (if that were grammatical).
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Bob Wallace

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #38 on: May 03, 2017, 11:34:27 PM »
I make a tomato/walnut souffle which tastes remarkably like meatloaf.  Tastes too much like eating a friend?

Food production is not likely to be a major issue going forward.  Unless we have very abrupt and radical weather changes.  Right now both the US and Africa produce about 2x the amount of food they produce.  (I have no data on the rest of the world.)

By wasting less in the US and letting less waste in Africa we could feed double the population or absorb a 50% cut in production due to climate disruption.

In the US we over produce.  We leave extra unharvested because the market doesn't want it.  We leave it in the field because it isn't "pretty".  We toss it in the dumpster behind the grocery because no one buys it.  We toss out a lot of stuff we bring home.

In Africa the problem is largely distribution.  Poor roads, limited refrigeration and inadequate grain storage means a lot of spoiled foods.  Those things are fixable.  Plus much of Africa's food production is inefficient.  China is now setting up large 'state of the art' farms which will send some of their crop to China and leave some for the locals.  Over time local growers will learn the tricks of higher production.

Meat, especially beef, is our safety valve.  As grain prices increase the price of meat increases and people eat less meat.  Which frees up ~25x as much vegetable protein for humans.  And lab grown meat uses only a small percentage of plant matter compared to meat on the hoof.

Bruce Steele

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #39 on: May 04, 2017, 12:39:54 AM »
Bob, I have seen your claim about plant protein to animal protein conversions a couple times now and since I raise pigs and keep damn good records on how much I feed them I will offer up some alternative facts. I keep 100 pigs and feed them 72 tons of barley a year. If you ballpark what I think it takes to raise a  two hundred pound pig I figure I feed about a ton of barley at 7 to 14 % protein. At pounds feed to meat yield I get 10lbs. to produce  a pound of meat, dressed carcass. If you just figure plant protein it is about one pound plant protein to one pound meat.
  If you used the average miles per gallon that a hummer uses to figure what the gallons per mile a car gets you'd be making a similar comparison. 25x is bull pucky
 I also saw Wili comparing water use to grow cattle verses crops.I don't grow cattle and I try to avoid eatting it , largely due to methane and ruminates. But I have grown vegetables on the same land I now use for pigs. I know it's not a totally fair comparison but my water use is down by more than half. Barley is a dry land crop so if you gotta count rain it gets complicated but the crazy numbers I see thrown around just don't line up with the water I use, not even close.
 If you just fed acorns these numbers get better and better. If you can think of a way to grow food and fuel a tractor and not use any fossil fuels I'd like to hear about it. Sidd grows soybeans and makes biodiesel, I grow pigs and make biodiesel from lard. I have solar panels for all electric farm demands.
Grid connected and I got a $25 credit last month. Anyway my point is you can't compare wasteful corporate farm practices with what is possible on a small scale well thought out farm that considers EROEI .
 The thing that makes this all problematic is USDA regulations and profit motives. If I were to raise only enough meat and vegetables to feed my family and power the tractors I could get to zero fossil fuel carbon. So for people that love to always look on the bright side of technology without ever considering what might be affordable for the vast majority of humans on this planet I suggest you think up ways for poor dirt farmers to convert to zero carbon. The rich really couldn't give a shit  !  Tesla trucks and tesla tractors are pipe dreams if you live on less than poverty wage like a majority of farmers in the world do.

nukefix

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #40 on: May 04, 2017, 12:45:35 AM »
Most people most of the time through most of history (at least since the Agricultural Revolution) have been mostly vegan.
AFAIK that is total bullshit. There are no vegan indigenous people, not even a single culture.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #41 on: May 04, 2017, 01:16:40 AM »
I've always (I think) been talking about beef.

Beef has a 4% plant-animal protein conversion rate.  25 pounds of veg protein go in and the beast adds one pound of muscle.  That's only the protein in the veg which means the overall veg intake is very much larger.

alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=29892

Pigs are about 10% efficient.  Chickens about 20% efficient.  Switching human carnivores from beef to chicken would free up lots of veg for humans to eat.

"A study by researchers at Oxford and the University of Amsterdam found that cultured meat was "potentially ... much more efficient and environmentally-friendly", generating only 4% greenhouse gas emissions, reducing the energy needs of meat generation by up to 45%, and requiring only 2% of the land that the global meat/livestock industry does."  Wiki

At this point a small amount of lab meat has been grown and consumed.  But there's no guarantee that the process can be scaled for large volume production.  This is a 'wait and see'.  And hope.
------------------



Quote
I suggest you think up ways for poor dirt farmers to convert to zero carbon

If you're talking about the poorest of all farmers, the sufficiency people, then raised bed "intensive" farming.  Once you get your beds established there's very little labor that needs to go into soil maintenance.  Assuming you mulch and compost.  Water needs go way down.  Fertilizer needs can drop to zero.

People at that level generally have almost zero carbon lifestyles.  Perhaps some kero for lighting but that can very affordably be replaced with solar and LEDs.

Next step up - small plot farmers.  Right now in Asia these people have moved from animals, water buffalos, to iron buffalos.



These (affordable for many) two wheelers can be fitted with paddy wheels (like in the picture) for muddling work.  Or rubber tires for dry field work and to pull wagons of produce and workers to/from the field.  They have power takeoff wheels to use for belt driven rice thrashers.  Small diesel engines.

These engines should be replaceable with batteries, electric motors and charged with solar panels.

Next step up - developed country small truck farmers.  We have people around here who have converted "ancient" small diesel tractors to electric. 




So far all the ones I've seen use deep cycle lead acid batteries and hold enough charge to work about an acre at a time.  Lithium-ion batteries should extend their range just like they are doing for EVs.

Finally, the big boy companies are starting to prototype larger tractors.



Tractor with incredible torque and plenty of weight to maintain traction.  That works.

And this might be a great place for swappable battery packs.  When you've got an all day job then rent some spare battery packs and swap out every few hours.


wili

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #42 on: May 04, 2017, 04:28:57 AM »
20% still isn't very efficient...just sayin'

And more than tractors, we need to get a lot more people back to the land.
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

wili

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #43 on: May 04, 2017, 04:33:02 AM »
nukefix:

Please learn to read before calling something bs.

First, I said since the ag rev

Second, I said most people

Third, I said most of the time

Fourth I said mostly vegan

The very large portion of the worlds population for quite some time have been born in East and South Asia.

East Asians eat essentially no dairy. And most have been too poor for most of history to eat hardly any meat on a regular basis.

So...far from bs, my claims are simply historical fact. 
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Bob Wallace

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #44 on: May 04, 2017, 06:06:56 AM »
20% still isn't very efficient...just sayin'

And more than tractors, we need to get a lot more people back to the land.

20% is four times better than 5%.  And chickens aren't ruminants.  No methane burps. 

Not a perfect solution but an improvement.  Perfect is something we work toward.

More people back to the land?  Things are almost certainly going to go the opposite way.  Don't know if you've ever worked on a farm but in case you haven't, it is often hard and involves often being in crappy weather. 

In the US we have large problems getting crops harvested by hand since the selling price won't support much over a minimum wage pay rate. 

More and more farmers are looking at robot pickers.  One company has developed a 8 to 12 arm robot that can pick fruit like apples 24 hours a day.  Grapes are now being trellised differently so that they can be harvested by machine.

When I was really young getting in the hay involved going with a team and wagon and pitching loose hay onto the wagon as high as you could, then hauling the hay to the barn and pitching it up into the hay loft.

By the time I was a bit older we had hay balers that scooped up dried hay and spit out bales that weighed anywhere from 50 to 120 pounds.  Then we'd stack the bales on a truck, drive to the barn, and hoist the bales into the hay loft.

Now one guy goes out and runs a "round baler".  These things compact the hay in to rolls that can be up to six feet in diameter and five feet tall.  They get moved with a fork life (they can weigh a ton/tonne each) and lined up so they can be covered where they sit.

That's going from half a dozen people working the hay on a moderate sized farm to one farmer doing the entire job.  And doing it quicker than it used to take.

sidd

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #45 on: May 04, 2017, 06:08:09 AM »
From a biochemistry standpoint:

1) Pork prohibitions stem from the similarity of pork biochemistry to human, thus enabling easy interspecies disease transfer. (similar to cannibalism taboos)

2) Shellfish prohibitions are because of easy spoilage of shellfish with some particulary nasty toxins

sidd

Bob Wallace

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #46 on: May 04, 2017, 06:54:01 AM »
"1) Pork prohibitions stem from the similarity of pork biochemistry to human, thus enabling easy interspecies disease transfer. (similar to cannibalism taboos)"

Interesting how pork prohibitions seem to be limited to one geographical location, isn't it?

Of course they spread from there as part of the immigrant's religion.  But do we see them spontaneously arising elsewhere?

Bruce Steele

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #47 on: May 04, 2017, 07:10:21 AM »
Sidd, If you've ever spent much time around pigs it becomes very obvious they are very intelligent, social and affectionate. Killing them is hard on the soul. I am not the first person to feel revolted at what I am, what I do. Yes they can also carry zoonotic diseases but I think it is something deeper , a place where we really question who we are. A place where we meet our dark past in the very real present.
 Maybe this is just too hard and difficult to rationalize but I am going to give it a try. We are killing our planet . We are taking thousands or millions of species to the brink of extinction. The reason isn't our lack of compassion ,it is the ease with which we can compartmentalize our part in this destruction. If we are going to get serious about eliminating our individual contribution to the primary cause ,fossil fuel emissions, we need to think long and hard about what zero emissions looks like. I fight every day with my inter doubts but I haven't found a better way to get to zero than what I am doing. Efficiency or how much a pig eats bothers me far less than putting more fuel in the fuel tank ( unless it's biodiesel )
Efficientcy seems more an arguement about how many humans you can add to an already vastly overpopulated planet.
 You are the only other person on this site that grows crops and produces their own biodiesel. That is a pretty low percentage. Plenty of people here can rationalize their business plane travel. Some vegans here have described summer travel vacations of 1000plus mile car adventures. We can do these things because it just doesn't feel shitty like sending a friendly pig off to market.  We compartmentalize our contribution and we don't feel the death we are responsible for.
 So yes it's is scary but getting to zero is going to test our preconceived notions of right and wrong.
Zero is going to be very difficult but it needs to take a very prominent place in our priorities. Pigs by the way aren't going extinct before we do. 

Bob, pigs were first domesticated in the near east so maybe we just had a longer amount of time to develop taboos there.

wili

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #48 on: May 04, 2017, 09:11:14 PM »
"Some vegans..."

You can start any sentence with "Some X..." and imply that essentially the whole lot are essentially worthless while being able to defend the literal statement as true (given a large enough sample size, it is always likely to be). This is what Trump does when he says, "Some Mexicans are rapists..."

I would hope we here would not choose to stoop to such low levels of rhetorical underhand.

...

For the record, while not a 'pure' vegan, I am moving in that direction, and I have taken now plane trips for about 15 years, and no road trips (except on bike) for about ten. 

...

None of us were there, so none of us knows why exactly the first folks decided to establish a tabu against pork eating.

IIRC, Finkelstein found that the first archeological evidence of such a practice dates back to before 1000 bce, when the Peleset (later to be known as the Philistines or Palestinians) first settled along what is now the Gaza Strip. Up until then the local  hill tribes ate pork at about the same rate as other tribes in the area. The Peleset were conspicuous in their avid love of pork, and shortly after their arrival, the nearby tribes stopped eating all pork.

Whether this was because they could get more cash sending their pigs to the Peleset, or because they wanted to distinguish themselves from these new (and probably unwanted) neighbors, we can't know. But it Finkelstein claims that this is the first archeological record of something like a Jewish identity, which suggests that, as often, such dietary taboos are often more about identity than about some of the more 'rational' or humanitarian reasons offered here. (It also suggests that, if the very definition of Jewishness arose from them trying to distinguish themselves from Palestinians...well, peace in the region isn't likely to break out any time soon!  :-\ )
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

sidd

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Re: Becoming Vegan.
« Reply #49 on: May 05, 2017, 06:06:39 AM »
Re: "Sidd, If you've ever spent much time around pigs it becomes very obvious they are very intelligent, social and affectionate. Killing them is hard on the soul. "

Absolutely agreed. Pigs are smart. If you must raise them for food, at the very least kill them quickly and as mercifully as you can,  but first and foremost,  raise them humanely. I am sure, Mr. Steele, that you do both. 

Sadly, for most pigs (and most meat animals and fish) this is very rarely done. I have been thru some really huge, mind bogglingly horrifying CAFO setups and the vast network of corp ag that supports them. It turns my stomach. If on every grocery display of meat products there were a video (with audio, the smells are optional)  playing of how that animal wound up in the package on the grocery shelf, consumption of meat would drop through the floor.

This, for me applies to all life, but the closer they are to me the more difficult it is to kill. There is a very good book called "The Ancestor's Tale" that details closeness in genetic and evolutionary history, and it matches what we are willing to kill easily. But as I age, I find it more and more difficult to even kill an invasive tree like ailanthus altissima. I pondered long and hard before killing two sixty foot specimens a few years ago. (its quite difficult to kill, actually, one has to be very quick and use efficient poisons, and surrounding vegetation may suffer)

sidd