Flexitarian diet to save the world, and maybe you/us

[Fab Foodie]

If we all went to a vegetarian diet, the land to grow the foood required would be lacking. Leaving no real alternate option.

I’m not sure that makes sense....

 

[classic33]

I’m not sure that makes sense....

When the land runs out, where does food get grown?

 

[Ajay]

When the land runs out, where does food get grown?

The land be would used to grow crops for people to eat rather than feeding them to animals.

 

[classic33]

The land be would used to grow crops for people to eat rather than feeding them to animals.

We just kill every animal then?


Land required wouldn't match the population growth, year on year.

 

[steveindenmark]

I dont eat a lot of meat.

But if we stopped eating sheep, cows, pigs etc. Wouldnt they become extinct?

 

[mudsticks]

I dont eat a lot of meat.

But if we stopped eating sheep, cows, pigs etc. Wouldnt they become extinct?

There would be fewer farm animals if we stopped farming them so intensively and yes.

That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, as they do produce greenhouse gases.
But herbivores in particular can be a useful part of a mixed farming system.
Their dung provides fertility, and permenant (rather than regularly ploughed up) grassland stabilises soil, a lot of vital buglife relies on grassland for habitat too.
Grass grows better than arable in many areas, look at our UK uplands for example.

So extensively grazed farm animals for some meat and milk are OK.

So people just eat a small amount, like you do.

It's when we start cramming them into sheds, then growing arable crops to replace their natural diet that it's not OK.
So, as you already do, ear less meat, and make sure the meat you do eat is produced well.

When the land runs out, where does food get grown?

This is a problem, if we keep building on our best soils ( often those around cities ) And go on hammering them with heavy machinery, and chemicals, there won't be any soil left to grow our food.

Soil is what we depend on for our survival - but we treat it like dirt :-(

We could grow enough food to feed ourselves, if we did it carefully, and gave a **** about this stuff. It's a complicated issue but there are people working on it, we just have to get informed a give a bit of a ....

Thankfully, better farming, and food production is moving up the agenda, its been ignored for too long.

 

[Fab Foodie]

We just kill every animal then?


Land required wouldn't match the population growth, year on year.

It certainly won’t if we keep growing animals as food. That’s the point. It’s very inneficient use of available land. Feeding crops directly to people is about 90% more efficient, healthier for humans and healthier for the planet. We wil have to accept we are close to ‘peak meat’.

 

[Blue Hills]

I’m not sure that makes sense....

Agree. For what land and substances are all these red meat animals living on? Or are they free roaming around towns, villages and countryside eating other living creatures?

 

[mudsticks]

It certainly won’t if we keep growing animals as food. That’s the point. It’s very inneficient use of available land. Feeding crops directly to people is about 90% more efficient, healthier for humans and healthier for the planet. We wil have to accept we are close to ‘peak meat’.

Yes we passed peak meat some time ago.

But as ever we've continued exploiting other people's lands, for our greed.

I
We've mported animal feed, or imported meat, so we can stuff our faces, with the cheap stuff .

Because we have the £££

Meanwhile other countries soil is degraded, land that used to be used for growing food for the people there is robbed, to grow export crops.

Which all contributes to famine, civil wars, refugee crises etc etc.
It's all interconnected, but we can't see it, I guess cos we don't want to..

 

[Illaveago]

It seems as though meat is under attack from all sides at the moment . Admittedly we could all cut back a bit as we are not all Olympic athletes needing to consume vast amounts in order to produce that amount of energy.
What I dislike is the Vegan/ Vegetarian attitude that they are saving the planet! The Simon Reeve programme tour around the Mediterranean was a real eye opener. Especially when he visited Southern Spain! 50 sq miles of plastic poly tunnels used for growing vegetables for the European market. The workers, immigrants ! Were treated as slaves and some had died working in the extreme heat! The other thing raised in the programme was the way in which the old plastic sheeting was disposed of! It was just dumped, and ended up finding its way into river courses and finally the sea.
What was also pointed out , was that the farm was right next to a main road clearly visible to EU officials who seem blind as they pass by it!

 

[Ajay]

We just kill every animal then?


Land required wouldn't match the population growth, year on year.

We kill them already! We won’t completely stop growing animals today, it will be a gradual thing. As demand falls so will supply.
We already produce more than enough food globally to feed everyone now, and into the future. For various reasons we’re not very good at distributing it, that’s quite a big issue in my opinion.

 

[mudsticks]

It seems as though meat is under attack from all sides at the moment . Admittedly we could all cut back a bit as we are not all Olympic athletes needing to consume vast amounts in order to produce that amount of energy.
What I dislike is the Vegan/ Vegetarian attitude that they are saving the planet! The Simon Reeve programme tour around the Mediterranean was a real eye opener. Especially when he visited Southern Spain! 50 sq miles of plastic poly tunnels used for growing vegetables for the European market. The workers, immigrants ! Were treated as slaves and some had died working in the extreme heat! The other thing raised in the programme was the way in which the old plastic sheeting was disposed of! It was just dumped, and ended up finding its way into river courses and finally the sea.
What was also pointed out , was that the farm was right next to a main road clearly visible to EU officials who seem blind as they pass by it!

Yes this is the problem..
A very complex issue gets reduced down to

meat=bad

Veg =good.

It's far more complicated than that.
Basically we need to relocalise,
(that doesn't mean no imports of stuff like tea coffee chocolate and the odd banana)

Grow more of our own food, more carefully.
Some of which can be meat and milk.
But more plant based on the whole.

Stop wasting so much food, and cease trucking it about so far, and over packaging it..

There are no simple, broad brush solutions to this complicated problem.

Producing sufficient, nutritious, appropriate food, for everyone could be done.
We just need different approaches.

We kill them already! We won’t completely stop growing animals today, it will be a gradual thing. As demand falls so will supply.
We already produce more than enough food globally to feed everyone now, and into the future. For various reasons we’re not very good at distributing it, that’s quite a big issue in my opinion.

Yes we've passed the point now where globally there are as many health problems caused by overeating, as there are caused by lack of calories.

It's the wrong food, in the wrong places that's the problem.

Not a global lack of calories.
And right now a lot of those food calories, are produced, and distributed by fossil fuel calories.. This cannot continue.
Tis unsustainable planetarywise

The trouble is that most of the journalism, and research, and talk is done by folks who haven't spent much time working in the food or farming industries.
Or who don't really understand how natural ecological systems (of which we are a part) actually work.

They think they can just charge in, with the next big idea, ignore generations of 'boots on the ground' knowledge, and throw some new tech, whether that's machinery, chemical, or gene editing at it, and that all will be well.
The same mindset, that created the problem.

It takes decades to learn really. good farming and growing (I'm not there yet) and understand how a particular piece of land works.
But it also takes observation, humility, and acceptance that we are not 'top of the tree' as humans.

This is our main problem I think - sheer arrogance, that we can dominate, and endlessly exploit, the very natural systems upon which we depend.

Can we learn to live more lightly, in time?
Remains to be seen.

 

[colly]

We as a family began to eat less meat as time went by. I would happily eat a vegitarian diet and I can see no good reason why not to. Mrs Colly though does like a bit of dead animal with her veg. I just go along with it but some meals I'll skip meat altogether.
I do enjoy my bacon sarnies and sausages though.

 

[mickle]

Again, for those at the back.

 

[Unkraut]

What if it has no benefits, or makes you ill?

If any one diet makes you ill, change it. With a vegan diet in particular unless it is done well it can lead to vitamin deficiences. It does require a bit more time and effort to make it work. You don't have to adhere strictly to a diet if it turns out in the long run to running low on required vitamins.

My own doctor is happy with veggie, a bit sceptical about vegan, though not anti.

Whatever diet you have if you are consuming vast quantities of sugar its not going to do you much good.