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cald said..
well this got silly, for those advocating plants are the solution go look at what monoculture does to the earth.

You've never lived near a chicken or pork farm have you? Take a guess what's in the pink lagoon on this pig farm ?*



And what do we feed the animals we eat? Yes, plants, except it takes a lot more plants to create the equivalent amount of protein (up to 10x). One of the easiest things you can do to reduce the environmental impact of food production is a plant-based diet.

"To put this into context:

1 pound of beef requires anywhere between 2000 and 8,000 gallons of water to produce, according to studies conducted by UC Davis. Much of this water is used in creating the feed for the cows, whether it is grass or grain (Beckett & Oltjen, 1993).
Similarly, 1 gallon of cow's milk requires 1950 gallons of water.
Conversely, 1 pound of Tofu requires 302 gallons of water to produce, and it requires 290 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of unprocessed oats.

Now, for those of you worried about protein content:

1 pound of beef = 90-100 grams protein Costs 20 - 80 gallons of water per gram protein

1 gallon of milk = 128 grams of protein Costs 15 gallons of water per gram protein

1 pound of tofu = 45-55 grams of protein Costs 6 gallons of water per gram protein

1 pound of oats = 75 grams of protein Costs 3.8 gallons of water per gram protein."

www.sustain.ucla.edu/food-systems/the-case-for-plant-based/

* Pic from NYT. Good further reading here: www.npr.org/2018/09/22/650698240/hurricane-s-aftermath-floods-hog-lagoons-in-north-carolina

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cald said..
well this got silly, for those advocating plants are the solution go look at what monoculture does to the earth. To be fair, the vast majority of food production methods are bad in one way or another, there is no right and wrong unless we go back to roaming the wild and doing our best with what we find in nature... and that is not about to happen.

So you may as well work out which foods make you feel and perform the best and roll with it.

Paducah has already replied in detail about the environmental cost of eating animals vs plants. But to paraphrase: it takes a real lot of plants (primary producers) to eventually feed a single tiger (top of the food pyramid consumer). The problem we have on the planet is that there are 8,0027,192,405 bipedal tigers rooming around (estimated at 8.37 PST). A scary army of predators growing at a pace of 20,000,000/year . And so I do not think it is silly to have this discussion. At least in my mind, diets that promote tiger-like behavior, such as Keto, should be rejected outright. Even if, a big if, they might have some health benefit for arthritis or otherwise.

By the numbers quoted here if everything was linear then it would have all come crashing down a long long time ago. Water being talked about like it gets used and is never seen again. This is the problem with these debates to get the full story with no bias is impossible. I don't believe for 1/8,0027,192,405th of a second meat is going to be our downfall.

Duzzi, What actually does 8,0027,192,405 refer to? Population?

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duzzi said..

Oh my, "cows provide plenty manures which the plants like" a real gem!

There is first, the little problem of global warming, and second the catastrophic damage to the biosphere. About 60% of all mammal biomass on the planet is livestock. Of the rest 35% is humans, and the remaining 5% is all wild life, terrestrial and marine. It's annihilation worse than a meteorite strike. 70 billion land animals killed each year. Keto? Eat plants!

If you have seen the massive farms in the USA where livestock are crowded into pens, without a blade of grass in sight, then you will begin to realise that the problem is not cows. This type of farming is unnatural but it does provide cheap meat, much of which goes into processed food, fast-food restaurants and take-aways. All you are quoting is just statistics that you read or heard somewhere. You have said your opinion but in a debate statistics don't count as evidence of scientific facts. The term 'Global Warming' has been obsolete for a long time now, being changed into 'Climate Change'. That is a no brainer because the earth has always been having changes in the climate, even way back during the ice age.

Humans have been farming for thousands of years without a problem. Let it be! If you want to eat veggies then please do.