UN's top climate boffin: "Eat less meat and help save the planet"

[PAD1OH]

like i wanna eat alongside a mongolian family one day and share a cow's face.
eat dog in korea.
and a rhino's cock in china.

ah. that makes sense and is something that people should try. I ate my first bit of beef in about 12 years when I was travelling through bosnia recently - mainly because it was the traditional local dish. I only had one serving because they were fist size lumps of beef.....

Anyway, bar the rhino cock, the animals raired in non-intensive settings have much less an impact.

 

[CharlieAddict]

ah. that makes sense and is something that people should try. I ate my first bit of beef in about 12 years when I was travelling through bosnia recently - mainly because it was the traditional local dish. I only had one serving because they were fist size lumps of beef.....

wow...that's what i'm talking about!
local dish, fist size lumps of beef? yum. pics pls!!

i'm also looking forward in eating proper chicken and rare steak pho in vietnam...aiming to make the visit when i visit the folks in HK next year...

 

[Idaho]

references?

Dairy has a major impact but it's very difficult to make broad judgements.

E.g. even lamb imported to the UK from New Zealand may have a lower carbon footprint than that reared in the UK.

I believe there are more dairy cows than beef cows in this country.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

If you want to get a good grip on the energy economics of food systems then the standard textbook is Pimentel et.al. 'Food, Energy and Society' the third edition has recently been published I believe (and is partially accessible here via Google Books, albeit minus the bits relevant to this discussion), but you should be able to find the second edition in any decent university library or similar.

 

[PAD1OH]

If you want to get a good grip on the energy economics of food systems then the standard textbook is Pimentel et.al. 'Food, Energy and Society' the third edition has recently been published I believe (and is partially accessible here via Google Books, albeit minus the bits relevant to this discussion), but you should be able to find the second edition in any decent university library or similar.

the Food Climate Research Network has a number of good papers.

http://www.fcrn.org.uk/

http://www.fcrn.org.uk/frcnResearch/index.htm

http://www.fcrn.org.uk/researchLib/index.htm

 

[PAD1OH]

wow...that's what i'm talking about!
local dish, fist size lumps of beef? yum. pics pls!!

sadly no pics. the girlfriend was too busy laughing at my face....

 

[Divisive Cotton]

There are all sorts of muddles on this thread.

Firstly - Type 2 diabetes is caused mainly by eating sugar and simple carbohydrates - not meat.

Secondly - Dairy accounts for more emissions than beef. Should we all go vegan?

Thirdly - if we all do go vegan - what fertilizer will we use... oil products?

Type 2 Diabetes is caused by obesity. Full stop. Part of the cause of which, of course, is too much sugar and carbohydrates in a diet. (as well as genetic hereditary factors)

Unless you decide to eat chips and Mars bars everyday it's almost impossible to eat unhealthily if you are a vegetarian.

Put it this way: has anybody ever encountered an obese vegetarian?

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Hmmm I had a very active lecture at uni, who had type 2, but agree that most people with type 2 are overweight.

Have I ever met an obese veggie? Well my old man has just been told that he needs to lose a lot of weight by the doctor and hasn't eaten meat for about 6 years.

 

[CharlieAddict]

Put it this way: has anybody ever encountered an obese vegetarian?

yep - i've known a few.

and have encountered lots of underweight vegans...

 

[internetstalker]

Put it this way: has anybody ever encountered an obese vegetarian?

Yes!

I've known a few

 

[lobster]

What the hell are you blathering on about?

Vintage Paw mentioned the tradition of working class and meat, I added that this is a old cliche and that i know working class that are vegetarian ...

 

[Idaho]

Type 2 Diabetes is caused by obesity. Full stop. Part of the cause of which, of course, is too much sugar and carbohydrates in a diet. (as well as genetic hereditary factors)

Well actually the causality of obesity and diabetes is disputed. Possibly obesity is a sign that someone's becoming diabetic, not neccesarily the other way round.

Unless you decide to eat chips and Mars bars everyday it's almost impossible to eat unhealthily if you are a vegetarian.

Put it this way: has anybody ever encountered an obese vegetarian?

This is pure tosh I'm afraid. There are loads of obese vegetarians around. And it is perfectly easy to have a shit vegetarian diet.

 

[PAD1OH]

Well actually the causality of obesity and diabetes is disputed.

any references? genuinely interested....

 

[Idaho]

any references? genuinely interested....

There is a fair amount of stuff out there. All research points to a link between obesity and diabetes - but the exact connection is as yet unclear:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3622571.stm

 

[Psychonaut]

I was talking about this (well sort of ) 20 years ago!

I was thoroughly ridiculed & then bullied mercilessly.

Not sure about this climate change thing anymore tho.. Wasnt britain blazing hot in the middle or dark ages?

 

[ethel]

Put it this way: has anybody ever encountered an obese vegetarian?

yes, an obese vegan, in fact.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

Okay! You all know an obese vegetarian or vegan... (is it the same person )

However the link between vegetarianism and good diet / lower weight is well documented:

Vegetarian women average between 6 and 23 pounds lighter than non-vegetarian women, while vegetarian men are an average of 10 to 28 pounds lighter. Generally, vegans have the lowest body weights, followed by lacto-ovo vegetarians, then by near vegetarians (eating meat or fish less than once a week) with meat eaters having the highest weights, on average. These differences in weight persist even when cigarette smoking is controlled for. Possible explanations for weight differences include lower calorie and fat intakes and higher fiber intakes by vegetarians. Vegetarian diets have also been successfully used for weight reduction.

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-25444698_ITM

 

[Bernie Gunther]

the Food Climate Research Network has a number of good papers.

http://www.fcrn.org.uk/

http://www.fcrn.org.uk/frcnResearch/index.htm

http://www.fcrn.org.uk/researchLib/index.htm

Thanks for that. Useful looking stuff.

 

[quimcunx]

How long till we can grow steak in vats?

Not long. They can already grow meat without animals.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

They can already grow meat without animals.

That explains what I ate the last time I went into McDonalds

 

[Idaho]

Okay! You all know an obese vegetarian or vegan... (is it the same person )

However the link between vegetarianism and good diet / lower weight is well documented:



http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-25444698_ITM

Possibly just reflects wealthier more educated people having better diets - as, in the majority, vegetarians are middle class.

 

[Funky_monks]

Don't cattle emit methane which, although it is a more effective greenhouse gas than CO2, persists for about a week in the atmosphere?

I believe research is underway to cut methane emission from cattle by feeding them garlic.

I would also know how we are going to grow food vegetation in 'green' low-input systems without animal matter. No animals = petrochemical fertilisers, surely?

This argument seems about as convincing as the 'it takes x acres of land to produce y tonnes of plant food matter, wheras it takes x + 5 acres to produce y ammount of meat'.

 

[quimcunx]

That explains what I ate the last time I went into McDonalds

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3208

 

[PAD1OH]

as, in the majority, vegetarians are middle class.

is this just a white UK perspective or globally?

I'd like to see some decent research on this.

 

[gentlegreen]

I would also know how we are going to grow food vegetation in 'green' low-input systems without animal matter. No animals = petrochemical fertilisers, surely?
.

I'd never thought of that.

I'm pretty sure grazing animals don't add nitrogen to the grass they eat .. so are they really net producers of fertiliser ?
Long crop rotation would be the answer I suppose ..

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

not me!

i we weren't meant to eat animals, they wouldn't be made out of meat!

By that logic, we should eat long pig too.

 

[Jonti]

Urine contains nitrogen. I guess it all comes into the animal from its grazing though.

 

[WouldBe]

I'd never thought of that.

I'm pretty sure grazing animals don't add nitrogen to the grass they eat .. so are they really net producers of fertiliser ?
Long crop rotation would be the answer I suppose ..

Piss.

 

[gentlegreen]

No, what I mean it's the eukaryote / prokaryote thing.

Cows convert ready-made protein - made from nitrogen fixed by legumes.

The way one might make use of cattle would be to let them graze natural meadows and harvest some of the poo for crops. And of course meat / milk.

Of course if you overgraze, the system will break down.

 

[Funky_monks]

I'd never thought of that.

I'm pretty sure grazing animals don't add nitrogen to the grass they eat .. so are they really net producers of fertiliser ?
Long crop rotation would be the answer I suppose ..

You can, of course grow leguminous plants to add nitrogen to the soil, but it doesn't provide the rest of the nutrients, you need muck for that. Different dung has different chemical balances too, for example chicken manure is high in potassium, but low in N and P.

There is also the somewhat pertinent point that land that is not fit for growing edible vegetation is used as pasture land and provides a much lower potential yields in terms of £/Ha and thus costs less to buy.

I concede that there is some high-quality lowland pasture about that might be suitable to grow veg, but would hazard a guess that the vast majority of land capable of producing cereal crops (or at least providing useful returns in terms of yield/Ha) is already doing so, given the potential for greater returns these crops offer.

The most obvious example of this is the vast swathes of the United Kingdom that are only suitable for farming sheep (or goats, however unusual this might be).

You'll never grow carrots on Snowdon.