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The "Backlash" to Plant-Based Meat Has a Sneaky, if Not Surprising, Explanation
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this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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I would disagree here. SOME of the backlash may be from the meat industry, but some is also from independent experts in fields of nutrition and the environment.
It's the same way I constantly catch vegans making false claims about health or the environment. That doesn't mean there aren't TRUE claims about the health or environment. You gotta see the forest for the trees on both sides.
I will say, at least the Impossible Burger has a much better environment footprint than lab-grown meat ever will.
My take on this (an I'm vegan so there's a possibility of bias) is that most of the mainstream claims such as there being no health downside and a plantbased diet is significantly less harmful for the environment are simply true.
But there is a subset of vegans that for some reason believe they need to justify it further than that who say that plant based diets have some nigh on magical health abilities and they feel so much better etc, pretty much all of that is some form of bs. Just like the idea that humans didn't need to eat meat in the far past due to b12.
All in all, it's an infected debate where vegans/nonvegans just throw false shit out to see what sticks.
I try to avoid talking BOTH environment and health in the same discussion because I find the risk of it turning into a gishgallop back-and-forth between the triforce of plant (environment, health, ethics). And obviously ethics can become a nuclear bomb dead-end of different fundamental positions. But I do feel of the two sides, the vegan side is definitely the one benefitting most from misinformation. I don't think you'll do the gishgallop thing (you seem to be pretty good-faith), so I'll give my thoughts on both. But if you did decide you wanted to discuss one in detail, I'd ask that we keep it to one of your choosing :)
I'm not sure if I've provided these links (lemmy context issues). This guy is not biased, a lot health focused, and did a LOT of research on the topic of nutrition and veganism.. There's a lot to pack/unpack, but most of it is based around the fact that a supermajority of vegans are suffering from malnutrition in one way or another, compared to a significantly lower number of non-vegans. As for B12, it is 92% of the population. He also did research into the environmental impact of the meat industry (in another video), and it's equally eye-opening. I'm not blindly believing him, and I don't expect you to. My experience has been growing up in non-mega farm areas, so I have seen the things he's saying firsthand. The river in my hometown died from plant farming; it was a fairly big deal, and a friend of mine (from a totally different area) did her Environmental Engineering thesis on it. It wasn't about the plants as much as the overfarming altogether. Which is similarly true with meat, imo.
One thing as a meat-eater I find is that vegans often do one inadvertant disservice (the same types of vegans who throw false shit out). They change the focus from how to improve a healthy balance (less red meat, more white meat and healthy seafood, regulating away processed meats that are confirmed carcinogens, etc) to "veganism is the cure". And instead of focusing on some very real issues with global warming, they focus on the meat industry of countries like the US that are simply an insignificant part of the environmental threat. If every American and European quit meat cold turkey tomorrow, and the most optimistic non-bs numbers were true, it would slow global warming by a tiny fraction of a percent. Look at this map for a second before reading my next line ( full context article here ) . Instead of focusing on meat emissions in ways that probably will never happen and won't do much if it does, we could be focusing on regulating and presssuring India and Africa (and maybe China) to clean up their act.
When we look at the supposed environmental impact of meat, it's pretty important to know that there are African countries that produce more agriculture-related GHGs than all of the US and Europe combined. It's important to note that the second biggest meat producer in the entire world (US) isn't even a blip on the radar. There is a right way to do meat, at scale, that is environmentally friendly. And as bad as the US supposedly is, they're pretty good in aggregate. If there's room for improvement in the US meat industry... well, I don't expect you to believe the next sentence, but I have come to believe that if meat is grown correctly, the symbiotic Meat+veggie+grain farm is simply better for the environment than plant alone. Lots of reasons (fertilizer, the manure->field efficiency, waste products not usable for any other purpose, etc). But suffice to say even if I'm wrong, it approaches zero impact to do meat as long as you do it right.
I don't mind arguing (in fact i really like arguing) and I also disagree with most of your points. That said however If I am to argue then I don't want to do massive walls of text and rather pick a single well defined point. So if you want to do that as well then put forward a single point which you feel strongly about and I'll say if I disagree or not (alternatively I could pick something from your text, I just wouldn't want to feel like I've picked your weakest point).
As I said, if you want to argue, you pick the topic :). Though, I'm not really looking to argue, just to squash misinformation (which you haven't really provided any of directly that I've seen).
But that said, I only really provided two points. It's just not possible to talk about a complicated topic with short blurbs. If you aren't up for reading 4 paragraphs to support a claim with evidence, I'm not sure a discussion would be productive. I say something, you disagree with it, I will have failed to quantify it (to keep my post small) and you would look correct for the wrong reasons.
Okay, I would argue that the guy in the video is extremely biased. I don't know how you would determine bias in a person, but I think that a clear indication is to not caveat any of the cited sources with their various flaws in methodology and only show studies "in your favour" assuming they don't all show that. I looked at criticism towards the videos claims by Nutrivore criticism. I read half of the critique but only doublechecked a couple of the studies that i could access.
If you disagree with my assessment that the video is very biased either put forth your own definition of bias or I could pick a couple of the (in my opinion) biased claims and we can talk about those.
I'm not sure that's a fair objection. In the video, he jumps directly to experts (feel free to prove bias from them). In his webpage, he cites fairly reasonable and unbiased sources.
I'm trying to read the rebuttal you linked, but it's fairly packed with ad hominems. This is most definitely the style of source I have a lot of trouble giving any reliability to beyond the core factuality. You would probably agree this rebuttal is **fiercely **biased? In fact, as he is a professional vegan debater, I would think both of us would want to stay miles away from any of his content. I would certainly avoid any professional arguer with a pro-meat bias in any analysis I make. Is that unreasonable? And of the arguments he makes, I've sorta been involved in discussions on many of them in the past and could fill a dozen pages of takes on those.
I think there's two ways we could go on this. Either, we could address the claims you think are most biased (and hope they are impactful), or we can address the claims you think are most impactful (and hope they are biased).
If we do the former, it's about discussing whether the there's enough to demonstrate that the author himself is biased; but I have to warn you that showing some of his informing sources are biased seems an untenable way to show he himself is biased... instead, it seems we'd want to find some factual evidence of bias. Whether you think that bias is willful-misleading (like the ad hominems in the rebuttal) or merely good-faith failure to adjust for bias would be up to you.
I think the latter might work better (though not quite what you offered) because if you can show the impactful parts of his video are biased (or just plain wrong), it doesn't matter if he's biased and the video would need to be discarded.
I'm ok with either, to be honest.
I agree that the site i linked is (probably) somewhat biased, but that does not matter at all in this context. There is nothing wrong with using data provided by biased people if you are aware of the bias and take it into account when using the data.
We need to scale this argument down though. I refuse to take an argument over text if we don't just laserfocus on the argument. If you have a problem with a source i put forth then just say that without adressing its claims and we can discuss if the source is acceptable before continuing.
If we start over where I should have started in the first place. What do I need to show to convince you that he's biased? (If you disagree with any prior statments in this comment lets start arguing those first. I don't want to have a multithreaded argument)
Is it really bias you would rather show, than inaccuracy? You sorta just pointed out from your source that bias should not entirely matter in the context of accuracy. But Ok, let me think.
Bias implies/requires prejudice or compromise. Obviously, if you could show me he is compromised and being paid for his videos by Big Ag, that would be an easy win. Otherwise, I think you'd need to show me that he is prejudiced against veganism (which, if I had to guess, probably needs to be from content outside of the video itself). I would take an argument that all his sources are biased, similarly. It might not show he himself is willfully biased, but that he "fell in with the wrong crowd" by picking sources that steered him in a biased way.
I picked bias because it was basically the first statement that i could remember that i disagreed with. No other real reason, I didn't want to pick a single point from the video since i didnt want to presume that you were on board with the entirety.
I looked at his substack and there over 50% 27/51 counted (just skimmed the borderline ones) were tied to highprotein/meat lifestyle or directly/indirectly anti-vegan. There were also a lot of masculinity/testosterone ones that i think are quite relevant, but I didn't count those. He clearly makes it a large part of his brand either way.
I think that's a fair point, but a tough one. Here's my problem with it. I've watched a lot of his stuff, and his videos on meat/vegan seem to be by far the most impactful. In fact, I have noticed an incredibly high impact rate on otherwise obscure people who publish content anywhere on the spectrum of that particular topic.
Maybe there is a prejudicial bias, but it seems at least as likely to me that he just started posting more content on that same topic as made him money/viewers. Note, I didn't say "conclusions that made money" because I think he'd have succeeded equally if his videos concluded the opposite.
But I also have a problem with likening high protein stuff with "meat lifestyle". Ketogenic diets are the single biggest explosion in health these days. I have a close friend who is a nutritionist who is obsessed with it. I had family go to dietary counselling and it's the first item on their list. You can't walk 5 feet without people talking about how it is salvation or suicide. But despite the fact that meat is almost a critical necessity to make it work, it's not a diet about meat. Further, I'd like to remind you that ketogenics (and not anti-veganism) are even more of an obsession with fitness/health extremists. I'm sure I totally telegraphed my next point. If you look at the other 50% of his content, a lot of it is exactly that.
I will say, if I had any red flags about him, they would come from his interviews with conservative personalities. I've noticed, unfortunately often, an uncomfortable correlation between conservativism and anti-veganism (I have become opposed to veganism, but am as far from a conservative as you can get). But I also try to keep political views, even ones I disagree with strongly, out of topics that don't directly seem related to them.
Maybe not ever, I'm hopeful for lab grown meat to be a success AND be good for the environment.
I'm hating how lemmy.ml is losing my context parent, but I think I posted a video to you prior.
The problem with lab grown meat is that the process is inherently VERY complex and touchy. They like to compare it to making beer or wine, but it's an exacting process. IF we could figure out lab grown meat, that advance would likely involve a far bigger advance in nuclear medicine, changing the world of medication to a "this is YOUR cure for cancer, created for pennies based upon your DNA" type of utopia.
Maybe there's someone close to this who can suggest to me what I'm missing there, but the obstacles for lab grown meat are simply those same golden obstacles we've had to far more important problems, that we've thrown far more money at.
From the video, the biggest pain point for the next 20 years is this. You cannot scale the process. The bigger your bioreactor, the lower the efficiency. "Scale" involves building hundreds or thousands of resource-expensive bioreactors, filling them all with chemicals, and running the bioreaction over a long period of time, in highly a sensitive lab environment. Unfortunately, it feels like this is a "down to go up". While possible, it seems as likely to be a success as some sort of New coal tech wiping Solar out and being the real solution for dirty power. If you put THAT kind of money into the already well-understood meat industries that already have some good best practices (that aren't necessarily followed like they should be), you'll end up with agriculture that's good for the environment AND billions of dollars to spare to use on some other green initiative.
Of course, the real issue is that the countries whose people care the most aren't the problem at all. The US is a great example. Our meat industry is an insignificant part of the problem, at <2% of the GHG emissions. The US meat industry is actually statistically INCREDIBLY effective... but the meat industry in other countries, not so much.
Short version for anyone wondering:
Even assuming the absolute best, most rose colored glasses kind of outlook, lab-grown meat will be many times as expensive as meat currently is, and that's notwithstanding the billions in investment it will take to get there. Currently it's so expensive to produce that it doesn't even really exist except as publicity stunts. But unlike other potentially paradigm-shifting tech like solar, there's not an exponential downward-sloping cost-adoption curve to look forward to. As of right now, inexpensive lab-grown meat doesn't seem difficult, it seems scientifically impossible.
It would probably be much better to spend those billions on reducing methane in cow farts (seriously), using sustainable grazing to preserve and rejuvenate disappearing and desertifying grasslands, accelerating carbon capture, subsidizing Omnivore's-Dilemna-style holistic farming, etc.
Because, seriously, affordable lab-grown meat is not going to happen without several Nobel-worthy breakthroughs. Instead, it's just going to waste a bunch of money out of the pockets of well-intentioned VCs and institutional investors who could be using it more effectively.
Exactly this.
And then there's some other contexts with the meat production to help realize that those billions might be better spent on something totally different. The US only produces about 30% more methane total than it did in the colonial days. Back then it was largely buffalo. SO long as there's a balance of things, we have a cycle of cows producing methane, breaking down to CO2, the CO2 being absorbed by crops, and the crops eaten by cows. Honestly, research in carbon seems to be the best focus if we want to make any improvements without just cutting down the major contributors. And the real biggest are fossil fuel emissions, mining, and deforestation.
Completely agree that in general, methane/carbon emissions from ruminants cannot be much of a long-term problem since they're part of a closed carbon cycle.
But, it is worth research IMO, simply because methane is so much more powerful as a greenhouse gas for the short time it remains methane. And it seems quite possible we could steer cow diets in a less methane-y direction without much cost if we had all the right information.
Absolutely worth research. It's also worth research (before action) to try drastic countermeasures that don't involve reverting the earth to an earlier state. For example, animal methane production in the US is not much higher than it ever was. If a "vegan revolution" happens, the animal methane production in the US will be dramatically lower than pre-civilized homeostasis. Probably not a big deal (since it's such a tiny percent of GHGs anyway).
Similarly, I agree we could find a way to reduce cow methane production that could be given to the actual countries (potentially) contributing to global warming with their livestock... And also similarly, we should take each step with some care so as not to worsen the situation.
We think we know a lot about carbon and global warming, and we do. But we need to remember as we look at this stuff that we don't know everything.
But those same "independent experts" are equally shoving (real waste meat) sausages down your throat.
Is that how you respond to a good-faith conversation by someone who has researched this?
Those independent experts corroborate my own experience, the environmental exports I've had the opportunity to befriend, etc. Further, if you look carefully, the environmental numbers that some vegans like to use actually work against them if taken in an unbiased light.
But that's ok, you won because you drew a picture with me having a silly face and you having a chad face :)
EDIT: Flummery to lemmy's recent context BS. I realized that you replied to one of my only comments that didn't include citations, so I backed off on the "how you respond to facts and evidence".
EDIT2: Is anyone else experiencing what I am? When you look at a context, you can't see its parent post anymore. When you reply to something, the link for the original post seems to be overwritten by the link to your reply (with no context of the previous post). I end up having to load the post and ctrl-f search for the damn comment I intended to reply to
Well it's easy to conclude what you're shoving down you throat.
Dead cow, from a local farm, fed local waste grains. Dead chicken, grown by my neighbor, allowed to eat grass feed would otherwise get burned. I'd eat eggs galore, but I'm allergic. As much seafood as I can handle because it's plentiful around here. Overflow venison when I can because it absolutely has to die whether it's eaten or not.
Also, the best local produce money can buy, fertilized by their manure. Yes, I eat vegetables that are grown with the help of animal shit. Lovely, smelly, animal shit.
Oh I know exactly what I'm shoving down my throat, and have no weird queasy fear about talking about where it came from or what it took to get there. More importantly, I know what I'm eating is good for me and good for the environment.
There we have this "good-faith" conversation. Idiot.
Excuse you? This was in response to "it's easy to conclude what you're shoving down your throat". What exactly should a person respond in that case? I gave you the facts, precisely.
I feel the moral case for veganism colors every other argument, so I cut that one out at the pass.
Also, true colors showed; first ad hominem came out. Reported and blocked
Yeah, like I started your bullshit. I called it out and you freaked out. Have a nice life (or not, I don't care).