That's the ideal case, but in practice much of it is directly derived from natural gas instead of electrolysis
In 2022 less than 1% of hydrogen production was low-carbon.[1] Fossil fuels are the dominant source of hydrogen, for example by steam reforming of natural gas.[2]
Yep, for a source for others about the plastic bit
The system that strips off the plastic wrappings can’t capture it all, and so in the UK a limit of 0.15% of plastic is allowed by the Food Standards Agency. The official EU level for plastic permitted in animal feed is zero although in reality many other countries operate within the same 0.15% limit.
The problem is not that the method that meat is produced, it is that it is produced at high levels at all. The inefficiencies don't go away by changing regulations. We are going to have to have changes in production and thus consumption levels. It's going to be difficult politically to get any policy like that through if people are unwilling to reduce any on there own as well
Do I think systematic actions are needed, yes, but if we're going to get there we'll have to start with some degree of individual action before any of it is paltable to the larger society
It should also be noted that we currently do the exact opposite and actually heavily subsidize meat, dairy, etc around the world
Isn't animal agriculture so fun? Always some neat new horrors you couldn't even come up with
Deforestation is not serving the people
High GHG emissions is not serving the people
High cruelty to non-human animals is not serving the people
Etc.
It's worth noting that in countries like US, it's really only things like beyond burgers and impossible meat that cost more. It doesn't require eating those for a plant-based diet nor are people typically eating those every meal, is why plant-based diets generally have lower costs
Compared to meat eaters, results show that “true” vegetarians do indeed report lower food expenditures
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800915301488?via%3Dihub
It found that in high-income countries:
• Vegan diets were the most affordable and reduced food costs by up to one third.
• Vegetarian diets were a close second.
• Flexitarian diets with low amounts of meat and dairy reduced costs by 14%.
• By contrast, pescatarian diets increased costs by up to 2%.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-11-11-sustainable-eating-cheaper-and-healthier-oxford-study
For some other context, the plant is now one of the largest in the US
"Today, that same beef plant in Greeley is owned by JBS USA and has grown into one of the biggest slaughterhouses in the country with more than 6,000 workers"
https://sentientmedia.org/profit-over-people-the-meat-industrys-exploitation-of-vulnerable-workers/
Feeding dead cows back to cows is indeed the main way that mad cow disease shows up. Though there's also atypical mad cow disease where it just randomly shows up too
That is just not true. Complete protein isn't really a problem because you just need to get the amino acids in at some point in the day. It takes much less than you'd think for that. For instance, beans technically are incomplete, but beans and rice are complete proteins.
Plus soy, which is an extremely common plant-based protein, is fully complete on its own
This bill, if it passes, applies to much more than just what the just the title says here
The bill would also threaten other farmed animal welfare laws, like California’s and New York City’s prohibitions on the sale of foie gras, a product made by force-feeding ducks and geese.
[...]
The bill is written so broadly that it could threaten some 1,000 other state and local laws and regulations that govern agriculture, from timber to beef to crops, according to Kelley McGill, a regulatory policy fellow at Harvard Law School’s Animal Law and Policy Program
It's not zero evidence, it's just not 100% certain. There have had known H5N1 infections in other mammals consuming raw milk that spilled. Many of them have died from it. Additionally, the testing that has happened shows that 1 in 5 US dairy samples are positive for H5N1 so it's prevelence is rather high making there be a very real risk