by mmmllm | 2025-09-29 09:31:42+00:00
Sorry it took a while to reply, I wanted to respond properly. I also appreciate you taking the time to engage in this.

Unfortunately, the 40 percent figure for cropland used for animal feed isn’t propaganda; it’s consistent across FAO and peer-reviewed studies. The consumption argument you make (that we can’t consume those crops without water) also applies to animals. As you move further up the food chain you’re just multiplying inefficiencies.

When it comes to land use, you are right that some pasture land can’t grow crops. If the demand for meat limited us solely to grazing on those lands, things would be better. The issue is the demand is far greater: we are literally cutting down the Amazon rainforest to make room for grazing. Prime arable land, especially maize and soy, is also being used to feed animals rather than humans.

The price doesn’t reflect efficiency either. Meat is very heavily subsidised in the West and in Asia. It also benefits from massive economies of scale and externalises huge costs like emissions, water pollution, and antibiotic resistance. In any case, here in Europe tofu is already far cheaper than meat. See this: one euro (or dollar?) for 24 g of protein, hard to get more efficient than that: https://www.dm.de/dmbio-tofu-natur-p4067796251999.html

It’s also misleading to compare beef to cereals in isolation. Balanced plant-based diets with legumes, nuts, and vegetables are nutritionally adequate and offer a much richer microbiome diversity when supported with B12. There are reports of people feeling worse on vegan diets but normally that is because they aren’t eating a variety of fruits and vegetables but relying on processed stuff. Meat makes it easy to ‘cheat’ your way to getting all the nutrients you need in the short term. That works great until you have a coronary heart attack in your 50s.

Food systems are responsible for roughly a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, with livestock accounting for about half of that. Many independent studies support this. Peer reviewed studies such as this one by Oxford, taking into account all the factors you mention above, also suggest vegan food emissions are 30% of those of meat eaters: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37474804

'All the arguments around vegetarianism/veganism always seems like virtue signaling and a cheap attempt at getting moral high ground' - To this I would just say, I was a meat eater for more than 30 years. I also found vegans 'annoying'. But if you really look into it the evidence is overwhelming. That's even before you take into account the fact that most vegans (such as myself) are doing it because of the massive suffering we are inflicting on living, sentient beings.

I find it ironic that we pet animals, or discuss here about AI/superintelligence ethics, when we literally torture animals in slaughterhouses. I doubt anyone here could tour a slaughterhouse and come out a meat eater.

So where is the real propaganda? From vegans? Or from the meat industry who force policymakers to rename 'Oat Milk' to 'Oat Drink'? Who subsidise the meat industry with vast sums? Who do everything in their power to hide the horrors of slaughterhouses from the public (even prosecuting people filming inside these facilities for 'defamation' here in Germany, and winning - even though they are literally just showing what happens inside). The so-called “free-range” or “happy cows” marketing is also propaganda: animals spend a few days outside a year, have their young taken from them, and are then transported long distances to be killed, often in extreme distress.

Let's not also forget the massive size of the meat industry compared to the tiny size of the plant-based industry. Who has the most money to create propaganda here? https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2022/messaging-uk-me...

That's the real propaganda.

Anyway, I got a bit carried away. It's good to discuss this stuff. I can recommend the book 'How to Love Animals' by the FT journalist Henry Mance, it was quite an important read for me. On general dietary topics (vegan or not), and eating well on a plant based diet, I can suggest anything by Tim Spector and his recommendation to get 30 types of plants a week in one's diet.