Plant based diets- can they be sustained without causing harm to animals?

[Snowy81]

This is not meat eater, versus vegetarian versus vegan argument, this is a question I would just like to know the answer too, because I’m struggling with it, and there is probably a simple answer I’ve over looked.

Many are saying to stop eating meat, and follow a plant based diet.

However I’ve just been watching a documentary (with Mr A), who says that many animals are losing their natural habitat, due to humans using the land to grow crops.

So surely if we (everyone) eat more plant based foods, we will need more land to grow it, therefore taking it away form animals? I should say this was spoken about regarding America, but surely that applied everywhere?

So how will this plant based diet, be beneficial to animals if we need their land to grow it? Isn’t that just as detrimental as us breeding animals for human consumption?

Scrowy so you think the supermarkets are full of meat that has been living in fields. You're wrong.
Also they live a tiny fraction of their life expectancy

perhapsimight I'm pretty sure all my animals (currently 950 sheep, 1400ish lambs, 70 cows, 10 sticks, 60 calves) live in fields yes.

Our meat lambs mostly go to Sainsburys, not sure where most our beef goes eventually as it's mostly bought by 'finishers' who keep them for an extra few months after we sell them, but I would imagine the vast majority of it ends up in supermarkets. We are just a normal farm. The sheep stay outside all year round and the cows come inside for winter.

Your average supermarket chicken probably hasn't ever lived in a field though, I agree.

But we can’t live on plants mr bob and to successfully grow plants to replace the meat we apparently shouldn’t eat requires a lot more input (and this output) than a load of cows in a field because the grass is already there.

The key is that grass grows everywhere, it’s free and it’s natural but it is wasted on us as we cannot eat grass. But livestock can so they eat the grass and we eat them.

There is no life without death.

There’s a fascinating bit in the book ‘sapiens’ about wheat and how we became so dependent on it and how it shaped our civilisation and reduced our quality of life.

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mrbob explains it well. Most land used for crops is to grow feed for animals for us to eat. (Think how many cows/chickens/sheep you eat in a year and how much they must eat before you do)
Siameasy but we can live on plants... thats a strange thing to say!
Disclaimer: I'm a meat eater who tries to eat less meat exactly because of the environmental impact eating meat has.

Also- to the person who eats lamb because it's less cruel- it's RSPCA policy that up to 10% of sheep can have foot rot (really painful, totally laming) to be assured. If you've seen a field of sheep, at least a few of them will be hobbling.

There isn't really a non cruel way of eating mass produced meat sadly. It shouldn't be the norm but it is.

B12 is a problem for vegans. The Vegan Society says supplements or fortified foods are the only way to get enough . Most vegans I know have no problem with eating "unnatural" food.

Basically- you can't win!

Again-the natural life span thing doesn’t particularly bother me as long as those lives aren’t miserable.
There’s little point keeping an animal intended for meat for longer than is necessary-surely just wasteful in terms of upkeep?

You really can’t win. There’s no way round it in modern life.

I'm a vegan because I've never liked the idea of eating the flesh of another animal and I don't like the way animals are kept in very poor conditions in the dairy industry either. I also believe a vegan diet is better for the planet and better for my health. I have to eat something, so not eating vegetables and grains is out of the question.

If you want to carry on eating meat, that is up to you, but don't try and make out that it's better for the planet to eat a meat/dairy rich diet, because that is absurd.

In countries with innovative farming practices (I heard something about Dubai on the radio) they use bees in giant greenhouses. The bees come from the Netherlands and once they’ve done their job they are killed and a new batch sent in. So a plant-based diet may not be possible to achieve locally without killing animals.

I think most farmers would consider anything above 2% of sheep with footrot as a high number and pretty worrying let alone 10%.

Footrot is easily treatable and once treated they are usually fine in a day or two. It's not in farmer's interests to let sheep suffer and lose condition and value by not treating footrot, surely you can understand that?

We have quite a few cows that are 12 - 15years old and sheep that are 7 - 8 years old. We don't tend to keep them once they are too old to live happily. Dying of old age (starvation/ predation in the wild) isn't the kind, cruelty free death people would like to believe.

People forget too, that if we didn’t eat meat, the animals wouldn’t really exist

The absolute shit that people spout on here

I’ve tried being vegan twice, and felt absolutely dreadful, and lost a lot of hair. I’m also insulin resistant, so a diet grain- and carb-heavy is a disaster for me. And being autoimmune, I have leaky gut and don’t absorb iron well. Prescription iron supplements barely get me over the threshold for appropriate iron levels, and so eating red meat is crucial for me. I always opt for grass-raised and organic.

I don’t think I can live on plants.

Firstly we have agreed we need to supplement with B12 if we do. Isn’t that cheating?!

Also, I don’t eat cereals or starchy veg as they cause me blood sugar issues which could lead to pre diabetes.

We have a problem with T2 diabetes in the west and it is not caused by eating meat but by a high carbohydrate diet. Funnily enough many plant-based diets tend towards the higher starch with the absent meat being replaced by cereals or legumes.

If I were to eat only plants I would then inadvertently consume far more carbs in my quest for satiation. For altho legumes are a source of protein and nuts a source of fat they are also both fairly carb-heavy.

On the other hand I have tried a meat only diet. My daily intake was one duck breast and some bacon. It’s so fatty I didn’t want to eat again for 24hr. I thought that was quite an efficient diet albeit dull

How is the mass growing of cereals, legumes, beans, and then processing all of this into fake meat substitutes good for the planet? You’ve been misled if you believe this and sadly the food industry has cynically cashed in on the latest fad “vegan is good for the planet” and no one is questioning this.

No human lifestyle is 'good for the planet'. Look at what you wear. If you became a strict vegan you'd have to give up wool and silk. This leaves you with cotton and synthetics. Cotton is grown in plantations which consume an enormous amount of water and take up a lot of land, synthetics lose microplastics when they're washed which find their way into the aquatic food chain.

Put it this way, if you live on this planet, you have an impact.

the water and land used to farm animals and animal feed crops to feed them equate to far far more than are required to grow crops for humans to directly eat. It's a no brainer really.

Taking a B12 supplement isn't really cheating especially when you consider that livestock are supplemented with B12 anyway. I think a lot of people forget that meat and animal products don't produce B12 naturally. Vegans just skip the fortified animal products and go straight to the supplement.

Vitamin B12 is a problem for everyone now.

The worst crop environmentally by far is soy. Especially USA soy of which 98% is GMO. It is also bad for our health particularly for our thyroid health. But, unfortunately there's no escaping it because its in so many every day foods now. There is a reason that the Chinese only eat soy when its been fermented because that's the best way for our bodies to process it.
The vast majority of soy is grown for animal feed, biomass fuel, food and candle wax.

A lot of those crops go to feed animals. We’d actually be using not only less live stock land but quite likely less land for crops as well. Obviously it’s still harmful to animals but everything we do is. Humans are in competition with other animals. Most people seem to forget that.

I don’t eat meat, fish or dairy, I do eat a small number of eggs from a friends chickens.

So many of the crops we grow go to feed animals, that land could be feeding people.

I agree, humans are ultimately pointless and destructive whatever we do. I don’t agree that veganism is any less destructive.

“Plant-based” seems to have an aura of moral superiority about it that is all. Mental images perhaps of someone eating leaves (incidentally, despite the leaf symbol, lots of plants eg grass remain off limits to us because we cannot digest cellulose. Several are poisonous. I would argue that cereal grains are not fit for human consumption either).

It’s just the latest fad just as “low fat” was years ago. Why is the death of a duck worse than the loss of life, damage to habitat and soil destruction caused by installing a wheat field? I don’t eat cereals but I do eat the duck. At least I recognise the sacrifice of the duck but the porridge eater probably (encouraged by the writing on the packet) congratulates himself on his “heart healthy whole grain” and his plant-based meal. He doesn’t recognise the sacrifice of small creatures. It is all equally bad.

Siameasy - science disagrees with your assertion that veganism isn't less destructive.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/veganism-environmental-impact-planet-reduced-plant-based-diet-humans-study-a8378631.html

I have read the study (rather than just the article). It will take a few reads but my initial impression is that he is very critical of global agricultural practises which is correct IMO.

However this is an international study and what Bangladesh do is something I know nothing about and am not responsible for.

I am not convinced that my UK based chicken which could feed me for several days is worse than tofu imported from California or vast fields of oil seed rape or an imported out of season fruit which would send my blood sugar sky high.

I eat two meals a day, do not eat cereals, imported fruit or starchy veg. Because I am an animal eater I am satisfied with far less food. If I was to move over to veganism I can guarantee several things. One I would be fat, two I would eat far more volume-wise as I would be more hungry, three I would have to buy more imported and processed products to replace the absence of the animal products.

You cannot just replace animal with plants. Plants are inferior to animals nutritionally and you need more of them to fill you up. The western diet is too carbohydrate-heavy as it is. We need fewer starches not more. I don’t think any of that is taken into account by the author.

Since when is livestock supplemented with b12?!! Ours isn't and I've not heard of anyone else doing this... ours is 100% grass fed, no grains at all and certified organic. The land is very steep and unsuitable for growing anything other than grass and extremely dangerous for driving on so the land has very little other use.
I was a vegetarian for 6 years as I don't agree with all the animal cruelty I was seeing as a youngster - chickens is what actually turned me one day to say enough is enough and went vegetarian. But it led to health issues and I was recommended to eat red meat again and I feel 100% better for this but I'm conscious where I buy my animal products. Local always and it's not more expensive to do so contrary to popular belief.
Isn't it worse for the planet to be eating stuff (fruit,veg, grains, etc) flown and shipped in miles away at a ridiculous cost pricewise and environmentally than eating locally sourced products regardless of whether that's meat or veg?!

Also A lot of the public celebs that are vegans and 'saving the world' are on long haul holidays like 4/5 times a year at least - hypocritical IMO! Pick and chose when it suits...

HugsAreMyDrugs is completely correct, animals don't produce B12.

To quote Wikipedia, "The only organisms to produce vitamin B12 are certain bacteria, and archaea. Some of these bacteria are found in the soil around the grasses that ruminants eat; they are taken into the animal, proliferate, form part of their gut flora, and continue to produce vitamin B12."

So basically, if you want it naturally, you eat grass! Meat eaters get theirs through eating meat, in which case the animal is often given B12 supplements in their food, or via injections. Veggies/vegans tend to get it through vitamins or fortified foods. I tend to use a lot of this stuff in my cooking Yeast Flakes

I disagree with eating meat and dairy, but am well aware that it's a personal choice and I don't tell people what to do with their lives. I do encourage people to learn about where their food comes from and make informed decisions though!