To ask why people are so against giving up meat?

[NewCracker]

Just that really, why are people so against giving up meat?
Without a doubt we know it's better for the environment, we know it's better for our health, we know it's better for animal welfare and it's actually quite expensive. But still as soon as you mention to the greater public about cutting their meat consumption, they get defensive and almost offended.
Would you ever consider giving it up, if you do consume it now? If not, why not?
I'm expecting some hate, this is MN after all, but I am genuinely just curious. Not trying to rattle feathers.

If you had put out nice shish kebabs people might have eaten them, but cocktail sausages and pork pies are pretty horrid.

You keep demonstrating how misinformed you are @hamstersarse
Cows produce far more methane when they burp compared with when they fart.
And grass-fed cows burp roughly twice as much as grain fed.

In the right quantities good quality meat is good for you.
It tastes great.
Vegan food is time consuming to make, and a lot of the processed vegan food isn't good for you at all (fake burgers etc).

It's tasty, and I'm a fussy eater and not creative enough to have enough non meat meals all the time. I also wouldn't give up sugar despite knowing it isn't good for me! Too delicious

Maybe you should consider who is saying the above.
Would you rather listen to Donald Trump and the like or climate change scientists, who you know, might know a thing or two?

The reason we are import dependent for all our food needs is due to the island being too populated to support our food needs. Something like 60% of our fruit and veg comes from the EU. We have some 75% of arable land being used for farming but it only produces enough to feed 1/3rd the population. This is not uncommon when you are living on an island.

I think going vegetarian/vegan is an attempt to mitigate one problem by causing a host of other problems that will almost certainly collapse our ecosystem, wipe out our native wildlife species, and push domesticated farm animals to the brink of extinction in the name of reducing CO2 emissions from all that breathing and farting that animals do.

What type of methane do cows produce? And how long does that remain in the atmosphere?

I struggle with low iron if I eat no meat, but try not to have it no more than once or twice a week. Makes it more of a treat if I have it less often.

"This thread shouldn’t be surprising as people who choose to go veggie and vegan on average have a higher IQ and are better educated"

What utter nonsense. I know a lot of well educated people with high IQs, I know very few non meat eaters.

As usual this thread is full of city dwellers who don't know the first thing about farming/rural life and just make up stories to suit their own agenda.

I've found the opposite. I find it way quicker to cook a load of veg than it is to faff around with meat; plus the time it needs to be cooked for so you don't poison yourself. I can have a vegan curry from scratch on the table in 15 minutes, no worries about cross contamination, one pan, on the hob, couldn't be easier. And I'm a very lazy cook. I agree about the processed vegan food, and don't tend to eat that.

I have a friend who is a preachy vegan. I listened, and decided to do my own research as a result of which I have given up* beef and lamb for environmental reasons. I eat chicken, fish and a small amount of bacon but no other pork products. I would probably go meat-free two or three days in an average week when previously I ate meat every day.

So I've made a positive change.

But it's never enough for the anti-meat people.

And I can cook chicken or fish curry from scratch in the same time. What does that prove?

I honestly thought my kids were gonna give up meat after seeing some pigs.

We live in the middle of no where and there’s a small holding near by who has pigs, chickens and sheep. We used to walk by them on a dog walk. One day, the pigs weren’t there, and they were selling bacon and sausages. When my kids asked where the pigs were, I said they went off to become food and pointed out the meat. The farmer was nodding his head too so I knew that’s where they were.

At first, they were gobsmacked. Then I said, are you going to stop eating things like sausages and burgers and stuff like that. They went quiet for a bit and said no. We like them too much to do that.

I have never hidden where meat comes from. I’ve always told them exactly where their food comes from but it’s different knowing it comes from the pigs and actually seeing them with their eyes every day for a few months.

This thread shouldn’t be surprising as people who choose to go veggie and vegan on average have a higher IQ and are better educated

Veganism has been shown to impact cognitive function....Vitamin B12 deficiency and high cognitive function don't tend to go together too well...but yeah, you go for it!

Ironically they are also about the lowest % so called 'meat' product you can buy. About 98% of a 'pork pie' is rock hard pastry and gross weird fatty crap. That wasn't a vote in favour of vegetarian food, it was a vote in favour of not eating disgusting rubbish.

Sure cutting out meat will reduce your carbon footprint. But how many vegans still use a car? Fly in a plane? Etc. Nope that's not a persuasive argument to stop eating meat

Diet choice is one of the most significant impactors on the environment, with meat based diets being the worst, and are much more damaging to environment than transport choices. If animal agriculture was phased out rapidly it would stabalise ghg emissions for the next 3 decades and provide around 60% of the emissions reducing required to achieve the Paris Agreement targets.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/15/4110

https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pclm.0000010

Meat is a fantastic source of protein, essential amino acids, iron... Nope that's not a persuasive argument to stop eating meat

It is but, it is not required to be eaten at the levels most people in developed countries eat it at. A plant based diet is better for overall and long term health.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1906908116

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542519622002431

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6316289/

The animals are only given birth because will will eat them. Without people eating them farmers would stop raising cows, chickens, sheep, pigs. Breeds of the animals would be lost...Nope that's not a persuasive argument to stop eating meat

That's a really bizarre arguement on many levels. First, we don't eat badgers, squirrels, foxes, frogs, otters, seagulls, etc., in this country and they all exist quite happily. Secondly, most live stock is raised to get from birth to slaughter house as quickly and as big as possible, there's no conservation elements. Third, I'm not sure arguing that something should continue to be brought into existence just to be horribly killed a few weeks - months later is a solid arguement for anything. Finally, intensive animal agricult has a negative impact on other species, so if your concern is centred around biodiversity eating meat is not a great idea.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095965261931131X#sec3

So are a lot of things. What business of it of yours how I spend my money? ...Nope that's not a persuasive argument to stop eating meat

It may not be an issue for but in a country with an ever increasing number of people struggling with CoL providing cheap, accessible, easy to prepare / eat food and encouraging people to adopt a diet that focus on those types of ingredients is a good idea, especially when doing so provides other benefits around health and environment.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00251-5/fulltext

Because you'll telling another adult how to live! You're criticizing their choices? Did they ask for your opinion? Just stop

That happens in many aspects of your life every single day, especially when there are wider impacts associated with your actions. Nobody is going to force you to change but at least accept the reality of your choices and stop being such a snowflake about it.

I see all the vegans ignored my previous post, so what are you going to grow in all the areas that are used for sheep dairy and mixed, that can still provide the maintenance and conservation of specialists habitats and also provide livelihoods and income for people in these areas.

If you could provide detailed answer to how you will change management of these areas it would be nice to conserve them as they are and not destroy them or add to further climate change doing so. 🤔

For you @familyfuckyouup

https://clear.ucdavis.edu/explainers/why-methane-cattle-warms-climate-differently-co2-fossil-fuels

Honestly, just think about it for more than one second. You seriously think that cows emitting methane is a cause of climate change?

I honestly think your brain has malfunctioned at this point if you truly believe that.

There are quite a lot of climate scientists who disagree with the current dogma though. There is a lot of largely ignored evidence to show that the current 'science' is built around faulty datasets. Really, really faulty data. Then the conclusions drawn from the 'science' built around the faulty data are over exaggerated. Those who point out that faulty data is being used speak of how they are hounded into silence with threats of job loss and withdrawn funding. Increasing numbers of scientists are starting to speak out about it but are widely ignored.

At first when I started seeing this, I largely ignored it and figured they were fringe scientists ignoring reality in favour of being able to deny a horrible reality. However, what I can't help but notice, is the similarities between those scientists who speak against the 'climate consensus' and those biologists who state there are two sexes. And then I realise that we know for a fact that there are cases where the 'scientific consensus dogma' is out and out bullshit as everyone has always known that there are indeed only two sexes. We don't need biologists to tell us this, yet the biologists who do, have their career's derailed. And that makes me wonder, if that dogma is willing to lie so strongly against somethings we can all see is a lie. Then why wouldn't there be a similar scenario happening with a type of science that the public is less able to decipher the truth of.

I'm not saying human industry isn't having a catastrophic effect on the world we live on. But I am saying that when we know the 'consensus' can be built around lies that profit certain large corporations, why wouldn't that be happening in this scenario too. And then all you have to do is look at the supposed evidence that animal agriculture is worse for the environment and it's very, very obvious that the conclusions are drawn for data so one-sided that it's worthless. While at the same time vegan alternatives are incredibly, incredibly cheap to produce as opposed to meat and dairy. Large food production companies massively increase their profits, in the short term at least, as more people switch to vegan or cut back on meat and dairy.

So we're looking at evidence that clearly comes from nonsense data, that stands to make large corporations significant profit all while living through a culture where scientific consensus is known to, at least sometimes, be achieved through widespread bullying and a culture of fear.

My reasons for quitting meat:

I came across a video which I came across on the meat industry, it showed a female sow trapped inside a tiny crate with her babies trying to feed with great difficulty, the next clip showed male piglets being castrated without any pain relief/anaesthetic, the next a weak piglet (failing to thrive) being hit again a concrete floor in front of its poor mother, the next a slaughterhouse worker hitting a pig around the head causing cuts and bleeding (this happens a lot).
The next a female cow who was being slaughtered was pregnant, her calf was cut out, had its throat slit and thrown and disposed off (like trash).
Pigs/cows/sheep routinely being hit/prodded/mutilated before having their throats slit.
^^That was enough for me, I stopped eating meat that day onwards, it’s been 4 years now. We wouldn’t treat human beings this way and rightly, it would be illegal, the only reason it’s allowed is because land animals for meat consumption are seen as commodities and profitable, not as sentient beings. It’s a case of cognitive dissonance.

Great point! So many people have no idea how not all land is the same. You can’t grow anything you want just anywhere.

I'm going to repeat; farmers aren't going to keep cattle etc if they aren't breeding them there's no point. Do you actually think farmers can afford to keep animals as a good deed? If farmers have to grown crops only they won't make much profit, there won't be the land available either. Do you think there will be herds of domesticated cattle wandering around? Sheep on the loose? Pigs rooting around in your garden as no one is feeding them?

Where do you live because all of that is illegal in the U.K., EU and many other countries.

Because contrary to the opening assertion meat is not harmful to health, its good for health - with all the usual caveats (depending on how prepared, how much, how often, etc).

Here's some thing for you to consider those animals had a far better life then most would do in nature, The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the time it took you to write that, thousands of animals were being eaten alive; others were running for their lives, whimpering with fear; others are being slowly devoured from within by rasping parasites; thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst and disease.

This number vastly exceeds that of animals on factory farms, in laboratories, or kept as pets.

So we can all use shocking stories to try justify our choices, nature and life is not fair and its unreasonable to expect it to be fluffy fluffy land.