Wealthy nations should stop eating beef

[Skanky Vamp]

thus spoke Bill Gates.
from washingtonexaminer

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said that rich countries need to switch from real beef to synthetic, plant-based alternatives as a way to combat climate change. “I do think all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef. You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time,” Gates said during an interview with MIT Technology Review. “Eventually, that green premium is modest enough that you can sort of change the [behavior of] people or use regulation to totally shift the demand.”

Gates said one of the challenges of switching to fake beef would be political, thanks to bills that would require the synthetic alternative to come with a label warning that the product isn’t the real thing. “So for meat in the middle-income-and-above countries, I do think it’s possible,” Gates said. “But it’s one of those ones where, wow, you have to track it every year and see, and the politics [are challenging]. There are all these bills that say it’s got to be called, basically, lab garbage to be sold. They don’t want us to use the beef label.”

While people are busy talking about the taste and how to get it to taste like meat, no one is saying that those foods are really expensive. Even the cheap dirtburgers like Boca Burger or Morningstar I think are more than a lot of people would pay. They need to look at how to drive down the cost of the fauxfoods if they want more people to eat it. I love me my Beyond Burger or Sweet Earth Burger but I can't imagine people would be willing to give up beef until the price for those more resembles beef prices.

What do you think?

 

[TriBel]

You're in America and I think your beef is cheaper than in the UK. Our cattle tend to be grass not grain fed and you use hormones, which are banned here. I'm not casting aspersions. It's just that US beef and chicken is a contentious issue in GB and was a sticking point during Brexit. I eat plant based alternatives as a matter of course and it never occurred to me it was more expensive than UK/EU meat.

 

[Hunga Munga]

Economically it's a different deal here . We had the Mad Cow Disease and a horse butchering crisis in the UK , so beef , even low rent commodity beef , is not cheap . I can buy 8 half decent fake burgers for £1.75 , or 4 basic beef burgers for 1.70 . There is a supercheap meat 'burger' in the shops but it straightup makes me heave 🙂

So even quorn based meat could compete quite nicely in the beef arena in the UK .

So far as the climate goes , it is a fact that beef generates loads of gas , so cutting down beef consumption is a surefire way to cut emissions .
To an extent I agree .

However if we're talking food miles then beef has a role . Most dairy folk do beef as a byproduct of their dairy herd . Cows eat grass and crap gold . You can send meat up into land that mankind was not meant to stand on . Beef is a walking harvest .

If we're gonna be serious about a greener future most farm fertilizer will be manure based . You can raise a lot of meat and manure out of poultry and pigs in sheds but as a society we're moving away from that intensive system .

I think the UK will have to go back to a mixed farming system where rotations of grass, veg, feed , meat and fallow and then limit the inputs from bought feed and fertilizer .

I reckon we should all cut down on our meat consumption , same as packaging and food waste . I do think that veggie stuff is so good now it can compete in the processed market .

 

[Skanky Vamp]

You're in America and I think your beef is cheaper than in the UK. Our cattle tend to be grass not grain fed and you use hormones, which are banned here. I'm not casting aspersions. It's just that US beef and chicken is a contentious issue in GB and was a sticking point during Brexit. I eat plant based alternatives as a matter of course and it never occurred to me it was more expensive than UK/EU meat.

A pound of Beyond Meat is three times as expensive as a pound ground beef; $15 vs $5. It makes buying for the family hard.

 

[TriBel]

A pound of Beyond Meat is three times as expensive as a pound ground beef; $15 vs $5. It makes buying for the family hard.

ASDA Butcher's Selection Lean Beef Mince (Typically Less than 5% Fat) £8.76 Kg. $12.14

ASDA Plant Based Vegan Meat Free Mince £3.85 Kg. $5.34

I could probably find cheaper mince but a) I wouldn't eat it and b) even at half the price of decent mince it's still more expensive than plant based.

 

[DeadlyDuo]

The only way to tackle climate change is to tackle the big polluters like China, otherwise all you're essentially doing is fixing a leaking tap on the Titanic after it's hit the iceberg. If you don't tackle the big problem, then the ship is going down, no matter how many leaky taps you fix.

 

[Taake]

Meat and faux-meat products are pretty expensive both here, and while most people are pretty open to be ”flexitarians” and eat less meat, getting them to eat mainly synthetic stuff is probably going to be a hard sell.

 

[Hunga Munga]

Huge advancements for veggies/vegans at the UK supermarkets in recent years . A 'vegan' search at Asda gives 1321 results today. 'Vegetarian' yields 4791 . All the big 'brand' producers are getting involved too .

It aint that long ago when shopping veg/vegan was a total nightmare , lots of label reading and hidden meat byproducts 😀 .

 

[Taake]

It aint that long ago when shopping veg/vegan was a total nightmare , lots of label reading and hidden meat byproducts 😀 .

It has actually gotten worse for me 🙈, but that’s because veg/vegan stuff has discovered and begun to include things like peas to a greater extent. But that’s allergies for you, I’m glad for the rest of you!

 

[nightshade]

I don't think it's necessarily healthier to eat vegan now, just easier. There's so much processed vegan foods around, that new vegetarians or vegans can easily just live off that, whereas before they had to learn to cook healthier foods. Of course not all people will go that way, some may just stick with the beans on toast method of going vegan!

 

[Skanky Vamp]

I’m glad for the rest of you!

What a passive aggressive comment. Your hatred of pea-eaters knows no bounds.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Thus spoke Bill Gates, trying to sound as though he knows what he is talking about. If he knew what he was talking about he'd know to shut up, because folk will eat plant based foods if they are not told it isn't real dead cow.
I used to eat Soya in thick gravy with other elements in a stew and I was okay with it, if I had been told it wasn't meat I may have complained a bit.

 

[thetopher]

No need to stop producing beef to tackle climate change, just feed the cows a few handfuls of charcoal with their main meal, reduces their green house gases to almost zero. Problem solved.

It's worth noting that this charcoal feeding was done way back in medieval times, but only because it makes all the cowpoop one hundred times for fertile when it comes to using it as compost.
So, good for the enviroment all round and we don 't have to start banning stuff.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

In medieval times there were 6 or more billion folk on the planet so how many more cows are needed now.
Where does charcoal come from, burning billions of trees?

 

[Skanky Vamp]

What about 3D printed beef? Wonder if that would be better or worse.

 

[thetopher]

Where does charcoal come from, burning billions of trees?

Hardly. You can burn dead wood to get charcoal; its all about heat and oxidization. And you don't even need that much to feed the cows to reduce carbon emissions to basically zero.
It's better than banning high protein-rich beef entirely.

 

[nightshade]

What about 3D printed beef? Wonder if that would be better or worse.

No, just no. Along with that lab grown fake meat. Yuck!

I guess I would be classed as a flexitarian, I do eat meat, but only from the local butcher or from my mother's animals.
I certainly don't eat meat every day, let alone for every meal.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

No, just no. Along with that lab grown fake meat. Yuck!

I think I'd eat that 3D printed meat before lab grown just to see what it was like.

I certainly don't eat meat very day, let alone for every meal.

Clearly not eating meat isn't affecting your faculties at all.

 

[Hunga Munga]

I'd be much more up for printed or woven beef ...not fussy about eating the lab stuff either . Neither has ever crapped on itself ...which is more than you can say for most farm animals .

 

[M]

I've been a vegetarian for 21 years now, and did so conscientiously for the sake of animals. I know what Gates is saying. Reducing meat consumption would knock a big hole in the harmful emissions that are contributing to our current problem. However, I think there are a couple of larger issues that get forgotten about when people start this mantra.

Firstly, the only reason why the meat industry is so very harmful is not necessarily the animals themselves, but rather the number of them needed to satisfy human greed. Meat used to be something appreciated when it was had. Now everyone who eats meat thinks they have to consume quantities proportional to a king's diet circa the year 1500. The same goes for dairy. People do not know the meaning of the word moderation. The U.S. has a horrendous obesity rate, all while an unprecedented number of animals are slaughtered each year, food is wasted, and greenhouse emissions continue to climb. These are not coincidences. So, when we say meat eating is the cause, let's refine that point a bit. It's greed, not necessarily meat consumption.

Secondly, there are two major offenses the U.S. makes against climate change. One is agriculture (dairy, meat, and grain farming). The other is petroleum consumption, both as fuel and as the byproduct to making plastic, namely in the process of keeping up with first world demands for the latest technology. Sure, sending an email saves a tree, but the plastic made to produce the cell phone, tablet, or computer you used contributed to the problem in a big way, and it isn't like you are going to keep that device for the next 20 years. You'll be lucky to keep it for the next five. Gates is pointing at one part of the problem, but isn't bothering to examine his own contributions to the current dilemma. Sure, some companies say they've made strides in recycling plastic, or encouraging us to recycle our old devices, but the hard fact is that no company has achieved the kind of eco-friendly changes really needed to make a proper dent in climate change. It's possible, but not probable. People like their devices, and asking them to limit their consumption of technology, or asking the company heads to take a profit cut for the sake of our climate, is as unthinkable as asking them to limit their consumption of meat.

I don't mean to take a bleak view of this, and, of course, would love it if more people would try meat alternative products, but I just think we are skirting around a larger issue. It's a consumption problem, on all fronts. The sooner people start realizing this, maybe we'd actually get somewhere with fixing our problems, instead of just pointing fingers at each other.