Wealthy nations should stop eating beef

[Skanky Vamp]

Yes, but those aren't seasonal foods, they had to be transported there, look up what's seasonal locally and it'll be cheaper.

At least here, at the grocery store, the local stuff is more expensive because it's marketed as being local.

 

[M]

It's cheap to eat vegetarians, as they're weakened and easy to catch! But that is just more meat in the diet. 😀

I know this is just a joke, but at the risk of starting a meat vs. vegetarian pissing match let me introduce you to Patrik Baboumian, world strong man and vegetarian. I'd also like to add that on balance, because we are denying ourselves something must of us have grown up with and have a craving for, a good many vegetarians tend to be very self disciplined. I would caution against catching one.😉

In other words, processed food is much cheaper in a lot of cases.

Yes, but those aren't seasonal foods, they had to be transported there, look up what's seasonal locally and it'll be cheaper.

At least here, at the grocery store, the local stuff is more expensive because it's marketed as being local.

Adding my voice here. My apologies to @nightshade in the US healthy food is more expensive, whether it is in season or not. Buying local, fresh, and/or healthy is often more expensive. Buying sugar, pop, candy, fatty snack, hotdogs, boxed pasta, etc all = cheap living. This is why poor = fat here. My poorest students were often the most overweight, and generally would not be overeating if these foods were vegetables. It's a wretched combination.

 

[nightshade]

Remembering my trips to American supermarkets and it was high in processed foods, far more tins and boxes than what we have. However there's a bigger range of canned vegetables, which isn't as good as fresh, but are another way to eat more healthily.

 

[M]

Remembering my trips to American supermarkets and it was high in processed foods, far more tins and boxes than what we have. However there's a bigger range of canned vegetables, which isn't as good as fresh, but are another way to eat more healthily.

Agreed! Canned food is kind of traditional eating over here, and I wish the poor would go back to it. Fresh isn't cheap, but canned is, and it isn't all that bad. Some nutrients get lost in the process but others actually increase through canning. It isn't just the fact that fresh foods are more expensive that makes the poor eat the way they do, it is also taught generation after generation. We would have to change the mentality here to change the system.

 

[nightshade]

Agreed! Canned food is kind of traditional eating over here, and I wish the poor would go back to it. Fresh isn't cheap, but canned is, and it isn't all that bad. Some nutrients get lost in the process but others actually increase through canning. It isn't just the fact that fresh foods are more expensive that makes the poor eat the way they do, it is also taught generation after generation. We would have to change the mentality here to change the system.

Convenience over cooking, it's the same here. There's a local group that have started with free cooking lessons, but I'm not sure what the take up is.

 

[M]

Convenience over cooking, it's the same here. There's a local group that have started with free cooking lessons, but I'm not sure what the take up is.

I don't even know if it's that. My brother routinely eats out of cans and calls it his junk food. You can't get much simpler than opening a can and eating straight from it, and I remember seeing really old fellas doing the same when I was young. I think people are just by nature hedonists.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

There is a stigma against canned and frozen produce that it's lesser quality and many of the "healthy" groceries won't carry them, or carry very small amounts. It's a discriminatory practice and helps to drive the consumer's mindset towards fresh as being the only healthy option thus bypassing frozen or canned.

 

[nightshade]

There is a stigma against canned and frozen produce that it's lesser quality and many of the "healthy" groceries won't carry them, or carry very small amounts. It's a discriminatory practice and helps to drive the consumer's mindset towards fresh as being the only healthy option thus bypassing frozen or canned.

It's a shame as frozen veg is so convenient, especially if you live alone. It's cheap and you don't waste food as you just take out what you need.

 

[Hunga Munga]

There's a bit too much convenience in my lifestyle . Things like tins and foil cartons are all recyclable but I'm generating way too much 'microwave pouch' type trash .

British tinned vegetable selection is shocking nowadays , especially since the pandemic . I wanted some tinned artichokes and asparagus at Christmas . Not even a thing anymore 🙁 . I'll have to go to an ethnic supermarket to get my stuff for next Christmas 😉.

Having seen the emissions targets just released today , it's gonna take more than a few beef farts and recycled food packets to hit those.

 

[M]

One thing that is really good about canned food is that the cans are easily recyclable, whereas the frozen is often in plastic, and unless you can buy local, even the fresh is often shipped in extreme amounts of plastic wrap. This is what I mean. It isn't as simple as no meat, no dairy. It's about responsibility on all fronts and taking a hard look at modern practices, and, yes, the fuel used to transport it all factors too.

 

[Hunga Munga]

One advantage the UK does have is we had it tough foodwize in World War 2 . So we already know how we can produce vast yields for zero food miles . It's been studied at length during the war and during rationing ...and put into practice too . Much of the UK's land has been semi-idle for a looooong time . All it needs is labour .

My area is mostly sheep , dairy in the valleys , a bit of cattle ....but you ll have look long and hard to find a local potato field or a cabbage yard .We do have an organic veg processor nearby , but I don't know any local people who grow for them .

So, even in my closest rural country town ,with ample land and no population pressure, most (90%+) of the retail vegetables come through a national distribution network ...year round .

 

[nightshade]

Whereas if you cross the border to where I am, it's very much mixed. Within 5 miles of here, there's strawberries, blackcurrants, sugar beet/potatoes, rapeseed, wheat, errmm can't think what else off the top of my head. Plus dairies, chickens. Think the beef and pork is slightly further out. Not forgetting the cider orchards.

 

[M]

One advantage the UK does have is we had it tough foodwize in World War 2 .

I do think there are long reaching consequences of historical events. In the UK, that seems to have worked to your benefit, or perhaps it is simply that the government bothered to apply effort to correcting it. Rationing was something that happened over here during the war, and victory gardens were a huge thing, but the need and response was executed differently.

It's an interesting study, but Americans were largely healthy and the communities thriving before the Great Depression. It's something the US never quite recovered from, and while a person could make an argument that the post WWII boom sort of disproves this, I'd say it actually supports this theory. You can't have abject poverty in one full generation, then follow it by unmitigated plenty in the next without a cost to how society functions.

In a community like my own, which is largely rural and has had the same families living in it for the last 200 years, you can easily see how attitudes, values, and conditions in one family have changed drastically in response to those historical events. So many educated families became ignorant during those times, only to be rewarded for that ignorance in the next generation. There is much to correct, and unfortunately destruction is easier than construction, especially with people.

 

[TriBel]

All it needs is labour .

Good luck with that.😏 I can't see how it will work. Wages are low and the work force mostly in urban centres. You can't move to rural spots because property's more expensive. Are enough Brits prepared to live on site in temporary accommodation for a seasonal job like the East Europeans were? I'm not scoring political points - just asking a question.

 

[nightshade]

Good luck with that.😏 I can't see how it will work. Wages are low and the work force mostly in urban centres. You can't move to rural spots because property's more expensive. Are enough Brits prepared to live on site in temporary accommodation for a seasonal job like the East Europeans were? I'm not scoring political points - just asking a question.

Yes and no, when the local farms couldn't get the Eastern European people over last summer they were asking for locals, yet turned so many away, and it's a reoccurring thing, farms turning away locals who would like to work.
I remember going strawberry picking when we were kids, and it's a lot easier now that it's not along the ground!

 

[Hunga Munga]

I'd definitely agree that our nations didn't quite recover from wartime austerity until well into this century . You could argue that the 50-60s excesses and empty calories were a reaction to a decade of want . My old nan (already mentioned 😉 ) never quite got over it in her diet .

I don't think the British poor were quite out of the depression when war hit . So we weren't quite the fighting force we wanted to be in 1940 .

I was never denied a bit of sugar as a kid , because we were grateful to have it available .

Good luck with that.😏 I can't see how it will work. Wages are low and the work force mostly in urban centres. You can't move to rural spots because property's more expensive. Are enough Brits prepared to live on site in temporary accommodation for a seasonal job like the East Europeans were? I'm not scoring political points - just asking a question.

I'm guessing a lot of that will have to change . Town and Country planning act is barely fit for purpose 74 years later . That was written , mostly to stop shellshocked ex-servicemen from living in a hut on their own land . 😀 If there's money to be made from a more labour intensive agriculture , farmers will just hire another person . 🙂 Agricultural workers have been bleeding off the land for generations , because there's not much money for wages .

Maybe we need to stabilize the prices . A lot of agriculture is quite volatile price wize . It's like gambling sometimes ...and that's just bullcrap . You work hard , you produce a finite weight , yet your reward is down to luck and circumstance . Bollocks to that , maybe ?
Old Dai will plough his field behind the Co-op tomorrow if you can guarantee a few pence on the pound for his spuds .

 

[Stake fodder]

Agree with @Moggin that in general, unhealthy foods are cheaper here. I think we are proving with this discussion that there are many factors to making it possible to eat healthier, which was my original point, that some government intervention in prices is needed.

I know this is just a joke, but at the risk of starting a meat vs. vegetarian pissing match let me introduce you to Patrik Baboumian, world strong man and vegetarian. I'd also like to add that on balance, because we are denying ourselves something must of us have grown up with and have a craving for, a good many vegetarians tend to be very self disciplined. I would caution against catching one.

Didn't mean to offend, and I'm sure many vegetarians are in better shape than I am. And go ahead and introduce me, I'm single! 😛

 

[M]

Didn't mean to offend, and I'm sure many vegetarians are in better shape than I am. And go ahead and introduce me, I'm single! 😛

No offense taken. 'Twas all in good fun. 😁

 

[Fuffy Baith]

Due to health issues (I have high triglycerides and a fatty liver) I have been instructed not to eat fatty meats and dairy. So, I cut back big on dairy and have been eating more vegetarian/vegan meat substitutes. Gardein brand makes some good meat alternatives and I eat the Morningstar fake bacon, which my grandparents used to feed me as a kid. I haven't had a real cheeseburger in over a month. While I do crave it, I actually don't miss it. I do love chicken though, but even then I've cut down how much I eat.

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.

Yeah, I can agree with this. Moderation is the key to my health, and people do over eat a lot, it's actually really sad and wasteful. The problem becomes censoring or limiting people's eating cause people are greedy and stubborn, and even if it's healthier for them, they don't want to be told what they can and can't eat. I know, because I'm struggling with that currently, but ultimately I have to put my health above my desires. As far as the price, if more people ate healthier foods it would support those companies more and drive the cost down. I don't mind paying it, but it does get expensive.

 

[Dora]

I think climate change is happening , but the most is natural and humans are overtaxed because of it
Both North and south poles are on the move , The North pole is moving up to 30 miles a year at a increasing rate since 2000 , since the 1960 it has moved from above Canada to above Russia , every 150,000 years the poles have change places,
The magnetic force is what keeps the Solar winds at bay , if not we would be a stripped planet like the rest in the solar system , as the poles move so does the solar winds which effects the Jet Streams which effects the winds on the planet
The planet was 2 degrees C hotter in the middle ages than today , growing vines in Yorkshire etc the seas were higher , but Russia tundra was not melting as today , its melting because warmer air is blowing over them , not planet temperature increasing , remember its no longer global warming but climate change
The cold water is pouring into the sea , sinking to the bottom is releasing 270 ,000 cubic tons of CO2 annually into the atmosphere against man's 38 000 , not saying that we are not causing problems , but how many brits / yanks are willing to give up flying etc ? planes pumping countless out tons of pollution into the atmosphere , but no country will ban flying it would be financial suicide
Killing all the animals because they use oxygen and flatulate then cultivating the ground is not going to help ! while they allow trees and forest the world over to be destroyed and the worlds Human population to grow unchecked