We must face facts - meat is the problem

[mspohr]

You’re probably eating way too much protein

Americans are obsessing over protein and forgetting about fiber.

www.vox.com

Americans are oddly obsessed with protein. They eat around twice as much of it as the federal government recommends, and 60 percent of US adults are trying to get even more of it into their diets. And this obsession could be making us sick: Excessive protein consumption, especially from cholesterol-rich animal-based foods, is correlated with increased risk of cancer and heart disease.

Excessive protein consumption is also wrecking the planet, with meat and dairy production accounting for upward of one-fifth of greenhouse gas emissions.

 

[mspohr]

The $10 trillion benefits of overhauling our food system

A new report lays out two very different paths forward.

www.theverge.com

Today, food is responsible for 6 million hectares of deforestation a year. It also accounts for a third of the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change. If that continues, countries would be unable to meet the goal of stopping climate change set in the 2015 Paris Agreement. As a result, climate-driven disasters like drought and extreme weather pose much graver risks to food production.

It mostly stems from food-related noncommunicable diseases, including diabetes, hypertension, and cancer. Much of this burden is born by people who live with obesity, the report says.
People would ultimately also have to tweak their diets. There’s no one-size-fits-all plan, but eating less meat is the prescription for a more sustainable diet in much of the world. After all, global meat consumption experienced a meteoric rise of 500 percent between 1992 and 2016. And livestock have the biggest impact on climate when it comes to food production.
Implementing all these changes could cost between $200 to $500 billion a year. But that’s a bargain compared to the $10 trillion benefits it would reap, the report says. Undernutrition could be eradicated by 2050. The world could avoid 174 million premature deaths from diet-related chronic disease. Nations might even have a better shot at reaching the ambitious Paris climate goals, which, in turn, would spur its own health benefits.

 

[David_Cary]

To be fair, when you are confronted with a choice between protein and a processed carb, the better choice is typically protein - if from a lean source.
The people obsessed with getting protein are typically not obese. This is a generalization but often true.

It is always interesting to see people realize that if they ate a loaf of whole wheat bread per day, they would meet their protein requirements by a good margin. With not an excess of calories. Dave's Killer standard bread is 85 gm and 1870 calories which is not bad at all.

That article magically calls the line at 50 gm of protein per day. The actual RDA is 0.8 gm per kg of body weight. The average american adult is 80 kg so the math comes out to 64 gm. A not insignificant difference. Whether the RDA is right is certainly open for debate but it is also a minimum not a maximum or even ideal. It is stated as a minimum to prevent deficiency not to prevent muscle mass loss etc. I am not saying that I know exactly what it should be at all but I also know that 50 isn't the exact perfect answer either.

 

[mspohr]

A California town will vote on banning factory farms. What does that mean for the rest of the US?

Activists in Berkeley, which has no factory farms, hope other cities will follow suit – but not everyone is convinced

www.theguardian.com

It may seem like an unusual mandate for a city that presently has no factory farms. (There’s a horse race track field that would be shut down if the measure passes.) But the activists behind the ballot initiative say it’s part of a broader strategy to ban this type of industrial style of livestock production in which cattle, chickens and pigs are held in confined spaces before slaughter.

Other initiatives include “Green Monday”, which, similar to “meatless Mondays”, requires all city-owned and -managed facilities and programs to provide only vegan food options on this day to encourage people to reduce their environmental impact. The city also approved a “healthy checkout” ordinance, requiring grocery stores to offer healthier items in the checkout aisle.

But the factory farm industry is one of the most powerful lobbies in the United States, and has a record of aggressively pushing back against reform efforts and environmental and climate policies. It’s also managed to secure huge subsidies from the federal government: animal agriculture receives $10.7bn per year, 800 times the money that plant-based or cultivated meat does, according to one study.

 

[mspohr]

 

[mspohr]

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

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[mspohr]

Description/Title?

I try to keep JS off so just the YouTube link doesn't tell me anything.

Netflix Documentary: You are what you eat

 

[mspohr]

Live export cargo of 16,750 sheep and cattle to be unloaded in Perth heatwave

If exporters fail to obtain permission to ship the animals to Israel, the livestock on board the MV Bahijah will have to slaughtered

www.theguardian.com

For more than a month, the 15,000 sheep and 1,750 cattle have remained on board the Israeli-owned MV Bahijah after it aborted entering the Red Sea on its way to Israel for fear of attack by Houthi rebels.

Specialist veterinarian and spokeswoman for Vets Against Live Export, Sue Foster, said she was dismayed that the animals might have to suffer another journey. “It is outrageous that anyone in the livestock industry would consider re-exporting animals that have already endured such prolonged and cumulative transport stressors,” Foster said. “The government made an election promise to phase out the live export of sheep. Why hasn’t the phase out started?”

An ASIC search showed the directors of Bassem Dabbah Livestock were the Dabbah family, who own large slaughterhouses across Israel, one of which was the subject of a 2015 inquiry into horrific abuse on Australian cattle

 

[mspohr]

The Revolution That Died on Its Way to Dinner https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/09/...ltivated-meat.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

Yet despite nearly a decade of work and a great many messianic pronouncements, it is increasingly clear that a broader cultivated meat revolution was never a real prospect, and definitely not within the few years we have left to avert climate catastrophe. Interviews with almost 60 industry investors and insiders, including many who have been employed by or been part of the leadership teams of these companies, reveal a litany of squandered resources, broken promises and unproven science. Founders, hemmed in by their own unrealistic proclamations, cut corners, such as using ingredients derived from slaughtered animals. Investors, swept up in the excitement of the moment, wrote check after check despite significant technological obstacles. Costs refused to enter the realm of plausible as launch targets came and went. All the while, nobody could achieve anything close to meaningful scale. And yet companies rushed to build expensive facilities and pushed scientists to exceed what was possible, creating the illusion of a thrilling race to market.

Getting carnivores to change their eating habits is an uphill battle. Despite the destructive impact of meat, we continue to eat huge amounts of it, behavior that Mr. Tetrick has likened to addiction.

 

[mspohr]

. A higher plant-based diet index was associated with better scores for sexual function, urinary irritation/obstruction, urinary incontinence, and hormonal/vitality. Consuming more healthful plant-based foods was also associated with better sexual and bowel function, as well as urinary incontinence and hormonal/vitality scores in the age-adjusted analysis, but not in the multivariable analysis.

https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.35172?_hsmi=293839992&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8pFaWOgD6ZHDHjQH2nlH47mYFPaZ3bQotvueF4WAIJC-IAFCofEZrJVQk_bMdbXQmWsEVzN3dWjo--rn_SVw4lDfGrEQ

 

[David_Cary]

That study was for prostate cancer survivors - so not particularly applicable to the masses.

I often try to find sexual motivation for being healthy but it rarely works. Things like weight loss raises testosterone levels and obesity is associated with impotence. I think when men are so far down the rabbit hole of being unhealthy, it is the last thing on their minds.

The fact is that meat consumption correlates quite well to diabetes and diabetes causes impotence. Obesity correlates to diabetes even better. But we don't see a bunch of horny men making sure to reduce meat consumption and stay slim.

 

[mspohr]

‘America is a factory farming nation’: key takeaways from US agriculture census

Small farms and Black farmers are going out of business, while corporate-controlled farms are booming, raking in subsidies

www.theguardian.com

Yet industrial factory farms rearing thousands of livestock in confinement have further expanded into rural America, acquiring smaller farms, raking in taxpayer subsidies and generating environmental harms.That means fewer, but much larger, concentrated lots – which are linked to an array of harms including water and air pollution, poor animal welfare, labor abuses and climate impacts. As it stands, 1.7 billion animals – mostly pigs, cattle, chickens and sheep – were reared on US factory farms in 2022 – a 6% increase since the last census in 2017 and a 47% rise since 2002. This includes 7,406 chicken farms with half a million of more birds in 2022 – a 17% rise in the past decade.

According to analysis by Food and Water Watch (FWW), 24,000 factory farms are producing a staggering 940bn lbs of manure each year – double the amount of sewage produced by the entire US population. This is 52bn pounds more greenhouse gas emitting concentrated manure than in 2017, the equivalent to creating a new city of 39m habitants in the past five years.

Small and medium dairy farms have fared worst. Almost 7 million dairy cattle – 75% of the total – are now reared in confinement on factory farms, each with 2,000 or more cows. “As industrial confinements drive family-scale farmers off their land … the benefits flow to private coffers while our communities and environment are left holding the bag,” said Amanda Starbuck, FWW research director
. “America today is truly a factory farming nation.”

 

[DrGriz]

Alabama Senate passes ban of lab-grown meat; Moving it in the state would be felony

Senate Bill 23, sponsored by Sen. Jack Williams, R-Mobile, makes it a Class C felony to manufacture, sell or distribute cultivated meat.

www.al.com

 

[mspohr]

Alabama Senate passes ban of lab-grown meat; Moving it in the state would be felony

Senate Bill 23, sponsored by Sen. Jack Williams, R-Mobile, makes it a Class C felony to manufacture, sell or distribute cultivated meat.

www.al.com

Industrial meat producers are a powerful lobby

 

[Sambub]

I really thought we’d be eating crickets by now.

 

[mspohr]

Study discovers molecular mechanism that could explain why eating too much protein is bad for your arteries

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers discovered a molecular mechanism by which excessive dietary protein could increase atherosclerosis risk. The findings were published in Nature Metabolism.

medicalxpress.com

The study, which combined small human trials with experiments in mice and cells in a Petri dish, showed that consuming over 22% of dietary calories from protein can lead to increased activation of immune cells that play a role in atherosclerotic plaque formation, driving the disease risk. Furthermore, the scientists showed that one amino acid—leucine—seems to have a disproportionate role in driving the pathological pathways linked to atherosclerosis, or stiff, hardened arteries. "Our study shows that dialing up your protein intake in pursuit of better metabolic health is not a panacea. You could be doing real damage to your arteries," said senior and co-corresponding author Babak Razani, M.D., Ph.D., professor of cardiology at Pitt.

 

[mspohr]

Eating to save nature? Embrace potatoes, ditch meat and track your beans

The impact of meat on the environment is well known, but what about staples such as rice and legumes?

www.theguardian.com

Scientists analysed 151 popular recipes around the world for their biodiversity impact. They found meat dishes were the worst offenders: recipes including chilli con carne, salsa verde pork and a Spanish lamb dish called lechazo, all had high biodiversity damage scores compared with vegan and vegetarian ones.

The study found dishes doing the least harm to biodiversity were those with starchy ingredients such as potato and wheat, including Polish pyzy potato dumplings and Chinese mantou, a steamed wheat bun. The United Nations Environment Programme describes global food production, particularly animal agriculture, as the primary driver of biodiversity loss, and a key part of the problem is the land area required for livestock and their feed.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Eating to save nature? Embrace potatoes, ditch meat and track your beans

The impact of meat on the environment is well known, but what about staples such as rice and legumes?

www.theguardian.com

Scientists analysed 151 popular recipes around the world for their biodiversity impact. They found meat dishes were the worst offenders: recipes including chilli con carne, salsa verde pork and a Spanish lamb dish called lechazo, all had high biodiversity damage scores compared with vegan and vegetarian ones.

The study found dishes doing the least harm to biodiversity were those with starchy ingredients such as potato and wheat, including Polish pyzy potato dumplings and Chinese mantou, a steamed wheat bun. The United Nations Environment Programme describes global food production, particularly animal agriculture, as the primary driver of biodiversity loss, and a key part of the problem is the land area required for livestock and their feed.

I reckon the wheat mafia paid the researchers to exclude oats.

 

[CyberGus]

those with starchy ingredients such as potato and wheat, including Polish pyzy potato dumplings and Chinese mantou, a steamed wheat bun

This describes all the foods I cannot eat as a diabetic.

I can improve my glucose by going vegan, apparently. But it won't make it me live longer, it'll just feel longer.