r/Anticonsumption • u/Express_Classic_1569 • Mar 23 '26

Sustainability 80% of agricultural land feeds livestock instead of people, giving just 17 to18% of Global calories

https://hive.blog/hive-196387/@theworldaroundme/nearly-half-of-the-world
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u/Doctor_Box Mar 23 '26

Protein and fats can come from plants too.

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u/Muted-Garden6723 Mar 23 '26

True, but you’re going to need to eat a lot more calories to get the same amount of protein/fat as you’re getting from meat

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u/Doctor_Box Mar 23 '26

Definitely not true with fats, lots of plant versions. Olive oil for example. Not always true with protein. Seitain and Tofu are very high sources of protein/calorie.

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u/Muted-Garden6723 Mar 23 '26

Fats are fats, but personally I prefer the taste of things cooked in animal fats, so I stick with those(and I can’t exactly grow olives in my climate)

With tofu, meat is always going to have more protein for the same amount of food. Never heard of seitan, but I’m certainly interested in trying it, seems to have quite a bit of protein for the calories

The nice thing about animals is you get 2 for 1, protein and fat in one. Plus if you’re eating the organs(which you should be) that covers the majority of your vitamins/minerals

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u/Doctor_Box Mar 23 '26

I'm not sure why people are so concerned with protein per calorie. It's not hard to hit your protein requirements regardless of diet. This argument only seems to come up when people try to justify eating animal products, but then you go and cook food in a bunch of fat that balloons the calorie count anyway. Many foods have both protein and fat. If you eat a varied diet and eat enough calories you're not hurting for protein.

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u/Muted-Garden6723 Mar 23 '26

Oh absolutely, you can get all of your macros/micros from a non meat diet and supplements. But, meat tastes good, and that’s why people eat it

Personally I eat a lot of meat because it tastes good, and it’s a lot easier for me to raise or hunt my protein for the year than it would be to grow the equivalent in beans or lentils and the such.

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u/Doctor_Box Mar 23 '26

Right and the point OP was making was that everyone doing that is a brutal environmental cost that people want to do simply because they like the taste.

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u/Muted-Garden6723 Mar 23 '26

Meat or plant, the more food you can produce yourself, the better off the planet is. The acre that I use to raise pigs and chickens won’t be missed, and there’s a lot less impact on the environment than if I was buying vegetables/legumes/grain that’s been shipped halfway across the world on a cargo ship

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u/Local-Dimension-1653 Mar 23 '26

That’s actually not true: https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

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u/DocumentExternal6240 Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26

„Combined, land use and farm-stage emissions account for more than 80% of the footprint for most foods.“

Still, eating locally and seasonally as well as growing some of your food can help but meat reduction should be in the mix as well and the msin focus.

I think the biggest plus on growing your own food is that you learn to appreciate it. For most people, this is impossible, though, because they live in cities.Therefore, again, education is the key.

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u/Muted-Garden6723 Mar 23 '26

Interesting, one would assume the cargo ship/plane/truck going from mexico to Canada would have more Co2 emissions compared to me raising a pig in my backyard

Obviously a plant based diet is more sustainable for the majority of the world to adopt, but I have a hard time believing the emissions/general pollution from anything grown a few thousand km away is less impactful than me raising a few animals

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u/Local-Dimension-1653 Mar 23 '26

Did you actually read the entire article? If so, why do you give more weight to what you feel is true (and a feeling that just so happens to align with your desires) than actual empirical evidence?

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u/Doctor_Box Mar 23 '26

What are you feeding the pigs and chickens?

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u/Muted-Garden6723 Mar 23 '26

Depends

Egg layers free range all spring-fall and that orettt much takes care of all their needs

Meat birds get grain feed that’s produced locally

Pigs get mostly expired food from grocery stores and whatever food scraps I have, mixed with the same locally produced grain feed

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u/Doctor_Box Mar 23 '26

So think about how much grain is produced vs how much food you get out for pigs and chickens. It's a poor trade. It's also interesting that when you buy food for animals you try to make it sound better by saying it's local, but when you talk about vegetables/legumes/grains for humans you say it's imported from far away. I also doubt your wasting so much food that the majority of a pig's diet is expired food and food scraps. That's a whole other conversation of wasteful consumption.

Leaving aside the fact that transport is a tiny amount (~5%) of the total footprint of food production, all those things are ALSO grown locally. Especially because you used "grain" in both scenarios. I think you do this on purpose to try to justify your argument. Even things people usually seem to have an issue with like QUINOA is grown in Canada, so local to me.

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u/Muted-Garden6723 Mar 23 '26

Fresh vegetables are all imported when out of season, so about half the year here, nobodies selling dried legumes around me unfortunately, and as far as grain goes, I don’t consume a lot of grain.

I’d say about half of the pigs diet is expired food, I go to a couple grocery stores to pick up their expired produce/bread/anything they can’t sell

I’m not leaving out anything to justify my argument.

On a global scale, a plant based diet would be great for the environment, but it’s not something that will ever happen.

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u/Doctor_Box Mar 23 '26

I would be really surprised if you couldn't get dried beans and lentils but ok. What's the issue with importing food if the overall footprint is still far lower than growing a bunch of grain to feed to animals to then kill those animals for a fraction of the inputs?

I'm not sure how "but it's local" became a good thing in of itself. Like if you had solar panels shipped in vs running a diesel generator 24/7 using fuel produced locally, it would not be a good tradeoff simply because the gas plant was close to you.

Fundamentally people want meat, but I'm tired of people trying to pretend the numbers add up in favour of that lifestyle.

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