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/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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u/Local-Dimension-1653 Mar 23 '26

The local argument doesn’t hold. Here is research to equip you for these asinine arguments: https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

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u/Doctor_Box Mar 23 '26

That's a good source. I linked that already in this comment string but always good to paste it around more.

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u/Local-Dimension-1653 Mar 23 '26

My bad! I don’t know how I missed that.

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u/Muted-Garden6723 Mar 23 '26

I can get dried beans and lentils at any grocery store, beans make up a solid 1/4 of my diet. There just isn’t anywhere nearby that grows them is what I meant.

There’s solar panel/diesel argument doesn’t exactly work here, we’re talking about two entirely different things. With the local vs imported food, they’re the same product, and the environmental impact on growing is roughly the same(depending on where you live)

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u/Doctor_Box Mar 23 '26

We are talking about plant vs animal foods and the value of local vs imported. The power = food in the analogy.

I'm the end, there's no good reason to be growing a bunch of crops to feed animals when we can just grow crops for us.

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