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Author Topic: Veganism and Vegetarianism Thread  (Read 14078 times)

wierd

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Re: Veganism and Vegetarianism Thread
« Reply #75 on: July 12, 2020, 06:25:53 pm »

Retroactively you say?  Perhaps my attestations of your being specious have some weight after all, considering I have never once been in support of feedlots?

To that end, I challenge you to go back and find where I have said different. You can easily see any dates and times on edits, and see they have not been recently modded for retroactive effect.


Go on. Find one. 



What *I* can find, however, is where you have denied that grasslands get destroyed to make the extra production.  REPEATELY.

Here, I will cite them for you.

Quote
Whatever this is:

To satisfy their argument, that land has to be repurposed; EG, that grass has to be exterminated and planted to rice, potatoes and such.


But fails to acknowledge that you cannot grow potatoes on marginal land, but you CAN grow grass on it (and thus cattle.) 

-- nobody is arguing. It's misplaced outrage at nothing.

Quote
Edit:
Should people eat less meat? Absolutely.
Should all the land used for cattle farming be used for soybeans? FUCK NO--  I think I just illustrated why that would be a terrible idea.

Here it is concisely; the "fallacy" you're talking about is a misunderstanding about the land use argument. Saying that the "grow food for people instead" argument (such that it is) is false because marginal land can't be used for intensive agriculture is a strawman on your part, because again, the environmentalist argument is about the non-marginal land use, not about converting ranches to farms.


As for this:

Quote
Please, please tell me how this increase in crop demand is due to people eating less meat, and not exactly the opposite.

that was never the statement made.  The argument I tendered, is more like this.

The "land use" studies, do not properly delineate between marginal and non-marginal properties. (this is likely because "Marginalness" has to do with economics, and it changes yearly, based on economic pressures.) As such, they incorrectly conflate marginal grazelands with highly productive grain fields, and then present models that spit out data based on this conflation. I point out this conflation.

You insist that this conflation does not exist.  Insist that the argument is exclusively about arable land, despite being shown otherwise multiple ways. You present a Vox article as proof.

I Go through your Vox article's sources, and read the abstracts. Sure enough, no mention of marginal status is cited in any of them (at least as concerns the "Can increase yeild 70%" claim, which the rest of the paper is predicated on). Just general land use, and water+fertilizer use is treated as uniformly fungible. (which it is NOT-- that is the very reason why marginal is a thing. It costs more of those things to crop on land as it becomes more and more marginal.)

You get angry and storm off.

Then you come back, and try the highroad, with asserting that corn utilization figures are diverging sharply between feed use and food use.

I do not question this at all.  I point out that there is no REDUCTION in trend for food use, and no INCREASE in trend for import, to account for the increase trend in feed use.
Point to Science article, which corroborates my attestation:  Previously marginal land, was repurposed as crop land, at increased costs, to meet the extra demand.

I reiterate that grass pasturage protects diversity, and that the only way to satisfy the argument about land use, is to destroy the grass:

1) Right now, as it currently stands, there is a multiple billion dollar industry keeping corn and soybeans off prairie habitats.  That industry is cattle.
1a) Cattle serve an important and difficult/costly to replace role in the maintenance of those habitats. The habitats NEED the cattle.
2) If you shutdown cattle (completely), that industry dries up. There is suddenly economic value in destroying the prairies.
2a) To wit, Science points out how this happened in the corn belt during the 2013 year. (and based on the data you generously provided, it appears that trend has continued apace.)
2b) I pointed this out long prior, and it was ignored. I suggested banning feedlots, and insisting on 100% graze feeding, fully acknowledging that this will cause demand for cattle to skyrocket, greatly increasing the economic value of cattle on the prairies, making the opportunity costs to replace them with corn or soy greatly prohibitive. I point out that abolition of feedlots would make feed-use of corn dry up, by destroying demand for the product.


Your counter-argument, is that cattle feedlot use drives up corn demand.  I acknowledge this, and reiterate that feedlots should be banned, for a wide number of reasons. You ignore this, and pretend that I am a feedlot champion or something. (Nevermind that point 2b was made HOURS before your counter-argument, which really does not counter anything I argued. )

You then get mad again, and insist that I am retroactively changing my position.

This is untrue.



Rather than try to pretend I am in some ideological niche that I do not actually occupy, or insist that my arguments are just pointless shrieking, perhaps it would be more profitable to ask for clarifications on things you find dubious, or that you think do not follow, rather than simply assume you are right, and then get shut down repeatedly.



« Last Edit: July 12, 2020, 07:10:43 pm by wierd »
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Rolan7

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Re: Veganism and Vegetarianism Thread
« Reply #76 on: July 12, 2020, 07:17:34 pm »

There's a lot of good information to read here (a lot for me right now) and I still don't think there's much fundamental disagreement, so uh, I'm going to put the thread back to sleep for a few days to cool down.  I don't think there should be hard feelings here, IMHO, things have been a little hard to follow at times.
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Rolan7

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Re: Veganism and Vegetarianism Thread
« Reply #77 on: July 27, 2020, 10:52:05 am »

And we're back!  I don't have anything in particular to say, just remembered it'd been locked for a while.  There are so many aspects of veganism to discuss that I don't think I need to suggest one.  (But then I started rambling about food, so here we go)

I will say that is interesting to me what foods I miss when I go without them.  I love pork chops but I never crave them, just enjoy them when my dad makes them.  Whereas I begin craving cheese after about a week.  That's so arbitrary, though - so many people have historically lacked dairy products, or are even lactose intolerant.  So my cheese craving is presumably learned.  Nutritionally, I'm probably getting plenty of calcium and vitamin D from fish.  Apparently mushrooms help with D also (...hehe, easy to remember).

I do have a habit of getting chicken nuggets when I'm stressed, though jalapeno fries work just as well.  Agh, and spicy potato wraps.  It's the comforting taste of fried food I'm really after, without all the inconvenience of doing it myself.  Chicken nuggets also have a crunch factor, but that's what pickle chips are for.  And hushpuppies!

That's all "I'm driving stressed so I get some fast food", though, which is inherently dangerous these days anyway.  I can make cheesy jalapeno fries in 5 minutes from frozen, and take them with me.  Or grab a bag of crisps... or more ecological and nutritious, a baggie of trail mix.  Chocolate and nuts go great together, plus some oatmeal to pace the eating and fill my stomach.  Such crunch factor.  Ooh I have a toaster now, I could make toast and put margarine on it!  Crunchy, greasy and convenient.

What I really need is a replacement for alcohol.  Sipping hot sauce literally helps, or more generally diet ginger ale.  Stuff that burns.  That's the craving *I'm* struggling with.  Which is no more or less valid than wanting a steak - I totally crave cheese too, equally arbitrarily, so I get it.  Habits are hard to unlearn, particularly ones we associate with reducing stress.

Anyway, yeah - I should probably clarify the OP at some point, but this doesn't have to be all ethics or economics.  Just talking about vegetarian/vegan options is cool too
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Quote from: Fallen London, one Unthinkable Hope
This one didn't want to be who they was. On the Surface – it was a dull, unconsidered sadness. But everything changed. Which implied everything could change.

Reelya

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Re: Veganism and Vegetarianism Thread
« Reply #78 on: July 27, 2020, 11:29:15 am »

That's all "I'm driving stressed so I get some fast food", though, which is inherently dangerous these days anyway.  I can make cheesy jalapeno fries in 5 minutes from frozen, and take them with me.  Or grab a bag of crisps... or more ecological and nutritious, a baggie of trail mix.

I get the nutritious part but I'd seriously contest the "ecological" claim about trail mix vs chips. They don't actually collect that stuff off the side of trails. Nuts are some of the most water-intensive crops that exist. Expensive nuts cost more because that does in fact reflect that more resources were needed for their production, and there is competition for those resources. So overall you could just guess that the environmental impact of almonds or cashews is in fact higher than that for peanuts. Eating the diverse baggy of trail mix just "feels" more green but that's as illusory (green marketing) as tucking into a lettuce and thinking you're doing good for the environment by not eating chips instead.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2020, 11:35:06 am by Reelya »
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Rolan7

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Re: Veganism and Vegetarianism Thread
« Reply #79 on: July 27, 2020, 11:39:47 am »

Oh absolutely, and I had second thoughts about that wording but I had a ramble going.  I was referring to the ecological impact of small pre-wrapped bags of crisps, compared to making trail mix in reusable baggies.  Granola mixes and such aren't necessarily lower-impact than potatoes and vinegar, heh. 

Thanks for the details!  I'm fine with peanuts personally, cashews are nice and all but kinda wasted in a variety bag.  I barely even considered buying pre-made trail mix, but that's my bias because my mom always made it for us.  And it's so easy compared to cooking that I see no need to pay for the convenience, rather than choosing my own blend.  I could throw in some roasted soybeans, for example~
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She/they
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Quote from: Fallen London, one Unthinkable Hope
This one didn't want to be who they was. On the Surface – it was a dull, unconsidered sadness. But everything changed. Which implied everything could change.

Reelya

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Re: Veganism and Vegetarianism Thread
« Reply #80 on: July 27, 2020, 11:48:39 am »

For note, i was going to link this but didn't want to bloat the thing, but the most water-intensive nuts use orders of magnitude more water than peanuts. The main reason is that the edible part of peanuts grow underground rather than on trees. So those and potatoes are comparable in water efficiency. For an actually environmentally friendly mix you'd want peanuts and seeds rather than other nuts.

https://88acres.com/blogs/news/water-footprint-of-seeds-vs-nuts

Pistachios here for example: 1092 gallons of water used per pound of nuts. Peanuts: 59 gallons.

wierd

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Re: Veganism and Vegetarianism Thread
« Reply #81 on: July 27, 2020, 12:04:44 pm »

46gal for sunflower seeds. (Most of it during germination)
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Rolan7

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Re: Veganism and Vegetarianism Thread
« Reply #82 on: July 27, 2020, 12:17:15 pm »

Which is amazing, because I already love sunflower seeds!  So much that buying them unshelled almost feels like cheating.  They're available at gas stations for that "stressed out on the road" use case, too, along with pickle chips and cold drinks.  If I failed to plan ahead.
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Quote from: Fallen London, one Unthinkable Hope
This one didn't want to be who they was. On the Surface – it was a dull, unconsidered sadness. But everything changed. Which implied everything could change.

scriver

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Re: Veganism and Vegetarianism Thread
« Reply #83 on: July 27, 2020, 02:22:11 pm »

...I must be informed, what's not vegan about alkohol?
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Rolan7

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Re: Veganism and Vegetarianism Thread
« Reply #84 on: July 27, 2020, 02:28:39 pm »

It harms an arguably sentient animal (me) /s
Sorry, I know it was a weird thing to throw in, but I'm struggling with an alcohol abuse problem.  I'm not about to start preaching prohibition, I'm just fighting a habit.
(Like acquired cravings for certain foods)
« Last Edit: July 27, 2020, 02:31:30 pm by Rolan7 »
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She/they
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Quote from: Fallen London, one Unthinkable Hope
This one didn't want to be who they was. On the Surface – it was a dull, unconsidered sadness. But everything changed. Which implied everything could change.

scriver

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Re: Veganism and Vegetarianism Thread
« Reply #85 on: July 27, 2020, 04:06:06 pm »

Ah, I understand. I guess I read the post sloppily, I thought the acohol part was about your troubles with finding vegan alcohol

I am a dumbud
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martinuzz

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Re: Veganism and Vegetarianism Thread
« Reply #86 on: July 27, 2020, 05:55:59 pm »

I was a vegetarian for 7 years, but had to give up on it because nuts and fruits are just so damn expensive compared to subsidized meats.
If I weren't living off social minimum disability pay, I would be a vegetarian again, but as for now I can't afford it.
Vegetarianism /veganism is a nice hobby for the rich.

EDIT: note, I am still a flexitarian. I try to minimize eating meat when I can afford to do so.  Can be hard in a world where 1kg of chicken costs the same as 150 grams of cashew nuts.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2020, 06:07:49 pm by martinuzz »
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delphonso

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Re: Veganism and Vegetarianism Thread
« Reply #87 on: July 27, 2020, 06:26:17 pm »

...I must be informed, what's not vegan about alkohol?

For the record, some bottles use bee's wax and there's some other alcohol that is filtered through animal intestine or something making them not vegan. I could look ot up, but its exceptionally rare.

scriver

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Re: Veganism and Vegetarianism Thread
« Reply #88 on: July 28, 2020, 03:46:22 am »

Cashew nuts aren't exactly the best of nuts, economically or ecologucally, though, even if they are the tastiest nut of all. They get like one nut per square acre of tree per year. It really is a super luxury kind of goods.

I refuse to use the ridiculous term "flexitarian" for myself. I'm just a guy who eats a lot of plants. Just like our ancestors did for thousands of years before the post-WWII economy boom made everyone in the West ridiculously rich. I'm too much if a hipster for these jippo trend words.


...I must be informed, what's not vegan about alkohol?

For the record, some bottles use bee's wax and there's some other alcohol that is filtered through animal intestine or something making them not vegan. I could look ot up, but its exceptionally rare.

That might be true. Didn't think of that.

Some alcohols are also made with fruit that's been worked by slave bees. I wonder if that counts.
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martinuzz

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Re: Veganism and Vegetarianism Thread
« Reply #89 on: July 28, 2020, 07:26:27 am »

I just used cashew nuts as a random example.  Almost all nuts are that expensive over here.  Probably has to do with the fact that we don't grow nuts over here and they have to be imported from halfway across the globe.
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Friendly and polite reminder for optimists: Hope is a finite resource

We can ­disagree and still love each other, ­unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist - James Baldwin

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=73719.msg1830479#msg1830479
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