It's a massive pain how difficult it seems to be for people to accept that there are trade-offs, or even things that are bad (or good) in one way but *neutral* in another. If something is bad for the environment, people just *so so so* want it to be bad for their health, or exploiting the global poor, or bad for animal welfare as well, just so the situation is straightforward and they don't have to think too much about what they value.
Sadly the food world is just *full* of nasty compromises. Generally higher animal welfare meat is worse for the climate, for example (mostly due to giving the animals more space) - though not always of course. Often the most environmentally friendly foods are things that require heavy processing like soy, which some people don't like for reasons I don't fully grasp but seems to be a sort of animal-to-machine crossover ick, like they don't want to eat anything that's too divorced from nature. Often things that are good for your health have some awful supply chain issue with slavery or something like that.
The world doesn't just neatly divide into the good things and the bad things! Not always, anyway, and I'd argue not often! You have to actually work out what it is you care about and how much, and then you also have to think *quantitatively* about *how* bad the things that are bad are on the axes on which they are bad, so you can have some hope of making the trade-off, and thinking quantitatively is something so many people just seem to instinctively resist. They don't want to think about *how* bad some food is for the environment, so they can decide if, for example, it's worth the animal welfare costs to switch to it over some more environmentally friendly but lower welfare alternative. They just want to pop a single "bad" label on something and move on, but do that consistently and you'll have nothing left!
Thanks as always for your thoughtful review. I was a nutrition professor for 30 years (now emerita) and I struggle to understand the complicated statistical analyses that are in current use. Here is another example of a study that I cannot comprehend. I never heard of an individual-participant federated meta-analysis. No wonder headlines rely on the conclusions by the author because most of us don't have the skills to interpret this kind of "study." Thanks, for your insights!
Very good to put the lens on this without villification...how does red meat figure into the larger context of an ailing foodscape is the question to be reckoned with
A good piece. However, I disagree with the assertion that red meat "is certainly a bad thing for the planet. I presume you think that because you see carbon dioxide as being a serious problem. Or do you think it's bad for the planet in some other way?
That's one example, but there are many other proven issues with how we farm red meat. I suppose it is true to say that we could farm red meat in a more environmentally friendly way, but that would require a great deal of change to our food system I suspect.
I know you didn't aim this question at me, but I'd point at the land use as the main problem. Yes, cows and whatnot produce methane that is a GHG in its own right and gets oxidised into CO2, the grand-daddy GHG, so there's a direct climate effect. However, imo this is often overstated because of fairly sketchy "equivalent-CO2" calculations for methane. But I the real killer is land use. Cows take up a lot of space, particularly if you want quality meat, and all that pastureland competes with other land uses that can store a lot more carbon or actively remove it. It does matter a lot *where* the cows are reared and what the counterfactual land use was, but one really major margin right now, so something you always have to consider your impact on vs counterfactual even if the specific steak you are eating didn't come from there, is the Amazon. Amazon deforestation for cattle pasture is an absolute climate disaster, and that's the big issue here, at least to my eyes.
So sugar doesn't enter the picture? So, less red meat and more maple bars? Yes, I am being snarky here.
It's a massive pain how difficult it seems to be for people to accept that there are trade-offs, or even things that are bad (or good) in one way but *neutral* in another. If something is bad for the environment, people just *so so so* want it to be bad for their health, or exploiting the global poor, or bad for animal welfare as well, just so the situation is straightforward and they don't have to think too much about what they value.
Sadly the food world is just *full* of nasty compromises. Generally higher animal welfare meat is worse for the climate, for example (mostly due to giving the animals more space) - though not always of course. Often the most environmentally friendly foods are things that require heavy processing like soy, which some people don't like for reasons I don't fully grasp but seems to be a sort of animal-to-machine crossover ick, like they don't want to eat anything that's too divorced from nature. Often things that are good for your health have some awful supply chain issue with slavery or something like that.
The world doesn't just neatly divide into the good things and the bad things! Not always, anyway, and I'd argue not often! You have to actually work out what it is you care about and how much, and then you also have to think *quantitatively* about *how* bad the things that are bad are on the axes on which they are bad, so you can have some hope of making the trade-off, and thinking quantitatively is something so many people just seem to instinctively resist. They don't want to think about *how* bad some food is for the environment, so they can decide if, for example, it's worth the animal welfare costs to switch to it over some more environmentally friendly but lower welfare alternative. They just want to pop a single "bad" label on something and move on, but do that consistently and you'll have nothing left!
Thanks as always for your thoughtful review. I was a nutrition professor for 30 years (now emerita) and I struggle to understand the complicated statistical analyses that are in current use. Here is another example of a study that I cannot comprehend. I never heard of an individual-participant federated meta-analysis. No wonder headlines rely on the conclusions by the author because most of us don't have the skills to interpret this kind of "study." Thanks, for your insights!
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(24)00179-7/fulltext?utm_campaign=RD%20Hub%20%7C%20Lancet%20Study%20on%20Meat%20and%20Diabetes%20%2801J5ZZASQR9P84XQTE231RDHQ5%29&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Go%20Beyond%20RD%20Hub&_kx=lFOXVZ4H0JlwZVJEbZ0EomRvKshQBA9iQ4gL8DGlFWY.S7zcJ7
Very good to put the lens on this without villification...how does red meat figure into the larger context of an ailing foodscape is the question to be reckoned with
A good piece. However, I disagree with the assertion that red meat "is certainly a bad thing for the planet. I presume you think that because you see carbon dioxide as being a serious problem. Or do you think it's bad for the planet in some other way?
That's one example, but there are many other proven issues with how we farm red meat. I suppose it is true to say that we could farm red meat in a more environmentally friendly way, but that would require a great deal of change to our food system I suspect.
It's really more methane than CO2. Yes, they are a major producer.
I know you didn't aim this question at me, but I'd point at the land use as the main problem. Yes, cows and whatnot produce methane that is a GHG in its own right and gets oxidised into CO2, the grand-daddy GHG, so there's a direct climate effect. However, imo this is often overstated because of fairly sketchy "equivalent-CO2" calculations for methane. But I the real killer is land use. Cows take up a lot of space, particularly if you want quality meat, and all that pastureland competes with other land uses that can store a lot more carbon or actively remove it. It does matter a lot *where* the cows are reared and what the counterfactual land use was, but one really major margin right now, so something you always have to consider your impact on vs counterfactual even if the specific steak you are eating didn't come from there, is the Amazon. Amazon deforestation for cattle pasture is an absolute climate disaster, and that's the big issue here, at least to my eyes.