It’s worth noting that in countries like US, it’s really only things like beyond burgers and impossible meat that cost more. It doesn’t require eating those for a plant-based diet nor are people typically eating those every meal, is why plant-based diets generally have lower costs
Compared to meat eaters, results show that “true” vegetarians do indeed report lower food expenditures
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800915301488?via%3Dihub
It found that in high-income countries:
• Vegan diets were the most affordable and reduced food costs by up to one third.
• Vegetarian diets were a close second.
• Flexitarian diets with low amounts of meat and dairy reduced costs by 14%.
• By contrast, pescatarian diets increased costs by up to 2%.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-11-11-sustainable-eating-cheaper-and-healthier-oxford-study
Oh yeah I 100% spend less on food as a vegetarian, because black beans/lentils are such wonderful cheap sources of protein.
But sometimes I want like the premade like meat crumbles or burgers, and those cost more usually.
But do you spend less because you’re vegetarian, or because you don’t have options for spending money at fast food / restaurants?
I mean a pound of beef costs $4.
A pound of raw lentils like a $1.
Lentils are more calorie dense.
Lentils are more protein dense.
Black beans are in similar camp.
Rice and wheat products are cheaper per calorie, but lack the protein.
So yeah, it’s just cheaper to be a vegetarian, even with massive beef subsidiaries. But veggie patties are still more expensive because of processing and they are smaller batches.
Yeah people really don’t believe me when I talk about how much I save by being a low fish pescatarian. A can of beans is cheaper than equivalent beef or chicken as are mushrooms. Peanut butter sandwiches are a cheaper lunch than lunch meat ones. And I’m not hurting for protein because beans are full of the stuff
I realy don’t get why people eat those meat subsidies. They are realy not that good and unhealthy too. Cooking a meal just with vegetables and other stuff can taste realy good, is healthy and cheap at the same time.
Probably because Americans were raised on a super meat heavy diet. Meat burgers. Meat casseroles. Meat sauces. Meat everything. Fake meats make those recipes achievable for vegetarians and vegans who long for mom’s home cooking.
This is only a recent thing historically. Government subsidies and lobbying from the meat industry, not to mention letting agricultural corporations create our food pyramid, got us to where we are today.
We have been led into an unhealthy lifestyle for the profit of a handful of billionaires.
Take a look at places where people live above 100 yrs regularly. They aren’t shoveling beef down there throats like Americans are. And we die 20 to 30 years earlier on average
You want the real reason in a thread jerking off vegetarianism? Here goes:
- Meat tastes great.
- It gives me a sense of fullness that plants rarely do (except beans).
- It’s a better protein source.
- The iron, B12, etc. in it are more easily absorbed.
- Every brand of fake meat I’ve tried tastes terrible.
- It makes me feel the best mentally compared to eating other foods.
Why is it that countries that don’t eat red meat as much as Americans live far longer than we do?
Okinawans live well past 100, and are doing physical activity into their 90s. Americans are falling apart by the time they turn 60, dead before they hit 80.
I hope the flavor is worth the colon cancer!
Reminder that farmers can spend something like a dollar per cow per year to allow their cattle to roam through public lands to cause erosion, shit in streams, spread giardia, and give farmers reasons to kill coyotes and wolves.
They surpsingly release most methane through burping, not farting. Even more surprising is that they burp so much methane that it is
Edit: boost isn’t displaying links with custom titles. Here it is: https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/30/us/cow-burps-methane-space-climate-trnd/index.html
The solution to bovine methane emissions is to install a cowalitic converter inside their mufflers. Just like we do with quad udder milk exhaust collectors.
On a serious note i read a while back that they are looking into a type of gut bacteria to give to cows which will significantly reduce the methane produced by the cows digestive system.
This is mostly done in the western U.S. It also takes around 40 acres of land/cow. In drier areas it takes 200 acres per cow.
In an irrigated field, with annual crops, and rotational grazing, we can feed 2-4 cows/acre depending on the location.
We do not need to use 95% of the land we use for pasture.
A 1,200 lb lactating beef animal needs around 3% of it’s body mass every day. So around 35lbs of dry matter forage per day. Works out to around 6.4 tons DM/year.
Under irrigation, In areas without freezing temps, 25tons DM/acre is possible (not easy) or 4 cows. In areas with freezing temps 12-15 tons DM/acre can be accomplished or 2 cows (1 cow if the growing season is short)
10-15" rainfall zone produces around 600lbs DM/acre of which around 50% is available (timing issue) this is around 0.15 tons DM/acre. 6.4 tons DM for one cow is around 43 acres.
In a 5-10" rainfall zone it reduces to under 200lbs DM/acre total. Or 0.05 tons DM/acre or around 128 acres per cow. With that much walking their energy needs increase by as much as 50%. Or around 200 acres/cow.
Guess who grew up on a ranch with BLM grazing ground :-) My grandfather decided going bankrupt was a better than listening to a younger more hotheaded me.
Large heards grazing is necessary for grasslands to thrive.
They till the ground, knock down tall dead plants, graze (but not “browse” the grass), fertilize, and water the grass.
Deer and other fauna do not knock down the grass the way bovine do. We used to have millions of Buffalo. Now we use cattle as a substitute.
If we don’t do that, we have to burn the grassland. Or it dies.
That’s what we used to do in Kansas. It was quite fun. And the government paid us to do it.
Anyways. Here’s some evidence to back up what I’m saying: TED TALK
Here it’s not just that.
The raw resources and production costs of oat milk is like, €0.30 per 2 liter.
They sell it at €2.40.
Healthy is capitalism here.
Oat milk is just oats blended in water. The research is minimal. The marketing is where they put most of their money.
I think there is a huge difference in the thing you are describing and e.g the oatly barista.
There are a lot of oat milks that taste very different or not at all. To get the right taste and consistency, you need some research.
Most retail nut milk is actually mixed with a variety of gums and other texture enhancers.
Fresh, homemade oat milk is actually really easy to make by that process, but store-bought oat milk needs to have consistent flavor and texture/mouth-feel. So there is a bit more that goes into it.
This is also true of other non-dairy milks. That’s why I only use Trader Joe’s or Westsoy shelf-stable soy milk for making yogurt. No gums.
Plus vegans will pay anything in order to imagine themselves as being better than meat eaters.
Never say America can’t afford to feed its people. It can, it just prefers to prop up failing and immoral industry instead.
Corn farmers have entered the chat
Sorry corn farmers, this is about people food. Growing fuel doesn’t really count.
Growing corn that is only usable as animal feed counts as part of how beef industry is being propped up by the government.
So yeah… I think only one or two corn farmers will be left in the chat after that.
They’re all referring to corn subsidies.
If you grow corn with subsidy and then sell that corn as livestock feed to cows, then you’ve indirectly further subsidized beef.
Though… this viewpoint is partly misleading people. Corn stalks and pith which humans can’t eat and need ruminant animals to process is what gets fed to them. We don’t always feed corn kernels to cows en masse, though many farms do. If they can find a buyer for the kernel for other consumption (human, fructose syrup, etc), they will sell it that way as it is more profitable. So even if it wasn’t subsidized and we only produce high priced corn for humans, we’d still feed the stalks and pith to cows.
Correct, but the vast majority of corn subsidies are to grow corn not meant for humans to eat. They are to grow animal feed, or ethanol.
So the first category I count as subsidizing the meat industry, since it exists purely to make raising live stock cheaper. The second category doesn’t really impact food.
