Bye bye MEAT! How will the post-meat future look?

[butcher]

You can fluster around all you like, but it would appear that there is a downward trend in eating meat - at least in the UK and US - add that's a good thing, right?

Britons cut meat-eating by 17%, but must double that to hit target

People have been advised to reduce consumption by 30% for health and environmental reasons

www.theguardian.com

Nearly One in Four in U.S. Have Cut Back on Eating Meat

Nearly one in four Americans (23%) report eating less meat in the past year than they have previously, with the highest rates of reported meat consumption reduction among women, nonwhites and Democrats.

news.gallup.com

Trends in UK meat consumption: analysis of data from years 1–11 (2008–09 to 2018–19) of the National Diet and Nutrition Survey rolling programme

Despite the overall reduction in meat intake, reaching meat-consumption targets that align with sustainable diets will require a substantial acceleration of this trend.

www.thelancet.com

A 15-year snapshot of US diets reveals a gradual shift away from beef

US citizens are eating less animal-based products—and that's driven a 35% decrease in dietary carbon emissions over 15 years.

www.anthropocenemagazine.org

As I have frequently said, in fact ad nauseam to us both, I don't oppose people eating less but better produced meat, in fact that is my business model.

Still quoting the Guardian as a reliable source I see.......
ETA nice little dig with the fluster bit, stop it or I may flounce too

 

[editor]

As I have frequently said, in fact ad nauseam to us both, I don't oppose people eating less but better produced meat, in fact that is my business model.

Still quoting the Guardian as a reliable source I see.......
ETA nice little dig with the fluster bit, stop it or I may flounce too

This is getting tiresome. You're ignoring 75% of the links I posted just to repeat your unfounded allegation that anything posted in the Guardian is biased and unreliable. If you're going to keep repeating it as a means to discount anything you don't like reading, can you back this claim up now please/

And your small business model is a niche one that is frankly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. The vast majority of people will continue to eat factory farmed slop because that's all they can afford, or they simply don't care about the horrendous trail of blood that gets their bucket full of cheap chicken parts.

 

[Funky_monks]

Yes, its referenced, but, as a science man, I'm sure you know that the peer review process is more rigorous for an article than a letter?

Your complaint that you've posted meta analyses that have been ignored because they're by "the wrong scientists", is ironic, because that's literally what you just did. In response to the meta-analysis posted by CNT36 you post a letter responding to an entirely different study!

It's just hilarious that you think of yourself as some impartial expert on these matters. You're not. You're in the mud with the rest of us, as biased, as partisan, as selective with facts and data.

And, given that you were moaning about accusations of 'shill' scientists, maybe sharing a letter written by employees of the meat industry wasn't the best move?

The letter has supporting references. Lordy.

Even the response to the letter acknowledges that it has a point and the science will be reviewed for 2020

 

[Jeff Robinson]

The letter has supporting references. Lordy.

Even the response to the letter acknowledges that it has a point and the science will be reviewed for 2020

I know, I already agreed it had references. Bizarre response. The meta-analysis the letter is responding to isn't the one another user posted up here. That you posted it just shows you're engaging in the same cherry picking you're disavowing others for.

 

[DaphneM]

I know, I already agreed it had references. Bizarre response. The meta-analysis the letter is responding to isn't the one another user posted up here. That you posted it just shows you're engaging in the same cherry picking you're disavowing others for.

Disavow does not mean what you think it does

to say that you know nothing about something, or that you have no responsibility for or connection with something:
They were quick to disavow the rumour.
She tried to disavow her past.

 

[Funky_monks]

I know, I already agreed it had references. Bizarre response. The meta-analysis the letter is responding to isn't the one another user posted up here. That you posted it just shows you're engaging in the same cherry picking you're disavowing others for.

I didn't say it was, but it is on the same topic, no?

And no, it doesn't show that at all - I've posted up hundreds of references on her and attempted to discuss animal agriculture critically, highlighting ways I think that it needs to change to become less reliant on petrochemical fert and how soil building will be key.

You haven't - there have been a handful of references quoted over and over with sweeping subject changes whenever it looked like any degree of complexity was creeping into what is quite a complex topic, and then the whole thread has been punctuated with the wholesale dumping of (often the same and/or from the same source) articles from the lay press along with some truly bizarre assertions like "plants don't need nutrients because dinosaurs".

Back along I looked at all the lay press stuff that had been posted and found four or five papers the whole lot relied on, because it seemed quite interesting to me that a "consensus" could be manufactured by repeated articles sourced from (mostly) Poore and Nemecek, 2018.

Clearly, this is not just of concern to me, but the scientific community - the Dublin Declaration of scientists now has 575 signatories, and given the size of the scientific community, this is pretty significant .Home

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yes, its referenced, but, as a science man, I'm sure you know that the peer review process is more rigorous for an article than a letter?

You clearly didn't read the authors' reply to the letter, which I linked to. They have admitted that they made errors and say that their next publication will correct those errors with a likely correction downwards of red-meat-linked mortality. It means that GBD 2019, which produced startling results completely different from previous findings, is probably wrong (being so wildly different should be a red flag, after all), and we should wait for GBD 2020 before drawing any conclusions. That's not just some non-peer-reviewed letter. It's what the authors of GBD 2019 themselves say.

 

[butcher]

This is getting tiresome. You're ignoring 75% of the links I posted just to repeat your unfounded allegation that anything posted in the Guardian is biased and unreliable. If you're going to keep repeating it as a means to discount anything you don't like reading, can you back this claim up now please/

And your small business model is a niche one that is frankly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. The vast majority of people will continue to eat factory farmed slop because that's all they can afford, or they simply don't care about the horrendous trail of blood that gets their bucket full of cheap chicken parts.

Ignored by agreeing that people should eat less meat, I see............

"If you're going to keep repeating it as a means to discount anything you don't like reading" I know such behaviour is alien to you so will try to curb it.

BTW the growth in the independent meat industry is in 'niche businesses' like mine but do tell me more of the grand scheme of things and my place in it, I do so love being patronised ........and please explain why I shouldn't serve all those ordinary working people who use my business as they prefer less better sourced meat.....you obviously have a firm grasp of the area I work in the diverse demographic I serve.

 

[friedaweed]

And your small business model is a niche one that is frankly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

On the contrary, if his "niche business model" returned to actually be the "grand scheme of things" which it was, you know, the way that whole thing used to be before the marketisation of it by big capital and the supermarkets including everything else like bread, cheese, veg, it would be a much healthier place for animals and humans alike. You can't knock him for trying to continue his traditional trade against those factors in a world where people are still going to continue to eat meat. At least he's presenting an alternative to meat eaters who want to continue eating meat with some conscience about where that meat comes from.

In my opinion you'd be better getting behind that sort of commerce than wasting your energy on living on the pipe-dream that some day soon we'll all live on a vegetarian planet chief, it's not going to happen. Not in our lifetime, not in the next.

Promoting the concept of eat less, buy better, from healthier sources who's origins are exposed to better animal husbandry and in turn makes for a better countryside economy seems a lot better than banging on "Stop eating meat, It's killing the planet" to me as a method of reduction in the harm that's being done. I also don't think that it's purely a thing of economics it's much more to do with educating people about the same things that you're rightly fucked off about in animal welfare.

Putting the money back in local farming communities, ensuring people like Welsh Hill farmers can make a living out of their natural heritage (Something I often think is overlooked in this debate) , cutting out the supermarkets and enabling a return of independent traders on our high streets is much more of a realistic goal than thinking everyone is going to go veggie anytime this century.

It's the same with fish but at least with a rod you have a choice with what you put in the pan.

 

[editor]

On the contrary, if his "niche business model" returned to actually be the "grand scheme of things" which it was, you know, the way that whole thing used to be before the marketisation of it by big capital and the supermarkets including everything else like bread, cheese, veg, it would be a much healthier place for animals and humans alike. You can't knock him for trying to continue his traditional trade against those factors in a world where people are still going to continue to eat meat. At least he's presenting an alternative to meat eaters who want to continue eating meat with some conscience about where that meat comes from.

In my opinion you'd be better getting behind that sort of commerce than wasting your energy on living on the pipe-dream that some day soon we'll all live on a vegetarian planet chief, it's not going to happen. Not in our lifetime, not in the next.

Promoting the concept of eat less, buy better, from healthier sources who's origins are exposed to better animal husbandry and in turn makes for a better countryside economy seems a lot better than banging on "Stop eating meat, It's killing the planet" to me as a method of reduction in the harm that's being done. I also don't think that it's purely a thing of economics it's much more to do with educating people about the same things that you're rightly fucked off about in animal welfare.

Putting the money back in local farming communities, ensuring people like Welsh Hill farmers can make a living out of their natural heritage (Something I often think is overlooked in this debate) , cutting out the supermarkets and enabling a return of independent traders on our high streets is much more of a realistic goal than thinking everyone is going to go veggie anytime this century.

It's the same with fish but at least with a rod you have a choice with what you put in the pan.

If you want to hear a real pipdream, expecting a near-future where the vast majority of meat is produced by 'people like Welsh Hill farmers' is really the stuff of dreamers.

Most of the dead animal people shove in their faces comes from ghastly factory farms which are increasing every fucking year. Some small business selling 'nice' meat is nothing but a drop in a deep, bloody ocean.

 

[butcher]

If you want to hear a real pipdream, expecting a near-future where the vast majority of meat is produced by 'people like Welsh Hill farmers' is really the stuff of dreamers.

Most of the dead animal people shove in their faces comes from ghastly factory farms which are increasing every fucking year. Some small business selling 'nice' meat is nothing but a drop in a deep, bloody ocean.

Have you always been a townie Ed? ie lived in Cities/Towns not in villages. Not my business at all just curious. I am trying to understand your position as I hope you might try to appreciate mine.

I ask because friedaweed explained my general feeling about my choice (and it was a choice) of living far more eloquently than I would have if asked.

It reminded me that part of why I have my business is due to a deep connection with the soil I still feel although I now live in a city (and spent 5+ years in the East end and Kilburn), I put this partly down to a rural childhood and teen age life. It is also exactly what friedaweed touched on when speaking of the heritage aspect of traditional farming/meat production.

 

[Funky_monks]

Average sheep flock size in UK : 450
Average cattle herd size in the UK: 145


There's a world of difference between intensive pig and poultry production and ruminant livestock production on the whole.

It's highly likely if you buy lamb, it's been grazed outdoors for most, if not all of its life, beef may have been finished indoors and cows often come in for the winter (too much rain here mostly, the cattle would be standing in mud).

 

[Funky_monks]

Have you always been a townie Ed? ie lived in Cities/Towns not in villages. Not my business at all just curious. I am trying to understand your position as I hope you might try to appreciate mine.

I ask because friedaweed explained my general feeling about my choice (and it was a choice) of living far more eloquently than I would have if asked.

It reminded me that part of why I have my business is due to a deep connection with the soil I still feel although I now live in a city (and spent 5+ years in the East end and Kilburn), I put this partly down to a rural childhood and teen age life. It is also exactly what friedaweed touched on when speaking of the heritage aspect of traditional farming/meat production.

Interestingly (or not): I'm originally from Salford (Gt Manchester) but my mum's friend married a cumbrian farmer so we used to go up there a lot as kids. Didn't move to the countryside until my dad took a job down south when I was 10. Hung about on mate's farms a lot.

Think I'm still (was) the only shepherd in the family....

 

[Jeff Robinson]

You clearly didn't read the authors' reply to the letter, which I linked to. They have admitted that they made errors and say that their next publication will correct those errors with a likely correction downwards of red-meat-linked mortality. It means that GBD 2019, which produced startling results completely different from previous findings, is probably wrong (being so wildly different should be a red flag, after all), and we should wait for GBD 2020 before drawing any conclusions. That's not just some non-peer-reviewed letter. It's what the authors of GBD 2019 themselves say.

I'd have been more impressed if FM had just quoted the authors (partial) retraction of their findings. But even then, so what? It was FM that bought the study to the thread in first place - nobody else cited it! The paper he was responding to (and ignored) was published more recently and had more modest findings:

This comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis study showed that high red meat intake was positively associated with risk of breast cancer, endometrial cancer, colorectal cancer, colon cancer, rectal cancer, lung cancer, and hepatocellular carcinoma, and high processed meat intake was positively associated with risk of breast, colorectal, colon, rectal, and lung cancers. Higher risk of colorectal, colon, rectal, lung, and renal cell cancers were also observed with high total red and processed meat consumption.

 

[WouldBe]

Average sheep flock size in UK : 450
Average cattle herd size in the UK: 145

Omg mega farming.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Average sheep flock size in UK : 450
Average cattle herd size in the UK: 145


There's a world of difference between intensive pig and poultry production and ruminant livestock production on the whole.

It's highly likely if you buy lamb, it's been grazed outdoors for most, if not all of its life, beef may have been finished indoors and cows often come in for the winter (too much rain here mostly, the cattle would be standing in mud).

It is also the case that in the parts of the world in which dairy farming has been growing most rapidly, such as India and Pakistan, most of that dairy farming is done by smallholders. They're a world away from industrialised farming. Any serious look at how farming might be changed needs to include those stakeholders front and centre. If it doesn't, it's worthless.

 

[friedaweed]

If you want to hear a real pipdream, expecting a near-future where the vast majority of meat is produced by 'people like Welsh Hill farmers' is really the stuff of dreamers.

Most of the dead animal people shove in their faces comes from ghastly factory farms which are increasing every fucking year. Some small business selling 'nice' meat is nothing but a drop in a deep, bloody ocean.

I used the example of North Wales Hill farmers because I remember only too well the number of them who were taking their own lives because they couldn't make a living out of the thing they had done for generations when the supermarkets flexed their grip. There has been a recovery in that aspect of farming and there is more than one butcher doing what butcher Is doing.

local butchers selling locally reared quality meat is not a niche drop in the ocean its much more widespread than that. Not all meat comes out of a factory but if that's the thing that gets your goat then what I've put to you is an alternative to factory farming worth getting behind. Educating people away from factory farmed meat is more likely to change things for the better than waiting for everyone to have some sort of vegetarian epiphany.

A return to better practices for the benefit of rural communities and the economy as a whole. Better self sufficiency, less transportation, more local jobs, better meat.

Its more likely to work than ranting 'Dead animal' hoping that it will put people off meat and on to tofu.

 

[Funky_monks]

I used the example of North Wales Hill farmers because I remember only too well the number of them who were taking their own lives because they couldn't make a living out of the thing they had done for generations when the supermarkets flexed their grip. There has been a recovery in that aspect of farming and there is more than one butcher doing what butcher Is doing.

Farming generally has one of the highest suicide rates out of any industry in the UK.

Sadly, this is often misrepresented by the vegan cultists as mental damage from rearing livestock who go to slaughter, when if you read any research around this, this is not the case.

 

[Karl Masks]

This is getting tiresome. You're ignoring 75% of the links I posted just to repeat your unfounded allegation that anything posted in the Guardian is biased and unreliable.

I think you need to find a greater plurality of links because most of the time you're just posting the same link multiple times. Case in point, the study that was just being discussed

 

[editor]

I used the example of North Wales Hill farmers because I remember only too well the number of them who were taking their own lives because they couldn't make a living out of the thing they had done for generations when the supermarkets flexed their grip. There has been a recovery in that aspect of farming and there is more than one butcher doing what butcher Is doing.

local butchers selling locally reared quality meat is not a niche drop in the ocean its much more widespread than that. Not all meat comes out of a factory but if that's the thing that gets your goat then what I've put to you is an alternative to factory farming worth getting behind. Educating people away from factory farmed meat is more likely to change things for the better than waiting for everyone to have some sort of vegetarian epiphany.

A return to better practices for the benefit of rural communities and the economy as a whole. Better self sufficiency, less transportation, more local jobs, better meat.

Its more likely to work than ranting 'Dead animal' hoping that it will put people off meat and on to tofu.

Ah, so it's all about 'educating people' not to buy the affordable factory farmed slop that's served up in fast food restaurants across the land but to somehow find more money to buy flesh from animals that have been slaughtered in nicer conditions.

 

[editor]

It is also the case that in the parts of the world in which dairy farming has been growing most rapidly, such as India and Pakistan, most of that dairy farming is done by smallholders. They're a world away from industrialised farming. Any serious look at how farming might be changed needs to include those stakeholders front and centre. If it doesn't, it's worthless.

Oh right. So carry on filling your face with factory farmed, cruelly-soaked meat because dairy farming in Pakistan

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Oh right. So carry on filling your face with factory farmed, cruelly-soaked meat because dairy farming in Pakistan

How the hell did you get that from my post? It's impossible to have a discussion with you on this subject.

You post up link after link giving worldwide figures, but the world is a big place and worldwide figures cover a wide range of areas, people and situations. Anyone who quotes worldwide ruminant emissions figures and says they need to be reduced needs to grapple with the fact that dairy farming in places like the Indian subcontinent has expanded a fair bit in recent years. Any solution that doesn't include those farmers - not as people to be talked at but as people to be talked to - is worthless. The likes of Monbiot and his dribblings are worthless.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

How the hell did you get that from my post? It's impossible to have a discussion with you on this subject.

You post up link after link giving worldwide figures, but the world is a big place and worldwide figures cover a wide range of areas, people and situations. Anyone who quotes worldwide ruminant emissions figures and says they need to be reduced needs to grapple with the fact that dairy farming in places like the Indian subcontinent has expanded a fair bit in recent years. Any solution that doesn't include those farmers - not as people to be talked at but as people to be talked to - is worthless. The likes of Monbiot and his dribblings are worthless.

Private car ownership is also rapidly expanding in India. If somebody raised that in a discussion about the need to move away from burning fossil fuels everyone would note it for the bullshit red herring it is.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Private car ownership is also rapidly expanding in India. If somebody raised that in a discussion about the need to move away from burning fossil fuels everyone would note it for the bullshit red herring it is.

It's not a red herring given the various ways that farming is embedded into the cultures of, well, every human society.

The red herring is the idea that global heating is being driven by ruminant farming. It is the extraction of carbon from under the ground, where it has been locked away for millions of years, and adding that into the carbon cycle that is driving global heating. And the responsibility for that rests firmly on the shoulders of the industrialised North.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

It's not a red herring given the various ways that farming is embedded into the cultures of, well, every human society.

The red herring is the idea that global heating is being driven by ruminant farming. It is the extraction of carbon from under the ground, where it has been locked away for millions of years, and adding that into the carbon cycle that is driving global heating. And the responsibility for that rests firmly on the shoulders of the industrialised North.

Cars also exist in every human society (or the vast majority) too. It's a red herring because this is an exchange between mostly British people and everyone understands what's under discussion here is reducing meat consumption in, as you put it, 'the industrialised North'. Nothing we say here matters for people in India.

The burning of fossil fuels for electricity and heat is the leading cause of global GhG emissions, but that doesn't mean there aren't other contributing factors. "Livestock" farming contributes at least 14.5% of global GhG emissions - more than the entire transport sector. But animal farming has devastating environmental impacts far beyond its GhG emissions. We could talk about ammonia emissions, deforestation, land use, land degradation, soil erosion, ocean dead zones, water pollution, water depletion. In all of these areas the evidence is overwhelming that animal agriculture is having the worst impacts of the agricultural sector. That's why the IPCC, the FAO, the UNEP and pretty much every reputable environmental NGO and activist group are emphasising that meat reduction is part of an effective policy of achieving environmental sustainability.

Instead of looking at the totality of evidence, the classic strategy of the meat industry apologists on this thread is to try and nitpick the odd detail of this or that study, to try and sew enough seeds of doubt in their own mind and others about the need to drastically reduce meat production and consumption. It's pretty tedious stuff.

 

[butcher]

Ah, so it's all about 'educating people' not to buy the affordable factory farmed slop that's served up in fast food restaurants across the land but to somehow find more money to buy flesh from animals that have been slaughtered in nicer conditions.

How did you gain your encyclopaedic knowledge of comparative meat prices across different markets and the meat buying habits of different demographics? Unrelated Guardian article perchance?

I have a clue on nut roast and tofu prices but I am sure the hard up are clamouring to buy them, no doubt very affordable.

 

[Funky_monks]

Private car ownership is also rapidly expanding in India. If somebody raised that in a discussion about the need to move away from burning fossil fuels everyone would note it for the bullshit red herring it is.

I think that you honestly think these analogies are quite clever....

You can't eat cars. You won't starve if you don't have access to sufficient motor vehicles. The type and quantity of motor vehicles available to you have little to do with local climate, soil type etc. Cars don't have a role in the ecosystem, nor do they shit out fertiliser. Food and farming (and the culture surrounding it) has been in place for millennia, it's often intrinsically linked to cultural identity and has been for thousands of years before the invention of the internal combustion engine.

Britain is a slightly unusual proposition, insomuch as we had a very early industrial revolution (which removes people from the land) and our food culture, because of that and perhaps advertising postwar seems to have eroded lots of it.
Plenty of cultures not a million miles away really value food - France, Italy etc

 

[editor]

How did you gain your encyclopaedic knowledge of comparative meat prices across different markets and the meat buying habits of different demographics? Unrelated Guardian article perchance?

I have a clue on nut roast and tofu prices but I am sure the hard up are clamouring to buy them, no doubt very affordable.

So you're saying you can match the price of meat produced in factory farms? Please share your secret!

 

[kabbes]

And yet, people still buy his meat.

 

[Funky_monks]

The only meat I can see being difficult to price match (or at least get close) is chicken (possibly pork, given the contraction in supply), especially if a butcher is buying direct from an abattoir/farmer.
Maybe I've missed something butcher ?