this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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That is why I promote replacing beef, the biggest problem with anything else. It isn't realistic to expect massive amounts of people to make such drastic changes to their diet in any reasonable time frame. We CAN drastically reduce GHG, especially methane from beef production by replacing it with a less harmful alternatives, and from there gradually scale back meat production as a whole.
Another issue is production. There needs to be time for food producers to change what they are producing. It takes time for plants to grow and animals to mature. If we all just ate rice and beans starting tomorrow, does the world even have enough to feed everyone? We can't just eat a bunch of corn like cows do. We would have to get corn farmers to grow something else.
Considering the nutrition and production hurdles, I promote just reducing beef consumption right now. If that ever succeeds, I'll move on to reducing meat consumption in general, giving time for viable alternatives to mature.
Yes. If every human stopped eating beef and meat from sheep, we would need 50% of the agricultural area compared to now. And if everyone became vegan, we would only need about 25-30% of the area. There will never be a food shortage because of plants replacing meat in food.
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Yes, that is true. That isn't what I am talking about.
I am talking about what is currently being produced right now. My gut tells me if everyone literally went vegan tomorrow, there wouldn't be enough food to go around.
Reducing meat consumption does need to happen, but it will realistically take at least a few years, if not a decade to transition food supply chains. At minimum, it will take at least a few growing seasons to transition from animal feed crops to food crops.
Yes, it will definitely take years for such a transition. But since most people will not change their eating behaviour quickly and radically anyway, that will not be a problem I think.