Meat eating and the flexitarianism
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It is reactionary behaviour from both advocates and opponents of veganism.
I have experienced it from both sides, long before vegetarianism became a popular targeted market.
I changed on medical advice as my BMI was the same as a poor Bangla Deshi and I was experiencing lots of problems I won’t go into here. I started using fish and chicken and now I am fully fledged omnivarian again and I notice some of the previous sneerers are now vegetarian.
My fighting weight is now a good 10 stone.
Any changes won’t come from confrontation, but as a result of growing self awareness in general of the plusses and minusses of particular choices and also the availability of real choice.
I think the sausage roll example will taste as bad and as good as the real thing, but I wouldn’t want it imposed upon me. Quorn is tasteless without adding stuff to it. The fuss about this one is a surprise as quorn sausage rolls have been around for some time.
I do like some of the alternatives and I still use them, most of my food shopping is done for me now, so I’ll eat what I am given, or become inventive with what is available, but as a heavy smoker my taste buds are shot, a cue for anti-smokers to gang up on poor nicotine addict, but some of those ready made ones are as stuffed with chemicals , sugar derivatives etc or unnecessarilly covered in rubbishy cheese as the other cheap food.
Broccoli and cauliflower are much better on their own in my view and the availability of a variety of peppers now, along with olive oil which used to be expensive and sold in tiny bottles, a terrific additive to root vegetables such as potatoes after cooking in boiled water, frazzled briefly in black peppered olive oil, present choices which were not previously available to economically disadvantaged sectors of the workforce and retired or reserve armies of labour.
My dad had to go out and engage in hard physical graft on a meagre ration of six slice (if lucky) of bread with cheese or corned beef on alternate days, so he badly needed his meat fix of mince and tatties when he got home. It was about one pound of mince between six of us, so ‘relatively’ changed days indeed.
I have only ever once had a good vege-lasagne and it was home made. The best real lasagne I ever have had was bought for me by Vic Vanni and Campbell Mc Ewan in Dinos. Trust Vic to know where the real Italian experience could be had.
I would think we should cease fire on this one.
😆 😆 😆
The Planetary Health Diet
Some may say all has been said that needs to be said. And anyway what we put on our plates is not a social decision but a choice we make as individuals. Most importantly, it is a question that the Party itself need not involve itself in. I still persist in challenging this view on this forum. What we eat is as important as how we organize production inside socialism and there are generalized assumptions that can be made which goes a long way to explaining how socialism will be a sustainable society.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46865204
“A diet has been developed that promises to save lives, feed 10 billion people and all without causing catastrophic damage to the planet. Scientists have been trying to figure out how we are going to feed billions more people in the decades to come. Their answer – “the planetary health diet” – does not completely banish meat and dairy. But it requires a big shift in what we put on to our plates and turning to foods that we barely eat.”
For red meat it is a burger a week or a large steak a month, a couple of portions of fish and the same of chicken a week, but plants are where the rest of the protein in the diet will come from.
The researchers are recommending nuts and a good helping of legumes (that’s beans, chickpeas and lentils) every day instead. There’s also a major push on all fruit and veg, which should be make up half of every plate of food we eat. Although there’s a cull on “starchy vegetables” such as the humble potato or cassava which is widely eaten in Africa.
This diet plan requires changes to diets in pretty much every corner of the world.
Europe and North America need to cut back massively on red meat, East Asia needs to cut back on fish, Africa on starchy vegetables. Globally, the diet requires red meat and sugar consumption to be cut by half, while vegetables, fruit, pulses and nuts must double. North Americans need to eat 84% less red meat but six times more beans and lentils. For Europeans, eating 77% less red meat and 15 times more nuts and seeds meets the guidelines.“Humanity has never attempted to change the food system at this scale and this speed,” says Line Gordon, an assistant professor at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. “Whether it’s a fantasy or not, a fantasy doesn’t have to bad… it’s time to dream of a good world,” she says.
The researchers, of course, remain constrained by the capitalist system. They look towards taxation to change eating behavior, seeing tobacco taxes as a success and expect red meat price increases to have similar result. Some truth in that as when meat was expensive in the past we ate less, mostly on Sundays and holidays. But industrialised livestock rearing brought those prices down.
The researchers say the diet will prevent around 11 million people dying each year. That number is largely down to cutting diseases related to unhealthy diets such as heart attacks, strokes and some cancers.
The researchers aim was to feed more people while:
minimising greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change
preventing any species going extinct
have no expansion of farmland
and preserve waterIn order to make the numbers add up, it also requires a halving of food waste and to increase the amount of food produced on current farmland.
Humanity now poses a threat to the stability of the planet,” said Prof Johan Rockström at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden, another author of the report. “This requires nothing less than a new global agricultural revolution.”
“The world’s diets must change dramatically,” said Walter Willett at Harvard University and one of the leaders of the commission convened by the Lancet medical journal and the Eat Forum NGO. “We are not talking about a deprivation diet here; we are talking about a way of eating that can be healthy, flavourful and enjoyable.”
“The planetary health diet is based on really hard epidemiological evidence, where researchers followed large cohorts of people for decades,” said Marco Springmann at Oxford University
Prof Guy Poppy, from the UK’s University of Southampton, and not part of the commission, said: “This ‘call to arms’ with its clear solutions is timely, comprehensively researched and deserves immediate attention.”
“This analysis is the most advanced ever conducted,” said Prof Alan Dangour, at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and also not part of the team. “But there is a major question about the ability of populations to shift to such dietary recommendations and their wider public acceptability.”
The report acknowledges the radical change it advocates and the difficulty of achieving it: “Humanity has never aimed to change the global food system on the scale envisioned. Achieving this goal will require rapid adoption of numerous changes and unprecedented global collaboration and commitment: nothing less than a Great Food Transformation.”
Richard Horton and Tamara Lucas, editors at the Lancet, said in an editorial that global changes as set out by the planetary health diet were essential: “Civilisation is in crisis. We can no longer feed our population a healthy diet while balancing planetary resources. If we can eat in a way that works for our planet as well as our bodies, the natural balance will be restored.”
So do we as a Party for socialism adopt what can be describe as a denialist position akin to the climate change deniers and contrary to scientific opinion and be seen as condoning the lobbyists, such as Prof Nigel Scollan, at Queen’s University Belfast who is part of the industry-backed Meat Advisory Panel:
“This report tells us what we have known for millennia: an omnivorous diet is optimal. In the UK, encouraging people to eat less red meat and dairy will have little impact on the environment and is potentially damaging to people’s health.”
Well, he may talk of the UK but we talk for the world.
Professor Tim Lang, one of the authors from City, University of London, said. “We need a significant overhaul, changing the global food system on a scale not seen before in ways appropriate to each country’s circumstances.” Lang said feeding a growing population of 10 billion people by 2050 with a healthy, sustainable diet will be impossible without transforming eating habits, improving food production and reducing food waste. “We are in a catastrophic situation,” said Tim Lang,
The shift to sustainable food production requires food waste to be cut in half and no more additional land to be turned over to agriculture. To achieve this livestock and fishing subsidies would need to be abolished, with the expansion of marine conservation zones and changes to shopping habits in developed nations – as well as protections for low income groups.
Professor Johan Rockstrom, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany – who co-led the commission, said “There is no silver bullet for combating harmful food production practices, but by defining and quantifying a safe operating space for food systems, diets can be identified that will nurture human health and support environmental sustainability.”
And the industry response?
Alexander Anton, secretary general of the European Dairy Association, said: “The report goes to the extreme to create maximum attention.”
https://www.dw.com/en/pass-the-beans-hold-the-beef-to-save-yourself-and-the-planet/a-47113584
“Whatever the figure, there is a growing consensus that a drastic reduction in overall meat consumption is needed to maintain the health of the planet. What is not clear is how that will be achieved.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/19/could-flexitarianism-save-the-planet
“Excessive meat consumption, like other environmental crises, needs political solutions. Yet most discussion about whether to eat meat remains rooted in personal choice…But by just focusing on personal consumption, a paradoxical situation has emerged where the number of people who consider themselves vegetarian has risen, but so has overall meat consumption because the population of the world is increasing, and many people who do eat meat are eating more of it.”
“Dr Marco Springmann, who led the research group that published the report in Nature, says the stakes are too high for politicians to remain squeamish about regulation… [the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] were commenting that dietary change is a contentious topic and politicians don’t want to get close to that. We saw similar statements from some politicians after we released the report. I think they’re just so afraid of not being electable if it appears to be trying to prescribe what people eat. If there is not a substantial change within society first, politicians won’t lead the way because it’s too controversial…”
“Springmann says if we do not get over our squeamishness about making these changes quickly, things are going to get a lot worse. “If we continue with our current levels of meat consumption, it’s very likely that we will have more flooding, more hurricanes, extreme weather that is associated with exceeding the two-degree target for climate change … if nothing is done then those pressures could increase by 50 to 90% and by that time it will basically exceed all environmental limits or so-called planetary boundaries that define a safe operating space for humanity.”
From an article in today’s i paper headlined “The bird that rules the world. Our insatiable appetite for cheap chicken means they account for 23 billion out of the 30 billion from animals.”. It concludes:
… despite growing interest in vegetarianism and veganism, surveys find little evidence that many people in the rich world are turning into herbivores. People may like flirting with plant-based diets. But what they really love is chicken.
“what they really love is chicken”
Especially when served in the shape and form that does not resemble a chicken in any way. But we prefer all our meat like that. I recall when butchers hung their produce from hooks and you saw them chopping and cutting. Long way from the supermarket plastic-wrap.
Of course we have to wonder why factory farms rarely permit visits from the public. I have been to a battery farm, not caged chickens, except when being transported to the slaughter factories. I asked why these over-loaded trucks drove so fast and it was for cooling and ventilation.
Members of my wife’s family worked at a chicken farm, or should that be chicken sheds since it was nothing like a farm. They regularly suffered outbreaks of disease that put them out of work for months at a time.
But my Labrador has a nasty habit of snatching free-range chickens from local farmyards.
But Gates recommends keeping chickens as a solution to poverty. Maybe, rabbits might be better , or guinea pigs for urban high-rise balconies
“We are fed up”
“Eating is political”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/01/20/35000-hit-streets-berlin-demand-agricultural-revolution
I wonder how the turkey vote will swing, to green for free range decapitation and strangulation locally.
Sounds like the equivalent of the English proverb ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’, ie who pays me or gives me bread, his tune I play or song I sing. But who is the payer or bread giver in this case? Surely not the small farmers?
I did recognize it as the piper saying but thought I would apply to the food industry and the market for non-meat products.
I touched on it in a previous post when I referred to Greggs vegan sausage roll being a best seller for them and that when the food industry offers tasty alternatives to meat and promotes it, people readily adopt it.
But when the food industry is reluctant to make available alternatives and sometimes campaigns against them then people are more prone to accept the arguments that vegetarianism/veganism infringes upon their freedom of choice in what they eat, not acknowledging that the actual lack of choice is prevalent in the current food industry, presenting a limited menu.
The public end up singing from the same song-book as the industrialised livestock business.
As for the German protest, I fully recognize the flaws in many of the participants’ claims i.e. that small is better and local is good, as implied by Matt’s turkey reply. However, on the positive side, there was a recognition that food is not a personal question of individual choice but a much wider one within the context of the economic system and that it requires a social solution, not a life-style option.
I’m sure we all know Ludwig Feuerbach famous phrase, “We are what we eat” but he also stated, “A man who enjoys only a vegetable diet is only a vegetating being.” 🙂
It’s better in German as it’s a pun: Der Mensch ist, was er isst . The English translation is a bit non-pc as it means “Man(kind) is what it eats”, so women are what they eat too. Actually it’s a more profound statement than any of ours on this thread. As the cells in the human body completely renew themselves over a period of time the material to renew them can only come from what we eat. Which, incidentally, is why vegans have to consume vitamin and other supplements to ensure this takes place properly.
But I thought we’d agreed that we had exhausted this subject.
No, ALB. You decided that, I think. I simply agreed that we are omnivores and a mixed diet where meat is not consumed in large quantities as it is now is probably the best suited but under capitalism the food industry remains detrimental to the envifonment, to individual health and is instrumental in creating a demand for meat and sugar and salt.
The global edible insect market is forecast to exceed $520m (£395m) by 2023, according to recent research. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization said at least 2 billion people regularly consume insects and they could help meet the food needs of the world’s growing population. More than 1,000 insect species are eaten around the world but they hardly feature in the diets of many rich nations.
Pasta, protein bars and granola bars made from insect flour are to go on sale in Selfridges.
Environmental experts have long recommended insects as a sustainable food source that could help end world hunger and reduce the damaging impact of meat production. Insects are also nutritious, containing essential proteins, fats, minerals and amino acids.
In November, Sainsbury’s became the first major UK grocer to stock edible crickets.
“Having sold over 10,000 packs of Eat Grub crickets in less than three months, we’re continuing to see Sainsbury’s customers explore edible insects as a new sustainable protein source,” said Katherine O’Sullivan, Sainsbury’s buying manager. “We’re always looking to provide our customers with new and exciting products such as these.”
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