Environment

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Environmental and ecological discussion, particularly of things like weather and other natural phenomena (especially if they're not breaking news).

See also our Nature and Gardening community for discussion centered around things like hiking, animals in their natural habitat, and gardening (urban or rural).

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The "Backlash" to Plant-Based Meat Has a Sneaky, if Not Surprising, Explanation (sentientmedia.org)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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TL;DR: the meat industry's misleading messaging campaign + lobbying

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

with chicken meat since it has a smaller impact on the environment.

I had assumed that a plant-based burger would be better for the environment than a meat based burger (including chicken) - or am I entirely wrong here? (I guess there is complexity depending on the type of "plant-based" burger and the type of meat and where it was sourced from etc)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Think of it in terms of inputs and outputs. This is drastically simplified with rounded numbers, but gets the point across.

I can take 1 acre of land, add seed, and 500,000 gallons of water. These are my inputs. From that, I get an output of 2000 pounds of grain. I could take that output and eat it myself. Or I could decide I want to grow meat.

If I grow meat, I need another 1 acre of land, another 100,000 gallons of water, and at least half of that 2000 pounds of grain from my first acre. Now I can grow a cow.

It is more efficient in terms of resource utilization to go directly from plant to human, instead of going from plant to animal to human.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree, that is the major reason I try to choose plant based options. I was just thrown by @Hirom saying about chicken being better for the environment, I'm assume they meant it's better than beef (which it is) but not as good as the plant-based versions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Exactly, I meant chicken has less impact on the environment than beef. And chicken burger as an alternative to beef burger.