Great re-post (and update), Emily! I have been vegetarian for 45 years and am alternately depressed and appalled that this Great Country of ours is still so meat-based. As John Lovie pointed out, our collective excessive meat consumption is lousy for the planet, animals of all kinds (all of them sentient) and our own bodies and miinds.
If you hadn't mentioned petro masculinity I'd be screaming! From health clubs that feature large pictures of meat for dinner and where guys work out for big muscles and drive giant pickups, to ads on the weather channel for meat meat meat and giant pickups, it's ALL related. It's a big part of the Heritage Foundation(Project 2025) and Trump as well. Somewhere on X is a Heritage foundation video of manly workout guys eating raw chicken. What have we come to when Big Ag combined with MAGA and their supplement fetish have convinced American men and some women that it's ok for the amazon to burn up while we consume tortured animals?
The meat industry is now so huge in the western world that it rivals big pharma, big oil and other similar global industries. Look at the naked corruption of JBL from Brazil, which you wrote about a few months ago. It's always about the money. Nothing else matters.
Your essay was interesting but lacked nuance, IMO. I personally do not eat red meat because I don't like it. I do eat seafood and occasionally chicken. But I am not anti meat. Your essay does not address the difference between factory farms and small farms where cattle are raised on grass.Is it okay to eat grass fed beef? Industrial farms are evil in my opinion as abusive to animals, creating tons of animal waste pollution etc not to mention probably unhealthy for us to eat due to what the cattle are fed. I do believe that humans evolved to eat animal protein just probably not in the quantities we currently eat. And we were eating wild game not cows which meant meat was rarer and healthier. Perhaps we should be selling venison in the supermarkets. That would help reduce our surplus deer and be better for the environment.
As ethically horrific as factory farms are, grass fed beef is actually less sustainable, as it requires far more land. A recent Harvard study found that shifting to grass fed systems would require 30% more cattle and increase beef’s methane emissions by 43% just to keep up with current demand. A 2012 study found that a shift to all grass-fed beef in the United States would require an additional 200,000 square miles of land.
I appreciate your comments. I think the most telling word there is "current demand". I think if people saw beef as a treat rather than a need it might make a difference. Or maybe they should switch to eating an animal that doesn't emit so much gas?
I’m not entirely anti meat either, which is why you’ll see the caveat sentence in the beginning of the second section, linked to a post on food sovereignty. It’s also why you’ll see “industrially produced” throughout the essay. Moshe is also correct, which is why I didn’t take too long to get into the differences. Because no matter how beef is produced, we still need to eat a lot less of it as a whole for it to become sustainable. So actively promoting its consumption, no matter how it’s produced, is counterproductive
As a progressive, it seems patently antithetical to our aims to trumpet meat consumption. I consume meat, but I try to limit it when I can. Regardless, I don't celebrate it. It doesn't make me manlier or more patriotic. It just makes me complicit.
I'm guilty of watching a lot of foodie youtubers, who don't necessarily glorify eating meat, but do focus heavily on cooking or traveling to places to eat it. Not sure where that would land here in relation to meatposting, but I do admit it probably contributes to the problem.
But I have noticed as I have eaten less and less meat over the years I have replaced that with watching those youtubers and I guess vicariously satiating my desire for meat through them. So idk.
I would like to call your attention to a nonprofit thinktank called RethinkX. They study economic Disruptions brought on by new technologies. Disruption essentially means driving the disrupted technology into bankruptcy or total marginalization within fifteen or twenty years because of order-of-magnitude cost differences. Examples include horse transportation disrupted by the motor vehicle, film photography disrupted by digital photography, or animal insulin from slaughterhouses disrupted by Humulin, human insulin brewed by genetically modified microbes. The X in RethinkX stands for crossed logistic curves: a rising S curve for the market share of the disrupting technology and a falling S curve for the disrupted technology falling toward extinction.
RethinkX writes about four major Disruptions in various stages of progress occurring simultaneously now: Energy, Transportation, Food, and Labor. All of them will make the Earth a better place in which to live. Adam Dorr, director of research, has produced a YouTube series entitled Brighter summarizing his book of the same title. It is focused on remediating and then repairing the damage to Earth’s biosphere—air, water, and soil—inflicted by the last several centuries of the industrial revolution. You owe it to yourself to watch these! You will feel justifiably brighter. And read their reports at https://www.rethinkx.com/
The Disruption you will be most immediately interested in is Food. There are two underlying technologies starting to bring it about: Precision Fermentation (PF) and Cellular Agriculture (CA). PF refers to brewing with modified microbes. Humulin, the pharmaceutical product, was one of the first products. It began as an expensive process, but with technological development, the cost has plummeted and will continue to do so until the products cost about the same as sugar. The products will include essentially any nutrient molecule—protein, fat, or carbohydrate. They will provide the basis for both food and non-food products (such as leather fabricated from brewed collagen molecules). (Note that the food itself will Not be genetically modified. Only the microbes used to brew the food molecules will be genetically modified, not the food molecules they brew.) CA will begin with cells taken by harmless biopsies from various animals or fish. Their primary cost is their growth medium and their cost will plummet along with the PF producing the growth medium. At first, their texture will be like hamburger, but with time “3D printing” techniques will be mastered to mimic the original fiber of the meat or fish. RethinkX forecasts that by 2040 or so, traditional agriculture (vast fields of monocrops, slaughterhouses, and commercial fisheries) will be bankrupted and essentially extinct. The Food Disruption will be the second “Neolithic Revolution”, this time based on the domestication of micro-organisms. Because the new agriculture will require only a tiny portion of land compared to today’s agriculture (which is primarily crops to feed animals in preparation for the slaughterhouse), an area of land equivalent to that of the U.S. plus China plus Australia will be freed up for rewilding or other uses. This is one of the elements of remediation and repair discussed in Dorr’s Brighter.
We are constantly confronted by new diets that maintain that we need to eat meat because our ancestors ate meat heavy diets. But we now know that they didn't. Thanks to new technologies we know a great deal more about what our ancestors ate, like DNA analysis of teeth tartar that are 2 million years old. All of this data is confirming that we are at the end of a long line of omnivors - many of whom had better diets than we have today. For more information go to this Scientific American article: "To Follow the Real Early Human Diet, Eat Everything" - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/to-follow-the-real-early-human-diet-eat-everything/
This is great to know actually, I was just at an event where some guy on the carnivore diet told me that all our ancestors ate primarily meat, and I was just like.... I'm pretty sure that's not true. But I didn't have anything to back it up. Also I just didn't want to get into it lol
I like that you started out by telling people who are raging meat eaters to just not read the article. I have been vegetarian/vegan for almost 25 years now and I still can't get my wife to try it. She always says she is a meat and potatoes girl to which I tell her that the potatoes are fine. She still thinks I will give it up...not going to happen! I think big meat needs to go maybe before big oil....it's always going to be a fight against low information hanging on to the past type people. It will all collapse on its own eventually...let's hope it happens before the planet collapses. Keep up the great work!
Hi Emily, love this post and totally agree. I just wish you had given a mention to the horrific torture and suffering animals endure, especially on factory farms. It is unconscionable. And if anyone wants to compare health outcomes plant-based would win hands down. Check out what NYC H + H has managed to do: https://www.nychealthandhospitals.org/pressrelease/nyc-health-hospitals-celebrates-1-2-million-plant-based-meals-served/
Great re-post (and update), Emily! I have been vegetarian for 45 years and am alternately depressed and appalled that this Great Country of ours is still so meat-based. As John Lovie pointed out, our collective excessive meat consumption is lousy for the planet, animals of all kinds (all of them sentient) and our own bodies and miinds.
If you hadn't mentioned petro masculinity I'd be screaming! From health clubs that feature large pictures of meat for dinner and where guys work out for big muscles and drive giant pickups, to ads on the weather channel for meat meat meat and giant pickups, it's ALL related. It's a big part of the Heritage Foundation(Project 2025) and Trump as well. Somewhere on X is a Heritage foundation video of manly workout guys eating raw chicken. What have we come to when Big Ag combined with MAGA and their supplement fetish have convinced American men and some women that it's ok for the amazon to burn up while we consume tortured animals?
Yes! I'm plant based for health reasons - the planet's, the animals', and mine.
The meat industry is now so huge in the western world that it rivals big pharma, big oil and other similar global industries. Look at the naked corruption of JBL from Brazil, which you wrote about a few months ago. It's always about the money. Nothing else matters.
Your essay was interesting but lacked nuance, IMO. I personally do not eat red meat because I don't like it. I do eat seafood and occasionally chicken. But I am not anti meat. Your essay does not address the difference between factory farms and small farms where cattle are raised on grass.Is it okay to eat grass fed beef? Industrial farms are evil in my opinion as abusive to animals, creating tons of animal waste pollution etc not to mention probably unhealthy for us to eat due to what the cattle are fed. I do believe that humans evolved to eat animal protein just probably not in the quantities we currently eat. And we were eating wild game not cows which meant meat was rarer and healthier. Perhaps we should be selling venison in the supermarkets. That would help reduce our surplus deer and be better for the environment.
As ethically horrific as factory farms are, grass fed beef is actually less sustainable, as it requires far more land. A recent Harvard study found that shifting to grass fed systems would require 30% more cattle and increase beef’s methane emissions by 43% just to keep up with current demand. A 2012 study found that a shift to all grass-fed beef in the United States would require an additional 200,000 square miles of land.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aad401
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/2/2/127
I appreciate your comments. I think the most telling word there is "current demand". I think if people saw beef as a treat rather than a need it might make a difference. Or maybe they should switch to eating an animal that doesn't emit so much gas?
I’m not entirely anti meat either, which is why you’ll see the caveat sentence in the beginning of the second section, linked to a post on food sovereignty. It’s also why you’ll see “industrially produced” throughout the essay. Moshe is also correct, which is why I didn’t take too long to get into the differences. Because no matter how beef is produced, we still need to eat a lot less of it as a whole for it to become sustainable. So actively promoting its consumption, no matter how it’s produced, is counterproductive
Gotta try carrot dogs before you knock them, that's all I'll say
They’re actually very good
As a progressive, it seems patently antithetical to our aims to trumpet meat consumption. I consume meat, but I try to limit it when I can. Regardless, I don't celebrate it. It doesn't make me manlier or more patriotic. It just makes me complicit.
Great post and right on the money! Happy 4th!!
I'm guilty of watching a lot of foodie youtubers, who don't necessarily glorify eating meat, but do focus heavily on cooking or traveling to places to eat it. Not sure where that would land here in relation to meatposting, but I do admit it probably contributes to the problem.
But I have noticed as I have eaten less and less meat over the years I have replaced that with watching those youtubers and I guess vicariously satiating my desire for meat through them. So idk.
Also always nice to see Fish!
That's very interesting! I wouldn't know what to call that, but it doesn't sound like it's *fully* meatposting
Yeah but I still feel guilty considering how heavily meat focused the videos seem to be.
So, so happy to see Fish again.
Me too :)
I would like to call your attention to a nonprofit thinktank called RethinkX. They study economic Disruptions brought on by new technologies. Disruption essentially means driving the disrupted technology into bankruptcy or total marginalization within fifteen or twenty years because of order-of-magnitude cost differences. Examples include horse transportation disrupted by the motor vehicle, film photography disrupted by digital photography, or animal insulin from slaughterhouses disrupted by Humulin, human insulin brewed by genetically modified microbes. The X in RethinkX stands for crossed logistic curves: a rising S curve for the market share of the disrupting technology and a falling S curve for the disrupted technology falling toward extinction.
RethinkX writes about four major Disruptions in various stages of progress occurring simultaneously now: Energy, Transportation, Food, and Labor. All of them will make the Earth a better place in which to live. Adam Dorr, director of research, has produced a YouTube series entitled Brighter summarizing his book of the same title. It is focused on remediating and then repairing the damage to Earth’s biosphere—air, water, and soil—inflicted by the last several centuries of the industrial revolution. You owe it to yourself to watch these! You will feel justifiably brighter. And read their reports at https://www.rethinkx.com/
The Disruption you will be most immediately interested in is Food. There are two underlying technologies starting to bring it about: Precision Fermentation (PF) and Cellular Agriculture (CA). PF refers to brewing with modified microbes. Humulin, the pharmaceutical product, was one of the first products. It began as an expensive process, but with technological development, the cost has plummeted and will continue to do so until the products cost about the same as sugar. The products will include essentially any nutrient molecule—protein, fat, or carbohydrate. They will provide the basis for both food and non-food products (such as leather fabricated from brewed collagen molecules). (Note that the food itself will Not be genetically modified. Only the microbes used to brew the food molecules will be genetically modified, not the food molecules they brew.) CA will begin with cells taken by harmless biopsies from various animals or fish. Their primary cost is their growth medium and their cost will plummet along with the PF producing the growth medium. At first, their texture will be like hamburger, but with time “3D printing” techniques will be mastered to mimic the original fiber of the meat or fish. RethinkX forecasts that by 2040 or so, traditional agriculture (vast fields of monocrops, slaughterhouses, and commercial fisheries) will be bankrupted and essentially extinct. The Food Disruption will be the second “Neolithic Revolution”, this time based on the domestication of micro-organisms. Because the new agriculture will require only a tiny portion of land compared to today’s agriculture (which is primarily crops to feed animals in preparation for the slaughterhouse), an area of land equivalent to that of the U.S. plus China plus Australia will be freed up for rewilding or other uses. This is one of the elements of remediation and repair discussed in Dorr’s Brighter.
We are constantly confronted by new diets that maintain that we need to eat meat because our ancestors ate meat heavy diets. But we now know that they didn't. Thanks to new technologies we know a great deal more about what our ancestors ate, like DNA analysis of teeth tartar that are 2 million years old. All of this data is confirming that we are at the end of a long line of omnivors - many of whom had better diets than we have today. For more information go to this Scientific American article: "To Follow the Real Early Human Diet, Eat Everything" - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/to-follow-the-real-early-human-diet-eat-everything/
This is great to know actually, I was just at an event where some guy on the carnivore diet told me that all our ancestors ate primarily meat, and I was just like.... I'm pretty sure that's not true. But I didn't have anything to back it up. Also I just didn't want to get into it lol
I like that you started out by telling people who are raging meat eaters to just not read the article. I have been vegetarian/vegan for almost 25 years now and I still can't get my wife to try it. She always says she is a meat and potatoes girl to which I tell her that the potatoes are fine. She still thinks I will give it up...not going to happen! I think big meat needs to go maybe before big oil....it's always going to be a fight against low information hanging on to the past type people. It will all collapse on its own eventually...let's hope it happens before the planet collapses. Keep up the great work!
Thank you Dan!!