Ok just want to CLARIFY that I don’t think meat in general is necessarily bad and that I’m talking specifically about factory farming when I’m talking about what contributes greatly to climate change and water pollution and human suffering. I thought I was pretty clear about that but lots of people seem to think I am generally meat bashing, which sorry to my veg followers, is just not the case. If you make a post about meat and say “and I got this from a sustainable farm,” that’s cool. That’s not a meatpost, at least not in the way I think about it. It’s like posting a pic without a mask at an indoor gathering. If you do it without explanation, it’s cringe. but if you clarify, “we’re all vaccinated!” Or “this is my bubble!” It’s whatev.
I feel so seen by this post, and grateful for the term "meatposting" to describe a thing that happens on social media that bothers me and disappoints me over and over again. I totally agree that what we model and celebrate on social media matters so much in setting norms, and is a decision with a lot more power than just occasionally eating meat and other animal products in private. (Are you familiar with Melanie Joy's work on "carnism"? I think it likewise helps us understand our culture around meat eating. https://carnism.org/carnism/)
I wonder what a gentle way is of providing some social push-back on meatposts, short of posting this article in the comments? Usually I just don't react to them, but I want to actively be part of setting norms in my social circles, just as I would if friends posted something racist...
Really lol'd at "meatposting". Farm kid, ag major, and farmer of organic produce for seven seasons here to say that I agree with this post AND that we need to differentiate industrial agriculture from mid-sized, diverse, regional farms that do their best to mimic nature.
Industrial ag is not ag at all. Back in the day, all farms were organic before we took nature out of the equation and replaced it with industrial input supply chains. We're just at the extreme end of that spectrum now and it is good for nothing and no one but the massive food and fiber corporations that set the system up for themselves.
Livestock systems that mimic nature can help sequester carbon (https://daily.jstor.org/can-cows-help-mitigate-climate-change-yes-they-can/). The problem is our agriculture at scale today is the opposite of a natural system. And beware of the new energy in ag around carbon markets. The concept of paying land stewards for ecosystem services is spot on IMHO (read Bob Leonard and Matt Russell from Iowa), but that should work through publically administered programs like CSP for payments on working lands to operations that have whole farm system plans NOT a slush fund of private money paying to greenwash their pollution with vague and unmeasurable soil carbon credits.
Too many good ag writers to follow on this, but here are some of my faves: @lisaelaineh, @cullen_art
Also “feed the world” is a shady slogan cooked up by ad men to justify the existence of our shit system. It’s not a production problem. It’s equity and distribution that intersects with all other factors. 40% of product goes to waste before making it in the system. It’s not a problem of yield or arable land. Anecdotal for sure, but just think of how many people a small garden can adequately nourish. The quality of the calories we produce matters to actually feeding the world. Lastly, fun fact for non aggies, the corn you see growing is not edible by humans. It’s wildly inefficient space wise and it’s used to feed hogs and cattle that we took off the land.... wait for it.... to grow corn. The other big user is ethanol (also wildly in efficient) END OF FARMER RANT
The irony about the image of meat consumption as masculine is that it’s the very opposite. Meat consumption often leads to sexual dysfunction. Going plant based (no dairy either) has benefits in that area and saving our planet is pretty cool too.
Really good post, Emily, on an important topic, and you are brave for writing it! Shared it on twitter. Meatposting has bothered me for years already, but now I have a word for it. I would add to what you said about meat production's impacts that industrial meat production is also the biggest single cause for the ecological and biodiversity crisis that humanity is in the middle of. And this is in its severity comparable to the climate crisis. Another note, transitioning away from much of meat production (leaving some sustainable production) would free up a LOT of land, to be used for rewilding and for growing more plants for humans. As regards the climate crisis, here are some calculations for how a plant-based diet could double humanity's 1.5-degree carbon budget: https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-opportunity-costs-food
Omnivore here. I think it's perfectly all right to blast meatposting. Posting ostentatious pics of dead animal products is kinda begging to have the vegans and vegetarians come after you.
Factory farms are also something to blast. If we don't go back to a more local, earth-oriented way of eating, we're doomed. Factory farms, as you noted, are HUGE polluters, as well as being implicated in the causes of climate change. I would love to see the factory farms subject to anti-trust laws like most other corporations.
You keep doing you, Em. The content is solid. The writing is first-rate. The topic is life or death. You make a difference and I'm glad I heeded the advise to check you out.
Thank you for writing this even though you might get shit for it, because it’s important. I still eat (super local, humanely raised) meat (less than I used to), but I don’t post pictures of it anymore (even with captions about where it’s from) because it’s just so complicated.
I had to Google “carrot hot dogs” because I couldn’t tell if you were joking, and you were not! I’m intrigued!
Good piece. You see the strength of that industry in the labeling fights over Impossible and Beyond. Some states don’t allow you to call plant based meat or beef. Whatever - it’s a dying industry and the transition away from eating animals is now unstoppable. None of my nieces and nephews touch the stuff.
I've been a vegetarian for nearly 50 years. Eating lower on the food chain is definitely the mark of a true environmentalist! And for tackling climate change and environmental damage from agriculture, it's essential to cut way back on meat (and dairy) consumption, especially red meat.
Even as a vegetarian, I think I disagree with this post to some extent. And it doesn't have anything to do with meat bashing.
The world still uses fossil fuels for nearly 80% of our energy needs. And if I dig deep enough or trace the supply chain of every product on every post, I am almost certain that I will find fossil fuels and associated emissions deeply embedded. So, then the question is largely about the degree of embedded emissions that is deemed acceptable for a post. This is an arbitrary standard. For example, you explained below that "if people say that the meat was from a sustainable farm, then it's okay to post pics of meat". It would be far too easy for anyone to craft boundaries in such a way that any post could be made out to be glorifying fossil fuels. And herein lies the fundamental problem of policing individual action - who decides what is okay?
As an immigrant and a person of color, I think about this issue a lot. I sometimes post "Insta-worthy" pics when I travel internationally to meet my family on the other side of the world. I do not think posting that picture is glorifying fossil fuels, even if the activity (air travel) is highly emissions intensive. On a similar vein, I do not think posting excitedly about meat (whether it's a family cookout or a bbq with friends after a year of isolation) is glorifying fossil fuels. It is okay to celebrate the joys of a life enabled by fossil fuels while acknowledging and advocating for a rapid transition to clean energy.
On a broader note, I think this distracts from the desperate need for policies that address some of the harms of factory farming. Whether it's better conditions for animals or standards for feedlot operations, my belief is that our efforts are better directed at addressing systemic issues than call each other out based on perceived excesses in their instagram posting.
I will also add, this is absolutely about addressing systemic issues. My whole newsletter is about addressing systemic issues, and we dedicate a lot of time to exploring how polluting systems benefit from social license.
In fact, my reporting for this newsletter has shown me that social license is one of the most important things that allows polluters to keep polluting. We as individuals have the power to change systems, but that power lies more in our social signaling and political work than in our personal emissions. This essay focuses on social signaling, a high-value individual action that has the power to change systems.
I would never attack one individual person for a post they made. This post isn’t about that, and i certainly don’t encourage anyone do that.
I want people who care about climate to use this post for self-reflection on their own actions. Save your attacking energy for those high-polluting industries.
And again, this is another thing I probably should have been explicit about in the piece.
I think these are great points, and i think my essay absolutely could have benefited from more nuance and time spent on what makes a meatpost a meatpost. For me it’s really like excessive glorification of mass quantities of grocery store meat with no real personal meaning behind it, generally posted by a middle class American yt liberal who cares about climate change. Like I don’t know that someone’s “here’s the chicken I’m eating with my parents, I sure do love my parents” post is a meatpost, in the sense of what I mean. I could have done a better job making that distinction in my writing and probably still could do a better job thinking about it.
Ok just want to CLARIFY that I don’t think meat in general is necessarily bad and that I’m talking specifically about factory farming when I’m talking about what contributes greatly to climate change and water pollution and human suffering. I thought I was pretty clear about that but lots of people seem to think I am generally meat bashing, which sorry to my veg followers, is just not the case. If you make a post about meat and say “and I got this from a sustainable farm,” that’s cool. That’s not a meatpost, at least not in the way I think about it. It’s like posting a pic without a mask at an indoor gathering. If you do it without explanation, it’s cringe. but if you clarify, “we’re all vaccinated!” Or “this is my bubble!” It’s whatev.
That's the clarification I would have recommended you put in the piece, had I been editing it. It's a solid clarification.
Thanks, Emily.
I feel so seen by this post, and grateful for the term "meatposting" to describe a thing that happens on social media that bothers me and disappoints me over and over again. I totally agree that what we model and celebrate on social media matters so much in setting norms, and is a decision with a lot more power than just occasionally eating meat and other animal products in private. (Are you familiar with Melanie Joy's work on "carnism"? I think it likewise helps us understand our culture around meat eating. https://carnism.org/carnism/)
I wonder what a gentle way is of providing some social push-back on meatposts, short of posting this article in the comments? Usually I just don't react to them, but I want to actively be part of setting norms in my social circles, just as I would if friends posted something racist...
Really lol'd at "meatposting". Farm kid, ag major, and farmer of organic produce for seven seasons here to say that I agree with this post AND that we need to differentiate industrial agriculture from mid-sized, diverse, regional farms that do their best to mimic nature.
Industrial ag is not ag at all. Back in the day, all farms were organic before we took nature out of the equation and replaced it with industrial input supply chains. We're just at the extreme end of that spectrum now and it is good for nothing and no one but the massive food and fiber corporations that set the system up for themselves.
Livestock systems that mimic nature can help sequester carbon (https://daily.jstor.org/can-cows-help-mitigate-climate-change-yes-they-can/). The problem is our agriculture at scale today is the opposite of a natural system. And beware of the new energy in ag around carbon markets. The concept of paying land stewards for ecosystem services is spot on IMHO (read Bob Leonard and Matt Russell from Iowa), but that should work through publically administered programs like CSP for payments on working lands to operations that have whole farm system plans NOT a slush fund of private money paying to greenwash their pollution with vague and unmeasurable soil carbon credits.
Too many good ag writers to follow on this, but here are some of my faves: @lisaelaineh, @cullen_art
, @AustinFrerick, @charli3mitchell, @OatesBryce, @cadwego
Also “feed the world” is a shady slogan cooked up by ad men to justify the existence of our shit system. It’s not a production problem. It’s equity and distribution that intersects with all other factors. 40% of product goes to waste before making it in the system. It’s not a problem of yield or arable land. Anecdotal for sure, but just think of how many people a small garden can adequately nourish. The quality of the calories we produce matters to actually feeding the world. Lastly, fun fact for non aggies, the corn you see growing is not edible by humans. It’s wildly inefficient space wise and it’s used to feed hogs and cattle that we took off the land.... wait for it.... to grow corn. The other big user is ethanol (also wildly in efficient) END OF FARMER RANT
@John Russell, 1000 “likes” on both your posts.
Thanks fam!
I’d add my friend since high school, Ted Genoways, to that list as well.
The irony about the image of meat consumption as masculine is that it’s the very opposite. Meat consumption often leads to sexual dysfunction. Going plant based (no dairy either) has benefits in that area and saving our planet is pretty cool too.
Really good post, Emily, on an important topic, and you are brave for writing it! Shared it on twitter. Meatposting has bothered me for years already, but now I have a word for it. I would add to what you said about meat production's impacts that industrial meat production is also the biggest single cause for the ecological and biodiversity crisis that humanity is in the middle of. And this is in its severity comparable to the climate crisis. Another note, transitioning away from much of meat production (leaving some sustainable production) would free up a LOT of land, to be used for rewilding and for growing more plants for humans. As regards the climate crisis, here are some calculations for how a plant-based diet could double humanity's 1.5-degree carbon budget: https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-opportunity-costs-food
F”@ if real learning isn’t hard and uncomfortable. Great article.
Omnivore here. I think it's perfectly all right to blast meatposting. Posting ostentatious pics of dead animal products is kinda begging to have the vegans and vegetarians come after you.
Factory farms are also something to blast. If we don't go back to a more local, earth-oriented way of eating, we're doomed. Factory farms, as you noted, are HUGE polluters, as well as being implicated in the causes of climate change. I would love to see the factory farms subject to anti-trust laws like most other corporations.
You keep doing you, Em. The content is solid. The writing is first-rate. The topic is life or death. You make a difference and I'm glad I heeded the advise to check you out.
Thank you for writing this even though you might get shit for it, because it’s important. I still eat (super local, humanely raised) meat (less than I used to), but I don’t post pictures of it anymore (even with captions about where it’s from) because it’s just so complicated.
I had to Google “carrot hot dogs” because I couldn’t tell if you were joking, and you were not! I’m intrigued!
Yes, go vegan!
Very interesting, I'd never thought of it from this perspective. Thanks for sharing!
Meatposting is a fine word! Can’t wait to use/explain it when kvetching about Instagram. Will be sure to credit you
This article is beautifully written Emily.
Except for one small thing:
It's rein in, not reign in. Ya know, like a horse.
Thanks for all the good work you do.
And a lovely weekend to you and Fish also.
Good piece. You see the strength of that industry in the labeling fights over Impossible and Beyond. Some states don’t allow you to call plant based meat or beef. Whatever - it’s a dying industry and the transition away from eating animals is now unstoppable. None of my nieces and nephews touch the stuff.
I've been a vegetarian for nearly 50 years. Eating lower on the food chain is definitely the mark of a true environmentalist! And for tackling climate change and environmental damage from agriculture, it's essential to cut way back on meat (and dairy) consumption, especially red meat.
Even as a vegetarian, I think I disagree with this post to some extent. And it doesn't have anything to do with meat bashing.
The world still uses fossil fuels for nearly 80% of our energy needs. And if I dig deep enough or trace the supply chain of every product on every post, I am almost certain that I will find fossil fuels and associated emissions deeply embedded. So, then the question is largely about the degree of embedded emissions that is deemed acceptable for a post. This is an arbitrary standard. For example, you explained below that "if people say that the meat was from a sustainable farm, then it's okay to post pics of meat". It would be far too easy for anyone to craft boundaries in such a way that any post could be made out to be glorifying fossil fuels. And herein lies the fundamental problem of policing individual action - who decides what is okay?
As an immigrant and a person of color, I think about this issue a lot. I sometimes post "Insta-worthy" pics when I travel internationally to meet my family on the other side of the world. I do not think posting that picture is glorifying fossil fuels, even if the activity (air travel) is highly emissions intensive. On a similar vein, I do not think posting excitedly about meat (whether it's a family cookout or a bbq with friends after a year of isolation) is glorifying fossil fuels. It is okay to celebrate the joys of a life enabled by fossil fuels while acknowledging and advocating for a rapid transition to clean energy.
On a broader note, I think this distracts from the desperate need for policies that address some of the harms of factory farming. Whether it's better conditions for animals or standards for feedlot operations, my belief is that our efforts are better directed at addressing systemic issues than call each other out based on perceived excesses in their instagram posting.
I will also add, this is absolutely about addressing systemic issues. My whole newsletter is about addressing systemic issues, and we dedicate a lot of time to exploring how polluting systems benefit from social license.
In fact, my reporting for this newsletter has shown me that social license is one of the most important things that allows polluters to keep polluting. We as individuals have the power to change systems, but that power lies more in our social signaling and political work than in our personal emissions. This essay focuses on social signaling, a high-value individual action that has the power to change systems.
I would never attack one individual person for a post they made. This post isn’t about that, and i certainly don’t encourage anyone do that.
I want people who care about climate to use this post for self-reflection on their own actions. Save your attacking energy for those high-polluting industries.
And again, this is another thing I probably should have been explicit about in the piece.
I think these are great points, and i think my essay absolutely could have benefited from more nuance and time spent on what makes a meatpost a meatpost. For me it’s really like excessive glorification of mass quantities of grocery store meat with no real personal meaning behind it, generally posted by a middle class American yt liberal who cares about climate change. Like I don’t know that someone’s “here’s the chicken I’m eating with my parents, I sure do love my parents” post is a meatpost, in the sense of what I mean. I could have done a better job making that distinction in my writing and probably still could do a better job thinking about it.