If US factory farming wasn't subsidized by taxpayers' money the industry wold operate at a loss. The last guy I talked about this said that as it stands, they only make approximately $50 per cow after the cost of feeding and killing them.

I can't find the article but I read one once that stated that farmers need to feed beef cattles something like 11 times the amount of calories than what they produce. That's land being used just to feed cows instead of like cutting back on say, 80% of that land and being able to grow enough plants to feed the entire country

It's not that far fetched to say that if we stopped subsidizing the factory farming industry and instead subsidized plant-base ag, we could potentially feed the country for free. I know realistically that wouldn't even happen because the US government lets manufacturers and retail make up whatever prices they want.

InappropriateEmote

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we could potentially feed the country for free.

We could right now. Not potentially, but completely and easily. With the amount of food that is intentionally just destroyed to maintain profits, we could do it. That's not to mention all the food that even makes onto the market and gets distributed but is thrown out at grocery stores and restaurants because it didn't sell fast enough, then tossed into dumpsters with bleach poured on it so unhoused people can't even dumpster dive for subsistence. The amount of food is not the issue, not at all. As always, it's the system and the greed of capitalists that perpetuate it that is the problem.

That said, I don't mean to detract from anything in your comment because it's accurate and you're right.

roux

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Yeah for sure but I was just referring to a hypothetical where we just stop using the money that is for factory farm subsidies and use it for sustainable plant-based ag.

In a better world, we wouldn't be throwing away 40% of the food made because it wasn't able to turn a profit. But in a better world, the US probably wouldn't spend $800 billion a year killing poor brown people in other countries too.

And tbh, attempting to pursue the food waste issues you mentioned might be an easier route to feed the population.

Probably won't happen since capitalism absolutely has to turn a profit even at the cost of people living.

alexandra_kollontai

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This is true.

infuziSporg

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Or at least they'd need to raise the price of beef to its natural equilibrium point, where people would probably decide "I'll take the vegetarian option" on their own.

roux

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I've heard a few times that if people were to pay the real price for beef at the store, it would be something like $30 per lb. This is in contrast to the "vegan tax" where plant-based meat substitutes are artificially marked up in price to seem like the more expensive option.

AvocadoVapelung

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get ready for the dark money campaign to reclassify bird shit as a vegetable in school cafeterias

RyanGosling

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Because the US grows actual cow food for Saudi farmers

BeamBrain

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Sometimes I wonder how many deadly epidemics would have been prevented if society had just gone vegan.

ComradeRat

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Basically all of them afaik. Most of the big epidemics spread to humans from 1. domesticated animals 2. kept in very close/tight quarters

LeninsBeard

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I would give the caveat that it's almost all diseases after the 19th century or so given that most of the epidemics before that were caused by people, like, drinking water with literal human shit in it.

ComradeRat

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To the best of my knowledge that isnt really accurate. For one, smallpox, the biggest recurring epidemic disease, is from rats. Bubonic plague is from fleas on rats drawn to cowfeed and other grains stored in large quantities. Chickenpox, cowpox etc also from livestock.

For another, the water in pre-1800s Europe was much more drinkable than is commonly assumed. You might get worms, but generally you dont see the massive outbreaks of dysentry until urban populations explode from the 1600s on. Generally pre1800s epidemics are a complex mixture of lack of nutrition and a disease transmitted from some animal, rather than just "people drank their own shit".

HexBroke

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dat_math

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woah really? I thought it would be cleaning litter boxes or something else involving cat feces

coeliacmccarthy

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something like 80% of france has toxo just from steak tartare, I think they're equally liable to infect

InappropriateEmote

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Unless you're cleaning your cat's litter box on the counter you prepare your food, nope. Eating pork is the main way that people get infected.

carpoftruth

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And carnists will still talk shit about processed plant protein like beyond meat as some kind of horrid franken-product

booooop

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if you are still not vegan you’re doing some amazing mental gymnastics to live with yourself This world is going to hell if we don’t realize we share it with equals

AbbysMuscles

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Destroying the Amazon to grow grain for cow feed isn't enough, huh? We have to feed them literal birdshit as well? Hey remember when that one viral tiktok came out of a dude showing all of the ground up plastic being included in pig food? It's not enough that we obliterate entire ecosystems to keep burger prices down. That doesn't make it cheap enough. There is no amount of barbarity and callous indifference to our world's health that these motherfuckers won't engage in. I hate them all

charlie

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https://www.fayobserver.com/story/news/2022/05/05/nc-pig-feed-plastics-claim-went-tiktok-viral-does-public-have-worry/6984395001/

honk-enraged

AbbysMuscles

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yea

abc

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should we feed the cows the millions of potatoes farmers literally bury in pits every year

no, let us feed them chicken shit.

amerikkka-clap

dat_math

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And vegetarians will say that milk isn't meat

roux

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Funny about that. They force semen into a cow by fist fucking her. They do this so the cow can calf and produce milk. When the calf is born it's immediately taken from its mom. If it's a boy it's usually just killed. If it's a girl it's sent to a nursery where they feed it fake milk until she can eat normal food.

They do this 4 times before killing the dairy cow and turning it into hamburgers.

While the cow is alive, not only do they feed her stuff like bird shit, they also add stuff like bone tallow to the feed. They get the tallow from beef cows. So even vegetarians are supporting the meat industry.

I'm glad I don't work in that industry anymore.

Also I found out you aren't supposed to film inside of dairy parlors because they don't want you showing how abused the cows are. They constantly suffer from mastitis and when they milk them, some parlor workers use a blow torch to burn off the nipple hair so they can attach the sucker things.

You aren't supposed to film inside because of all the illegal immigrants too but that's a story for another day.

SpiderFarmer

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I isn't meat. It can be horrifying for completely other reasons.

dat_math

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well yeah lol I wasn't speaking literally

booooop

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Bartsbigbugbag

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I literally called this the day the dude caught bird flu. Holy shit this whole country needs nuked, but the carbon output and radiation poisoning wouldn’t be fair to the global south.

FnordPrefect

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porky-happy "Bah, they'll be fine...We'll just pump 'em full of more antibiotics! And yes, I'm well aware that the Flu is a virus and won't be affected by antibiotics. But it will bulk them up fast enough to turn a profit, even with half of them dropping dead. And if things get really bad, we can just feed the dead cows back to the living. Not one thing wrong with that scheme!"

ComradeRat

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Animal cruelty? Causing disease? And general horrors? Another thing marx talked about (quote from Saito Karl Marx's Ecosocialism):

...Responding to...enthusiastic reports about the 'system of selection developed by English breeder Robert Bakewell, [in 1864] Marx wrote in his notebook: 'Characterized by precocity, in entirety sickliness, want of bones, a lot of development of fat and flesh etc. All these are artificial produces. Disgusting!'

PurrLure

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Hey, you. If you're disgusted by this but still eating animal products this free documentary might help you make the final push.

Me personally, I'm autistic with a binge eating disorder and I used to think I could never become vegetarian, much less vegan. Pretty much all my favorite cope foods used to have meat in them and some of them were just meat. This spring marks my 3 year vegan anniversary in large part because I watched Dominion and confronted the truth with genuine curiosity. I'm not going to lie to you and say it'll be easy. It's a big life change. Enough of a change that people will treat you differently once they know, for better and for worse. But it is easier than it used to be even just a couple years ago and as more people become vegan there are more resources available. I would personally be willing to help you if you need any advice, and I'm sure plenty of other vegans on here would answer questions as well.

(A general abuse/mass death NSFL CW for Dominion, you will not be able to unsee the footage or watch the behind the scenes footage of actors covered in fake gore making jokes like you would with a scary movie. It's all real.)

2Password2Remember

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how do vegans get enough protein (for me, 3 servings per day of at least 20g each) without getting tired of constantly eating beans? it seems boring to the point of being depressing

this sounds like a joke but it's unironically probably my biggest barrier to going vegan right now

Death to America

dat_math

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getting tired of constantly eating beans

skill issue tbh

practice cooking more and with a greater variety of flavor profiles. Pick a culture whose food you like and learn a few bean based recipes from that culture. If you like indian food, try a few different daals or curries with tofu, broccoli, cauliflower.

also, nuts exist.

edit correction:

broccoli has ~~about as much~~ more than half the protein per calorie of tofu

cauliflor and brussels sprouts have similar ratios

mushrooms have ~~tons~~ almost as much protein per calorie as tofu

420stalin69

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broccoli has about as much protein per calorie as tofu

Holy shit

RaisedFistJoker

•

according to the usda

Fried tofu has 270kcal per 100g and 18.8g of protein ~0.07g/kcal

Fried broccoli has 223kcal per 100g and 4g protein ~ 0.02g/kcal

Raw firm tofu has 144kcal per 100g and 17.3g of protein ~ 0.12g/kcal

Raw broccoli has 39kcal per 100g and 2.6g protein ~ 0.07g/kcal

The claim isnt true. While the raw numbers are fairly comparable (even then its a 70% increase from broc to tofu), no one is eating raw fucking anything. I dont disagree with the skill issue part. 20g protein is absurdly easy to get when you remember bread and pasta has like 7g protein per 100g, and the wide variety of legume based cuisunes should probably never get stale to be boring, but the idea that broccoli is a protein rich food is laughable.

Also what mushrooms have tons of protein, all mushrooms i look at have the same as broccoli!

Beech mushroom: 2g/100g

Crimini mushroom: 3g/100g

Enoki mushroom: 2.4g/100g

Maitake mushroom: 2.4g/100g

Oyster mushroom 2.9g/100g

Pioppini mushroom: 3.5g/100g

Portabella mushroom: 2.8g/100g

Shiitake mushroom: 2.4g/100g

etc etc etc

dat_math

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Thanks for the correction!

My memory of the protein contents of broccoli ~~and mushrooms~~ was a bit exaggerated, but I maintain that for their protein contents, I'd rather eat more broccoli and mushrooms than bread or pasta.

I'm no nutritional scientist or body builder, so my dietary planning is almost certainly too simple and vague to be anywhere close to optimal: keep total calories < a dynamic amount determined by vibes and how much activity I've done that day (on my last backpacking trip it was almost 3000kcal/day because I was walking 10+ miles a day with 30 lbs on my back, but most days it's closer to half that) and otherwise get 80-100g of protein per day distributed as uniformly as I can throughout the day.

This is a reproduction of the spreadsheet I misremembered that I made few years ago when I started thinking more seriously about my health and nutrition:

edit: fixed an error in my calculation of oyster mushroom nutrient per kcal cells; it's on par with whole grain bread and tofu and has more fiber than the latter