The answer is pretty simple on paper: To help fight climate change, we need to convert more of our diet to plant-based foods and away from red meat. But in practice? It is REALLY hard to do, because the global food system is so huge, so wasteful, and so unequal, that in some ways it’s rigged against healthy eating. We didn’t make this video in order to sound hopeless, though. We just want everyone to have an honest look at how hard a problem this is to solve.
Diets are complicated, and studies on them even more so. A lot of the research I've seen on it isn't properly done and isn't 100% set in stone. For example, the whole red meat is bad for us "research". Most of it is correlation and there's no hard evidence about it, there's even research that not only disproves it but goes as far as saying it's necessary.
Mcdonald's now offers more vegetarian options than before. Not sure if has trended in most other countries, but you can now order a salad and or veggie burger! How can we create campains in the lower income communities around the world to order the healthier, better for the world options? Or what if we just force all the big food chains to stop serving the meat?
Agriculture is such a massive topic. I work as a chemical engineer on biogas projects, and one of the byproducts is digestate (it's a compost slurry essentially). A lot of people on the energy side of biogas see digestate as pain to deal with. And I did too, until someone told me that soil is alive. At first I was like, yea, sure there are some bacteria in soil but whatever. But then I read up on the fungal ecology of soil. It's mind blowing. Soil actually breathes, and if managed correctly carbon-depleted soils can sequester about one tonne of CO2 per acre per year. And one way to improve the ecology of soil, is to add on compost on top for microorganisms and fungi to break down. So now, I work in energy but think a lot about soil because both the low-carbon intensity biogas and the carbon sequestering power of soil are both important aspects of my job, which is to reduce GHG emissions. An education in ecology has made me a better engineer.
wow. thanks so much for sharing - it is amazing to read an irl examples of some of the intersecting fields and ideas that surround agriculture and climate issues.
I love this! I work in the solar panel industry and am currently an undergrad environmental science student and this makes me so happy to hear! Will be taking a few ecology/biology courses this year too!
You're absolutely right about that! Some years ago I decided to move towards more real food and cut out most all processed food. So my grocery bill is not more than my mortgage.
@@celinak5062 - I eat frozen veggies sometimes because they are cheaper and I think just as good as fresh, sometimes better. My body doesn't like grains. I prefer more nutrient rich vegetables like broccoli, carrots, etc.
@Mario Ramirez - I know what you mean. Never has healthy food been so expensive. I sometimes wonder if the huge processed and fast food industries are paying someone.
@@susanwilson9241 processed foods have a longer shelf life, and are easier to transport. I think that's a large part of the reason they are less expensive. There is a large farm near my sister that operates their own storefront where they sell all kinds of produce. They also have a large peach orchard. When they have an abundance of fresh peaches, they have what they call a "peach paluza", where they fill their parking lot full of bins of peaches and sell them for around 39 cents a pound, which is very cheap for fresh peaches in my area, but still more expensive than canned peaches when you figure in the weight of the pits and add the cost for any canning liquid or ingredients needed to preserve them, or the cost of electricity to freeze and store them. I can buy a can of peaches at my local grocery store for 49 cents. Essentially, processed foods have become so cheap, that preserving foods at home is only economical financially if the produce you are preserving is essentially free (exe. you or a friend has a fruit tree in their yard). Buying fresh foods is also more expensive, and I think it doesn't help that much of our food is transported all around the country (or world, as the case is with many winter strawberries). The financial burden on our farmers also does not help the situation.
Zom Bee Nature it is easy. the problem is it is also costs a whole animal farming market and billions in subsidies to the oligarchs running the country so of course they’ll be happy if you believe it’s hard
@@nneizmen you whining and complaining about subsidies to purported oligarchs won't bring down the cost of "good" food compared to "bad" food for _anyone_ actually going to a real store today to shop for food to eat. I am talking about _reality_ and you are talking about theoretical dream worlds. Go get rid of your purported subsidies in real life. Do it, what are _you_ waiting for? The real world awaits _your_ actions.
Zom Bee Nature err.. ever heard of government? the one you keep electing on all levels? literally their job to decide where money goes. literally their job to decide what’s legal to sell/support what’s not. and it’s literally YOUR givernment thet YOU elect and have control over. so maybe look at your desire for things to stay the same and excuses if complexity for what it is: fear of change, action and your own power
When you consider the fact that much of it is thrown away at the farm due to people in the US not wanting to buy "ugly" fruit, and so said fruit would often cost the farmers more to harvest then they lose by letting it rot, it's not that surprising. Luckily, I live in a county that works very hard to try and reduce this by organizing volunteers to go and harvest unwanted/undesirable fruit, half of which the volunteers keep, and the other half goes to our local food bank. I wish more places had programs like that, since it serves the dual purpose of saving fruits that would otherwise go to waste, and helping to reduce food insecurity for local families. (Our food bank gets enough donations that they do not require any proof of identification, residency, or income, and food is offered to anyone that wants it in various locations almost every day of the week.)
And how much of the other 50% is wasted on overeating? Obesity wastes food by using it up where it really isn't needed *and* wastes a good deal of that person's potential as well.
@@familywilliams4058 i read somewhere that 40% of what's wasted comes from "households," meaning it is not the farms or the restaurants or the packaging or the processing. this percentage is completely mysterious to me. how do households waste so much? i suspect they are counting throwing away peels and seeds
@@woodypigeon I think they did a pretty good job of explaining why converting to a plant-based diet is not practical (or even possible) for everyone, they also never said we should eat NO meat, just LESS meat. Of course, I also think we could be more thoughtful about how we raise meat, though many of the more sustainable ways of raising it (like high intensity grazing in extensive pasture management systems) would convert to protein less efficiently and could (though doesn't HAVE to) make the animal products we consume more expensive.
@@7lllll I never quite understood that either. There was a billboard in my home town for a while that claimed the average family threw away over $200 of food a month (trying to recall now, I think it actually said about $750, which is insane)... I spend little more than $200 on food a month, and I'm certainly not throwing most of it away. I personally don't know anyone who throws out that much food in a month, so I also suspect their numbers may be off. (on a side note, all my peels, and napkins, and any other food waste go into one of two 5 gallon buckets in my backyard that're full of holes. I had black soldier flies in one last year and was totally thrilled to see them. I just wish I produced enough dirt to finish filling my second garden bed... I really do have the best property managers for allowing me to do that.)
My partner and I live in Mexico City, and we loved to eat meat until we realized how harmful it is to the environment and also to our health. The transition was gradual and something very useful for us is that we found very tasty alternatives to substitute dairy and red meat, for example, almond and oat milk, veggie patties, veggan mozzarella-like cheese, and so on, even we still go to our favorite steakhouse restaurant, but now we choose the grilled salmon and it is simply delicious!. Since we changed our way of eating, our close relatives also began to change, now my mom cooks much less red meat during the week and began to include more vegetables in the everyday meals. You said that it is very hard to convert our diet habits worldwide, and you're right, but where I can find hope is in the power of every individual and the impact of that person in others. If more and more people get aware of this problem and find a way to change, slowly but gradually we will make a difference.
Oh boy, i dont want to be a party pooper but watch a documentary called Etnicidio: notas sobre el mezquital, its about Mexico's City "manifest destiny" in the mid 20 century, how entire commiunities where whipped out just to be able to get fresh dairy and meat to the then growning, now super massive, Mexico City
Kudos for improving your diet! I originally quit eating red meat and switched to plant based milk. Then I cut out all meats, except oysters and sardines on occasion. When I quit those, I felt even more benefits from my dietary changes. Less inflammation and more energy. BTW salmon has omega 3, but it also has pollutants like mercury, PCB's microplastics, etc. Since it is high on the food chain, it is more prone to these than say, oysters. I get my omega 3 from ground flax seeds, walnuts, and an algae based supplement. All the benefits without the drawbacks.
flop snail almost all veggies are man-made domesticated food, not real (as if something that exists in nature without human intervention) like meat and fish per say. Veggies are as real and natural as coca cola as far as science is concerned.....
9:37 Well, that would be a great reason to introduce an UBI and a Greenhouse Tax. A society should take responsibility over the behavior it guides people to.
Can we dwell a little bit on the title of the graph from 3:37: "The beef availability"? I wonder what is actual discrepancy between beef consumed, vs. beef supplied. How much of that meat is thrown away? Just go to your supermarket and check the expiry date on shelves loaded with meet. How much of do you think is actually sold, before it goes bad?
We need to also make it so labelling showing we’re are food has travel is more clear. In the EU it is and so helpful buying more local is important as the shipping has a carbon footprint.
Many fruits and veggies grown halfway across the world have a lower carbon footprint than eating locally raised meat so in many respects the miles travelled doesn't always indicate the carbon footprint.
@@SherilRKirshenbaum this is why I'm a big fan of growing indoors, so you can expand what is offered in terms of both season and climate zone. Tomatoes are something that do especially well inside. This is why I want to open an urban aquaponics farm inside an empty climate controlled retail space. With my local power company offering a renewable energy plan (all money paid in your bill goes toward maintenance and expansion of solar, wind, ect.) and the addition of solar panels on the roof, I think I should be able to run a carbon free farm that produces fresh produce and healthy proteins year round. I plan on specializing in fruits that are out of season (like tomatoes in December) or out of my climate zone.
Just because the animal was locally raised and killed, doesn't mean that the food it ate didn't come from afar. And nomatter how you look at it, grassfed cattle are even worse for the environment than the factory-farmed ones :(
Why are people poor? It’s not because the resources themselves are scarce, it’s an arbitrary set of rules we made up for who gets them. Why is edible food thrown away without being sold? Because meeting actual needs is secondary to the socially constructed need of profit. Why is sustainability downplayed in favor of profit? The answer is capitalism. Labor and the means of production and distribution must be democratically and communally managed and owned, not owned and managed by an oligarchy who are incentivized to be successful by placing profit over tangible human needs.
yup, allergies and other medical issues are definitely obstacles that complicated what a person can eat. i know many people who end up feeling really guilty about what they /have/ to eat. which really sucks. and it is one of many reasons why the "vegetarian/veganism is the only path forward" conversations are super frustrating to me.
As someone who regularly listens to very complex intellectual conversations on podcasts, this was shockingly hard to follow at times. Some of the sentences that try to summarize data simply aren't comprehensible for me at this speed, and the visuals didn't help. You totally lost me at 4:35 and had to rewatch that a couple times to understand what was being said. All that being said, thank you so much for making these videos and hope this is taken as constructive feedback! Together we march on
the percentage of wasted food has always puzzled me. what do they mean? why is it so high? how are they wasted? does throwing away peels count as "wasted food"? that's the only way i can account for "households" making so much food waste
There’s a lot to food waste. A lot. We lose good in a ton of ways from the stuff that’s not harvested on the farm to the all you can eat buffets to the supermarkets that dump food before it spoils bc of unattractive arbitrary sell by dates. But the good news is that we’re working to reduce what’s wasted and that is going to have a real impact on climate change.
@@SherilRKirshenbaum thanks, the biggest mystery to me is statistics that say "households" produce a lot of waste, such as at sciencenorway.no/economics-food-and-climate-forskningno/most-food-waste-from-households/1428536
Medical bills get awfully expensive! Ever see the cost for insulin? Something to think about when making choices about what to eat, it certainly helped me!
Thank you for that video. I got the feeling that just so many people around me, aren't aware of the impact of there diet, even though they are super well educated. They simply dont get it or dont want to get, that they have to think about those impacts. I just dont know what to do for them to understand the problem. I wish they were watching such videos too...
I just wanted to add that the language of "Eat less meat" is still better then nothing. It is true that trying to make healthier stuff tastier, offering free cooking classes and changing marketing on vegetables are very small steps, but they are in right direction. Yes "FOOD IS IMMENSELY COMPLICATED" as you said, and it should be as living beings have been eating since their/our dawn. Agriculture sector is secound largest emissions producer after ENERGY. And ENERGY SECTOR (producing electrical energy) is just 2 centuries old, I am sure we are terribly wrong/immature at it. Loved the video and Kudos for the efforts behind it....! 😃💞💕😃
I really enjoyed the video. I was curious about how it was stated that eating low carb diets are not healthy. I’ve been told high-fat low-carb diets are good (see every keto book at a health food store). Any clarification on that??
Yes, THAT deserves a mention because it muddies the waters. They acknowledge it for a flash when they show the keto cookbook in reference to contradictory diet recommendations. But on the environmental side, it should mention the complication that most crops are grown with heavy petroleum inputs while grazed land can better maintain soil (and therefore carbon) than tilled land, especially in marginal terrain, and that in addition to methane, cows make fertilizer, which can replace petroleum-based fertilizers. As a step toward improving the system, we could start by eliminating CAFOs and feeding animals with food that could go directly to humans.
Can you do a video about the Amazon? I've seen it said that if too much of the rainforest is lost, South America could turn into savannah and that the rainforest wouldn't be able to come back. But what's the tipping point? And is there something scientists can do to reverse the soil erosion and drying that would result from the forest fires and harvesting?
oh we really would love to, but in the meantime Joe has a great thread on the topic: twitter.com/DrJoeHanson/status/1164243647296151552 I'd also recommend Kendra from the NYT's twitter thread as well: twitter.com/KendraWrites/status/1164371345318326274
I'm in Canada, and I've cut out meat almost completely and have opted to buy more veggies, fruits, legumes, and nuts. I haven't noticed much of a price difference from this change.
This mess is why I want to start an urban aquaponics business that specializes in out of season and out of climate fruiting plants (like tomatoes in December, or citrus in a temperate zone). I want to do everything I can to support increased sustainability of my local food supply by offering fresh produce and proteins year round. I understand that not every crop is suitable for growth in a hydroponic or aquaponic system, such as deep rooted crops like corn, shelf stable crops like rice, or many of the temperate fruits that require extensive chilling units, like apples and cherries, but most of the vegetables we eat are extremely well suited for soil-less agriculture (and yes, I know that hydroponic tomatoes don't always taste as good as those grown in soil, that's why I want to do aquaponics, since the flavor is much closer to field grown crops, plus, I love to eat fish).
Although it is clear that food insecure households cannot be expected to give consideration to the impact their food choices have for the planet, this is only 12% of the population. And changing our food system is huge and complex. However, food secure individuals can and should be giving their food choices in depth consideration, and need to hear the message about the impact our food choices have on the planet. The message I kept hearing in this video was that it was difficult to make decisions that help. Yet for the 88% of us who are food secure, it's actually not hard at all these days to minimize or even eliminate animal products from our diet.
Seafood is complicated, as it mainly depends on how it was raised or harvested. There are efforts to sustainably harvest wild seafood, but much of it is not regulated well, and there are always some fishing companies that break the rules. Farmed fish can also have complications. Many farms produce quite a bit of waste, and they don't treat it properly. A decent solution is to look for fish that were raised in an aquaponic farm, as they tend to treat more of the waste water, or to find a local fish farm and ask how they manage their waste. It is more work, but at this point in our agricultural development, it's always work to find sustainable foods, not even organic labels can be fully trusted. The Rainforest Alliance and the National Standard for Sustainable Agriculture are two certifying bodies (recommended to farmers on the USDA website) who are trying to come up with national sustainability standards that will fit the legal definition of sustainability in the US, which can be found on the USDA website ( www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/sustainable-agriculture-information-access-tools#standards ), and that I think is very well defined. So of you see a product certified by either one of those bodies, I would fully recommend it.
I think the thing that changed my eating habits the most was looking at how much I was spending per meal. When I started looking, back in the mid-90s, I was spending about $5 per meal (about $8 today, I think). I missed some of the meals my mom would make for me; meatloaf, tuna casserole, pot roast, etc. I got the recipes, bought the ingredients, and gave it a shot! It was so welcome, and then I saw how much it cost. Some of the meals were 1/5th the cost and took just a bit longer than going through a drive through (relative time. time spent actually tending the cooking or prep). 25 years later, I don't miss fast food that much. I treat myself to an 'indulgent meal' monthly or when I'm on the road. Other than that, the sale items at the grocery store dictate my diet for the most part. BTW, F**K McDonalds!!!! The dumbest, most boring, and most expensive meals on the planet, relative to what you get! If you pay $7 for breakfast, it should be 2 eggs sausage, pancakes, and orange juice. Go to Denny's. If you want a REAL burger, check out the locals. They're not all inept!
It is vastly complicated! A great place to start (for me at least) is to avoid food that relies on deforested land, be it animal or vegetable. Food (including meat) that doesn't rely on such land is easily accessible in the UK as most meat is fed on grass and grain grown in the UK. And said grass can even take CO2 out of the atmosphere! Labels, however aren't always easy to interpret. Easy for me to say, though as I can imagine such food is a lot harder to come by outside of Europe and I have time to do a weekly shop in a well stocked supermarket and batch cook from scratch at the weekend. I appreciate not everyone can do that.
Thank you for such a hard look at a complex topic. I agree that in the US at least, shifting subsidies FAR away from meat production and processed food and placing them on vegetables and more local foods would be a great start. Both of these foods should be "special treat" meals, not daily fare. Also making people (maybe through education at the high school level) more conscious of the environmental impact and health impact of their food choices is very important. There are many businesses that would stand to lose a lot of money if we did this shift, however, which further complicates what must be done.
It really is a lot more complicated - especially, as you said, for those who aren't food secure. (Which, by the way, is a painfully accurate term.) Unfortunately even our medical professionals don't seem to "get it" when it comes to diet problems. Speaking from personal experience only here - therefore not "really evidence" but more of an example of the struggle - my husband is diabetic, has been for years. He has now suffered two bouts of congestive heart failure and endured a major heart surgery, and to ice that cake? His kidneys are beginning to fail. This is all just part of what diabetes does to a person's body, but most folks would assume that such massive problems happen to the elderly. Not necessarily so: my husband isn't even 45 years old yet. SOME of the situation can be blamed on lack of access to medical care and medicines - you can't keep up with your insulin regimen if you can't get insulin, obviously. And some of it can be blamed on poor food choices at earlier stages of life. But he's been struggling, for years now, trying to balance what his body needs and what our shriveling food budget can support. We live in an area of the US where food of most kinds is relatively cheap: but we also are forced into a situation where the math just doesn't work out in our favor. Even with lower average food prices, vegetables of ANY sort are more expensive ounce for ounce than the cheapest (and least healthy) meat. We don't eat steak, we make do with low quality ground beef, and even that isn't great for the environment much less our own bodies; but our only other choice in protein is beans or chicken. Nothing else is actually affordable - soy products are easily three times the cost of their real-meat equivalents, fish and seafood of all sorts is ridiculously expensive (especially given our proximity to a major fishing area) and even the locally grown produce is just plain costly. A lot of the folks around our area like to think "just grow your own food" is a viable answer. Maybe it could be, too - our area is quite nice for plants, you can get TWO growing seasons if you manage your planting right, and garden soil doesn't need much amendment if you're growing veggies that are local anyway (in this case squash, collard greens, and the like). However, the folks who advocate for "grow your own" - don't have jobs that would interfere with that, or in some other way they've found a way to address the sheer labor involved in growing food. Worst of all this is the cultural confusion, as people shriek about this fad diet or the other, while you also have groups declaring that all meat is terrible in all ways and everyone should eat vegetables only, forever (meanwhile ignoring the ongoing hidden costs of massive farms, such as all those laborers and harvesters). Not just a hot mess, a disgusting one.
Please explain how organic produce is not always best for our bodies. I can't find anything about this when trying to search it. All I found was that in Canada they heavily regulate pesticide use so there wouldn't be that much of a difference between conventional and organic there. This doesn't account for America though doesn't explain how it can be worse for the body
Excellent video, informative, and well put together... However, many of us watching know much of this already. We know the food industry is a Hot Mess, we know unhealthful food is cheap and healthful food is more expensive. There are so many societal problems that we yell and scream at our government to do something about, yet it falls on deaf ears. The key point of this video, in my personal opinion, is Sheril Kirshenbaum's observation that the scientists and experts weren't the ones making the decisions about the food industry or the environment.
Perhaps the most important piece of information and one that is not mentioned in this video is that different meats have different impacts on the environment. Pork and Poultry are a lot greener than beef - so if you want to cut down on your carbon footprint, what you can do is swap to greener types of meat (as well as reducing your consumption of it). Something else you should have in mind is that animals, well integrated into an ecosystem, can be less ecologically damaging than monocrops. Pigs and poultry can eat organic refuse from farming and compost it with a lesser greenhouse gas effect than if you just let that rot by itself (plus, you get to eat a pig that's lived a very happy life later on). If you can, try to support farmers that instead of giving their animals fodder integrate them into their farms.
People here: hmm maybe we should change our habits to make ourselves healthier and save the planet. Other people: well GL but I will ruin all your efforts by driving my 7 seat luxury SUV completely alone.
I actually have an a$$hole colleague who does that. I used to take public transport to work back then (while earning more than him). Got into an argument with him on the impact of his actions & his defence of said actions. Found myself lone fighter with 3 more colleagues siding with him 😒😒😒
@@woodypigeon I think they're saying that health isn't the point of this video. They never claimed eating less meat was more healthy, the said environmental experts claim that eating less meat is better for the environment.
@@woodypigeon I never said I wanted to make your food more expensive, I pointed out that some ways people propose we increase the sustainability of our food supply (especially regarding meat production) most likely WOULD increase the price of that food, as in I think that would be a problem, and only serve to encourage low income people (like myself) to continue to choose the less sustainable options, since they will be cheaper. I honestly believe that we need some major overhauls in our agricultural production, especially when it comes to fresh produce and seafood, which is becoming increasingly popular among the US population for a variety of reasons but is not really sustainable the way most of it is produced. I therefore propose that we put more effort into utilizing the unused spaces in our urban areas (abandoned house plots or empty retail building come to mind) to increase the production and availability of fresh produce, thereby helping to reduce its cost, especially if we can combine it with aquaculture (aquaponics is usually the easiest way to do that), vertical farming, and/or automation. The low carbs diet comment didn't strike me as the host claiming it was pseudo science, she did state that if it wasn't for environmental concerns, she would also probably switch to a low carb diet, however, I also believe that it is important to recognize that nutritional studies are inherently difficult to do, are almost always poorly designed, and often contradict each other or make claims that are not really supported by the data presented. I personally take all nutritional studies with a grain of salt, though I do recognize that eating fruits and vegetables is important and try (not at successfully as I would like, partly due to my budget) to incorporate them into my diet. Don't get me wrong, I love meat, and have no intention of giving it up, I particularly enjoy eating white fish like tilapia, and small shellfish like shrimp, though I usually don't because they are so much more expensive, but I recognize that not everyone is like me, some people detest (or are allergic to) a seafood diet, and that not every diet is for everyone. What I propose we do as a society is to try and find ways to allow everyone to eat the diet they want, at an affordable price, while also finding ways to increase the sustainability of said food. That is what will not be easy. If we want to increase the sustainability of our beef, then switching to a high intensity grazing system is probably the best way to do that. Most breeds of cows do not convert grass to milk or protein as efficiently as they do grains and silage. A healthy diet for pasture raised beef that will convert as efficiently (though may need winter supplementation, depending on the area) involves having a variety of plants in the pasture, like peas and clover, along with the grass, and should be grown on the best land available, whereas most pastures are currently placed on less desirable plots, and the cows are allowed to eat whatever they want, wherever they want in the field, leading to some places becoming over grazed, while other become over grown, and the cows not really getting a balanced diet. The solution to this is high intensity grazing, which is more labor intensive, as the cows must be moved frequently, and more infrastructure is also required to cordon off sections of the pasture to ensure that cows are corralled into a high density situation, and that they are eating the plants at their optimal growth stage for nutrition. Doing this is far more work than feeding the cows grain and silage, and so often comes with extra costs. However, we could reduce the impact of this cost by using cattle (or other animals, like goats and sheep) in high intensity grazing situations on grasslands that are starting to desertify, helping to restore them, thereby making the animals valuable in preserving the environment, reducing the amount of methane they produce (since they produce less when they eat less grain) and potentially opening the door for those raising the cattle to feed their cows for free, which could make up for the increased labor costs and keep our meat at the same price, while still addressing the sustainability concerns of many people. I'm all for sustainable agriculture (NOT the same as organic, way too many people confuse the two), and am dedicated to trying to improve upon it myself, but I also recognize that sustainability cannot be truly achieved if it causes the price of food to increase, and so try to be aware of things that may increase the price, and also try to come up with solutions that may help mitigate the price if possible, or to try to find alternatives that, while they may not be environmentally ideal, are still "better" than current practices and will have little to no effect on the cost of food. One part of the three part legal definition of sustainable agriculture is that it must be economically sustainable, which I feel is something that many people who focus only on the environment tend to neglect. That is why I try to point out times when I think a proposed solution has the potential to increase food prices, so we can discuss it and try to find solutions to mitigate any cost increase. Taxing foods, and increasing the price of foods, to try and force people to adopt more sustainable options should not even be on the table imo. People buy what they can afford, and for some people, increasing the price of what they eat, will not help them to more easily afford other foods, and would only serve to force them to choose between eating or paying rent (or worsen the situation for those already in it).
You should look into systems based approach. A lot of the renaissance of systems thinking lately is reconnecting people to methods that can take on complex systems. Soft systems methodology, systems mapping, etc.
Good healthy food can be the cheapest way to eat. People have a perception that healthy food is expensive but the cheapest foods in the store are beans, rice, potatoes, lentils, whole grains, and some veggies and fruit are also very cheap especially when you buy frozen instead of fresh. A whole foods plant based diet is one of the healthiest and cheapest diets available. You don't need super foods or avacados to be healthy. Just eat a variety of whole grains, legumes, and veggies and you'll be fine and save some money too.
The last time I stopped into a gas station to get a snack after I fueled up my car; I saw canned green beans near the instant noodles, fresh Oranges, bananas near the donuts and all kinds of nuts to take home. There are healthy choices that are cheap it's just most folks enjoy what they already adore. I do wonder sometimes when I launch UA-cam and see those unhealthy 'big burger challenge' and desserts etc on the main website that it's triggering folks to eat unhealthy. I know I've been known to be swooned. If they had a salad eating challenge or a big bowl of hummus.. maybe that would help the masses consider better eatable choices
Alright lets tackle of a few of these major issues. The issue of unequal access in "developed" is in large part due to agricultural centralization and distance to arable land since we have a transportation infrastructure. In "developing" countries access to arable land usually isn't hard in terms of distance as farming is spread out but is a problem because both the regulatory state that manages property is seriously lacking where a small number of people own or control most of the land (that can be in the capitalist sense like in Somalia or in the Socialist sense like in China. It doesn't really matter.) In the former case of developed countries the solution is to focus on spreading out farming resources while equipment, investment and shipment are all basically already solved except for maybe breaking up monopoly grocery store chains. In the latter case with developing countries this is largely a major lack of stable governments. This is why there is an argument to be made for supporting countries through economic preference that have good regulatory states which of course flies in the face of capitalism. In many developing countries agricultural and forestry resources are not managed well nor is economys of scale taken advantage of early on. That is they compared to a developed country waste many resources due to inefficiency and due to a lack of regulation also don't recover those resources. This includes forestry, arable land and waterways. This is where major no strings attached massive investment much like the Marshal plan are needed throughout the rest of the world by developed countries with excess resources. We should save on our wasteful resources in the order of contributing them to developing countries. We want to seed industrialization as quickly as possible as the longer a country is industrializing the more emissions they will produce. That also means MOST of the carbon budget needs to be for the remaining developing countries. That also means in the US especially we need massive rabid decarbonization within the next 20 years.
Bugs would be better for the environment. Eating lower on the food chain makes sense for a lot of reasons. Eating plants is even lower on the food chain. We don't need bugs for protein. We can get all we need from plants.
Awesome video, it would be even more awesome if you could say what was the healthy low emissions diet recommended by the research. It could be in a next video =)
Something that would help me personally eat less meat: Really good meat-free recipes that feel like a full meal and aren't nasty tofu. I know you can, but I feel like I get no protein if I cut meat. I guess milk and yogurt are left? Seriously, throw in actionable things like that on the end of videos.
Do a search on UA-cam. There are lots of vegan cooking videos that show all the options. A good place to start is "Cheap Lazy Vegan." Stay away from the loony raw food vegan channels. I recommend potatoes, both white and sweet potatoes as a good place to start. Very satisfying food to build a vegan meal from. Just add beans for protein, and a sauce. I love mushrooms for that umami flavor I used to get from meat. Nutritional yeast is a great Parmesan alternative.
As you said, going plant based is needed "but really hard to do." Those of use who are able, need to do it. Those who can't, need to reduce as much as possible. The climate crisis demands it, at this point.
I didn't know that growing my vegetable has lower carbon emissions. But I think in my case growing the vegetables myself doesn't produce less carbon emissions. I use a electric pump to pump out groundwater a electric pump which I will just assume gets it's electricity by burning lignite (Brown Coal) the highest carbon emissions energy producer in Germany. Sadly I can't change my energy provider in my garden-cabin (separate plot of land) and I can't just use rain water. I need wat feels like thousands of liters of water each day. I considered switching to solar energy for my garden-cabin also because energy there is very very expensive like 4 to 5 times over average. (it has it justification and reasons which would take to long to explain). But spending a grant or more to power a small cabin with solar + battery storage becomes the pump needs a lot of power even if it is basically the only relevant energy consumer in the cabin. It's still on the table to go solar but certainly not this year anymore.
While I do agree, I think there should have been more emphasis on the solution proposed by the paper, rather than the shortcomings of implementation. I say this not because the shortcomings of implementation aren't important to discuss, but because for most people hearing they exist is just a perfect excuse not to try even though these shortcomings aren't even applicable to them. How many of your rich friends eat a plant-based diet? Less than 10% for sure! And it's not because it is impracticable for these people, but because most of them hardly even think about how significant the impact on the environment is to change one's diet and it really is one of the biggest individual choices individuals can make to reduce water and land usage, use of fertilizers, deforestation, biodiversity loss and much much more (of course shadowed only by having less children) and that's without even mentioning the potential for reducing animal suffering.
Why can’t we use our stored energy we carry on us on a daily basis? Why aren’t we taught how to access that energy? We need to be taught on fasting and how we really don’t need that much food. We need to be taught the insulin-glucagon biofeedback mechanism.
So there seems to be a difference of opinion here on ruminants. Allen Savory talks about it. We actually need more ruminants on our grasslands to replicate the grazing and migrations of the ancient super herds which were the tectonic plates of biodiversity on land.
wow good memory! i posted the recipe on my instagram: instagram.com/p/BlBEUBtA_Ig/ but it might be time for a refresh! i've been experimenting with finding the perfect sauce for the burger.
Try this mushroom dish for a really easy way to get the flavor. Put mushrooms in a bowl and add Miso Ginger broth from Trader Joes. Microwave to your preference. I like to add pieces of tofu, nori seaweed, and chopped green onion. I dip toast in the broth for a French Dip flavor.
@@WendyBird5131 You are so welcome! Good news! You can have it every day without getting tired of it. I have been doing so for quite a while now. Sometimes I will vary the broth.
@@WendyBird5131 Here's another related tip, or hack. Buy miso paste, and use it to make an amazing butter alternative without any processed oils. Combine miso paste, nutritional yeast, and water for a butter replacement. Try it on broccoli and microwave. Red miso is my favorite.
Hang on! 3:41 sorry to be pedantic 😬 but that graph axis is clearly labelled “Beef Availability”... Not “Beef Consumption”. We know US eats a lot of Beef but you know. Growing up in Botswana 🇧🇼 (grass fed beef country) Of a 2 million population beef is readily available and cheap by comparison to say the UK. Some of these stats don’t add up for me? Opinion 🤷♂️
I don't think they're trying to make you anxious, I think they are trying to invite conversation on difficult topics. I usually don't have much to say, because I have not actively studied most areas they discuss and so do not feel I have much to contribute that could help move the conversation along, but this is one topic I have studied extensively, and am currently working towards becoming an expert in, through formal schooling, independent study, and personal experience. If it makes you feel better, our agricultural system is actively seeking (and seeing) improvement, and I feel that many environmental scientists overlook some solutions that are likely more productive then telling everyone to "eat less meat", most of them are not, after all, agriculturalists. I'm sure you've noticed more hydroponic and vertical farms popping up and being successful, as well as aquaponic farms. Those are good examples of fairly sustainable alternative farming techniques. You should also know that more municipalities are beginning to allow market gardens and urban farms. It is my opinion that if we really want to address the sustainability of our food supply, our focus should be on these things, not on how much meat people should be eating. People will eat what they like (or can afford), and telling them to stop eating what they like only serves to make many of them angry and defensive, instead of promoting discussion and raising awareness of more sustainable food options. The discussions going on in the comments of this video should serve as a good example of that. Changing the way we grow food is going to be a group effort, so we should try to focus on the less controversial topics first, like market gardens, instead of the big scary ones that everyone is going to fight over, like how much meat we should or should not be eating (though I personally feel that the discussion should be about how to best utilize the cattle we have, not to focus upon having less of it, which I would be happy to explain further if you wish).
It would be simpler if it was just, the more greenhouse gases it makes the more it costs. Canada has a carbon tax, and it seemed to help with more fuel efficient cars, but could it work for meat consumption in America?
Thank you... it was a nice video on how difficult is to change.. somebody.. something.. that that is influenced by SO MANY damn factors.. i argued with a family member about this today lol
how is it hard if it’s already one of the highest. that literally shows diet is easily transformable to lower meat intake. it’s not like you’re already consuming the least amount in the world but need to still cut it 80 per cent more. it’s wild to me these numbers. before i became vegan i ate around half of the suggested meat and it still felt like too much cause of how bad it is for the body. just make meat cost what it actually costs. without government subsidies most ppl won’t be able to afford to buy so much of it and especially throw away
A video with much more questions than answers. Which is good, I guess, because you don't get the unrealistic feeling that you did something useful by watching it, you get the healthier feeling that you should start doing something useful.
I am a vegetarian, but I think the video should have addressed grazing vs. CAFOs, the concepts of holistic grazing and regenerative agriculture, and the difficulty of having completely non-animal agricultural that doesn't rely on petroleum inputs. Basically the kind of arguments presented in articles like the following: newfoodeconomy.org/climate-change-eat-less-meat-plant-based-impossible-burger-regenerative-ranching/
Miriam, I love you. I really do, but I also have a critical comment about this video. You emphasized several times how big and hard this problem is. That could make people throw up their hands and give up. I haven't studied Humanism formally, but my impression of it is an attitude that people can figure things out and solve big problems. We are not helpless. We don't need God to save us. We can do it.
I took the message she was giving not so much as a "it's really hard so we should give up" and more as a "we really need to make some major changes to the way we grow and distribute food". Admittedly, I am an agricultural student who wants to contribute to the overhaul of our agricultural production by opening a sustainably certified urban aquaponics farm, partly to provide fresh produce and proteins year round, and mostly to raise awareness of what sustainable agriculture actually means according to its legal definition, but I was led to this route by several years of investigating the best way to produce food for my family.
the fix is unremarkably surprisingly simple. Most people eat for pleasure rather than for sustainability, im looking at everyone, vegans and paleos etc etc. Its only complicated when tackled collectively. Instead, the solution should be working at an individual level. Raising self awareness and working towards self-realization. In America particularly... the educational system could be shifted from indoctrination to the dynamics of our relationship and how we reverberate throughout the entire system. Baby steps of course, are still moving forward. this type of education is GROSSLY overlooked
Kudos. Less animal based foods is an improvement. None would be better yet. Those of us who can go vegan should do so, since many will not even reduce.
The planet falling onto the shoulders of the silhouette figure everywhere they go to eat.... yeah I feel that. It really is hard to make good food choices and in the end, I know I end up cheating and giving into what I know is a destructive status quo because change is hard :/
I thought this video would be about how many people will starve from climate change. When are you going to talk about how bad it will really get and where and how we should live to survive? Every episode is like, "It's way too hard to fix this". OK, we get it. So can you help some of us maybe survive it?
Yes, but they put shiz in the food to make it addictive. The list of that is extensive. I do delivery, dropping off McDonald's to people virtue signaling they are afraid for their health. I do my best to decline those orders, but I still have to take some. Yet they were the only ones open....especially at night.......but Im seeing a shift. They can't stay open, often closing early, because they lack workers. I don't feel bad for them. Also a shift in promoting chicken, across the board. I avoid chicken, as it noticeably and quickly messes with my hormones. Im aiming to go vegan, but holy crap its hard doing what I do. I do try to deliver for local and small businesses, but thats not fully possible. Zero convenience in trying to eat healthier. Maybe not zero, but its hard. Plus I consider myself addicted to certain foods, and have for many years, long before the pandemic. Even with long periods of not eating out, it doesn't take long to get addicted again. Im 2 1/2 years fully caffeine free, so I know what its like coming off things. Months of anhedonia. No joke. PAWS is real. The part where you say it should taste good, coming off the bliss point is going to be a downer for sure. I call these foods, food drugs, because they are. A huge greedy piece of the puzzle that must be acknowledged to properly discuss this.
I reckon something that needs to be mentioned in conversations about food distribution is capitalism; if it wasn't profitable to throw produce in the garbage and sell people junk food for cheap, I sincerely doubt it would be happening today.
capitalism as it currently exists is definitely a major part of every single problem in climate. someday i'd love to do a video with an economics channel about that.
The results of climate chaos results in lots of human suffering. So let's look at the hard choices. I live in a rural area and grow over half my own food with a no till gardening system. Is this more work - yes. Is it more fun - yes. does the no till gardening system I use help sequester carbon in the soil - yes, Could people in urban and suburban location grow a lot of their own food - yes. Let's take the climate crisis seriously and work hard to leave a better world than we found it.
I am not gonna say that we have to be vegan, but indeed meat consumption and other animal products should be reduced. We sometimes eat too many just to fulfil our essential amino acid needs.
I'm happy to not eat beef, I eat pork, chicken, fish. But as far as the planet is concerned it will also be fine... human however the outlook is not so good.
Hmm..... I find that it's becoming much more pointless for us humans to try to sustain our needs unless we actually set our population number(even reducing it)
Exactly. I was disappointed and not for the first time after watching a Hot Mess video. It just spreads anxiety without pointing to any real direction.
@@prof_hu Agree. I was watching the video and it was like: mehh. I haven't learnt a single new thing. Also it encourages "greenwashing" the ecological emergency and eventually endorsing the system as it is. If its up to personal choices and it's "complicated" we are truly fucked. There has to be political decision to ban industrial agriculture and industrial activity in general. Put fines on food wastage at production and supply level. Cap the property prices, shrink the housing bubble and increase the price of food 10 times, so that people spend big chunk of their income on food not on extortion of money by banks, called mortgage. Ban palm oil. Don't subsidize corn. Put hefty tax on goods shipped from other side of the globe. There is plenty we could do. Just no political will and loads of zombies compliant with state policies.
@@Markle2k Your analogy is false. This is more like the introductory textbook refusing to give any information and just repeating, like a manttra: it's complicated, it's complicated.
@@sodalitia even though the things you propose are drastic, they are a good start for a conversation as to what is the best solution for this problem is. I think a meat tax would be great. The general sense that the difficulty in buying should map on to the ecologic impact of producing that food. If a steak produces 8 times more carbon it should cost 8 times more.
The answer is pretty simple on paper: To help fight climate change, we need to convert more of our diet to plant-based foods and away from red meat. But in practice? It is REALLY hard to do, because the global food system is so huge, so wasteful, and so unequal, that in some ways it’s rigged against healthy eating. We didn’t make this video in order to sound hopeless, though. We just want everyone to have an honest look at how hard a problem this is to solve.
It's not _that_ hard.
27 years ago I decided to be vegetarian and I have never eaten meat since.
Diets are complicated, and studies on them even more so. A lot of the research I've seen on it isn't properly done and isn't 100% set in stone. For example, the whole red meat is bad for us "research". Most of it is correlation and there's no hard evidence about it, there's even research that not only disproves it but goes as far as saying it's necessary.
I remember of Lauren Singer. She's great.
ua-cam.com/channels/gjw6tZNyjR_8zIFDsIPpww.html
@@Omnifarious42 many studies are also paid for by interest groups
Mcdonald's now offers more vegetarian options than before. Not sure if has trended in most other countries, but you can now order a salad and or veggie burger! How can we create campains in the lower income communities around the world to order the healthier, better for the world options? Or what if we just force all the big food chains to stop serving the meat?
Agriculture is such a massive topic. I work as a chemical engineer on biogas projects, and one of the byproducts is digestate (it's a compost slurry essentially). A lot of people on the energy side of biogas see digestate as pain to deal with. And I did too, until someone told me that soil is alive. At first I was like, yea, sure there are some bacteria in soil but whatever. But then I read up on the fungal ecology of soil. It's mind blowing. Soil actually breathes, and if managed correctly carbon-depleted soils can sequester about one tonne of CO2 per acre per year. And one way to improve the ecology of soil, is to add on compost on top for microorganisms and fungi to break down.
So now, I work in energy but think a lot about soil because both the low-carbon intensity biogas and the carbon sequestering power of soil are both important aspects of my job, which is to reduce GHG emissions. An education in ecology has made me a better engineer.
wow. thanks so much for sharing - it is amazing to read an irl examples of some of the intersecting fields and ideas that surround agriculture and climate issues.
Awesome perspective thanks for sharing
Foolishness.
Farmers are pumping the CO2 in to their greenhouses...more CO2=more food.
Władca Wymiaru it’s the amount of co2 in the atmosphere. Water is good for you but not if you’re drowning in it.
I love this! I work in the solar panel industry and am currently an undergrad environmental science student and this makes me so happy to hear! Will be taking a few ecology/biology courses this year too!
Sometimes you go to the shop and it's cheaper to buy processed unhealthy foods than healthy ingredients, that's a big part of the problem
You're absolutely right about that! Some years ago I decided to move towards more real food and cut out most all processed food. So my grocery bill is not more than my mortgage.
Frozen too and legumes and grains
@@celinak5062 - I eat frozen veggies sometimes because they are cheaper and I think just as good as fresh, sometimes better. My body doesn't like grains. I prefer more nutrient rich vegetables like broccoli, carrots, etc.
@Mario Ramirez - I know what you mean. Never has healthy food been so expensive. I sometimes wonder if the huge processed and fast food industries are paying someone.
@@susanwilson9241 processed foods have a longer shelf life, and are easier to transport. I think that's a large part of the reason they are less expensive.
There is a large farm near my sister that operates their own storefront where they sell all kinds of produce. They also have a large peach orchard. When they have an abundance of fresh peaches, they have what they call a "peach paluza", where they fill their parking lot full of bins of peaches and sell them for around 39 cents a pound, which is very cheap for fresh peaches in my area, but still more expensive than canned peaches when you figure in the weight of the pits and add the cost for any canning liquid or ingredients needed to preserve them, or the cost of electricity to freeze and store them. I can buy a can of peaches at my local grocery store for 49 cents.
Essentially, processed foods have become so cheap, that preserving foods at home is only economical financially if the produce you are preserving is essentially free (exe. you or a friend has a fruit tree in their yard). Buying fresh foods is also more expensive, and I think it doesn't help that much of our food is transported all around the country (or world, as the case is with many winter strawberries). The financial burden on our farmers also does not help the situation.
I'm glad this channel doesn't pretend that this is easy to have people eat better when "good food" is MUCH more expensive than "bad food".
I thought it was a sign of incompetence.
Zom Bee Nature it is easy. the problem is it is also costs a whole animal farming market and billions in subsidies to the oligarchs running the country so of course they’ll be happy if you believe it’s hard
@@nneizmen you whining and complaining about subsidies to purported oligarchs won't bring down the cost of "good" food compared to "bad" food for _anyone_ actually going to a real store today to shop for food to eat. I am talking about _reality_ and you are talking about theoretical dream worlds. Go get rid of your purported subsidies in real life. Do it, what are _you_ waiting for? The real world awaits _your_ actions.
Zom Bee Nature err.. ever heard of government? the one you keep electing on all levels? literally their job to decide where money goes. literally their job to decide what’s legal to sell/support what’s not. and it’s literally YOUR givernment thet YOU elect and have control over. so maybe look at your desire for things to stay the same and excuses if complexity for what it is: fear of change, action and your own power
It also doesn’t sugar xcoat anythinh
Wow... 50% of what USA grows is thrown away. Thats just crazy!
When you consider the fact that much of it is thrown away at the farm due to people in the US not wanting to buy "ugly" fruit, and so said fruit would often cost the farmers more to harvest then they lose by letting it rot, it's not that surprising. Luckily, I live in a county that works very hard to try and reduce this by organizing volunteers to go and harvest unwanted/undesirable fruit, half of which the volunteers keep, and the other half goes to our local food bank. I wish more places had programs like that, since it serves the dual purpose of saving fruits that would otherwise go to waste, and helping to reduce food insecurity for local families. (Our food bank gets enough donations that they do not require any proof of identification, residency, or income, and food is offered to anyone that wants it in various locations almost every day of the week.)
And how much of the other 50% is wasted on overeating? Obesity wastes food by using it up where it really isn't needed *and* wastes a good deal of that person's potential as well.
@@familywilliams4058 i read somewhere that 40% of what's wasted comes from "households," meaning it is not the farms or the restaurants or the packaging or the processing. this percentage is completely mysterious to me. how do households waste so much? i suspect they are counting throwing away peels and seeds
@@woodypigeon I think they did a pretty good job of explaining why converting to a plant-based diet is not practical (or even possible) for everyone, they also never said we should eat NO meat, just LESS meat. Of course, I also think we could be more thoughtful about how we raise meat, though many of the more sustainable ways of raising it (like high intensity grazing in extensive pasture management systems) would convert to protein less efficiently and could (though doesn't HAVE to) make the animal products we consume more expensive.
@@7lllll I never quite understood that either. There was a billboard in my home town for a while that claimed the average family threw away over $200 of food a month (trying to recall now, I think it actually said about $750, which is insane)... I spend little more than $200 on food a month, and I'm certainly not throwing most of it away. I personally don't know anyone who throws out that much food in a month, so I also suspect their numbers may be off.
(on a side note, all my peels, and napkins, and any other food waste go into one of two 5 gallon buckets in my backyard that're full of holes. I had black soldier flies in one last year and was totally thrilled to see them. I just wish I produced enough dirt to finish filling my second garden bed... I really do have the best property managers for allowing me to do that.)
My partner and I live in Mexico City, and we loved to eat meat until we realized how harmful it is to the environment and also to our health. The transition was gradual and something very useful for us is that we found very tasty alternatives to substitute dairy and red meat, for example, almond and oat milk, veggie patties, veggan mozzarella-like cheese, and so on, even we still go to our favorite steakhouse restaurant, but now we choose the grilled salmon and it is simply delicious!. Since we changed our way of eating, our close relatives also began to change, now my mom cooks much less red meat during the week and began to include more vegetables in the everyday meals. You said that it is very hard to convert our diet habits worldwide, and you're right, but where I can find hope is in the power of every individual and the impact of that person in others. If more and more people get aware of this problem and find a way to change, slowly but gradually we will make a difference.
Oh boy, i dont want to be a party pooper but watch a documentary called Etnicidio: notas sobre el mezquital, its about Mexico's City "manifest destiny" in the mid 20 century, how entire commiunities where whipped out just to be able to get fresh dairy and meat to the then growning, now super massive, Mexico City
Kudos for improving your diet! I originally quit eating red meat and switched to plant based milk. Then I cut out all meats, except oysters and sardines on occasion. When I quit those, I felt even more benefits from my dietary changes. Less inflammation and more energy. BTW salmon has omega 3, but it also has pollutants like mercury, PCB's microplastics, etc. Since it is high on the food chain, it is more prone to these than say, oysters. I get my omega 3 from ground flax seeds, walnuts, and an algae based supplement. All the benefits without the drawbacks.
End subsidies on meat and start subsidizing veggies.
Bingo.
End all subsidies, educate the individual and let the free market drive it.
Kyle Lanmon veggies are not real food
@@jamespong6588 wut
flop snail almost all veggies are man-made domesticated food, not real (as if something that exists in nature without human intervention) like meat and fish per say. Veggies are as real and natural as coca cola as far as science is concerned.....
9:37 Well, that would be a great reason to introduce an UBI and a Greenhouse Tax.
A society should take responsibility over the behavior it guides people to.
Can we dwell a little bit on the title of the graph from 3:37: "The beef availability"? I wonder what is actual discrepancy between beef consumed, vs. beef supplied. How much of that meat is thrown away? Just go to your supermarket and check the expiry date on shelves loaded with meet. How much of do you think is actually sold, before it goes bad?
Many people I know rely on food pantry food donation places, where they get whatever is offered to supplement their lack of funds
2:18 compare poultry, pork, and dairy to beef, lamb, goat.
We need to also make it so labelling showing we’re are food has travel is more clear. In the EU it is and so helpful buying more local is important as the shipping has a carbon footprint.
It is labeled. But in my 2 next markets you rarely find something regional... Apples travelled around the world. Potatoes from egypt.. 😒
Yes and no. Local can be great in terms of sustainability and energy use, but it depends on what you’re growing and the season/location.
Many fruits and veggies grown halfway across the world have a lower carbon footprint than eating locally raised meat so in many respects the miles travelled doesn't always indicate the carbon footprint.
@@SherilRKirshenbaum this is why I'm a big fan of growing indoors, so you can expand what is offered in terms of both season and climate zone. Tomatoes are something that do especially well inside. This is why I want to open an urban aquaponics farm inside an empty climate controlled retail space. With my local power company offering a renewable energy plan (all money paid in your bill goes toward maintenance and expansion of solar, wind, ect.) and the addition of solar panels on the roof, I think I should be able to run a carbon free farm that produces fresh produce and healthy proteins year round. I plan on specializing in fruits that are out of season (like tomatoes in December) or out of my climate zone.
Just because the animal was locally raised and killed, doesn't mean that the food it ate didn't come from afar. And nomatter how you look at it, grassfed cattle are even worse for the environment than the factory-farmed ones :(
Bunch of scientists chilling at the UN😂😂
I just shared this on my Facebook page because I care, thanks for sharing this information...
thanks for sharing!
Why are people poor? It’s not because the resources themselves are scarce, it’s an arbitrary set of rules we made up for who gets them.
Why is edible food thrown away without being sold? Because meeting actual needs is secondary to the socially constructed need of profit.
Why is sustainability downplayed in favor of profit?
The answer is capitalism. Labor and the means of production and distribution must be democratically and communally managed and owned, not owned and managed by an oligarchy who are incentivized to be successful by placing profit over tangible human needs.
Allergies are another issue, my partner would love to eat beans and lentils but she along with many of her family members are allergic.
yup, allergies and other medical issues are definitely obstacles that complicated what a person can eat. i know many people who end up feeling really guilty about what they /have/ to eat. which really sucks. and it is one of many reasons why the "vegetarian/veganism is the only path forward" conversations are super frustrating to me.
first video from this channel I've seen, super interesting and informative!
As someone who regularly listens to very complex intellectual conversations on podcasts, this was shockingly hard to follow at times.
Some of the sentences that try to summarize data simply aren't comprehensible for me at this speed, and the visuals didn't help. You totally lost me at 4:35 and had to rewatch that a couple times to understand what was being said.
All that being said, thank you so much for making these videos and hope this is taken as constructive feedback!
Together we march on
the percentage of wasted food has always puzzled me. what do they mean? why is it so high? how are they wasted? does throwing away peels count as "wasted food"? that's the only way i can account for "households" making so much food waste
There’s a lot to food waste. A lot. We lose good in a ton of ways from the stuff that’s not harvested on the farm to the all you can eat buffets to the supermarkets that dump food before it spoils bc of unattractive arbitrary sell by dates. But the good news is that we’re working to reduce what’s wasted and that is going to have a real impact on climate change.
@@SherilRKirshenbaum thanks, the biggest mystery to me is statistics that say "households" produce a lot of waste, such as at sciencenorway.no/economics-food-and-climate-forskningno/most-food-waste-from-households/1428536
Medical bills get awfully expensive! Ever see the cost for insulin? Something to think about when making choices about what to eat, it certainly helped me!
Fantastic presentation. One of the most important issues of our time
Thank you for that video. I got the feeling that just so many people around me, aren't aware of the impact of there diet, even though they are super well educated. They simply dont get it or dont want to get, that they have to think about those impacts.
I just dont know what to do for them to understand the problem. I wish they were watching such videos too...
I just wanted to add that the language of "Eat less meat" is still better then nothing. It is true that trying to make healthier stuff tastier, offering free cooking classes and changing marketing on vegetables are very small steps, but they are in right direction.
Yes "FOOD IS IMMENSELY COMPLICATED" as you said, and it should be as living beings have been eating since their/our dawn. Agriculture sector is secound largest emissions producer after ENERGY.
And ENERGY SECTOR (producing electrical energy) is just 2 centuries old, I am sure we are terribly wrong/immature at it.
Loved the video and Kudos for the efforts behind it....! 😃💞💕😃
I really enjoyed the video. I was curious about how it was stated that eating low carb diets are not healthy. I’ve been told high-fat low-carb diets are good (see every keto book at a health food store). Any clarification on that??
Yes, THAT deserves a mention because it muddies the waters. They acknowledge it for a flash when they show the keto cookbook in reference to contradictory diet recommendations. But on the environmental side, it should mention the complication that most crops are grown with heavy petroleum inputs while grazed land can better maintain soil (and therefore carbon) than tilled land, especially in marginal terrain, and that in addition to methane, cows make fertilizer, which can replace petroleum-based fertilizers.
As a step toward improving the system, we could start by eliminating CAFOs and feeding animals with food that could go directly to humans.
Can you do a video about the Amazon? I've seen it said that if too much of the rainforest is lost, South America could turn into savannah and that the rainforest wouldn't be able to come back. But what's the tipping point? And is there something scientists can do to reverse the soil erosion and drying that would result from the forest fires and harvesting?
oh we really would love to, but in the meantime Joe has a great thread on the topic: twitter.com/DrJoeHanson/status/1164243647296151552
I'd also recommend Kendra from the NYT's twitter thread as well: twitter.com/KendraWrites/status/1164371345318326274
In the 90s the fed published the DASH diet (Dietary Approach to Stopping Hypertension) which recommends eating red meat once per week or less.
I'm in Canada, and I've cut out meat almost completely and have opted to buy more veggies, fruits, legumes, and nuts. I haven't noticed much of a price difference from this change.
Meat is so expensive. Cheap plant food staples include rice, beans, potatoes, oatmeal, pasta, and bananas.
This mess is why I want to start an urban aquaponics business that specializes in out of season and out of climate fruiting plants (like tomatoes in December, or citrus in a temperate zone). I want to do everything I can to support increased sustainability of my local food supply by offering fresh produce and proteins year round. I understand that not every crop is suitable for growth in a hydroponic or aquaponic system, such as deep rooted crops like corn, shelf stable crops like rice, or many of the temperate fruits that require extensive chilling units, like apples and cherries, but most of the vegetables we eat are extremely well suited for soil-less agriculture (and yes, I know that hydroponic tomatoes don't always taste as good as those grown in soil, that's why I want to do aquaponics, since the flavor is much closer to field grown crops, plus, I love to eat fish).
Although it is clear that food insecure households cannot be expected to give consideration to the impact their food choices have for the planet, this is only 12% of the population. And changing our food system is huge and complex. However, food secure individuals can and should be giving their food choices in depth consideration, and need to hear the message about the impact our food choices have on the planet. The message I kept hearing in this video was that it was difficult to make decisions that help. Yet for the 88% of us who are food secure, it's actually not hard at all these days to minimize or even eliminate animal products from our diet.
Is seafood safe to eat? I don't eat redmeat
Seafood is complicated, as it mainly depends on how it was raised or harvested. There are efforts to sustainably harvest wild seafood, but much of it is not regulated well, and there are always some fishing companies that break the rules.
Farmed fish can also have complications. Many farms produce quite a bit of waste, and they don't treat it properly.
A decent solution is to look for fish that were raised in an aquaponic farm, as they tend to treat more of the waste water, or to find a local fish farm and ask how they manage their waste.
It is more work, but at this point in our agricultural development, it's always work to find sustainable foods, not even organic labels can be fully trusted.
The Rainforest Alliance and the National Standard for Sustainable Agriculture are two certifying bodies (recommended to farmers on the USDA website) who are trying to come up with national sustainability standards that will fit the legal definition of sustainability in the US, which can be found on the USDA website ( www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/sustainable-agriculture-information-access-tools#standards ), and that I think is very well defined. So of you see a product certified by either one of those bodies, I would fully recommend it.
Here in the UK plenty fried chicken shops. You can get a good size box (10 to 12 pieces) for £3. They’re always crowded and mostly open until 2am
I think the thing that changed my eating habits the most was looking at how much I was spending per meal. When I started looking, back in the mid-90s, I was spending about $5 per meal (about $8 today, I think). I missed some of the meals my mom would make for me; meatloaf, tuna casserole, pot roast, etc. I got the recipes, bought the ingredients, and gave it a shot! It was so welcome, and then I saw how much it cost. Some of the meals were 1/5th the cost and took just a bit longer than going through a drive through (relative time. time spent actually tending the cooking or prep). 25 years later, I don't miss fast food that much. I treat myself to an 'indulgent meal' monthly or when I'm on the road. Other than that, the sale items at the grocery store dictate my diet for the most part. BTW, F**K McDonalds!!!! The dumbest, most boring, and most expensive meals on the planet, relative to what you get! If you pay $7 for breakfast, it should be 2 eggs sausage, pancakes, and orange juice. Go to Denny's. If you want a REAL burger, check out the locals. They're not all inept!
It is vastly complicated! A great place to start (for me at least) is to avoid food that relies on deforested land, be it animal or vegetable. Food (including meat) that doesn't rely on such land is easily accessible in the UK as most meat is fed on grass and grain grown in the UK. And said grass can even take CO2 out of the atmosphere! Labels, however aren't always easy to interpret. Easy for me to say, though as I can imagine such food is a lot harder to come by outside of Europe and I have time to do a weekly shop in a well stocked supermarket and batch cook from scratch at the weekend. I appreciate not everyone can do that.
Thank you for such a hard look at a complex topic. I agree that in the US at least, shifting subsidies FAR away from meat production and processed food and placing them on vegetables and more local foods would be a great start. Both of these foods should be "special treat" meals, not daily fare. Also making people (maybe through education at the high school level) more conscious of the environmental impact and health impact of their food choices is very important. There are many businesses that would stand to lose a lot of money if we did this shift, however, which further complicates what must be done.
It really is a lot more complicated - especially, as you said, for those who aren't food secure. (Which, by the way, is a painfully accurate term.)
Unfortunately even our medical professionals don't seem to "get it" when it comes to diet problems. Speaking from personal experience only here - therefore not "really evidence" but more of an example of the struggle - my husband is diabetic, has been for years. He has now suffered two bouts of congestive heart failure and endured a major heart surgery, and to ice that cake? His kidneys are beginning to fail. This is all just part of what diabetes does to a person's body, but most folks would assume that such massive problems happen to the elderly. Not necessarily so: my husband isn't even 45 years old yet.
SOME of the situation can be blamed on lack of access to medical care and medicines - you can't keep up with your insulin regimen if you can't get insulin, obviously. And some of it can be blamed on poor food choices at earlier stages of life. But he's been struggling, for years now, trying to balance what his body needs and what our shriveling food budget can support. We live in an area of the US where food of most kinds is relatively cheap: but we also are forced into a situation where the math just doesn't work out in our favor. Even with lower average food prices, vegetables of ANY sort are more expensive ounce for ounce than the cheapest (and least healthy) meat. We don't eat steak, we make do with low quality ground beef, and even that isn't great for the environment much less our own bodies; but our only other choice in protein is beans or chicken. Nothing else is actually affordable - soy products are easily three times the cost of their real-meat equivalents, fish and seafood of all sorts is ridiculously expensive (especially given our proximity to a major fishing area) and even the locally grown produce is just plain costly.
A lot of the folks around our area like to think "just grow your own food" is a viable answer. Maybe it could be, too - our area is quite nice for plants, you can get TWO growing seasons if you manage your planting right, and garden soil doesn't need much amendment if you're growing veggies that are local anyway (in this case squash, collard greens, and the like). However, the folks who advocate for "grow your own" - don't have jobs that would interfere with that, or in some other way they've found a way to address the sheer labor involved in growing food.
Worst of all this is the cultural confusion, as people shriek about this fad diet or the other, while you also have groups declaring that all meat is terrible in all ways and everyone should eat vegetables only, forever (meanwhile ignoring the ongoing hidden costs of massive farms, such as all those laborers and harvesters). Not just a hot mess, a disgusting one.
Please explain how organic produce is not always best for our bodies. I can't find anything about this when trying to search it. All I found was that in Canada they heavily regulate pesticide use so there wouldn't be that much of a difference between conventional and organic there. This doesn't account for America though doesn't explain how it can be worse for the body
What are some of these "whole jourals devoted to the issue"? Please list some in the show notes link.
Excellent video, informative, and well put together... However, many of us watching know much of this already. We know the food industry is a Hot Mess, we know unhealthful food is cheap and healthful food is more expensive. There are so many societal problems that we yell and scream at our government to do something about, yet it falls on deaf ears.
The key point of this video, in my personal opinion, is Sheril Kirshenbaum's observation that the scientists and experts weren't the ones making the decisions about the food industry or the environment.
Perhaps the most important piece of information and one that is not mentioned in this video is that different meats have different impacts on the environment. Pork and Poultry are a lot greener than beef - so if you want to cut down on your carbon footprint, what you can do is swap to greener types of meat (as well as reducing your consumption of it).
Something else you should have in mind is that animals, well integrated into an ecosystem, can be less ecologically damaging than monocrops. Pigs and poultry can eat organic refuse from farming and compost it with a lesser greenhouse gas effect than if you just let that rot by itself (plus, you get to eat a pig that's lived a very happy life later on). If you can, try to support farmers that instead of giving their animals fodder integrate them into their farms.
People here: hmm maybe we should change our habits to make ourselves healthier and save the planet.
Other people: well GL but I will ruin all your efforts by driving my 7 seat luxury SUV completely alone.
I actually have an a$$hole colleague who does that. I used to take public transport to work back then (while earning more than him). Got into an argument with him on the impact of his actions & his defence of said actions. Found myself lone fighter with 3 more colleagues siding with him 😒😒😒
@@woodypigeon
Ummm...
@@woodypigeon I think they're saying that health isn't the point of this video. They never claimed eating less meat was more healthy, the said environmental experts claim that eating less meat is better for the environment.
@@woodypigeon I never said I wanted to make your food more expensive, I pointed out that some ways people propose we increase the sustainability of our food supply (especially regarding meat production) most likely WOULD increase the price of that food, as in I think that would be a problem, and only serve to encourage low income people (like myself) to continue to choose the less sustainable options, since they will be cheaper.
I honestly believe that we need some major overhauls in our agricultural production, especially when it comes to fresh produce and seafood, which is becoming increasingly popular among the US population for a variety of reasons but is not really sustainable the way most of it is produced. I therefore propose that we put more effort into utilizing the unused spaces in our urban areas (abandoned house plots or empty retail building come to mind) to increase the production and availability of fresh produce, thereby helping to reduce its cost, especially if we can combine it with aquaculture (aquaponics is usually the easiest way to do that), vertical farming, and/or automation.
The low carbs diet comment didn't strike me as the host claiming it was pseudo science, she did state that if it wasn't for environmental concerns, she would also probably switch to a low carb diet, however, I also believe that it is important to recognize that nutritional studies are inherently difficult to do, are almost always poorly designed, and often contradict each other or make claims that are not really supported by the data presented. I personally take all nutritional studies with a grain of salt, though I do recognize that eating fruits and vegetables is important and try (not at successfully as I would like, partly due to my budget) to incorporate them into my diet.
Don't get me wrong, I love meat, and have no intention of giving it up, I particularly enjoy eating white fish like tilapia, and small shellfish like shrimp, though I usually don't because they are so much more expensive, but I recognize that not everyone is like me, some people detest (or are allergic to) a seafood diet, and that not every diet is for everyone.
What I propose we do as a society is to try and find ways to allow everyone to eat the diet they want, at an affordable price, while also finding ways to increase the sustainability of said food. That is what will not be easy.
If we want to increase the sustainability of our beef, then switching to a high intensity grazing system is probably the best way to do that. Most breeds of cows do not convert grass to milk or protein as efficiently as they do grains and silage. A healthy diet for pasture raised beef that will convert as efficiently (though may need winter supplementation, depending on the area) involves having a variety of plants in the pasture, like peas and clover, along with the grass, and should be grown on the best land available, whereas most pastures are currently placed on less desirable plots, and the cows are allowed to eat whatever they want, wherever they want in the field, leading to some places becoming over grazed, while other become over grown, and the cows not really getting a balanced diet. The solution to this is high intensity grazing, which is more labor intensive, as the cows must be moved frequently, and more infrastructure is also required to cordon off sections of the pasture to ensure that cows are corralled into a high density situation, and that they are eating the plants at their optimal growth stage for nutrition. Doing this is far more work than feeding the cows grain and silage, and so often comes with extra costs. However, we could reduce the impact of this cost by using cattle (or other animals, like goats and sheep) in high intensity grazing situations on grasslands that are starting to desertify, helping to restore them, thereby making the animals valuable in preserving the environment, reducing the amount of methane they produce (since they produce less when they eat less grain) and potentially opening the door for those raising the cattle to feed their cows for free, which could make up for the increased labor costs and keep our meat at the same price, while still addressing the sustainability concerns of many people.
I'm all for sustainable agriculture (NOT the same as organic, way too many people confuse the two), and am dedicated to trying to improve upon it myself, but I also recognize that sustainability cannot be truly achieved if it causes the price of food to increase, and so try to be aware of things that may increase the price, and also try to come up with solutions that may help mitigate the price if possible, or to try to find alternatives that, while they may not be environmentally ideal, are still "better" than current practices and will have little to no effect on the cost of food.
One part of the three part legal definition of sustainable agriculture is that it must be economically sustainable, which I feel is something that many people who focus only on the environment tend to neglect. That is why I try to point out times when I think a proposed solution has the potential to increase food prices, so we can discuss it and try to find solutions to mitigate any cost increase. Taxing foods, and increasing the price of foods, to try and force people to adopt more sustainable options should not even be on the table imo. People buy what they can afford, and for some people, increasing the price of what they eat, will not help them to more easily afford other foods, and would only serve to force them to choose between eating or paying rent (or worsen the situation for those already in it).
Great vid, Miriam, one of the best on Hot Mess so far. Thanks and keep it going.
Nice to see someone take a more honest approach to the subject.
You should look into systems based approach. A lot of the renaissance of systems thinking lately is reconnecting people to methods that can take on complex systems. Soft systems methodology, systems mapping, etc.
This could not have been more perfectly said. I wish everyone was more aware of this issue. Thank you for making this video.
Good healthy food can be the cheapest way to eat. People have a perception that healthy food is expensive but the cheapest foods in the store are beans, rice, potatoes, lentils, whole grains, and some veggies and fruit are also very cheap especially when you buy frozen instead of fresh. A whole foods plant based diet is one of the healthiest and cheapest diets available.
You don't need super foods or avacados to be healthy. Just eat a variety of whole grains, legumes, and veggies and you'll be fine and save some money too.
The last time I stopped into a gas station to get a snack after I fueled up my car; I saw canned green beans near the instant noodles, fresh Oranges, bananas near the donuts and all kinds of nuts to take home. There are healthy choices that are cheap it's just most folks enjoy what they already adore.
I do wonder sometimes when I launch UA-cam and see those unhealthy 'big burger challenge' and desserts etc on the main website that it's triggering folks to eat unhealthy. I know I've been known to be swooned.
If they had a salad eating challenge or a big bowl of hummus.. maybe that would help the masses consider better eatable choices
Forestland being purposefully burnt to create grassland for cows.... oh, that must have been what happened to Mars!
Who wants to move there?!
Alright lets tackle of a few of these major issues.
The issue of unequal access in "developed" is in large part due to agricultural centralization and distance to arable land since we have a transportation infrastructure. In "developing" countries access to arable land usually isn't hard in terms of distance as farming is spread out but is a problem because both the regulatory state that manages property is seriously lacking where a small number of people own or control most of the land (that can be in the capitalist sense like in Somalia or in the Socialist sense like in China. It doesn't really matter.) In the former case of developed countries the solution is to focus on spreading out farming resources while equipment, investment and shipment are all basically already solved except for maybe breaking up monopoly grocery store chains. In the latter case with developing countries this is largely a major lack of stable governments. This is why there is an argument to be made for supporting countries through economic preference that have good regulatory states which of course flies in the face of capitalism.
In many developing countries agricultural and forestry resources are not managed well nor is economys of scale taken advantage of early on. That is they compared to a developed country waste many resources due to inefficiency and due to a lack of regulation also don't recover those resources. This includes forestry, arable land and waterways. This is where major no strings attached massive investment much like the Marshal plan are needed throughout the rest of the world by developed countries with excess resources. We should save on our wasteful resources in the order of contributing them to developing countries. We want to seed industrialization as quickly as possible as the longer a country is industrializing the more emissions they will produce. That also means MOST of the carbon budget needs to be for the remaining developing countries. That also means in the US especially we need massive rabid decarbonization within the next 20 years.
GHG effect is proven wrong...
Two questions: 1) what about bugs? 2) why a FIAT 126 is in the video?
Bugs would be better for the environment. Eating lower on the food chain makes sense for a lot of reasons. Eating plants is even lower on the food chain. We don't need bugs for protein. We can get all we need from plants.
Eating bugs doesn't do enough as it still emits about 70-80% as much greenhouse gasses as eating regular mammal and avian meat.
Awesome video, it would be even more awesome if you could say what was the healthy low emissions diet recommended by the research. It could be in a next video =)
3:21 1/2 oz is 14 grams
Something that would help me personally eat less meat: Really good meat-free recipes that feel like a full meal and aren't nasty tofu. I know you can, but I feel like I get no protein if I cut meat. I guess milk and yogurt are left? Seriously, throw in actionable things like that on the end of videos.
Do a search on UA-cam. There are lots of vegan cooking videos that show all the options. A good place to start is "Cheap Lazy Vegan." Stay away from the loony raw food vegan channels. I recommend potatoes, both white and sweet potatoes as a good place to start. Very satisfying food to build a vegan meal from. Just add beans for protein, and a sauce. I love mushrooms for that umami flavor I used to get from meat. Nutritional yeast is a great Parmesan alternative.
As you said, going plant based is needed "but really hard to do." Those of use who are able, need to do it. Those who can't, need to reduce as much as possible. The climate crisis demands it, at this point.
Great video Miriam. :)
I didn't know that growing my vegetable has lower carbon emissions.
But I think in my case growing the vegetables myself doesn't produce less carbon emissions.
I use a electric pump to pump out groundwater a electric pump which I will just assume gets it's electricity by burning lignite (Brown Coal) the highest carbon emissions energy producer in Germany.
Sadly I can't change my energy provider in my garden-cabin (separate plot of land) and I can't just use rain water. I need wat feels like thousands of liters of water each day.
I considered switching to solar energy for my garden-cabin also because energy there is very very expensive like 4 to 5 times over average. (it has it justification and reasons which would take to long to explain).
But spending a grant or more to power a small cabin with solar + battery storage becomes the pump needs a lot of power even if it is basically the only relevant energy consumer in the cabin.
It's still on the table to go solar but certainly not this year anymore.
Calculate how long it would take to reach the ROI of the solar system
I appreciate your videos so much!
thanks! we appreciate you watching too!
While I do agree, I think there should have been more emphasis on the solution proposed by the paper, rather than the shortcomings of implementation. I say this not because the shortcomings of implementation aren't important to discuss, but because for most people hearing they exist is just a perfect excuse not to try even though these shortcomings aren't even applicable to them. How many of your rich friends eat a plant-based diet? Less than 10% for sure! And it's not because it is impracticable for these people, but because most of them hardly even think about how significant the impact on the environment is to change one's diet and it really is one of the biggest individual choices individuals can make to reduce water and land usage, use of fertilizers, deforestation, biodiversity loss and much much more (of course shadowed only by having less children) and that's without even mentioning the potential for reducing animal suffering.
Why can’t we use our stored energy we carry on us on a daily basis? Why aren’t we taught how to access that energy? We need to be taught on fasting and how we really don’t need that much food. We need to be taught the insulin-glucagon biofeedback mechanism.
So there seems to be a difference of opinion here on ruminants. Allen Savory talks about it. We actually need more ruminants on our grasslands to replicate the grazing and migrations of the ancient super herds which were the tectonic plates of biodiversity on land.
Yoooo can you tell us that mushroom burger recipe that you teased in the last food related episode of hot mess?
wow good memory!
i posted the recipe on my instagram: instagram.com/p/BlBEUBtA_Ig/
but it might be time for a refresh! i've been experimenting with finding the perfect sauce for the burger.
Try this mushroom dish for a really easy way to get the flavor. Put mushrooms in a bowl and add Miso Ginger broth from Trader Joes. Microwave to your preference. I like to add pieces of tofu, nori seaweed, and chopped green onion. I dip toast in the broth for a French Dip flavor.
@@someguy2135 omg, that sounds amazing, thank you! Now I need to go to TJ 😂
@@WendyBird5131 You are so welcome! Good news! You can have it every day without getting tired of it. I have been doing so for quite a while now. Sometimes I will vary the broth.
@@WendyBird5131 Here's another related tip, or hack. Buy miso paste, and use it to make an amazing butter alternative without any processed oils. Combine miso paste, nutritional yeast, and water for a butter replacement. Try it on broccoli and microwave. Red miso is my favorite.
Hang on! 3:41 sorry to be pedantic 😬 but that graph axis is clearly labelled “Beef Availability”... Not “Beef Consumption”. We know US eats a lot of Beef but you know. Growing up in Botswana 🇧🇼 (grass fed beef country) Of a 2 million population beef is readily available and cheap by comparison to say the UK. Some of these stats don’t add up for me? Opinion 🤷♂️
These video's give me major anxiety yet I still have to watch them every time
I don't think they're trying to make you anxious, I think they are trying to invite conversation on difficult topics.
I usually don't have much to say, because I have not actively studied most areas they discuss and so do not feel I have much to contribute that could help move the conversation along, but this is one topic I have studied extensively, and am currently working towards becoming an expert in, through formal schooling, independent study, and personal experience.
If it makes you feel better, our agricultural system is actively seeking (and seeing) improvement, and I feel that many environmental scientists overlook some solutions that are likely more productive then telling everyone to "eat less meat", most of them are not, after all, agriculturalists.
I'm sure you've noticed more hydroponic and vertical farms popping up and being successful, as well as aquaponic farms. Those are good examples of fairly sustainable alternative farming techniques. You should also know that more municipalities are beginning to allow market gardens and urban farms. It is my opinion that if we really want to address the sustainability of our food supply, our focus should be on these things, not on how much meat people should be eating.
People will eat what they like (or can afford), and telling them to stop eating what they like only serves to make many of them angry and defensive, instead of promoting discussion and raising awareness of more sustainable food options. The discussions going on in the comments of this video should serve as a good example of that.
Changing the way we grow food is going to be a group effort, so we should try to focus on the less controversial topics first, like market gardens, instead of the big scary ones that everyone is going to fight over, like how much meat we should or should not be eating (though I personally feel that the discussion should be about how to best utilize the cattle we have, not to focus upon having less of it, which I would be happy to explain further if you wish).
So many things that occurred without our consent and knowledge makes everything more complex and ununderstandable
It would be simpler if it was just, the more greenhouse gases it makes the more it costs.
Canada has a carbon tax, and it seemed to help with more fuel efficient cars, but could it work for meat consumption in America?
Thank you... it was a nice video on how difficult is to change.. somebody.. something.. that that is influenced by SO MANY damn factors.. i argued with a family member about this today lol
how is it hard if it’s already one of the highest. that literally shows diet is easily transformable to lower meat intake. it’s not like you’re already consuming the least amount in the world but need to still cut it 80 per cent more. it’s wild to me these numbers. before i became vegan i ate around half of the suggested meat and it still felt like too much cause of how bad it is for the body. just make meat cost what it actually costs. without government subsidies most ppl won’t be able to afford to buy so much of it and especially throw away
A video with much more questions than answers. Which is good, I guess, because you don't get the unrealistic feeling that you did something useful by watching it, you get the healthier feeling that you should start doing something useful.
Good topic guys.
Can we get this video trending? Thanks.
I am a vegetarian, but I think the video should have addressed grazing vs. CAFOs, the concepts of holistic grazing and regenerative agriculture, and the difficulty of having completely non-animal agricultural that doesn't rely on petroleum inputs. Basically the kind of arguments presented in articles like the following:
newfoodeconomy.org/climate-change-eat-less-meat-plant-based-impossible-burger-regenerative-ranching/
Miriam, I love you. I really do, but I also have a critical comment about this video. You emphasized several times how big and hard this problem is. That could make people throw up their hands and give up. I haven't studied Humanism formally, but my impression of it is an attitude that people can figure things out and solve big problems. We are not helpless. We don't need God to save us. We can do it.
Positivity and hope is what gets us going forward indeed. Great message, thanks!
I took the message she was giving not so much as a "it's really hard so we should give up" and more as a "we really need to make some major changes to the way we grow and distribute food". Admittedly, I am an agricultural student who wants to contribute to the overhaul of our agricultural production by opening a sustainably certified urban aquaponics farm, partly to provide fresh produce and proteins year round, and mostly to raise awareness of what sustainable agriculture actually means according to its legal definition, but I was led to this route by several years of investigating the best way to produce food for my family.
the fix is unremarkably surprisingly simple. Most people eat for pleasure rather than for sustainability, im looking at everyone, vegans and paleos etc etc. Its only complicated when tackled collectively. Instead, the solution should be working at an individual level. Raising self awareness and working towards self-realization. In America particularly... the educational system could be shifted from indoctrination to the dynamics of our relationship and how we reverberate throughout the entire system. Baby steps of course, are still moving forward. this type of education is GROSSLY overlooked
it all started with advertising junk food, cereal was first I think. Sugar. Most people don't even know they are sick from eating junk food.
i just wanna say thank you for making this gomplex topic attleast a little more...
digestable.
Thank you
Plant based diet here, very very rarely eat red meat.
Kudos. Less animal based foods is an improvement. None would be better yet. Those of us who can go vegan should do so, since many will not even reduce.
So beans are more expensive than meat?
Great as always
The planet falling onto the shoulders of the silhouette figure everywhere they go to eat.... yeah I feel that. It really is hard to make good food choices and in the end, I know I end up cheating and giving into what I know is a destructive status quo because change is hard :/
Thanks for your work on this, great information!
I thought this video would be about how many people will starve from climate change. When are you going to talk about how bad it will really get and where and how we should live to survive? Every episode is like, "It's way too hard to fix this". OK, we get it. So can you help some of us maybe survive it?
I don't agree that we know how to transform our global food system. At best we know what we don't yet know.
Talk about our economic system next
Yes, but they put shiz in the food to make it addictive. The list of that is extensive. I do delivery, dropping off McDonald's to people virtue signaling they are afraid for their health. I do my best to decline those orders, but I still have to take some. Yet they were the only ones open....especially at night.......but Im seeing a shift. They can't stay open, often closing early, because they lack workers. I don't feel bad for them. Also a shift in promoting chicken, across the board. I avoid chicken, as it noticeably and quickly messes with my hormones. Im aiming to go vegan, but holy crap its hard doing what I do. I do try to deliver for local and small businesses, but thats not fully possible. Zero convenience in trying to eat healthier. Maybe not zero, but its hard. Plus I consider myself addicted to certain foods, and have for many years, long before the pandemic. Even with long periods of not eating out, it doesn't take long to get addicted again. Im 2 1/2 years fully caffeine free, so I know what its like coming off things. Months of anhedonia. No joke. PAWS is real. The part where you say it should taste good, coming off the bliss point is going to be a downer for sure. I call these foods, food drugs, because they are. A huge greedy piece of the puzzle that must be acknowledged to properly discuss this.
Step 1: Stop governments subsidizing animal foods.
Thumbs up for mentioning the low carb diet trend! 😁
That wasn't a positive recommendation.
Unless the food is almonds in which case is terrible for the environment
11:23 What happens when the earth find out that you are a climate change denier
I reckon something that needs to be mentioned in conversations about food distribution is capitalism; if it wasn't profitable to throw produce in the garbage and sell people junk food for cheap, I sincerely doubt it would be happening today.
capitalism as it currently exists is definitely a major part of every single problem in climate.
someday i'd love to do a video with an economics channel about that.
@@zentouro That'd be really interesting to learn about more thoroughly
Love this channel
The results of climate chaos results in lots of human suffering. So let's look at the hard choices. I live in a rural area and grow over half my own food with a no till gardening system. Is this more work - yes. Is it more fun - yes. does the no till gardening system I use help sequester carbon in the soil - yes, Could people in urban and suburban location grow a lot of their own food - yes. Let's take the climate crisis seriously and work hard to leave a better world than we found it.
I am not gonna say that we have to be vegan, but indeed meat consumption and other animal products should be reduced. We sometimes eat too many just to fulfil our essential amino acid needs.
Less animal based foods would be an improvement. None would be better yet. Those of us who can go vegan should do so, since many will not even reduce.
I'm happy to not eat beef, I eat pork, chicken, fish. But as far as the planet is concerned it will also be fine... human however the outlook is not so good.
Awesome video!
Go green!
Hmm..... I find that it's becoming much more pointless for us humans to try to sustain our needs unless we actually set our population number(even reducing it)
Stop telling me its complicated and just give me the best answers you have at this point!
Exactly. I was disappointed and not for the first time after watching a Hot Mess video. It just spreads anxiety without pointing to any real direction.
"Just tell me what's going to be on the test. I don't want to understand how to get to the solution myself."
@@prof_hu Agree. I was watching the video and it was like: mehh. I haven't learnt a single new thing. Also it encourages "greenwashing" the ecological emergency and eventually endorsing the system as it is. If its up to personal choices and it's "complicated" we are truly fucked. There has to be political decision to ban industrial agriculture and industrial activity in general. Put fines on food wastage at production and supply level. Cap the property prices, shrink the housing bubble and increase the price of food 10 times, so that people spend big chunk of their income on food not on extortion of money by banks, called mortgage. Ban palm oil. Don't subsidize corn. Put hefty tax on goods shipped from other side of the globe. There is plenty we could do. Just no political will and loads of zombies compliant with state policies.
@@Markle2k Your analogy is false. This is more like the introductory textbook refusing to give any information and just repeating, like a manttra: it's complicated, it's complicated.
@@sodalitia even though the things you propose are drastic, they are a good start for a conversation as to what is the best solution for this problem is. I think a meat tax would be great. The general sense that the difficulty in buying should map on to the ecologic impact of producing that food. If a steak produces 8 times more carbon it should cost 8 times more.
Cultured Meat time!
And vertical farming!
not sure what to comment rn, so just take this algorithm!
this made me chuckle. thanks for commenting!
alright 11:25 got me