255 grams per week. That's the short answer to how much meat you can eat without harming the planet. And that only applies to poultry and pork.

255 grams per week. That’s the short answer to how much meat you can eat without harming the planet. And that only applies to poultry and pork.

Beef cannot be eaten in meaningful quantities without exceeding planetary boundaries, according to an article published by a group of DTU researchers in the journal Nature Food. So says Caroline H. Gebara, postdoc at DTU Sustain and lead author of the study."

Our calculations show that even moderate amounts of red meat in one’s diet are incompatible with what the planet can regenerate of resources based on the environmental factors we looked at in the study. However, there are many other diets—including ones with meat—that are both healthy and sustainable," she says.

  • rah@feddit.ukEnglish
    1·
    10 hours ago

    industrial cows are treated mildly better because it is literally impossible for a cow to survive in the conditions chickens are kept in

    You seem to be talking about material conditions. What concerns me more are the psychological conditions and I don’t believe there to be any difference in that respect.

    Do you believe that the beef which enters a person’s body will be in some way less harmful, all else being equal, than chicken? Solely because of the absolute difference in the material conditions?

    • Beastimus@slrpnk.netEnglish
      1·
      10 hours ago

      No, but the beef which enters a person’s body won’t be harmful to them (the person) at all.

      I may be misunderstanding you. Are you talking about the harm caused in its production? As in pound for pound the harm caused by the production process? Because I would like to emphasize that I don’t think beef production is less harmful, the additional harm caused to the planet in industrial grade beef far outweighs the difference in animal welfare. It seems slightly weird to me to talk about the meat itself being harmful as it enters the person’s body when the harm is in the production.

      I also don’t understand what you mean by separating “material” vs “psychological” conditions. If you’re talking about the psychological state the animals are in while they are alive, as far as I know, the statement stands, industrial cattle live slightly better lives (more space and such,) which results as far as I know, in a better psychological state*.

      That’s not to say that beef is ok while chicken is not, if chicken is off the table for you, beef definitely should be as well.

      *Though it is now occurring to me that comparing the psychological states of chickens and cows may not be an activity with a point.