This isn't helpful. I don't like use of pesticides and I think there's a reasonable controversy to be had about the dangers of Glyphosate.
But the environmental impact of meat production is so enormous desastrous, we should welcome every possible alternative. Whatever the Glyphosate (and GMO) concerns are, they are tiny in comparison.
Kind of like the conspiracy theory that some conspiracy theories are made up by governments to make theorists look ridiculous, sometimes I wonder if science-blind anti-GMO sentiment was manufactured by these big agriculture companies to draw legitimate attention away from truly studying the pesticides we're using.
That was the first thought I had when I saw the title of the organization "Moms Across America". Sounds like it was named by a corporate team of lawyers, PR and Marketing professionals for politically charged yet monetarily motivated attacks against "ankle biter" companies.
This comment really struck me. I've personally always found the anti-GMO crowd to be nonexistent by every metric I have available to me, but I've always assumed I'm just not seeing it wherever it is. The most extreme opinions I ever encounter on the subject are the occasional individual merely wondering out loud if GMOs are bad for you.
I'm curious as to where you live. I'm in SF, and a substantial number of my friends and acquaintances use "non-GMO" as a synonym for "healthier," in the same way some use "organic". Do you mean the more militant anti-GMO crowd? If so, I guess you're right that I've never met anyone who cares more than "I just think non-GMO is better and do my best to make choices supporting them."
The only strong opinions that I've heard are from farmers, and that's more about the economics than anything else. Let's face it, nobody gives a flying hoot about what farmers think.
If I were pushing the implication soy, potato and coconut oil as a healthy alternative to anything, I would make sure to have good opposition PR in place to cast people who question the product as crazy.
Impossible is very careful to emphasize the environmental mumbo-jumbo and avoid any mention of health beyond the standard nutritional data on their website, while implying that it's better. It's similar to supermarkets that package chicken in white and green trays, empathize "hormone free" and merchandise it next to the organic chicken.
> I don't like use of pesticides and I think there's a reasonable controversy to be had about the dangers of Glyphosate.
There's an important economic perspective to pesticide use: farmers are going to be doing whatever they can to kill enough pests to protect their crops and get a satisfactory yield/ROI.
That means that, the more effective a pesticide is, the less of it they need to use; and the less effective a pesticide is, the more of it they need to use. Since the dangers to humans/other animals come from the amount of pesticide left on something after washing, the seemingly-equivalent "less, more-powerful" pesticide is actually much less dangerous than "more, less-powerful" pesticide, because it's more likely to be completely removed from the end product.
If we ban the most effective pesticides, the alternative is using more of the less-effective pesticides to get an equivalent effect. Which means getting food that likely has more pesticide left over on it.
This also applies to "organic" food: "organic" pesticides are less effective, so they use more of them, so "organic" food ends up having more pesticide left on it than non-"organic" food.
So, if you're not a fan of pesticide in the sense that you're not a fan of eating pesticide, then you should want farmers to be equipped with as powerful a pesticide as possible.
This assumes that all pesticides have the same effects at the same dosages in humans, which would be surprising if true.
Sure, the more potent the pesticide, the less growers need to use, and the less residual pesticide ends up ingested by people. But it's impossible to say anything about the relative harm of a small residual amount of potent pesticide versus a larger residual amount of less potent (and chemically different) pesticide.
> This assumes that all pesticides have the same effects at the same dosages in humans
Nah, my assumption was that the level of harm scales with the power of the pesticide in humans just as it does in, well, pests. (It's not true, but it's an interesting model to study.)
If we assume that relationship, it should imply that, if your vegetables were never washed once from the farm to your mouth, you'd be getting equivalent levels of harm from more- and less-powerful pesticides, since the amount of them sprayed on the vegetable would be in inverse proportion to their toxicity.
However, once you introduce washing, the amount of the pesticide you remove isn't constant, nor linear.
In fact, some pesticides are non-"organic" precisely because they have chemicals in them that make them more easily washed off!
So the better-engineered (less "natural") pesticides are both originally present in smaller quantities, and reduced in quantity more by washing. You might end up eating none of a synthetic pesticide, whereas an "organic" one might be all over your food even after washing. "None" is very different from even a little.
(Further, there are synthetic pesticides that are entirely safe for humans—or are even considered food by humans—but which are considered non-"organic" because we can only create them via de novo synthesis rather than in a bioreactor. Consider some artificial sugar that the human liver can process but insects cannot metabolize. If we sprayed it on plants, it'd be a "synthetic pesticide." If "synthetic pesticide" looks like that, and "organic pesticide" looks like, say, nicotine, which would you prefer to miss some residue of?)
As another example, diatomaceous earth kills pretty much anything with an exoskeleton through a physical mechanism, but is completely non-toxic to mammals (prolonged breathing is not a good idea, though). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth#Pest_contro...)
It is convenient but erroneous to assume that all pesticides affect humans and pests equally.
The anti-meat propaganda is getting obnoxious. The most sustainable agriculture is one in which the soil is fertilised with manure and rotated livestock, because grazing animals keep the soil healthy and meat keeps us healthy, because we are omnivores.
We might need to discourage CAFOs by cutting the corn subsidies and by raising their environmental taxes, which will raise the price of meat, but we also need to use less pesticides and artificial fertilisers, because we are heavily polluting the soil, the water supply and killing the bees, which should drive up the cost of fruits and vegetables too.
And from ecological, to health and ethical considerations, most pro-vegan arguments (not all) are bullshit. The next time you're happy about not killing animals and being eco-friendly, see this:
Kind of funny you have zero citations of your own other than a single story (not a study) about how some plants are grown somewhere.
>And from ecological, to health and ethical considerations, most pro-vegan arguments (not all) are bullshit.
As an expert in one of these three fields, I can say with certainty that you're just making up these claims from whole cloth to fit your narrative.
Edit: I want to edit this to make clear I'm not just making a claim to authority and saying everyone should believe me. This response was mainly out of frustration at outright nonsense like "meat keeps us healthy" that no health organization in the world is going to subscribe to. I hope people in general are aware enough of some of these issues to detect the problems in the post I replied to and look into some of these questions for themselves.
right. because growing billions of animals in inhuman conditions and slaughtering them is humane
>health
don’t feel like linking a source right now but higher red meat and sausage consumption are linked to colon cancer. this is a bit of a weaker point than the others
>ecological
wrong again. 7% of total emissions come just from gasses released by livestock. and about 60% of total ice free land is used to house the livestock and grow feed. [1] meat is just inefficient. 80% of arable land is used on meat and feeding that meat for only 20% of the worlds calories. [2]
that just isn’t sustainable if the population keeps growing.
eating meat is fine (arguably) but don’t try and justify it with bullshit. just say you like meat.
> In case you haven't seen what industrial plants agriculture looks like nowadays:
It "looks" bad but do we care about looks more than pollution ? Look at any large scale animal farm, it looks much worse. Any solutions to feed 8b people will be far from perfect, but some solutions have less of an impact
Reducing (not stopping) meat consumption is a very easy way to reduce your carbon footprint, and you can still get all the animal protein you need from dairy, eggs, &c.
> The most sustainable agriculture is one in which the soil is fertilised with manure and rotated livestock, because grazing animals keep the soil healthy
It's true, but the current meat industry is far from that. I'm all for sustainable farms and eating animals that have been reasonably grown and treated. The problem is that so many people eat meat every day, multiple time a day that the industry will never be able to provide sustainable meat. Look at the chicken industry, they grow them so fast that they die of organ failures and other growth related diseases and deformations. There is no soil fertilization coming from the millions of animals that have never been on a field. https://www.aspca.org/sites/default/files/chix_white_paper_n...
> meat keeps us healthy, because we are omnivores.
Omnivore doesn't especially mean meat eater, just animal derived products. People live without meat just fine, the abuse of meat and the consumption of low quality/processed meat has been linked to many health issues on the other hand.
Nowadays I only eat meat when I go out and can spend good money on a quality steak, asian bbq or the like. Your body doesn't _need_ that daily ultra processed bacon, that $1.5/kg chicken or any of the fast food low quality burgers. The current western diets really are a metaphors for humanity; long term self destruction for short term pleasure & convenience.
I'm just glad I got to read this comment before r/vegan showed up and downvoted it into oblivion. Such is the current state of discourse around this subject on HN.
We need to eat less meat, we need to look after animals better and we need to do it in a much more eco-friendly and sustainable manner. We don't all need to go vegan. Going from one extreme to another is never the answer.
Because humans are adaptable omnivores, who can survive if not thrive with just either plants or animals (cf. Carnivory diet). But most food are cultural specific, and it'd be a shame to lose most of it.
To be honest, I'm one of those waiting for my promised future superalgae and Euglina's food pills, so...
But the environmental impact of meat production is so enormous desastrous, we should welcome every possible alternative. Whatever the Glyphosate (and GMO) concerns are, they are tiny in comparison.