Edit
Refrigeration is optimal, and we agree on that. Yet, meat was notconsumptwed by regular folks because aristocrats were the only ones who could afford it (and I recall that many of them died of a disease that comes from meat overconsumption).
Regular folks ate meat only on special occasions. And driying it makes it last for months if not years (source: the dry sausages that I buy in my granfather’s town, hand made by people, last for 14 months)
The point is that mass factory farming is the reason that meat is cheap now, and one of the technologies that’s enabled mass factory farming is refrigeration.
If I were to be fair then my answer would be neither as I don’t believe capitalism is forcing us to consume meat and there was methods to conserve meat for long periods of time before refrigeration was a thing.
I guess meat can be healthy. What certainly isn’t healthy is highly processed meat like burgers, hot dogs and deep fried turkey
Science suggests that meat consumption always comes with risks e.g. of genetic mutations. So if you can meet your demand of nutrients and trace elements without meat you probably should.
Vitamin B12 is an essential vitamin with largely non vegetarian source.[1,2] Indian population, with largely vegetarian food habit, is more prone to harbour deficiency of vitamin B12.[2,3]
There’s been a lot of back-and-forth. B12, like iron and Protein, are digested differently by the gut (with different efficiency) based on how they are consumed.
If absolutely all you care about is nutrition and nothing else, you should be eating a small amount of non-processed red and white meat (and/or seafood) on a regular basis because it is the best and healthiest source of those three things. Key term “small amount”
Interesting that you say this because the high amount of B12 in the meat people buy is because it is artificially supplemented to the animals they slaughter.
That seems like a bit of a red herring even if true. Considering I recognize your handle from elsewhere, I’m going to say “eat what you want” and move on before things get heated.
I understand that your ethics drive your decisions, but my ethics drive mine. As does my nutrition.
Actually, hell. Let me respond to the red herring statement anyway. Yes they supplement cows B12. Not so they have B12 in their meat but because cows need B12 and most of the world’s soil is Cobalt-deficient. I’m such a sucker for trolls I suppose; can’t let misinformation go unanswered :( I hope an upvoted post in a vegan subreddit works for response?
EDIT: Sorry. I don’t really mean that YOU are a troll per se. Misinformation like this is problematic to me because I try to treat people as charitably as I possibly can. But the idea that B12 is in meat due to supplements is one of that family of malicious half-truths that simply could not have been an “honest mistake” from whoever originated it. Whoever started spreading that ABSOLUTELY knows it’s a downright falsehood that can be substantiated by half-reads and mis-reads of actual facts. Like picking out a single vaccine study that doesn’t rule out autism and starting… well, you lived through what it started as much as I did.
I genuinely don’t think YOU knew what you were about to say was fabricated nonsense made to seem defensible from a naive googling. But somebody did.
There’s been a lot of back-and-forth. B12, like iron and Protein, are digested differently by the gut (with different efficiency) based on how they are consumed. If absolutely all you care about is nutrition and nothing else, you should be eating a small amount of non-processed red and white meat (and/or seafood) on a regular basis because it is the best and healthiest source of those three things. Key term “small amount”
How did you arrive at that conclusion? Not by carefully checking your information I guess. Since a quick Google would have revealed to you that people can get the necessary amount of B12 through supplements. There is no reason to assume it is less healthy.
That the B12 in the meat people consume is supplemented is not false. Without oral administration of B12 many slaughtered animals wouldn’t even produce it at all. Lactating cows and calves get it as well, so do some cattle just as a precaution. You explicitly mentioned white meat (I looked it up and that seems to be the flesh of, for example, swine and chicken) and these animals do not produce their B12 from Cobalt. They need B12 supplements which are administrated orally through their feed.
To call it fabricated nonsense and implying that people who share that information are troll adjacent does make it seem you have an agenda beyond just stating what is presumably more healthy.
capitalism has led to never before seen economies of scale, allowing for dirt cheap food prices never before seen in history. if we were to look at capitalism through that metric and that metric only then it would be wildly popular…
Because the focus wouldn’t be on profit just for profit’s sake. That is the main problem with capitalism. The technologies just allowed it. Plus, technologies are not sentient, you can’t blame a technology…
Because the focus wouldn’t be on profit just for profit’s sake
what socioeconomic system has existed where increased productivity was viewed as a bad thing?
e.g.:
pure feudalism would’ve led to economies of scale because it would make the king of the castle wealthier.
any kind of socialism with a centrally planned economy would’ve led to economies of scale because it enables the government to more easily meet the needs of the people.
even pure marxist communism probably would’ve led to economies of scale eventually because any communities that worked together on a global scale would’ve been more prosperous for their community members, which is still a goal of the system
The technologies just allowed it
or in other words, their invention led to it, which was the original quote I was responding to
Plus, technologies are not sentient, you can’t blame a technology…
socio-economic systems aren’t sentient either
nobody’s “blaming” a technology—there isn’t even really a consensus in this thread on whether economies of scale leading to increased meat consumption is a good or bad thing
I wouldn’t call “profit” synonymous with “productivity”. Quite the opposite. Profit is intentional market inefficiency for individual gain. I’m just calling it because so many people do make the mistake of treating them as the same, presuming the former is inherently good because productivity is.
Pretty much everything else you said I agree with.
because prior to the advent of capitalism the priorities were not on the consumer, but on the aristocracy. while the end results of free market capitalism are clearly destroying the planet, it is insanely more equitable than anything that came before it.
the economies of scale exist due to the consumer pressure, which didn’t exist in other market systems.
i don’t get why people are downvoting that. i’m not saying capitalism is the best thing in the world and nothing will ever be better than it. i’m saying it allowed people to eat more meat and is democratic compared to feudalism or mercantilism
Because people can’t seem to understand the difference between ‘criticizing stuff while also being aware of and acknowledging its benefits’ vs ‘mindlessly bashing something whenever you get the chance bcuz tribalism’.
Hell, even Marx praised capitalism for the immense wealth that it has generated for the masses, which so many so-called ‘socialists’ don’t seem to understand.
Both. Refrigeration is what allows us to store and (I would argue more importantly) transport large amounts of meat, and is as such essential to the industry. However, Capitalism is also key to the meat industry because its lobbyists constantly push for meat subsidies, which is the main reason meat is cheap enough to be something we have every meal instead of once every couple of days.
Was it capitalism or was it refrigeration?
There are hundreds of ways to preserve meat without a fridge
Fresh or preserved (salted or dried) meat has existed as long as people have paid for them. Even ice was used for a while prior to refrigeration.
Salting and dehydration is not as efficient as refrigeration. Not even close.
You are totally missing the point. American?
Edit Refrigeration is optimal, and we agree on that. Yet, meat was notconsumptwed by regular folks because aristocrats were the only ones who could afford it (and I recall that many of them died of a disease that comes from meat overconsumption). Regular folks ate meat only on special occasions. And driying it makes it last for months if not years (source: the dry sausages that I buy in my granfather’s town, hand made by people, last for 14 months)
I think you mean gout. It was known as the disease of kings.
The point is that mass factory farming is the reason that meat is cheap now, and one of the technologies that’s enabled mass factory farming is refrigeration.
If I were to be fair then my answer would be neither as I don’t believe capitalism is forcing us to consume meat and there was methods to conserve meat for long periods of time before refrigeration was a thing.
I guess meat can be healthy. What certainly isn’t healthy is highly processed meat like burgers, hot dogs and deep fried turkey
Science suggests that meat consumption always comes with risks e.g. of genetic mutations. So if you can meet your demand of nutrients and trace elements without meat you probably should.
Science also says the primary sources of essential vitamin B12 come from meat and dairy.
Here is some fun reading:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6540890/
Interesting. I guess you could still supplement b12
There’s been a lot of back-and-forth. B12, like iron and Protein, are digested differently by the gut (with different efficiency) based on how they are consumed.
If absolutely all you care about is nutrition and nothing else, you should be eating a small amount of non-processed red and white meat (and/or seafood) on a regular basis because it is the best and healthiest source of those three things. Key term “small amount”
Interesting that you say this because the high amount of B12 in the meat people buy is because it is artificially supplemented to the animals they slaughter.
That seems like a bit of a red herring even if true. Considering I recognize your handle from elsewhere, I’m going to say “eat what you want” and move on before things get heated.
I understand that your ethics drive your decisions, but my ethics drive mine. As does my nutrition.
Actually, hell. Let me respond to the red herring statement anyway. Yes they supplement cows B12. Not so they have B12 in their meat but because cows need B12 and most of the world’s soil is Cobalt-deficient. I’m such a sucker for trolls I suppose; can’t let misinformation go unanswered :( I hope an upvoted post in a vegan subreddit works for response?
EDIT: Sorry. I don’t really mean that YOU are a troll per se. Misinformation like this is problematic to me because I try to treat people as charitably as I possibly can. But the idea that B12 is in meat due to supplements is one of that family of malicious half-truths that simply could not have been an “honest mistake” from whoever originated it. Whoever started spreading that ABSOLUTELY knows it’s a downright falsehood that can be substantiated by half-reads and mis-reads of actual facts. Like picking out a single vaccine study that doesn’t rule out autism and starting… well, you lived through what it started as much as I did.
I genuinely don’t think YOU knew what you were about to say was fabricated nonsense made to seem defensible from a naive googling. But somebody did.
Let’s look at your statement:
How did you arrive at that conclusion? Not by carefully checking your information I guess. Since a quick Google would have revealed to you that people can get the necessary amount of B12 through supplements. There is no reason to assume it is less healthy.
Sources: Comparative Bioavailability and Utilization of Particular Forms of B12 Supplements
Revisiting Vitamin B12 Deficiency: A Clinician’s Guide For the 21st Century
Effective treatment of cobalamin deficiency with oral cobalamin
That the B12 in the meat people consume is supplemented is not false. Without oral administration of B12 many slaughtered animals wouldn’t even produce it at all. Lactating cows and calves get it as well, so do some cattle just as a precaution. You explicitly mentioned white meat (I looked it up and that seems to be the flesh of, for example, swine and chicken) and these animals do not produce their B12 from Cobalt. They need B12 supplements which are administrated orally through their feed.
Sources: Two funny ones, given the context, I think: Vitamin B12 for Chickens B12 for Livestock: Uses, Benefits, and Signs of B12 Deficiency
Influence of vitamin B 12 and Cobalt on growth of broiler chickens and Pekin ducks
Methionine, folic acid and vitamin B12 in growing-finishing pigs: impact on growth performance and meat quality
To call it fabricated nonsense and implying that people who share that information are troll adjacent does make it seem you have an agenda beyond just stating what is presumably more healthy.
capitalism has led to never before seen economies of scale, allowing for dirt cheap food prices never before seen in history. if we were to look at capitalism through that metric and that metric only then it would be wildly popular…
did capitalism do that, or did technologies like aircraft and refrigeration do that?
why would economies of scale not exist under a different socio-economic system?
Because the focus wouldn’t be on profit just for profit’s sake. That is the main problem with capitalism. The technologies just allowed it. Plus, technologies are not sentient, you can’t blame a technology…
what socioeconomic system has existed where increased productivity was viewed as a bad thing?
e.g.:
or in other words, their invention led to it, which was the original quote I was responding to
I wouldn’t call “profit” synonymous with “productivity”. Quite the opposite. Profit is intentional market inefficiency for individual gain. I’m just calling it because so many people do make the mistake of treating them as the same, presuming the former is inherently good because productivity is.
Pretty much everything else you said I agree with.
because prior to the advent of capitalism the priorities were not on the consumer, but on the aristocracy. while the end results of free market capitalism are clearly destroying the planet, it is insanely more equitable than anything that came before it.
the economies of scale exist due to the consumer pressure, which didn’t exist in other market systems.
i don’t get why people are downvoting that. i’m not saying capitalism is the best thing in the world and nothing will ever be better than it. i’m saying it allowed people to eat more meat and is democratic compared to feudalism or mercantilism
Because people can’t seem to understand the difference between ‘criticizing stuff while also being aware of and acknowledging its benefits’ vs ‘mindlessly bashing something whenever you get the chance bcuz tribalism’.
Hell, even Marx praised capitalism for the immense wealth that it has generated for the masses, which so many so-called ‘socialists’ don’t seem to understand.
nobody reads theory anymore 😔
Nobody reads anymore.
Both. Refrigeration is what allows us to store and (I would argue more importantly) transport large amounts of meat, and is as such essential to the industry. However, Capitalism is also key to the meat industry because its lobbyists constantly push for meat subsidies, which is the main reason meat is cheap enough to be something we have every meal instead of once every couple of days.