• MemesAreTheory [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    That is wild. I’ve cut back on meat consumption to only once or twice a week and advocate to people who want to try vegetarian/veganism but struggle with it to just approach it gradually rather than all or nothing. I make the argument that if we all reduced our consumption by 50-80% that would go a lot further than only a few people reducing their consumption 100%.

    Now I’m not so sure. Maybe we just need to put these 12% freaks in a gulag and feed them nothing but beans for a few years.

  • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    i had not thought about it, but this does not surprise me. the ideology of the US is to make the wealthiest asshole in a room of 10 people feel completely free to ruin everyone else’s experience/lives.

    i remember when i was much younger and first recognizing the environmental destruction of overconsumption and the shittiness of rich people stunting on poor people, and not for anything so noble as “feeding kids”. rather, “i’m gonna buy a hummer and drive across country” or “i’m buying a fashion accessory for $2500.” i would impulsively say, “that’s stupid. you’re an asshole” to those people.

    and, right on cue, other americans would swarm me and say, from the script, “it’s their money. they have every right to spend it how they want.” for 9 out of 10 of us in the US, that thinking is still dumb, but probably not undermining community or the biosphere. but there’s the 1 asshole that sees their personal power in the moment as an invitation to wreck the place. to piss all over the sink in a restaurant. to break the public phone or steal the phonebook. to take all the candy in the bowl. to not wash their hands after a shit.

    there’s one person in a room of 10 that needs a constant reminder that their actions have consequences and if they are an asshole, the other 9 are within their power to smack some sense into them.

    • Hot take: I think the liberal abhorence of physical violence in schools in self defense of bullies. I don’t think there’s a good way around it or we should just let it get back to the “good ol’ days”, but kids who defend themselves often get the book thrown at them. I worked in schools years ago, and most of the time admin would suspend the kid who defended themselves with a wink and a nod to the kid to let them know they actually did the right thing by punching the bully in the nose. I saw a white rich girl get a black eye from the black girl she was being overtly racist to (even calling her the n word), and staff all felt it was justified. But there’s a small contingent of administrative staff on school boards that will expedite expelling kids for these situations, which I also saw happen.

      Idk, I just feel like if you’re hurting people, people can and will kick your ass, and that’s actually a valuable lesson.

    • star_wraith [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      other americans would swarm me and say, from the script, “it’s their money. they have every right to spend it how they want.”

      It’s almost painful to me how accurately this describes most Americans.

    • Mardoniush [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      “I have free choice, so that means every available choice is morally corrrect” is possibly a founding brainworm of American capitalism.

  • lemmyseizethemeans@lemmygrad.ml
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    11 months ago

    Haven’t eaten meat in what 30 years or something. Don’t miss it. Don’t even notice it. I think it’s a problem of big picture information. If people could understand the destruction associated with the entire industry maybe things would change…

    • BelieveRevolt [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      imo most people wouldn’t even notice if you switched the meat in their daily slop with plant material. It’s just an attitude thing towards meat.

      • ghostOfRoux();@lemmygrad.ml
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        11 months ago

        I’m slowly navigating life after becoming vegan and this hasn’t been true all the time for me but when it is, it fucking hits hard.

        My chili recipe was converted to vegan early on after I came over and you can’t fucking tell it’s vegan. I’ve said before on reddit but I will put it up against anyone’s “prize winning chili recipe”.

        I made sloppy joe’s last week with TVP and day one was ok but when it came time for the leftovers, you woundn’t have know it was vegan. To me, it was exactly like the slop I grew up with.

        I’m still trying to master tofu. I can’t get it at all like my favorite Thai place does it.

        I’ve been working a bit with the soy curls and “beef slices” you can find from Asian stores and it’s been hit and miss with trying to get it right but a few weeks ago I made a mushroom, spinach linguine using the slices and it fucking slapped. I hydrated the slices with veggie broth and some spices and then sauteed them in a pan with my shrooms and spinach and tossed the pasta in at the end and sort of winged it but it was really fucking good.

        Another thing that I think needs to be mentioned is that most meat subs are like half the cost of the animal counterpart. Beyond and manufactured seitan obviously isn’t but any of the soy products I’ve tried are. You also get the same or more protein with the substitutes.

        • xXthrowawayXx [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          If you’re gonna bread your tofu you can’t parboil. The usual wisdom is to use corn starch but I get good results with normal dredge (about half flour, half bread crumbs, heavily spiced) on one cm cubes fried in a pan, flipped once by hand.

          Tofu like this is crispy and delicious fresh and fair to middlin as leftovers.

          • ghostOfRoux();@lemmygrad.ml
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            11 months ago

            I can try this! With the bread crumbs I bet it would work great with sauces and such. Dang now I wanna do sweet and sour tofu lol.

            • xXthrowawayXx [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              11 months ago

              my process is to take and drain some regular grocery store tofu and slice it into two. then i slice each half of the block into cubes but leave em blocked up and wrap em each in a paper towel like a christmas present to dry out. i start the oil going in the pan, you don’t need as much as you think, and mix up dredge in a bowl, you need more than you think, while everythings drying/getting hot. once the paper towel is soaked through i’ll take it off a block and toss em in the dredge. i like to let em sit for a little bit and also make sure none of em are stuck together.

              i add em to the pan one by one and once thyere all in, put the other block in the dredge and toss and make sure theyre not stuck together. once that’s done its time to flip all the tofu in the pan over in the rough order they were added and if you got a lopsided stove like mine, spin the pan around.

              a little later, take out the tofu and set em in a strainer over a bowl to drip dry and do the next block.

              e: rough amounts for oil and dredge: enough that youre gonna start a “used cooking oil” jug when youre done, maybe a quarter to a half cup, maybe more. enough dredge that youre gonna start a “dredge for frying things” tupperware that lives over the stove, about two or three cups, maybe more. remember to heavily spice the dredge! it if tastes like youre licking it*lian bread then you did it right.

              • ghostOfRoux();@lemmygrad.ml
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                11 months ago

                I’ll have to look into a used oil and a dredge Tupperware solution. I never really thought I’d be a tofu person in the first place but it’s just so cheap.

                • xXthrowawayXx [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                  11 months ago

                  I keep a jug for it under the sink and figure out what to do with it when it gets full. You’re not supposed to dump it outside or down the drain because it fucks shit up. I live in the middle of nowhere and have an actual factual old timey oil lamp that can burn it when the power goes out or when we wanna look spooky. Someone with livestock will usually take it as a feed additive. Usually there’s someone making biodiesel around that’ll take it and a lot of mechanics shops have waste oil heaters that can burn it. If worse comes to worse, the dump usually has a collection day where you can bring it by for free and from there someone making biodiesel or animal feed commercially uses it.

                  Keeping a bunch of stuff on the back of the stove for cooking rules, right now I got salt, pepper, garlic, dried chilies and a little container of dredge. When it’s getting towards stale, combine with some egg and milk to make little fry critters.

        • macerated_baby_presidents [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          I’m still trying to master tofu. I can’t get it at all like my favorite Thai place does it.

          This might not be your Thai place but a lot of restaurant stir fries actually deep-fry the tofu before stir frying it with the other ingredients. You get a better crisp that way even if you’re not coating it

          • ghostOfRoux();@lemmygrad.ml
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            11 months ago

            I’ve tried air frying and it gets a bit of the texture on the outside but it’s still softer than my liking in the inside. I don’t have access to a deep fryer so I can’t try to that way.

            • macerated_baby_presidents [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              11 months ago

              Ah frying won’t really change the inside, try slicing it thinner if you want more crunch overall or buying firmer tofu (which is also easier to cook). I deep fry in a big pot of oil on the stovetop.

          • ghostOfRoux();@lemmygrad.ml
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            11 months ago

            Will do. When I’ve done corn starch in the past, the recipes all said to toss it ina bag with the tofu and spices and let it set. I can try marinade and toss right before for sure.

        • MattsAlt [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          I’ve been able to seamlessly recreate the thai place by me’s tofu by freezing, thawing, then pressing it. After that I dredge in a spice mix and pan fry, then I’ll add it to the dish and use more sauce than normal so the tofu doesn’t absorb everything.

          This is a similar technique https://youtu.be/czf4uNUrwQg

          • ghostOfRoux();@lemmygrad.ml
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            11 months ago

            I’ll check it out. I’ve tried freeze and thaw and it came close but not quite. I think I’m asking Santa for a tofu press for Xmas tho because right now I’m using a few plates and cans of veggies or my bullet mixer for a weight and it’s not quite working lol.

    • AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      With a lot of people, there’s a strong doubling down response when they get shown the climate impact and the animal abuse and the grueling working conditions of the meat industry. Everybody knows killing animals is wrong, most people find cruelty towards animals absolutely abhorrent, but carnists are extremely effective at coping with the cognitive dissonance. idk what to do about this myself tbh, i’m just saying that lack of information may not be the main problem here.

      • MattsAlt [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        After hearing JT double down on “Vegans mean” in the most recent Deprogram in reference to the AMA here, I thought more about it.

        It feels like vestigial liberalism when being confronted with a position further left than them. Using underserved communities and other typical progressive jargon to explain why actually their position is more better for those suffering under capitalism. Then they move to personal attacks or character assassination of the people holding the objectively better position instead of engaging with the content of the argument.

        Finishing it up with ohh I’m just so picky was the cherry on top. Sorry you’ll have to develop your culinary horizons to stop supporting the unethical treatment and murder of our animal comrades. This is coming from someone raised in a very similar household where pepper was considered spicy and with friends and family that would literally only eat cheeseburgers (no vegetables, just meat and cheese) pizza, tendies, and peanut butter sandwiches. If I can grow from it, so can anyone who actually wants to and spends time finding ways to enjoy new things and replace meat

        • AdmiralDoohickey@lemmygrad.ml
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          11 months ago

          If you are neurodivergent you might legit not be able to handle some foods, it’s not just pickiness if you puke if you eat tomatoes for example.

          You can circumvent that with different copking approaches like making sauces or purees out of things but depending on your culture you might have to think a but out of the box to startdoing that (in mine veggies are mostly eaten raw which I find disgusting).

          • MattsAlt [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            11 months ago

            Yeah I definitely get that, especially coming from someone who was almost as picky as the people I described for all of my childhood up to early adulthood. I suspect I’m on the spectrum and cannot will myself to eat just about any beans aside from soy and chickpeas because of the texture but am still capable of eating a plant based diet. Obviously my experiences aren’t encompassing of all ND experience with food aversions, and everyone should approach their diet with what they are able to change.

            This topic wasn’t brought up by JT and is legitimately the one I give the most slack to in adjusting diets. The excuse from him was that people couldn’t afford meat replacements which is hogwash. Any cheap meat will be infinitely worse for you than beans/lentils/vegetables of equal cost and not go as far in portions.

    • CannotSleep420@lemmygrad.ml
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      11 months ago

      I still eat meat and every time I do, I think it taates like shit compared to the non murdery parts of the meal.

  • Ho_Chi_Chungus [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    This is actually a statistical error. Beef Georg, who lives in a cave in Colorado and eats 60,000 cows a day, is an outlier and should not be counted

  • Llituro [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    Goddamn, at this point I’m starting to wonder what problems even fucking are normally distributed in some sense. It’s the same as guns and car pollution, fuck. Beef is expensive as hell these days anyway.

    • ChapoKrautHaus [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      at this point I’m starting to wonder what problems even fucking are normally distributed in some sense

      Well, things that are somewhat equally distributed. Can’t have a normal distribution in a society where things are distributed unequally. (wanted to do the rollsafe meme here but couldn’t find it)

  • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    American diets are obscene, but in terms of carrying capacity and ecology, a mildly omnivore diet still feeds more people than a vegan diet, due to the presence of land that is unsuitable for cultivation, in-between periods of dry/cold weather where crops struggle to grow, etc

    Also consider the pests that cropland attracts, which under a holistic pre-colonial agriculture mode (which produces more calories per acre at the expense of more human labor required), would have often been dealt with through killing (and eating)

    https://i.postimg.cc/Hs3NchBJ/y54eh6t6f.png

    https://online.ucpress.edu/elementa/article/doi/10.12952/journal.elementa.000116/112904/Carrying-capacity-of-U-S-agricultural-land-Ten

    Basically, a sustainable omnivore diet would have less meat, a lot less beef, and more varied sources of meat (possum, raccoon, etc)

    • Owl [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      Medieval animal use patterns are way greener than what we have now. Pigs acted as garbage disposals, then by day a professional swineherd would take everyone’s pigs out to the forest. Cows and sheep ate grass off useless rocky land, and were walked to where they’d be slaughtered.

      But I don’t really think this is a deep argument for how things should be today. How can you restructure cities so pigs can commute between homes and the forest? How can cows walk all the way to pasture and back to the city for slaughter? I don’t think it’s actually possible; the density of modern cities breaks these models. But that same density is ecologically required a thousand other ways.

      • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        if you force rich people to use their stashed-away wealth to fund this stuff then it’s a non-issue

        everyone in NYC already eats pork, they can eat pork the same way they do now. Animal agriculture only accounts for 6% of emissions total (even when you include these dumb unhealthy beef-guzzling white males) while transportation is 30%

    • pillow [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      if that’s even true it could only be relevant in a world where there’s not enough agricultural land to support growing plants fit for human consumption, which is not the world we live in

  • Storm
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    11 months ago

    Beef isn’t even that good, to be honest. I’ve also heard that beef is one of the most energy-demanding meats to produce.

      • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        a lot of that is the feed they feed it. gamey steak is a very different taste, almost musky, you can kinda taste the grass in it too

        • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          part of it is the bland “corn-fed” diet that most cows are finished on, but a bigger part of it is just ruminant meats not having certain scents

          even super gamey lamb and goat doesn’t feel as “smelly” to me as pork

      • space_comrade [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        Huh, that’s honestly really surprising to hear. Beef has one of the strongest smells and tastes, I always thought that would be the meat that people that don’t really like meat would hate.

        • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          Beef is a very “clean” meat in terms of odor and taste IMO. It makes sense to me that vegetarians would be more accepting of beef than other meats (apart from chicken breast).

          Ruminant meats in general have this “clean” quality to them, but beef is the mildest of the rums

    • space_comrade [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      It really isn’t. I only like burgers because you get to season the meat properly and fill the buns with sauce and salad.

      Steaks are also an incredibly mid food to me, they’re chewy and don’t taste like much at all, I’m pretty sure people that supposedly love steak are just virtue signalling.

      Beef stews can be pretty good tho, but that’s only because of the veggies, spices and savoriness of the meat, which you could get from other stuff too anyway.

    • WoofWoof91 [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      to expand, meat eating on a regular basis is an extremely recent thing
      it is in no way “the natural order of things”
      only rich people would eat meat more than ~ once per month at best

      • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        i mean, people would eat eggs and milk all the time. same with fish. idk what culture youre referring to here, even inland places in europe had people fishing all the time. like 10 hens can produce so many eggs you dont know what to do with them. and a decently large flock of sheep has enough of them dropping dead naturally that you can eat sheep for a whole month (people really underestimate how much meat is on a whole ass sheep or cow, that can last one family a loooong time).

        in fact populations in europe that didnt eat fish regularly would thin out and die off because vitamin d was in a very short supply during the little ice age and the actual ice age (around the time light skin developed 20-50k years ago, this was a very strong selection pressure). without proper levels of vitamin d you end up being unable to carry babies.

        • KobaCumTribute [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          It seems like people think “oh, they only ate roughly one American meal’s worth of meat a week/month? Must have been all at once as a treat then,” instead of the more likely case of an ounce or two a day going into a family’s boiled grain slop or stew to flesh it out and make it more palatable, tallow finding its way into various things, marrow ending up in stocks, etc. It’s the quantity and role of meat in American diets that’s just a “within the last century” sort of development, not its presence at all.

          Like people weren’t going and getting a double cheeseburger with a week’s wages once a month, they were getting (or rationing) a half pound of salted pork or beef or sausage once a week/month and using it as an ingredient in other dishes.

          • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            11 months ago

            perpetual stews were really common back in the day for sure

            also like i said, its pretty trivial even now to go fishing for food despite the massive reduction in marine life. especially in northern europe, it was very common to eat fish all the time. we also know the inuits had an almost purely seal, whale, berries, and fish diet. plains tribes also had pretty high meat diets.

            idk, i just think its revisionist to act like high meat intake is a new thing. plenty of historical conditions made high meat intake the only way to do things. obviously eating such high amounts of beef cant be good for you, but its not like people lived particularly long in the eras we’re talking about (though if you lived past 40 odds are youd live to semi-normal life expectancy these days), so that wouldnt catch up with them.

      • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        but it’s still very telling that when you give people enough money land and wealth, many of them start eating more meat, while very few of them start eating less. Chinese people rocketed their meat consumption over the last 30 years, and I really don’t think anyone was propagandizing them to do so

        obviously not the obscene American pounds of meat a day, but maybe 4 oz of total animal flesh per day would be a reasonable standard.

        There’s also a very telling trend in India where all the vegetarian states just happen to consume more dairy and have a high rate of lactase persistence compared to the meat/fish eating states