Why I think sustainability is more important than Vegan

[bobdebouwer]

I've come to the conclusion that eating animal products isn't necessarily worse than eating vegan.
My argument is the following:
Product a is non-vegan, but requires way less resources than product b, which is vegan.
Shouldn't we advocate the non-vegan option then?
While I agree that in most cases, vegan is more sustainable then non-vegan, this isn't always true.
This is why I struggle with saying things like "Ban all meat consumption!". If the meat was harvested as humanely as possible (Yes, yes, I know, humane slaughter doesn't exist...) and is more sustainable than a vegan burger, we should eat the meat. Therefore, my vision of the future is a world where most products are plant based, but meat is still produced on a small-scale with sustainable practices.

I recently saw an article of muslims wanting to slaughter sheep for their religion. I was angry, and convinced myself that only certain people with expertise should be able to slaughter the animal as humanely as possible. So random people shouldn't be allowed to do it. My problem here is that to be consistent, if you want to ban this ritual slaughter, even if done humanely, you have to oppose ALL meat production, which is problematic for me as pointed out earlier in this post.

Hopefully this isn't too much of a rant. Any thoughts?

[brimstoneSalad]

I've come to the conclusion that eating animal products isn't necessarily worse than eating vegan.
My argument is the following:
Product a is non-vegan, but requires way less resources than product b, which is vegan.
Shouldn't we advocate the non-vegan option then?

First, this is an either-or fallacy. There are not only two products available. We advocate product C which is vegan AND more sustainable than any of those.

But assuming we are somehow limited to two options:

Should we advocate more sustainable 'entertainment' like taking meth over going on a vacation?
Global warming footprint and resource input isn't all that matters.

We also have to consider public health, and what's good for human beings. Going on a drug bender may be less resource intensive than visiting Paris and produce the same chemical responses of pleasure in the brain, but that doesn't make it equally healthy.

It's ethically dubious to recommend to somebody a product that will harm his or her health in any situation.

So, there are really several variables we have to take into account.

Is it possible to make a vegan products that is less sustainable and more unhealthy than an animal product? Maybe, but I doubt that any exist on the market. Palm oil vs. Butter may be the worst case for a vegan product. I don't eat it, and I don't recommend that vegans eat it. Use other healthier and more sustainable vegetable oils.

While I agree that in most cases, vegan is more sustainable then non-vegan, this isn't always true.

Bearing in mind that there are always better vegan options out there, there is only one exception I know of for an animal product that actually compares well with good options among vegan products: rope grown oysters.

If you're thinking of anything else when you say it "isn't always true" (and in so doing, implying that there are sustainable animal products), you're probably misinformed and buying into the myth of "sustainable meat" propagated by the industry and its advocates.

Theremodynamics precludes animal products being more sustainable than the plant products those animals are fed. Grains and beans are the most sustainable sources of food on the planet, along side only rope grown oysters. A vegan diet should be based mainly around grains and beans.

This is why I struggle with saying things like "Ban all meat consumption!".

Vegans do not say "ban all meat consumption!". That's a political position of some people (including some meat eaters). Vegans only do not personally participate in consuming animal products. We choose better options.

If the meat was harvested as humanely as possible (Yes, yes, I know, humane slaughter doesn't exist...)

Then why mention it?

Treating them as humanely as possible means not slaughtering them at all (saying "harvest" as a euphemism is kind of shady, isn't it?), it means not raising them in confinement, it means not taking them from their mothers, and it means not inseminating these animals to breed a new generation to fatten up and kill.
It's possible not to do any of these things, because they're all totally unnecessary. There are plenty of sustainable (more sustainable) vegan alternatives.

and is more sustainable than a vegan burger, we should eat the meat.

Meat is not more sustainable than a veggie burger, which is made from beans and grains.
Oysters might be, in certain rare cases, but are not regarded as an analogue to a burger.

Therefore, my vision of the future is a world where most products are plant based, but meat is still produced on a small-scale with sustainable practices.

In terms of farming, unless you're talking about oysters, then you're misinformed. There is no other sustainable practice in farmed meat production.

Not even aquaponics (fish) are sustainable. The only reason oysters are is because they're immobile filter feeders, and they harvest a food source we don't have the technology to harvest commercially in a viable way, and clean the water at the same time (fish make the water dirtier, and are fed other fish or grain).

My problem here is that to be consistent, if you want to ban this ritual slaughter, even if done humanely, you have to oppose ALL meat production, which is problematic for me as pointed out earlier in this post.

Why is that necessary, or a problem?
Your logic here seems broken, because this does not follow.

That's like saying in order to ban rape, we have to ban all sexual acts and lust (including porn) to be consistent. Does that seem sensible to you?
Are you engaging in something like the slippery slope fallacy here?

[PsYcHo]

Interesting premise, but I'd like to see some specific examples. I agree with your overall topic title, but I'd like to see where you think non-Vegan wins over Vegan.

[bobdebouwer]

Couple of my thoughts:
-Some land can simply not be used for crops, but animals could roam freely. Iceland for example needs to use a lot of energy to produce crops, or they have to import it.
-A vegan-only agriculture system would probably run into problems with recycling nutrients and keeping animals for only that reason would be very expensive to the farmer.
-Oysters are sustainable, honey can be sustainable, eating eggs from my backyard chickens is as far as I know better than eating a veggie burger that was imported from Brazil and eating lots of tropical fruit.
-Hunting evasive species that harm the environment seems OK to me (small scale hunting in general actually, but this can't be a solution for the world).
-Roadkill, while certainly not popular, is ethical.
-Eating meat that would otherwise be thrown away is more sustainable than just letting the meat go to waste.
-Fishing could be possible by designing a mathematical system that calculates how many fish we can catch, without harming the population.
-Most of my proposals are based on local and small scale. We have to fight the current capitalist system that is built around profit, profit and profit. Neither meat nor vegan is sustainable in this system. If we really want to help the animals and the environment, we'll have to abolish capitalism. We aren't helping the animals, nor the environment by letting priviliged people buy vegan products that are produced by underpaid workers in some far away country.

[brimstoneSalad]

-Some land can simply not be used for crops,

That's incorrect. Plants need water, sunlight, nutrients, and depending on the species, certain temperature ranges. That goes for plants that grazing animals eat, or those humans do. It's all about photosynthesis and sugar production.

You can ALWAYS feed more humans with the plants grown on land than with dead animals fed with the plants grown on that land. It's simple thermodynamics. It's just a question of the knowledge and will to grow crops on that land.
The only time this is remotely true is for primitive cultures who don't have the knowledge to engage in agriculture.

Today, we can build greenhouses and engage in highly efficient hydroponics on any soil, because it doesn't require soil.

And as to soil (if you insist on doing it the old fashioned way): Do you know why many areas lack good topsoil? It's because of intensive grazing which destroys the soil and causes desertification. Proper farming methods (without grazing) can restore topsoil, or build it up where there was none, and make once barren areas suitable for agriculture again.

In order to perform mechanized agriculture, a field needs to be level and without too many large stones, but slopes can be terraced and large stones can be removed. Even dry areas can be irrigated if the groundwater is not salty, and if the groundwater is salty, drought tolerant plants can be grown instead.

You will never yield more calories from land by grazing and killing animals compared to plants. Worst case, you can even harvest grass for human consumption. The grass must be juiced (yielding high protein and nutrient liquid), and then the cellulose can be used as feed stock for microbes which are profoundly efficient at converting it into SCP ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-cell_protein ), or mycoculture.

The issue is a gap in knowledge, not ability.

You may not personally favor the plants that grow easily on a certain piece of land, but that doesn't mean it can't be farmed, or that the output is not sustainable and nutritious. Even minor infrastructure investment can yield massive dividends in terms of increased agricultural output.

but animals could roam freely.

And in doing so, destroy the topsoil and prevent that land from ever being farmed, while emitting massive amounts of greenhouse gases and destroying the rest of the planet in the process. And, of course, due to extensive animal-human contact and the wild environments, introduce new deadly diseases into the human population.

I don't fault primitive peoples for not having the knowledge to engage in legitimately sustainable agriculture, but animal agriculture is not that. You can't fight thermodynamics.

Iceland for example needs to use a lot of energy to produce crops, or they have to import it.

Ocean freight is incredibly efficient, particularly for staples, and it's getting better as we're starting to explore wind-power again. We need to get better at moving things from place to place, not be closed minded and shut down global commerce.

Freight is often more efficient than trying to grow things locally with non-ideal weather, and it's definitely more efficient than animal agriculture, which produces about as much or even more greenhouse gas than the entirety of transportation.
There's nothing inherently unsustainable about importing food by ocean. Trucks on roads are a bigger problem, air freight is the most problematic. Either way, "local" food is some kind of self congratulatory nonsense; it doesn't map to the reality of embodied energy and carbon footprint. Transport is a drop in the bucket. Animal agriculture is the bucket.

-A vegan-only agriculture system would probably run into problems with recycling nutrients and keeping animals for only that reason would be very expensive to the farmer.

That's nonsense. Look into veganic agriculture. Compost is a much more efficient way to recycle nutrients than using manure, and traditional systems like crop rotation and co-planting are perfectly viable solutions without industrial input. That doesn't mean industrial input is bad or wrong. It requires power, but that can be supplied by green power sources (unlike animals).

-Oysters are sustainable,

If rope grown. Correct, I covered this.

honey can be sustainable,

You need to do more research if you think bees are magical creatures that produce work from nothing.
Bees have to eat. When the beekeper harvests honey, he or she has to replace it with sugar syrup, which was farmed. And because the bees no longer have a store of food, they have to be fed on the off season too.
Bees, like cows, are being fed on agricultural output. It's not a magical source of energy.

If you want something sweet, stevia is probably the most sustainable; it's something you can grow in your back yard or at a window, and it only takes a tiny bit. Next to that, probably artificial sweeteners which are chemically more potent than sugar. Then sugar, Maple syrup, and other plant outputs. Then honey.

Let the bees keep their honey. They work hard pollinating our crops, and there's nothing sustainable about taking all of their honey only to replace it with sugar. This is not a source of novel calories.

eating eggs from my backyard chickens is as far as I know better than eating a veggie burger that was imported from Brazil and eating lots of tropical fruit.

It depends on what you feed the chickens. If they walk around eating only insects from your garden (which is great as natural pest control), and you do not supplement them by feeding them grains or other foods, then probably yes.

Otherwise, no. The thermodynamics doesn't work out that way. Veggie burgers are made from beans and grains, and require very little energy input. Even if they came from Brazil (I know of no veggie burgers made in Brazil, though).

You're trying to exaggerate to make some kind of point, but the point is that your claims don't match up to the reality that we live in.

I don't know what tropical fruit has to do with anything. Eggs are a protein source, veggie burgers are a protein source, fine. Tropical fruit is not a protein source, and I do not recommend diets based on it (that's not even healthy). People probably aren't replacing eggs in their diets with tropical fruit, and if they are they're doing it wrong.

A more accurate replacement is eggs being replaced by Tofu in a tofu scramble.

-Hunting evasive species that harm the environment seems OK to me (small scale hunting in general actually, but this can't be a solution for the world).

You mean "invasive", I think.
I've talked about this before elsewhere, it's called an invasivore. If you're going to kill an animal anyway to protect the environment, sure, you might as well eat it (although putting it in pet food would be better).
But it must be unsustainably hunted -- the goal is to wipe out the invasive species, not just let it keep breeding. It's not even a solution for a single region, it's a short term food source.

-Roadkill, while certainly not popular, is ethical.

Arguably, although it wouldn't really go to waste; scavengers will eat it, and it could be an important food source for the local environment.

-Eating meat that would otherwise be thrown away is more sustainable than just letting the meat go to waste.

Sure. If you're dumpster-diving, you're in the clear. Freegans eating meat rescued from a dumpster are morally equivalent to vegans in many ways.
This isn't a world-wide solution, though. We need the world to go vegan, then there won't be dumpster meat for Freegans to eat. It's a temporary improvement.

-Fishing could be possible by designing a mathematical system that calculates how many fish we can catch, without harming the population.

In an ideal world where you could actually ensure everybody followed the laws.

But this is not such a world. Oceans are connected, you'd have to rely on people actually following the laws, and laws and regulations on fishing just don't work. There's bycatch, people poach and over-fish. Oversight is virtually non-existent and not enforceable on the ocean.

-Most of my proposals are based on local and small scale. We have to fight the current capitalist system that is built around profit, profit and profit.

You can't fight capitalism, and it does a lot of good things too (like innovation). You have to work with it, and be an ethical consumer to discourage practices that are harmful, and buy products that are best for the environment so companies will move in that direction.

You can start your own back yard garden, and that's great, but not everybody can grow all of their own food, and local production can't support cities with staples.

Neither meat nor vegan is sustainable in this system. If we really want to help the animals and the environment, we'll have to abolish capitalism.

That's bullshit, and very damaging to suggest people give up on improvement. There are degrees of sustainability. Animal products are far more harmful to the environment than vegan food. The world is not all or nothing, it's about choosing less harmful options. When presented with a choice between the two, an ethical consumer chooses vegan.

We don't have the power to abolish capitalism. If you doubt this, look at how well communist revolutions of the past have worked out. There's not a viable alternative.
See this thread for an extensive discussion: http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=2008

We aren't helping the animals, nor the environment by letting priviliged people buy vegan products that are produced by underpaid workers in some far away country.

What's "underpaid"? I'm going to quote myself here because I've addressed this many times in the past and it's a persistent myth:

"Exploited" workers are not bred into exploitation. They already exist, and it's a choice between a relatively less desirable job (compared to those we enjoy) and no job (or an even worse one). As long as there's a free market, they can choose for themselves the best option, so it's not really possible to do these people harm by offering them the choice to work for you. Obviously they're also not killed when they stop being useful.
Contrary to liberal propaganda, sweatshops are actually a good thing, since they bring money into poor economies (you can find interviews with the people in these areas: they are prized jobs that enable upward mobility and pay much better than anything else in town). Economy is actually better than charity since it draws industry in and results in a lot more money (larger volume) which is also properly managed and distributed rather than largely wasted.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/05/02/sweatshops-in-bangladesh-improve-the-lives-of-their-workers-and-boost-growth/

(viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2256&start=10#p23888)

People need jobs, in poor countries more than anywhere else. What is "underpaid" to you is a good salary to them.

[bobdebouwer]

Your arguments look sound to me. I don't agree with the capitalism part, but will read the thread you linked instead of posting that here.
Thoughts on the following article? http://www.regenerateland.com/2015/11/3 ... stainable/
I'm no sustainable food expert and haven't looked into this very much yet.

[brimstoneSalad]

Your arguments look sound to me. I don't agree with the capitalism part, but will read the thread you linked instead of posting that here.

Politics is much more complicated than the simples sciences behind thermodynamics and sustainability.

Thoughts on the following article? http://www.regenerateland.com/2015/11/3 ... stainable/

It's pseudoscience, like climate change denialism; a bunch of science-sounding words and speculation that isn't backed up by evidence, and actually goes against the evidence (they just ignore the science and substitute wild speculation).
Here's an article debunking those sort of claims:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2014/aug/04/eat-more-meat-and-save-the-world-the-latest-implausible-farming-miracle

Livestock are nothing but harmful to the environment.

Whether it's burning fossil fuels or eating meat, people want to be convinced that their bad habits are OK, and any quack that advocates for those vices gets promoted and reposted everywhere. Popularity doesn't mean something is valid science. Tell people that eating bacon is good for them and will save the environment too, and you'll get rich selling books, but it's blood money. These con artists get rich at the expense of human health and the global environment.

[bobdebouwer]

I asked a question about the feasability of vegan-only farming on Quora. However, the answers aren't very good.
https://www.quora.com/Could-a-vegan-onl ... ystem-work

[brimstoneSalad]

I asked a question about the feasability of vegan-only farming on Quora. However, the answers aren't very good.
https://www.quora.com/Could-a-vegan-onl ... ystem-work

I wouldn't expect much from quora.

If you want vegan-only farming without industrial input, you'd need to use crop rotation, co-planting, or "green manure" (from clover and such); you might look into those. The drawback is it requires more human effort to work with crop rotation and co-planting. Chemical fertilizer is a lot easier, though probably not better for the environment than the vegan alternatives.

Pollination is a non-issue. Vegans have no problems with bees an insects on farms pollinating. Even so, pollination is only needed for seed and fruit production, and many varieties are self-pollinating (they only need a bit of wind or a little shake to do the job).