UN report says global meat supply has risen fourfold in last 60 years and is expected to keep rising

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[–] 2 points 5 months ago

More chicken = less beef, or more meat consumption in general, or more meat consumption in less developed countries while staying about the same in more developed ones, or what?

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  • 21 comments in c/health@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 14 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

    I grew up eating chicken (broiler) about 2-3 times a week. Once at home, once or twice at school lunch. That adds up. In my country, the amount of chicken (broiler) people eat keeps raising, where as pork and beef lowers. This is mainly because of price, and bit of because people are starting to learn about the pollution and also because people here still think that birds or fish don't feel pain, where pigs and cows do.

    But few years ago, when I worked in a elder home's kitchen, I learned that the elders Did Not Eat Chicken. Like really, didn't eat it. They would eat it, but if someone, me or the nurses, said that it's chicken, they would stop and only eat the veggies and potatoes/rice around the meal. Some nurses told me to just call it pork or fish, but it felt unethical to lie.. They really should have just served other protein..

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago* (2 children)

    Lately chicken is starting to get more expensive than pork here. Chicken on discount vs pork on discount, pork is 2x cheaper per kilo.

    Beef is still way more expensive though

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 child)

    I eat meat so rarely I haven't checked the prices recently, but sounds very possible here too since they're importing cheap pork from neighboring country while chicken is still grown here..

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  • [–] 11 points 5 months ago (12 children)

    Did we replace something or are we just eating more?

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  • [–] 15 points 5 months ago (8 children)

    It’s my understanding that it’s cheaper, healthier, and more environmentally friendly than beef, and I’d bet its growth is inversely correlated to beef consumption.

    Also it’s the staple protein for people who are trying to be more fit because of how lean parts like the breast can be.

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    Wait until they figure out about mushrooms, seitan, tofu etc. Nevermind, suddenly it's not about health and protein anymore.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Taste, convenience and local availability all matter too. In fact there’s a whole massive ecosystem of influences creating the observable change that we are talking about.

    There’s also a whole massive ecosystem of changes that haven’t created the change you want here.

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  • [–] -2 points 5 months ago* (1 child)

    Does taste and convenience matter more than cruelty and violence?

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    This is a conversation about why a broad group of people have certain behaviors, and the observations I made were in regards to the common “why” for that broad group of people.

    You’re trying to make the conversation about why those people making those decisions are wrong in your opinion, but that wasn’t what we were talking about. We were talking about “why” they were making their decisions, not “was their decision moral”.

    You’re getting downvotes because you’re trying to have a different conversation than was being had, and don’t seem to be understanding that.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    This is a narrow take. You can switch from beef to chicken to be healthier. You're not saying i want to eat the healthiest version regardless of when I enjoy, you're saying between these two meats I enjoy, chicken is the healthier protein. It's not a lie that it's about health just because they're not following your standards

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  • [–] -2 points 5 months ago* (2 children)

    Chicken is one of the most powerful obesogens in your diet. The chicken that you are eating has almost nothing in common nutritionally with the ones grown in 1961.

    Meat is not healthy for anyone and chicken is one of the most concerning meats available for its health consequences. The more meat a human eats in their lifetime, the younger they die and the more major diseases they experience. The top killers of humans this year are all directly caused by or closely related to meat consumption.

    "Protein" is not a meaningful nutritional category for the average person. If you are getting enough calories from whole plants, you are automatically getting enough protein. Protein does not have to be supplemented.

    It's also relevant to this discussion that chickens are the most abused animal on the planet. There are almost 27 billion chickens living in atrocity right now. The experiences of animals are real and matter.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I think you’re mistaking me as some kind of crusader who is trying to evangelize chicken or something instead of someone observing what the general perception is relevant to the conversation.

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  • [–] -4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

    I'm simply correcting your misstatements for the benefit of others. It's unfortunate if they have somehow upset you; the realities of animal exploitation we avoid thinking about are indeed quite upsetting, and I don't believe in protecting people from that.

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago* (1 child)

    poor people can't afford meat. when their incomes rise, the first thing they do is buy more meat.

    chicken is the cheapest meat. it also remains cheap while beef/fish/pork has skyrocketed in costs, making them far less affordable.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    pork a lot of times can be cheaper than chicken quality of cut wise. Most pork is closer to boneless skinless chicken breast. You can get roasts and such that is really beyond what you can even get form chicken and a bit closer to beef.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago

    The "we" here is global, so I don't think your question has a neat answer that can be applied in all regions.

    From the report:

    The global supply of terrestrial animal source food (TASF), namely milk and dairy products, eggs and meat, has rapidly increased between 1961 and 2022. The increase in per capita supply of TASF was driven by three commodities: eggs, poultry meat and pig meat.

    This chart is not talking about causes but it is interesting:

    More protein is consumed overall in higher income countries but less is coming from plants and more from animals.

    Poultry is projected to account for about half of the global growth in meat production (see Figure B39 and Figure B40) due to sustained profitability and favourable meat-to-feed price ratios.

    About two-thirds of all meat is expected to be consumed by one-third of the world’s population in 2032, which is only a slight improvement from the base period (see Figure B42).

    Increases in meat consumption have raised concerns about long-term sustainability, given the pressure that this consumption exerts on global resources, as well as the meat production sector’s contributions to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These mounting environmental and health concerns are expected to continue to shift consumer preferences away from red and processed meat, notably beef, towards leaner and allegedly more environmentally friendly alternatives, notably poultry and fish. These shifts are especially pronounced in consumers in Europe and Northern America. In sub-Saharan Africa, demand for poultry will primarily be driven by the greater affordability of poultry compared to beef, rather than by long-term sustainability concerns.

    So:

    1. Greater overall global consumption of protein
    2. As protein consumption increases more it comes from animal flesh and excretions vs plants
    3. Cost is a large factor in how much animal flesh is consumed
    4. Production of foods from poultry flesh is profitable
    5. Foods from poultry flesh are more affordable than foods from other animal bodies, driving up the consumption of poultry flesh.
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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    I once saw a historian say that when future archeologists hit our layer of history, it's going to be notable for the enormous amount of chicken bones they'll find. We'll be known as the Chicken Era.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    I don't think broiler bones last a week in ground. I have accidentally even eaten a few (don't ask, was stoned) and didn't get any issues. Still don't recommend anyone trying.

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  • 16 comments in c/unitedkingdom@feddit.uk view that post
    [–] 10 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    Average person eats six times more chicken than in 1961, and also, there's 2.67 more people (~3.1 billion people in 1961 versus ~8.3 billion today).

    So the real terms increase is huge!

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    I'd like to see the stats on beef consumption. Cows are way worse for the planet when it comes to climate change. People eat more chicken than they used to because beef prices have skyrocketed. I wonder what the actual change in carbon emissions looks like.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Graph from the article:

    Per capita beef consumption is down slightly, but not as much as chicken / poultry consumption has increased. People are generally eating much more meat overall per capita. Chicken and poultry still have a pretty heavy emissions profile, it's just that beef is somehow worse. The net increase in meat consumption is still a massive net negative on the climate


    In terms of ethics, switching to chicken results in significantly more induvidial chickens being killed because of their lower slaughter weight. The factory farms that house the vast majority of chickens keep growing larger and larger and quite disturbing. This is true around the world. For example just in England alone, there are at minimum over 700 factory farms for chickens, four of which have over a million chickens

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago

    Ah, I had tried to, but there was a giant popup asking me for money, so I thought it wasn't available for free. Turns out, my PiP window was covering the button to collapse the popup. Apparently beef has stayed steady, which is nuts IMO. Most people I know eat a lot less beef than they used to. My best buddy used to have a steak every Friday, now he only eats it on his birthday.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Obviously just statistical error. The average person eats about the same amount of chicken. Chicken Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier and should not be counted.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    It's so easy for people to do when the chickens are so conveniently tucked away out of sight

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    The report:

    does not go on to recommend they eat less meat

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    The FAO, unfortunately, has quite a history in downplaying things and sticking their thumb on the scale in favor of the meat and dairy industry on things like this

    In a sign of the atmosphere in the FAO at this time, a fourth veteran insider, “Mary Wagyu”, claims to have been admonished after preparing Meatless Monday leaflets for distribution in the cafeteria of an FAO heads of state food security summit in 2008. “Remove and destroy them,” a senior FAO executive said, according to Wagyu. “These will not be put in people’s trays.”

    In 2009 a second FAO report called Livestock in the Balance was delayed for several months while the FAO’s leadership tried to dilute references to harm caused by the meat industry, arguing that this had already been covered by Livestock’s Long Shadow. When the research team resisted the pressure, management stepped in and manually rewrote key passages over their heads, sparking what Steinfeld called “a mini-revolution”. About a dozen staff members involved in preparing the report withdrew their names from the paper in protest.

    [...]

    Between 2012 and 2019, “the lobbyists obviously managed to influence things”, Holstein said. “They had a strong impact on the way things were done at the FAO and there was a lot of censorship. It was always an uphill struggle getting the documents you produced past the office for corporate communications and one had to fend off a good deal of editorial vandalism. You had to accept relatively small steps forward in changing the narrative on livestock.”

    Steinfeld added that meat lobby representatives and diplomats would talk to senior FAO managers and encourage them not to invest in work that dealt with environmental impacts.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/20/the-anti-livestock-people-are-a-pest-how-un-fao-played-down-role-of-farming-in-climate-change

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    Wow. But not surprising. I really don't think most people realise how catastrophically damaging to the world's environment the meat industry is (or the whole agricultural industry, really).

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Animal agriculture is especially worse because it plainly demands much more agriculture to happen due to it's inefficiencies. It requires growing huge amounts of animal feed where most of the energy is lost. Even it's best case is bad compared to the worst case for eating plants directly

    Transitioning to plant-based diets (PBDs) has the potential to reduce diet-related land use by 76%, diet-related greenhouse gas emissions by 49%, eutrophication by 49%, and green and blue water use by 21% and 14%, respectively, whilst garnering substantial health co-benefits

    [...]

    Plant-based foods have a significantly smaller footprint on the environment than animal-based foods. Even the least sustainable vegetables and cereals cause less environmental harm than the lowest impact meat and dairy products [9].

    https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/8/1614/html

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    I can believe that I'm pretty much chicken, fish, and a bit of pork guy.

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  • Yeah that's what happens when developing countries experience a rise in prosperity, they get access to meat and decent diets. Meat consumption may be slightly on the drop in the west, but that's far outweighed by the rise everywhere else

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