To the people who downvote our community, i also explained this concept of animal agriculture requiring more land because of the ecological pyramid: https://slrpnk.net/comment/23745702

You do not necessarily have to eliminate all meat, but reducing or eliminating your meat consumption is imo the biggest impact an individual person can make to help the environment.

I think what you're missing here is the concept of the trophic pyramid or ecological pyramid which explains how energy is transferred from one level to the next. In general only about 10% of energy is transferred from one level of the pyramid to the next.

Only 1 to 2 percent of the energy from the sun is absorbed by photosynthetic processes and converted into food.[2] When energy is transferred to higher trophic levels, on average only about 10% is used at each level to build biomass, becoming stored energy. The rest goes to metabolic processes such as growth, respiration, and reproduction.[3]

Right now you're just thinking of the cattle themselves, but to support the cattle there is the additional land space of all the food they eat (and also the lagoons for their shit). If we were to plot them in the food chain, then plants/grains would be the primary pruducer on the bottom tier of the pyramid, with cattle at the next tier. To gain 1 lbs the cattle would need to eat 10lbs of grains. Obviously cattle weigh much more than just 1 lbs so the land to support their 1100 lbs weight ends up being massive and not something a lot of people think about when they end up eating a burger. And above the cattle in this trophic pyramid we could place humans as a secondary consumer where there is another loss of energy as you go from one trophic level to the next. Not to mention 1 lbs of cattle is not 1 lbs of take home beef. A quick search on this number is ~35-45% of live animal weight ends up as take-home beef.

You had asked about what the plots would look like with replacement foods grown instead of animal agriculture. The trophic pyramid answers that and we could forecast if we were to remove an animal based product then we would require only 10% (on average) to replace it with primary source non-animal food

This is why I believe that if anyone seriously cares about the environment then the single, biggest thing they can do at an individual level is to reduce or eliminate their animal consumption. This doesn't mean I think we shouldn't care about AI data centers and other major elements of environmental impact, it just means that for me personally my diet I have direct control over. I can and should still care about other environmental impacts but I don't need to ask a city board to stop feeding me animal products--I can make that choice on my own.

Here you go, I'm interested in your thoughts. The charts can also be adjusted to be per 100g of protein or 1 kcal

Greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of food product

Land use per kilogram of food product

Freshwater withdrawals per kilogram of food product

Eutrophying emissions per kilogram of food product : Eutrophying emissions represent runoff of excess nutrients into the surrounding environment and waterways, which affect andpollute ecosystems. They are measured in grams of phosphate equivalents (PO₄eq).

• Source (more interactive selections)

As a vegan this was what i got from the post without additional commentary. Ive felt this way for a long time and while I'm glad people are vaguely aware of the environmental impact of data centers, i do wish they would be concerned enough to learn about other things negatively impacting the environment.

Cattle contribute to methane gasses through their burps and farts, as well as their shit fermentation ponds and maybe other things im forgetting.

Cattle, like cows, deer, sheep, and buffalo, belong to a specific group of animals known as ruminants. Characterized by their four-chambered organs, ruminants are able to rapidly have a large meal of grass and hay and later digest it by re-chewing it in their mouth. In the cattle’s stomach, a rumen microbe called methanogen converts the excess hydrogen and CO2 produced during the digestion of this high-fiber food to methane. This methane, called enteric methane, is expelled from the cattle’s body as belching or burping.

In 2022, methane from enteric fermentation accounted for 27.4% of total anthropogenic [caused by humans] methane emissions in the US and 3% of total gross emissions.

Source (links the EPA report these numbers come from)

There have been other studies on this topic I've read in the past but that was just first one that i came across

I was born for this

(Except I'm not a writer but i might try for fun)

Their chart covers licensing and lists roon as closed source. I don't think this is intended to be one of the "awesome" FOSS lists

Looking at indianapolis this is laughably bad:

Joella's Hot Chicken offers a unique twist on Southern comfort food with a fully vegan menu that includes flavorful plant-based chicken and house-made sauces.

Um... no. Not fully vegan. I think they briefly had one option but idk if that's still a thing, not seeing it on the menu.

Jasmine Thai Restaurant

🌿 100% Vegan

Delight in an array of authentic Thai flavors with a fully vegan menu at Jasmine Thai Restaurant.

... the picture has shrimp in it, so also not 100% vegan

10th street diner - vegan friendly

This is one of the few vegan only restaurants in the city and is being done dirty here. There's no option to report it as actually 100% vegan.

Anyway, the project seems neat and could be useful in the future. When i say laughably bad im referring specifically to the AI model being used to categorize these restaurants. I can only assume it was an AI mislabeling these obvious mistakes

Tofu is a general go-to as a meat alternative because of the high amount of protein, the many ways it can be cooked, and for being able to take on flavors well. Basically it's very versatile. Lots of advice online for cooking tofu for a curry. My general advice is to freeze every block of tofu to give it good texture, then thaw and press. For a curry just think about if you want the tofu to be hard and firm, or more tender as this will impact how it is cooked.

A restaurant near me used to make delicious chocolate cake but shut down during initial covid lockdowns. I love nora cooks but idk why i never thought to check for a chocolate cake recipe. Going to have to give this a try

Edit: i have successfully recruited the MiL to assist next time she visits 😅

I have already excluded animal exploitation by not eating meat. Why would i reintroduce animal exploitation by consuming such a product?

It's really not that extreme. And in my comment, the part you didn't quote, i acknowledged some vegans may think the trade off is worth it, but i do not.

But thanks for the disingenuous mushroom nonsense. I love it when meat eaters come into a vegan space to insult me

I will once again and ask you the question you asked:

Wouldn't you agree that endeavoring to do less harm [...] is better than nothing?

Your comment is arguing against itself by suggesting insects are not worth the same level of endeavorment to no harm as other animals.

This goes back to the definition of veganism i shared, where it's a way of life to exclude animal exploitation, cruelty, and death, as much as possible. I can't prevent killing every insect, but i can go out of my way to not kill them. I can let my yard grow wild, i can plant plants that create a vibrant ecosystem for various insects. I can let a jumping spider live on my desk and visit me during lunch because it's not bothering me. This is not an exhaustive list.

Ive already excluded animal meat from my diet, why would i introduce animal exploitation so i can eat lab grown animal meat?

You seem to be thinking on a global scale when you poise your question. I'm not. I'm thinking about me as an individual and my own way of life.

So why do you, specifically, need to consume meat so badly that this need must have at least some level of animal exploitation if not cruelty and death as well? And if you don't already, are you willing to eat only lab grown meat going forward? If not, why not?

These can be rhetorical questions, mostly because i don't come to vegan communities to debate or convert non-vegans so I'm unlikely to respond again. But if you're being genuine in reducing harm then giving some thought to those questions i think will help you better live your beliefs.