• silence7@slrpnk.netOPM
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    6 days ago

    It’s not the only source, or even a majority, but it is big enough to matter and it saves money for almost everybody to stop. (Sole real exception: arctic populations who have to import anything agricultural)

    • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      ok. I’ll bite.

      do you know what the highest part of a grocery bill is? the vegetables. the volume and the quality of vegetables you would need to buy to meet the same caloric value of a diet that includes meat would instantly out price poor families.

      why do you think poor people are so fat? it’s because the cheapest foods are carb heavy. boxed meals like hamburger helper, spam, suddenly salad, etc are all far cheaper than having a diet that relies solely on vegetables. and those boxed meals, what do they entirely rely on? MEAT!

      so the next time you’re slogging down your vegan moral superiority, think about the poor family living on $200 a month for groceries for five or six people. do you think you could feed a family of six for 30 days on $200 in vegetables with the same caloric value?

      • weps@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        beans, lentils, potatoes, rice, legumes …

        More protein, more health, more calories, lower price than meat

        You’re probably thinking about watery out of season vegetables like tomatoes and broccoli

        it’s how poor countries survive. Rich countries are fat and have cardiovascular problems

        • Auli@lemmy.ca
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          5 days ago

          Poor countries eat meat. What you think poor countries are all eating vegetables all the time. They have fricken huge markets where they buy stuff daily. I believe India has the largest amounts of vegetarians. And that is 20% to 39% that is a lot of people but not the whole country.

          • weps@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            Poor countries survive on rice and grains for most of their calories. Billions of people.

            Didn’t mean to imply that they are vegetarians.

            Didn’t know there was discussion about vegetarians.

        • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          let’s do meal prep for a family of 6.

          vegan meal:

          • $.48 - 1 cup rice - 205 calories

          • $1.14 - 3 large carrots - 90 calories

          • $.32 - 1/2 cup peas - 58 calories

          • $.48 - 1/2 cup lentils - 130 calories

          • food volume: 3 cups

          • total calories: 483

          • volume per serving: 1/2 cup

          • calories per serving: 80.5

          • total cost: $2.42

          average meal:

          • $2.74 - 1 cup of Hamburger Helper - 140 calories

          • $7.23 - 1 pound of beef - 1152 calories

          • $.50 - 3 2/3 cup of milk - 390 calories

          • food volume: 3 cups

          • total calories: 1682

          • volume per serving: 1/2 cup

          • calories per serving: 280

          • total cost: $10.47

          healthy mealtime caloric intake should be between 300-500 calories. both meals are still under the recommended calories, but only one of them dangerously so.

          it would take 3 times the vegan meals volume in order to come close to what the average meal has. that’s a whopping 1 1/2 cups of food per serving and still falls short of the 300 calorie minimum.

          it’s far easier to meet caloric intake using meat than with vegan diets.

          a vegan meal may be cheaper and more nutritional, but Americans are working two or more jobs. meal prep is difficult when you’re mentally and physically drained. when you’re tired, broken, depressed, the last thing you want is food that doesn’t make you feel good, satisfied, or comforted.

          I think vegans often overlook the barriers to entry into a strictly vegan diet and are blinded by their own hubris. if this isn’t true, then the vegan struggle to convert nonbelievers wouldn’t be so difficult, would it?

          • Chaf@slrpnk.net
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            6 days ago

            Nice shifting of the goal post! At first it’s too expensive, now it doesn’t have the right density and takes too much time to prepare?

            Apart from that, you already get most of your nutrition from plants: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/calorie-supply-by-food-group

            This is not because people don’t eat as much meat, but rather because meat is really inefficient in providing energy when it comes down to farm area.

            Veganism might not solve all our problems, but it’s an easy way of getting rid of a lot of environmental problems. Apart from the direct impacts, we could start regrowing the amazon forest instead of cutting it down even further https://ourworldindata.org/what-has-driven-deforestation-in-the-21st-century

            I do agree, that it’s - depending on where you live, the USA is really fucked up - not always easy to switch to being vegan, but it’s definitely a societal problem, not a technical one.

            • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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              5 days ago

              Nice shifting of the goal post! At first it’s too expensive, now it doesn’t have the right density and takes too much time to prepare?

              the goalposts never moved. the volume it would take to equal the same caloric intake would be more expensive and impossible to consume.

              ever tried to eat a whole cup of rice in one sitting? you’ll throw up. if you’re fortunate enough to eat three meals a day you’ll be eating 3 cups of rice daily, and that’s per person.

              in a six person family that’s 3 pounds of rice per meal! at $1.77 per 2 pound bag of rice. in a month the 6 person family would consume 90 pounds at $159 in rice alone. include all the other ingredients and it’s costly.

          • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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            5 days ago

            Literally multiply your vegan recipe by four and suddenly you have more calories per serving than your meat recipe, and it’s still fucking cheaper.

            God, you’re bad at math.

              • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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                5 days ago

                God damn, you’re so butthurt about losing an argument in a different thread where you spent days pouting and whining about it without ever saying a single goddamn thing of substance, that you decided to track me down in a different thread to be butthurt and pout and whine again?

                No, my comment above was correct. If you disagree, then show me where and why and I will show you why you’re wrong again so we can spend the next three days babying you while you pout and whine about how someone had the audacity to disagree with you when you were wrong.

                  • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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                    5 days ago

                    Says someone who is going out of their way to try to neg and condescend me even though it’s not working. You must be really torn up instead about how I refused to feed your inflated ego.

                    I feel sorry for anyone who lives in your commune, because you’re probably a tyrant.

          • weps@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            volume and meal prep is the problem now?

            are you eating the pound of beef raw?

      • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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        6 days ago

        do you know what the highest part of a grocery bill is? the vegetables.

        This just isn’t true

        • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          if you were to account for the volume in which you need them to meet equal caloric intake per day, yes, it is.

          fresh produce is not shelf stable and frozen is limited in scope to what is available.

          the vast majority of poor Americans live in rural locations that have limited access to regular fresh produce. instead they opt for shelf stable staples that are cheap and high in calories.

          • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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            6 days ago

            Vegans dont eat only vegetables, they eat grains like rice, as well as a wide range of legumes. Ive found replacing meat with a plant based protein source to be cheaper not more expensive.

          • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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            5 days ago

            According to your own numbers, vegetables are still cheaper per-calorie.

            Also, fresh vegetables are more shelf-stable than raw meat.

            And frozen vegetables typically have many available options because they can be imported from almost anywhere. And if you can’t find frozen, there’s probably canned or dried options for what you’re looking for.

      • 𝙈𝙞𝙖@quokk.au
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        6 days ago

        Vegetables are far cheaper than meat?

        Like a bag of rice and lentils/beans is next to nothing.

        • Gormadt@slrpnk.net
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          5 days ago

          And beans are hella calorie dense depending on the kind

          Beans are one of the corner stones of my diet and damn are they good and cheap

        • osanna@lemmy.vg
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          5 days ago

          i just saw at the shops, an 20kg bag of rice was $30. do you have any idea how long 20KG of rice would last? a long long long time. It’s simply not possible that buying FEWER ingredients (i.e. no meat) could be more expensive than buying more ingredients.

      • rbos@lemmy.ca
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        6 days ago

        Indian food is largely vegetarian and you really can eat well and cheaply on vegetables. Beans, rice, and potatoes will take you a long way. Paneer is great.

        But granted, meat is incredibly subsidized in North America as a rule and it can be more difficult than in other places.

        Them as can should, though, to make it cheaper for them that can’t.

        • Auli@lemmy.ca
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          5 days ago

          Indians eat a lot of meat goat lamb chicken. Well they have the largest percentage of vegetarians the whole country is not vegetarian.

          • rbos@lemmy.ca
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            4 days ago

            This is true, but i did say ‘largely’.

            Not a whole lot of beef, too. Cows are incredibly inefficient meat sources.

      • daggermoon@piefed.world
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        6 days ago

        Both can be true. While I believe eating meat is unethical I also don’t blame people for being so reliant on it, especially low-income people. I realize people are more focused on survival and don’t really give it much thought. I think if you can afford to not eat meat, than you shouldn’t eat meat. Veganism is a privilege in a sense because of the higher price tags. It’s not something every one can afford certainly. I hope that changes some day. If you eat meat, I have nothing against you. I ate it too for the longest time.

            • Gormadt@slrpnk.net
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              5 days ago

              Likewise, about once or twice a month I’ll eat meat if I go out to eat with friends to a restaurant but that’s only if the vegetarian options don’t sounds very good to me.