this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2026
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The ecological devastation is coming from mono-cropping.
How is a cow eating grass, churning the soil, fertilizing the soil - destructive? This is how the soil was created in the first place.
Why are farmed fish and poultry ok but not ruminants? Ruminants have a super power - they can eat food humans can't eat, growing on land that can't raise human crops, and turn that into human usable fat and protein!
Not really, it's a highly processed food composed of many things, but a mega-dose of seed oil (which is very not good for health).
Why? People need to be health, meat is a super health food. People need to have a optimal metabolism, carbs and processed carbs and seed oils are antithetical to that. Healthy people eat less food, can eat local food that doesn't need to be shipped around the world, and don't need expensive chronic medical care.
Oh I agree, you absolutely can do plant based keto, and that is much better then SAD (standard australian diet). This entire conversation is a huge WHATABOUTISM - remember the post is about the health benefits of eating meat.
I think you will find the keto / zero carb communities extremely science based - self experiments, empirical validation, actually reading the literature.
Any change from the standard diet is a improvement. Our schism is over red meat .My understanding is I made a post about red meat being great, and we are talking about side things because in your estimate the world can't afford to provide meat for everyone. You have said some negative things about keto but haven't made your own dietary choices clear. Your advocating for a anti-red meat solution (which might include keto, you left the door open).
yes. beef cattle graze for most of their lives, before being grain finished.
as I said, that's how most beef cattle are raised. I can't say about dairy.
why?
I understand the sentiment, but let's be nice.
i just can't imagine it's worth anyone's time. what i said is true, and easy to verify.
no one is advocating for that
you didn't link to anyone saying beef should be the primary source of calories for 8 billion people, because you can't, because no one said that.
I've read every comment on this post.
first, the ecological argument is lacking in scientific rigor, so let's do away with that distraction.
second, and more importantly, no one is saying that everyone should eat a carnivore diet.
I'm quite confident in my position, but if you are going to insist on making an ecological argument, cite something so we can evaluate it's methodology.
I never suggested there aren't ecological problems. none of this shows that meat production is to blame
these are the claims i'm telling you are not rigorously proven.
i'll tell you what: i opened every one of those links, then i went ahead and started clicking through to the actual papers. when you can present a peer reviewed study and explain how the methodology led to the conclusion you are making here, i'll be happy to discuss that paper (or all of them. i think you'll find that the gish gallop of links you dropped here actually draw on about 12 different studies, but most of them rely heavily on poore-nemecek 2018, so you could start there if you like.)
edit: a word of warning. the earth.org link is a mess. i was able to find most of the other papers, but i doubt you're going to find that to be a worthwhile or even fruitful venture. sticking with the stanford link should still glean you about 6 or 7 papers we can evaluate together.
jesus. here's how i spent the last 20 minutes. this is before even reading the research:
The person your talking to hasn't read their own sources, wont read them, uses a "fast" llm to generate "whataboutisms", and will pivot the conversation as soon as you nail anything down. They WANT to burn you out with asymmetric effort.
this is just an admission that you don't know what the literature says.
Here is a simple rule - Don't cite a reference in a argument unless you have READ IT ALREADY.
We want you to read the papers you cite. Please. So we can discuss them. But a better community for this would be an ecological one, since none of these papers relate to nutrition or metabolic health.
Look, don't cite papers you haven't read, because this is what happens.
cattywumpus, that is the crux of this ridiculously deep thread, as we keep trying to tell you. This is why [citation needed] exists on Wikipedia.
Also, it's off-topic! The OP is about meat being a superior source of nutrition, and not about the ecology of producing meat. We have indulged you this once, but please stay on topic next time. One more time: c/carnivore is a community for metabolic health discussion.
We have addressed this point multiple times.
You seem to have difficulty comprehending this, so for the last time, in very simple words: unhealthy people cost society a lot of money. We are living proof of zero carb's effectiveness. I was pre-diabetic. Everyone on Dave Mac's channel No Carb Life (@zerocarb) had a health problem that was put into remission with zerocarb.
I'm afraid I will have to put you into time-out if you insist on bringing up points that we have brought up before, because this discussion has become meaningless. I'd lock this thread if I could.
your first link is just a labyrinth of uncited claims. the actual papers are at least 3 clicks deep. the fact that you cited it at all speaks to a weak understanding of what i have been saying this whole time. in fact, none of the links you provided are scholarly articles.
if you can't explain the methodology for the conclusions youre parroting, i'm not going to bother being the one who actually finds all your citations and their methodologies.
i will tell you that i know that poore-nemecek 2018 is the basis of a lot of pretty specious claims, and hayek 2014. so when you come back, with actual evidence, please know that i'll be dismissing improperly combined lca data outright.
What does LCA mean here?
People are mixing estimates with different methodologies and assumptions? That doesn't seem very scholarly
life cycle assessment. if you read the references in poore-nemecek 2018, you will find that they didn't even gather the studies themselves. they are doing a meta study of meta studies. when you read their sources, those papers talk explicitly about the problem of combining disparately methodized study data, but then go on to do so. poore-nemecek doesn't even acknowledge this faux pas.
Ahh meta-meta-analysis! That makes sense - something we see used in nutrition too frequently
Unrelated, but since you appear to be well read - can you recommend papers on red meat ecology and sustainability? It's not a area i've read with any depth, but I am curious.
Another open vexation I have is what a sustainable plant based farm with no animal inputs or fertilizer inputs would look like, if it's even possible. From what I could gather it's not doable with no examples (they import fertilizer)
I really can't recommend any papers. I don't trust any of them that make strong claims one way or another.
First things first: don't assume that the person you're having a discussion with "will be confidently wrong twice." That's not a discussion, that's an argument on the internet.
Now that that's out of the way:
Please cite primary sources. I will only pen my thoughts for one paper you linked that I read, since I suspect this is one more paper than you have read. I'd like to demonstrate how I approach a paper, even if I'm only scanning through it:
It's important to actually read the papers to know how the research was conducted, and by whom. Case in point: the paper is written by the CEO of Impossible Foods. Could it possibly be biased at all, I wonder?
I'm no expert, but that's not right at all. Just look at what datacentre buildouts are doing to emissions! This already invalidates their model, so now we are solidly in spherical cow territory. But let's keep going.
Assuming that land reverts completely to its native ecosystem without livestock is a daring assumption, considering grassland ecosystems co-evolved with grazing animals! No wonder there is "considerable uncertainty." The cows are getting more and more spherical.
Paragraph speaks for itself.
So this model only considers emissions and biomass (manure) recovery. What about, for example, soil health, water infiltration, nutrient cycling, or other factors that regenerative farming techniques try to optimize for? Or the old chestnut that animals can graze on non-arable land?
The cows are definitely very spherical now.
Aha, there it is. The fundamental assumption that the entire paper is operating off of. This is unfortunately misinformation; plant nutrition is incapable of replacing animal nutrition, even if we only think of vitamin b12. But we also know about heme iron, the fat soluble vitamins ADEK, anti-nutrients, toxins, and so many other things. Read the community's posts to find out more :)
If you're curious, please start with "The Great Plant Based Con" by Jayne Buxton. Don't waste your time with these industry-funded papers.
p/s at least for this paper, tar wasn't wrong.
they just take poore-nemecek and plug it into their research. no discussion on the problem of combining disparately methodized lca data.
I have to admit to being a complete layperson when it comes to this domain, so the best I could do was a general critical reading of the paper, based on what little I know.
Thank you for providing some details as to how to start. I will look up and read Poore-Nemecek 2018.
I'm totally out of the loop on the nutritional side of this so I usually stay in my lane. I've read a lot of the lit on the environmental side and I can say with certainty that all the claims made about food production might be true, but the research simply isn't properly methodized to support it.
This also applies 100% to the state of nutritional science:
I can say with certainty that all the claims made about food nutrition might be true, but the research simply isn’t properly methodized to support it.
it's actually a tragic state for the academy. no reproducible studies. bad methodology. and everyone citing each other uncritically. it would be nice to have good data on ecology and nutrition, but everyone is so focused on just getting the paper out that no one is trying to advance the science.
Indeed, throw in some philosophical motivations and we the modern literature. In nutrition we see people outside the normal western academic circles doing studies and collecting data not aligned with the previous zeitgeists - so there is hope the literature will start to have meaningful impact going forward.
I would love to see a example of rewilding without animals..... even if it grows trees, soil health has to be measured. We need a agronomist! Quick call Peter Ballerstedt
the meta-analysis is just one paper, too. and it's bad.
Have you even read the article this post is about? I've given you links in other aspects of your comments, and you have ignored them. The difference between you and us is we have read what we cite.
The reason this is a question is because you haven't read your own studies yet?
Right there with you - you are not participating in good faith, you have not read your citations, you have used a LLM to generate points you ignore when addressed, you are in violation of rule 1, rule 2, and rule 3, and rule 4, and rule 6. Most importantly you don't keep the conversation interesting, you repeat the same points with ever increasing insults to others.
I think it's time you find a new community to participate in.
We mostly care about the health aspects and the tools they represent to improve health. You would find us more receptive if you spent your time showing us the data on better health outcomes (preferably without using epidemiology)