Many years ago while up a mountain in Austria I met a Norwegian couple and after talking for a while I asked where in England they came from. It was at that point they told me their origin.
Evidently 88% of Norwegians speak English so living there for a brit wouldn’t be a problem, perhaps the utopia you seek, or too cold and too close to Russia perhaps?
1 Like
Unfortunately not so easy for a Brit to emigrate there now JohnBoy, so I wouldn’t get your hopes up.
A bit of good news closer to your homes.
1 Like
Yes.
1 Like
A good article.
Problem:
there is plenty of room for the poorest in the world to increase their greenhouse gas emissions if needed to reach prosperity, if rich people globally – including some in developing countries – reduce theirs, the analysis has found.
Solution:
Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, found that taxing the rich was one of the best ways to fund a shift to a low-carbon economy.
Simples!
All we have to do is get it done.
1 Like
Indeed - I used to think there were two really big problems we had to address urgently: exploding inequality and climate/ecological breakdown.
The more I understand both, the more they look like different aspects of the same problem.
2 Likes
Another very relevant article from George Monbiot.
My worry is what the replacements are made from. Having made many for my wife, most of which I have as well to get the texture and flavours you need a lot more of what you maynot want to eat. Later following the research I realised alternatives to these replacements are need because they will make you ill. Best to stick to homemade from what you actually recognise as whole foods.
1 Like
Exactly. Why make an inferior imitation of some meat dish rather than rejoice in the deliciousness of vegetarian food intended as food in its own right.
Unfortunately so much European food culture is so heavily meat-centric that vegetarian food is seen as having to be some pseudo meat thing which often ends up just being tragic overprocessed and repulsive. Like all those disgusting “diet foods”. Ugh.
1 Like
It’s hard to know how much of ones taste is culturally acquired and how much is in our genes. While we eat far less meat than we used to, eating vegetarian is always a bit of a last resort in terms of satisfaction and taste, and that’s probably not true for us alone.
I’d suggest this is why there’s such a pressure to create meat-free alternatives. If veg was a direct swap-in with a bit of a shuffle around in recipes then it’s likely a lot more would have become veggie by now.
This was my comment in The Guardian this morning (picking up on the article’s closing sentence):
Hmmm… I’m definitely on the mainly plant based diet team, and I do sometimes eat meat substitutes - but I also have reservations.
First, many meat substitutes are highly processed, and can only really be manufactured by giant agribusiness. It’s this multinational business model that is the real problem. Meat substitutes that perpetuate chemical and fossil-fuel intensive, exploitative ‘farming’ may be solving one problem while propagating another.
Second, I wonder if they also perpetuate a fundamentally unhealthy food culture and lifestyle - fast food, ‘enhanced’ flavours, careless consumption…
When I lived in India the people I worked with were vegetarian and the food which arrived in my dabba every day at the office was completely and utterly fantastic, and not any sort of imitation of a meat dish. It really made me shudder when I saw some vegetarian UK teenagers who came to stay eating nothing but cheese in nasty pastry or horrible tvp sausage rolls both brought by their parents from the UK. Obviously they were unusual since they wouldn’t actually eat any vegetables or anything that wasn’t flour cheese or tvp as far as I could see.
I eat a predominantly vegetarian diet but pretty much the only processed thing in it is tofu. I certainly don’t eat pseudo meat things.
1 Like
Quite right vero, regarding the satiation thing, meat being higher in fat and nutrient density is probably why it fills you up better. Having been ketogenic carbs (veg) does tend to keep me coming back for a snack (healthy one) or looking foward to my next meal. On keto I did intermittent fasting and often eating only one meal a day and not feeling hungry.
I’m no fan of pretend meat stuff either. As has been said it can be as bad as some of the processed meat products out there.
What I think is most relevant about the article are the staggering statistics about the size of the global animal farming & slaughter industry. It is clearly not sustainable i.e. everyone must reduce or eliminate their demand for meat & dairy if the human race is going to have any chance of weathering the storm of climate change.
2 Likes
I’ve eaten veggie in India, but that was only ‘OK’ rather than enjoyable.
You would not find me eating Big Macs or sausage rolls of various kinds, whether containing meat or not, normally. The one exception might be the occasional pork pie.
What a shame, I was privileged because I had delicious home-cooking made by the cooks of my business partners, who were from different areas but living in Mumbai and there was such variety and it was so delicious I can’t begin to describe it.
But a bowl of bhel puri from a shack is fab too.
1 Like
I have heard a similar argument put foward with the difference between meat and vegetable farming being only 2% net. Problem is too many humans
2 Likes
I’d be keen to see an official reference for that.
All the info I see flags up the massive inefficiency of raising animals to feed to humans. For the same return animals require much more land, water, drugs, etc. not to mention (in some places) the bad treatment of sentient beings.
Which is partly dealt with by more efficient food production. The planet can support a much larger population that it has now but not with a high meat & dairy diet & not if we continue to trash the biosphere.
2 Likes
I remember roadside Thali in India for about 5 rupees, probably a good job they didn’t have any meat in them…
1 Like