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Plant-based food: Difference between revisions
Took out the commented drafts of FAQs: Moved them to Talk:Plant-based food/Pending FAQs
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==How== __NOTOC__ | ==How== __NOTOC__ | ||
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==Pictures== | ==Pictures== | ||
''Just a few examples...'' | |||
< | <div class="fullWidth">[[File:plant-based-examples1.jpg]]</div> | ||
==FAQ - Nutrition== | |||
===="Can I really get all my nutrients without animal products?"==== | |||
Yes - [[Nutrition/Examples/Cheap plant-based|see example]]. | |||
===="But I thought plant proteins were less digestible?"==== | |||
Not if they're [[make plant proteins digestible|cooked properly]] and you have healthy [[gut flora]]. | |||
<!-- TODO: Add here "What about minerals? ..." from [[/Pending FAQ]] page --> | |||
===="But aren't plant-based burgers really processed?"==== | |||
* Some are, some aren't. Same is true for meat burgers. | |||
* Plant-based diets '''don't have to''' involve imitation meats. | |||
** [[peas vs pea protein|Actual peas have more nutrients]] than refined pea protein.<!-- OLD | |||
* Yes, it's true that [[peas vs pea protein|actual peas have more nutrients]] than refined pea protein. | |||
* No, the "[[imitation meat fearmongering|weird-looking ingredients]]" in imitation meats are not harmful. --> | |||
==FAQ - Ecology== | |||
===="But I heard that grass-fed cows can be raised sustainably?"==== | ===="But I heard that grass-fed cows can be raised sustainably?"==== | ||
Not if [[deforestation|forests are destroyed to make room for pasture]]. | * '''Not''' if [[deforestation|forests are destroyed to make room for pasture]]. | ||
* Maybe yes '''if''' the cows are a part of [[rewilding grasslands]] as a form of nature conservation. Most beef & dairy does '''not''' come from this sort of farming. And ''even if'' every suitable land on Earth had this type of cattle farming, it still '''[[How much protein could ruminants produce without crops|would not even come close to producing enough protein]]''' for 8 billion people. The world needs crops, and it would be [[livestock inefficiency|far more efficient]] to turn the crops into food directly instead of feeding the crops to animals. If we want to phase out crop-fed beef, we're going to have to eat less beef overall. <!-- NOTE: I wrote "crop-fed beef" here instead of "grain-fed beef", just so that noobs won't confuse "grain-fed" with "grass-fed" when skimming through the paragraph. Plus, "crop-fed" flows nicely from the previous sentence about crops. --> | |||
===="But don't cows eat the parts of crops that are too fibrous for humans to eat?"==== | ===="But don't cows eat the parts of crops that are too fibrous for humans to eat?"==== | ||
Cows are ruminants, so yes, they can convert fiber into protein. But [[mushrooms]] can do that more efficiently. | Cows are ruminants, so yes, they ''can'' convert fiber into protein. But [[mushrooms]] can do that more efficiently. | ||
P.S. Chickens & pigs are '''not''' ruminants. They eat the [[grain grades|same grains]] that could have been milled into flour and used in food for people. | |||
===="But aren't chickens useful on farms to control pests by eating the bugs that infest crops?"==== | |||
Sometimes yes. However, this alone wouldn't even come close to producing as much chicken as people eat. The arguments for eating ''less'' meat still hold true. | |||
===="What about fertilizer? Don't we need animals to fertilize the soil by pooping?"==== | |||
[[soil minerals|Animals don't add minerals]] to the overall system. They can only poop out whatever minerals were already there in the plants they eat (which came from the existing soil). Also, mass production of meat/dairy/eggs requires more crops, which just increases the need for [[fertilizer]] even more. | |||
==FAQ - Animals== | |||
===="If everyone goes vegan, what would happen to the animals? What should farmers do with the animals?"==== | |||
* Option 1: Keep them until they die of old age. {{x|Not very profitable, of course, but the right laws/incentives could overcome this.}} | |||
* Option 2: Keep slaughtering them at the same rate they currently are. | |||
* In either case, the farmers would '''stop breeding more animals.''' | |||
* In either case, people would still eat meat ''for another '''year''' or so'', after '''pledging''' to go vegan. | |||
** {{light|Maybe the "pledge" part sounds weird & hypothetical, but so is the idea of everyone going vegan tomorrow.}} | |||
*** {{light|If everyone ''gradually'' went vegan{{x|as in, people slowly phase out meat in their diets - or people go "cold turkey" vegan but each starting from a different day - or anything in between: there wouldn't need to be a whole lot of coordination between people necessarily; just a general trend of being more plant-based}}, there'd be no "shock in demand"{{x|as economists would say}}, and thus no "what do we do with the animals". Farmers already control how many animals are bred. They would just breed fewer of them.}} | |||
* Even after everyone is fully vegan, domesticated chickens/pigs/cows would still exist - maybe '''~0.1%''' of today's farm animal population - kept deliberately to preserve the species. They wouldn't be used for food. ''Petting zoos'' might be a good place for them{{x|could be privately or publicly owned, depending on the market}}. In any case, they would have to be given a [[animal species conservation|decent standard of living]]. | |||
---- | ---- | ||
This FAQ section will probably get longer over time. At the end of the day, people can survive '''and thrive''' without animal products, and it can be done [[cheap plant-based food|cheaply]] or [[expensive plant-based food|expensively]] or anything in between. | This FAQ section will probably get longer over time. | ||
At the end of the day, people can survive '''and thrive''' without animal products, and it can be done [[cheap plant-based food|cheaply]] or [[expensive plant-based food|expensively]] or anything in between. | |||
<!-- TALK: | |||
Maybe move this whole FAQ section to another page, and just have the following message instead?: | |||
For questions, criticisms, or objections to plant-based diets, check out the [[/FAQ|FAQ]] page. | |||
--> | |||
==See also== | |||
* [[Animal welfare]] | |||