thomas533

Obviously I can only speak to my own experiences, but I often see vegetarians and vegans avoid these sorts of questions, because omnivores/carnivore types tend to get really defensive about things and it almost always turns into a shit storm. There is always someone who says "I tried X diet and I felt like shit so I started eating meat again and I felt better."

Everytime I've sat down and had a one-on-one conversation with one of those people, I find that they were neglecting some part of their nutrition. But on a fourm like Reddit, the hivemind takes over and it turns into an attack on plant based diets and on how stupid you must be to not eat meat.

The general answer to the above question is, if you are doing vegetarian/vegan correctly, there is no desire to switch back. Rich has a diet that is working really well for him, so why would he change that?

Sure they do. Look at how farmers like Joel Salatin runs his farm. He runs cows, pigs, and chickens all in a way that support and improve the ecosystem, rather then degrade it. He uses them to sequester carbon, rather than accepting that carbon must be emmited to produce them. He has built 8 inches of top soil in 50 years using his system, where as all his neighbors are losing top soil every year. And he is making a good profit doing so. Livestock guardian dogs to protect livestock, and cats for rodent control.

In short, domesticated animals are what makes human society ecologically sustainable, when used appropriately.

If you look into mob grazing, you will notice the can have much better stocking rates than traditional cattle ranchers do. You will typically see 1.5 to 2 acres per head of cattle. And on farms like Polyface Farms, that same land is rotated with cattle, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and rabbits, so you get multiple livestock yields on the same land which is far more efficient than anything the factory farms can achieve.

Then you have guys like Mark Shepard who not only rotate animals through their land, but also have perennial tree crops. That provides an even greater yield (and profit) that factory farms just can't compete with.

And for factory farming, you also have to take into account the land that is required grow the corn and soy that is fed to those cows, as well as the processing facilities for dealing with the manure waste streams. If you were to convert all of that land into function stacked perennial pasture, we would have more food and a healthier ecosystem.