• GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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    7 hours 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?

    • weps@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      volume and meal prep is the problem now?

      are you eating the pound of beef raw?

    • Chaf@slrpnk.net
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      6 hours 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.