Meat is macho: Why masculinity concepts get in the way of green initiatives to cut meat and dairy consumption

9 comments

1. Between $25/lb steaks, $80,000 pickups and $300 NFL tickets, old-school American masculinity is getting expensive.

2. Your body converts the nutrients into what it needs. Protein becomes enough protein, and the rest is stored as carbs. Fat is stored as fat. A four ounce steak is nutritious. A 16 ounce steak is a four ounce steak plus a box of donuts.

3. I like having sex, hiking and skiing in the mountains, being with my friends.  I love good food, but there’s so much deliciousness that doesn’t have meat.   I have a Subaru instead of a pickup truck. 

   We’re allowed to approach being a man (or woman) however we like.

4. I used to be a vegetarian, am still very veggie heavy, but I’d have coworkers ask why I was eating rabbit food (salad) for lunch. It’s weird I’m definitely a “mans man” in that I enjoy using my hands, fixing cars, woodworking, all that. But I would be laughed at for eating greens.

5. “all I ever wanted to be was macho, man”

6. 8+ years vegetarian & I do find it interesting how often other men joke in this way when they find out I don’t eat meat. The conflating of meat & manliness definitely has a hold on many guys. Maybe its a way of addressing the cognitive dissonance, I’m not sure.

7. This meat argument is the craziest thing ever. Before Europeans came to the America’s, there were millions of bison and other animals.

   Plus, all the camp fires to process the meat.

   This is just in America’s. The rest of the world was doing the same thing.

8. How can we be confident that a no-meat diet is just as healthy as a vegetarian diet? Especially for people who we expect to need higher amounts of protein, such as athletic young men.

   Don’t eat meat just to impress people, but worrying about your own health and biology is very much a valid concern. Given that most humans had omnivore diets over the course of history, I think the burden of proof falls on veg advocates to prove that you can truly replace animal proteins with plant proteins.

9. I always worry about protein and fats when I fasts and do keto in my eating windows. I admit I know too little about vegetables as protein and fat sources.

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