I'm a part-time vegetarian - here's why

Carbon footprint

The real problem of meat, beyond ethics or if it is healthy, or even the ruthless handling of animals, is the carbon footprint. Beef in particular is the worst offender. 

1. Cows release a lot of methane, which causes global warming 10x faster than CO2.
2. Some 3/4 of the water we process goes just into growing animals for food.
3. Huge areas of land previously occupied by biodiverse forests are now cultivated, which endangers the resilience of life and the intricate symbioses in the ecosystem, which ultimately threaten our ability to grow food for ourselves and any animals we farm.

https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

https://www.waterfootprint.org/resources/Vanham-et-al-2013_2.pdf

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46459714

A vegetarian or vegan diet, at least if you only do it some days and not every day, means demand for meat will go down, and we can return land to nature. Also, limiting consumption of beef, and instead having meat that produces less CO2, like chicken or fish, would drastically reduce the damage.

Health

Meat is also not necessarily healthy, too much red meat causes high blood pressure, and processed meats like bacon, sausage and pepperoni cause cancer.

https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2021/03/17/bacon-salami-and-sausages-how-does-processed-meat-cause-cancer-and-how-much-matters/

Vegans also live longer than omnivores:

https://www.purdueexponent.org/nation_world/article_ba11a723-6959-568d-85a6-ee64cda22ae3.html

https://plantyou.com/do-vegetarians-really-live-longer-than-meat-eaters-the-shocking-truth/

https://www.mdedge.com/obgyn/article/105574/heart-failure/vegetarianism-may-protect-against-heart-failure

Ethics

On ethics, cows especially are mistreated. Calves are taken from their mom right after birth, fed and milked to exhaustion like a machine, fed and washed in strong chemicals, killed without question if unhealthy or past their use, extremely bloated, trapped inside for most of their lives (they might get one day a year they are allowed to go outside, they actually jump and hop around like dogs when they are free to roam a grassy field), and it's clear they feel suffering. 

What do I eat instead?

• Huel (£10 off first order)
• Quorn
• Nuggets are especially good, just cook on a higher temp so they are more crispy
• Pepperoni is also really good

• Impossible burger is probably the best, cannot tell the difference
• But many decent ones are also out there
• Linda McCartney's vegetarian sausage rolls are also excellent

Find out more

• "Cow" (2021). The up-close footage clearly shows the cows scared, in pain, restless, worn down, and bellowing for help. Cows are not nurtured, they are treated like industrial tools.
• "Gunda" (2020). In particular, the ending.
• "Seaspiracy" (2021)
• David Attenborough's "A Life on Our Planet" (Netflix, 2021)
  
  
  
  
  
• Climate change food calculator: What's your diet's carbon footprint?
• Kurzgesagt on YouTube:

  

Response to "what is a woman?"

Woman is one possible adult gender or sex, typically associated with a certain range of genotypes and phenotypes that are associated with the term female.

Conditions: 

It's a spectrum (i.e. not binary, for example intersex people and women that produce more testosterone than some men) so the definition depends on if you're asking about biological sex, legal sex, or gender - they are not necessarily in alignment.

As only individuals can know their own gender, same as goes for things like sexual orientation, that means if someone says they are that gender, the best thing you can do is accept it at face value. This is accepted regardless of the underlying biological sex, because there are few situations that require the biological sex to be known, and it stands in solidarity with people who have gender dysphoria out of respect, as it is not a choice. This is why gender recognition certificates allow people to change their legal sex, because it is a valid and real thing.

Biological sex may appear immutable but ultimately is not immutable, in the same way that all DNA is not immutable, because genes mutate and can be edited, such as with CRISPR. It is also possible that genetics may differ based on other state information, in other words some genetic markers change given hormones applied to them. Hormones and their impact on sex and gender expression are best seen as two ends of a string, or a sympathetic and parasympathetic pathway, in the same way that when trees grow and drop their leaves, it isn't two discrete processes, but in fact one process under given conditions.

Science is not an absolute truth generator either because it can't answer things like are parrots good, and there are actually very few things that are objective - if any at all.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/02/gender-critical-beliefs-under-the-microscope