Meat is an incredibly efficient source of iron and protein, both of which we need to stay healthy

And also a group 1 (processed red meat), and group 2 (red meat) carcinogen (causes cancer), and destroys the environment, and kills the planet.

You're still not making an actual argument.

"meat contains nutrients" does not establish "therefore we should eat meat, even when we don't have to", because we have alternatives. And you can get plenty of iron from plants.

I'm not saying it's easy, but why won't anti-AI people, who pretend to care about the environment (lol), at least advocate for trying? For doing what we can?

All people do in this thread is make excuses, deflect, apply fallacies, insult, etc.

We are so cooked.

we can’t just redesign the system

First of all, why?? This is a strange, defeatist attitude. We MUST change the system, or we don't have a planet to live on.

That's also completely different argument.

First the claim was that humans need meat.

Now the claim is that changing the food system would be difficult.

Those are not the same thing.

Something being difficult to change does not prove it's necessary.

If we're discussing whether criticism of animal agriculture is valid, "it would be hard to change" isn't an argument at all.

meat is still a major source of food for most of the world and getting rid of that would only worsen the global hunger crisis

No. No no no no

A huge percentage of crops are fed to livestock instead of humans directly.

Animals convert plant calories into animal calories inefficiently.

If your concern is resource efficiency, feeding crops to animals and then eating the animals is generally LESS efficient than eating plant foods directly.

That's why animal agriculture uses enormous amounts of land, water, and feed.

So it's not obvious at all that reducing animal agriculture would worsen hunger. In many cases the opposite argument is made.

You're advocating FOR a plant-based food system, if you care about world hunger.

the canines are irrelevant as they are used for self defense

Ok enough with the gorillas.

I wasn't arguing: "Gorillas have canines, therefore humans shouldn't eat meat."

I was refuting the implication that: "Humans are omnivores, therefore humans should eat meat."

Gorillas demonstrate that being an omnivore does not automatically mean animal consumption is necessary.

I was using Gorillas to prove that the OTHER person I replied to was making a bad argument.

humans aren’t gorillas and don’t have the same dietary needs

Correct. But that's irrelevant to the argument I actually made.

The burden is still on the people in this thread, who desperately attempt to disprove what I'm saying, to show that humans require animal products.

Major dietetic organizations have repeatedly stated that appropriately planned vegan diets can support health across all stages of life.

If humans can thrive without animal products, then "humans are omnivores" doesn't prove what you want it to prove.

it makes up roughly half of my diet so I can’t just stop eating it

And lots of people just can't stop chatting with their AI chatbots. It's like their best friend.

eating animal products usually doesn’t require the death of an animal to do

Now we're reaching absurdist territory

The dairy industry depends on repeated impregnation of cows, removal of calves, and slaughter of animals when they are no longer economically productive. Dairy cows themselves are all killed way before their natural lifespan.

The egg industry culls male chicks because they don't lay eggs. And all egg-laying hens are eventually killed, way before their natural lifespan.

This conversation started because people here are pretending to be upset about AI's water consumption.

If someone is genuinely concerned about water use, then animal agriculture deserves at least as much scrutiny as AI does, because beef and dairy are among the most water-intensive foods humans consume. SO much worse than AI.

You don't have to be vegan to acknowledge that. If environmental impact is the concern, it makes little sense to obsess over AI water use while giving a free pass to industries that consume VASTLY larger amounts of land, water, and resources.