I appreciate your question, but I think "we know" is problematic:
who is "we"?
how do we "know"?
can some people know one thing while others know the opposite?
I'm not trolling, either, just asking questions from a philosophical point of view. I've changed my mind about several things I took very seriously and thought I was 100% right about. Could others be dealing with similar changing-mind-through-time processes? Could you?
Because my partners are picky eaters and I literally cannot get them to even try vegetarian meals. If it doesn't have beef, pork, or chicken then they won't touch it. >_<
Same, I just like how it tastes. I'd rather not eat any meat than not drink milk. I do know that both are bad for the environment and for the cows but quitting is not easy
Ruminants like cows repair our depleating topsoil via regenerative farming (our current approach of using petroleum-based fertilisers is not sustainable)
A single cow's life can feed a human for 1 to 2 years, compared to the many incidentally killed animals (insects, rodents, frogs, birds, etc.) during the growing and harvesting of crops, plus the destruction of entire ecosystems to create the mono-crop farms in the first place
Humans need to eat lots of fat to be physically and mentally healthy, and beef provides lots of fat (the low-fat high-carbohydrate diets recommended by various agencies — starting with the US's department of agriculture in the late '70s via the food pyramid — are making us sick, with once-rare diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression, and dementia now commonplace)
This is ignoring the fact that raising a cow for consumption requires ~10 times the amount of crops per calorie compared to just eating the crops directly. Also, I don't think I've heard a single health expert recommend eating more beef - the universal understanding is that red meat consumption is generally a net negative in terms of overall health.
What does what your ancestors did have to do with what we now know about modern factory farming? The question was about still eating beef despite what we know today, what does that have to do with your ancestors? Is your comment not the very definition of a strawman?
The future will absolutely not look down on cultures that have to rely on animals for food. Do we look at native Americans as horrible people because they had to slaughter animals, in a controlled, and relatively well thought out manner?
Personally I believe the most likely alternative will be bugs. Do bugs not count as an animal? Or would you say bugs shouldn't be eaten either
They would drive animals off cliffs. That would cause horror if they were to repeat it today yes.
Just stop eating living animals it's that simple, but if you want to eat bugs, knock yourself out.
I think we'll find "plagues" of species more common and end up harvesting as many as possible then so that "locust" is the primary protein source for that year.
Its not that simple. I can see why you believe it is, and it probably helps contribute to why you have little empathy even for those who show you they physically cant.
Soon to be alternatives, which I'm all for. I was only pointing it out that it isn't exactly plausible for everyone, and arguing with someone who can't is not worth their time, or yours.