Christoph Eggert
Comments3
As an omnivore who wants to eat lots of protein for fitness, I would love to agree with this and just keep on piling up chicken breasts on my plate. However, I think there are some factors ignored here. Most of them have already been addressed, but I'd like to add another that I did not find so far:
Not eating meat has not only an effect in terms of less demand for meat, it also increases demand for alternatives. This should, in my opinion, not be underestimated, as it also makes the diet change much easier.
For example: In Germany, we have a company called Rügenwalder Mühle. The origins of this company go back to a butcher shop back in 1834 and consequently, they always sold meat-based products. However, in 2014 they introduced vegetarian and vegan alternatives that were so great in terms of taste, quality and nutritional value that the demand was incredibly high. By now, these products bring in more revenue for them than the meat products. Obviously, this company will now focus more and more on the alternatives and they keep expanding their catalogue, often times with very high protein. This makes it much easier for a person like me to consider alternatives, and leads people to consume less meat even if they don't have any moral motivation to go vegan.
I doubt that any realistic amount of donations can top this. Sure, e.g. The Good Food Institute is basically trying to go into this direction, but at the end the demand needs to be there for it to work out long-term. Similar to voting in democracies, I think the "small effect" of our decisions can have quite an impact here that is hard to replace with donations.
I'd be curious about the emotional journey of increasing the giving percentages.
I just made my 10% pledge very recently and am really struggling to find the right percentage to donate. Currently, with a 65k € base income, I just go with the 10% pre-tax and put 50% of my bonuses post-tax on top.
One month, I think I am donating too little. The next month, I'm scared of saving too little. It sometimes feels hard to justify to myself that increasing it further is the right thing to do, since everyone I know saves most of the money for themselves and there's essentially 0 positive feedback for donating. The money is just gone.
Could you describe how these decisions to increase came to be and what it did to you emotionally? Did you have times of doubt, or did every step feel right?
I simply used a classical Excel spreadsheet. Honestly, even a physical notebook is okay. I don't think any particular app will be so convenient that it all of a sudden makes you go through with it when it didn't work before. The most important thing is to establish noting your expenses down as a habit. So e.g. every evening after dinner, you sit down and write down all your expenses of the day, plus check your bank account for any expenses. 1-2 months can already be enough as long as you are aware of the yearly peaks to have a general overview.
For visualization, creating a Sankey diagram helps a lot, which can be done on dozens of websites. When seeing such a diagram, you get a pretty good idea of how your expenses are distributed and if some area might need some cutting down, plus seeing how big the cut from donations actually is from your budget.