[Linkpost] “Alpha-Gal is Bad, Especially for Farmed Animals” by Jonathan Bostock

This is a link post. Disclaimer: I’m not vegan. I’m not even vegetarian. I eat meat all the time. I’ve been a firm critic of efforts to objectively quantify the difference in suffering across very different species. That said, I cannot help but agree that eating meat is probably the morally worst thing I do, and I also have to agree that eating different kinds of meat are different levels of bad. Eating 1 kg of chicken basically entails eating an entire chicken, which most likely lived in truly awful conditions, while 1 kg of beef is less than 1% of a cow, and which probably did not live in quite as awful conditions. That said, let's talk Alpha-Gal. Suppose you get bitten by this unsavoury little bugger: Via Wikimedia It's a Lone Star Tick. This tick has recently ingested some animal blood, containing galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose (alpha-gal). The tick's bite spits a little bit of alpha-gal into you, and your immune system freaks out about it. The mechanism is a little hazy, but the result is well-documented: you can’t eat anything with the alpha-gal molecule in it. This includes beef, pork, venison, basically any mammalian meat source, even cows’ milk. While [...] ---Outline:(02:04) The Ethics(03:49) Can We Do Anything?(05:35) How Much Should We Care? --- First published: May 8th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uMorW2xWtzDtR2yq3/alpha-gal-is-bad-especially-for-farmed-animals Linkpost URL:https://jbostock.substack.com/p/alpha-gal-is-bad-especially-for-farmed --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.