I don't want to be overly dismissive of WFI here. They are trying to do something really difficult and important. They have spent years on this work. 

However, I think many have been overly confident in acting on their conclusions when they themselves highlight a need for more research. 

Thanks for engaging! 

Re: cage-free welfare estimates

As I say in the post, I think that the WFI analysis does not include some potentially significant harms (such as chronic stress/pain from violence or parasites - which are likely higher in cage-free systems). 

I also think that it's not obvious how to score pain from behavioural deprivation, which accounts for a majority of the difference: 

More generally, I think we currently just do not have enough data to make strong claims around the total cumulative pain chickens experience. Under "research gaps", WFI itself states the following: 

Surprisingly little research has been dedicated to the understanding of the impact of different welfare challenges at the individual level (where suffering occurs). Little is known about clinical evolution of the various welfare issues affecting commercial layers (e.g. healing times, duration of exposure), the likelihood of different clinical outcomes, rates of recurrence, and how adversely welfare harms are perceived by the individuals affected. Similarly, knowledge on case-fatality rates, comorbidity patterns and the prevalence of different conditions over the laying cycle is scant.

The independent assessment that Rethink Priorities organised only looked at two layer hen harms: peritonitis in conventional housing; and fractures during depopulation and transport in conventional housing. Neither was related to behavioural deprivation.

Additionally:

Raters were restricted to the references that Welfare Footprint Institute cited in the chapter where the original estimates appeared. Therefore, disagreement among raters is due to how different scientists use the same evidence, rather than which evidence they examine in the first place. 

Re: shrimp stunning

The review you link relies heavily on data from other species. My post addresses all the published evidence for Whiteleg shrimp.

Hi Madeleine, great to have you here! If you want to chat to other engineers, consider checking out the High Impact Engineers Forum: https://tinyurl.com/ImpactForge

I also expect that people voting for Oxford and Cambridge will be more likely to apply and get accepted to EAG London. So they may benefit less from an EAGx than others.

I am strongly in favour of Manchester for a conference. Oxford and Cambridge are quite annoying to get to from almost anywhere except London. People who haven't been before might not realise this.

I also worry that this form will mostly reach people in the south of England, since they will be more likely to be signed up to the EA UK newsletter as it has historically mainly catered to London.

I will try to circulate this form with groups and individuals in the North of England, Wales, and Scotland before the deadline.

Also, Oxford and Cambridge are likely going to be more expensive than Manchester, where we could maybe even get a free venue.

Yes, this table does not include data on this. I don’t have columns for values related to that. It’s a lot of work to track these numbers down and for many foods they are just not available.

When people online talk about the “bioavailability” of protein sources, they seem to mean one (or both) of two things:

One is the digestibility. So how much of the amino acids end up absorbed your body. That number is ~90%+ for most soy products (that I have found numbers for) as well as vital wheat gluten.

The other thing that people talk about is the amino acid profile. As one would expect, an animal muscle has the amino acids that one needs to build animal muscle, in about the right relative amounts.

Soy also has all essential amino acids, the profile is just a bit different. But none is particularly low or missing.

Vital wheat gluten is low in lysine. So I wouldn’t recommend relying only on seitan for protein. But if there is a bit of soy or some beans in your diet, I wouldn’t worry about it. (It’s also easy and cheap to supplement but that’s probably usually not necessary.)

Protein quality scores like PDCAAS and DIAAS try to account for both. That's why, on its own, vital wheat gluten ends up with a poor score. But soy products tend to still score highly.

Basically, I am not worried about it and have personally been building muscle without problem on a vegan diet with lots of soy and some seitan. But you are right that accounting for this would probably change the table ordering a little.

Thank you! My base recipe is just:

• mix vital wheat gluten with some nutritional yeast (if I have any) and a bit of soy sauce
• add water until it comes together in a dough that I can fold in on itself until there are no more crumbs/flour
• rest for 15 min
• rip out (table tennis ball sized) pieces, pull them long, knot them
• boil the knots in vegetable broth (maybe 10-15 min)
• then cut into slices

I make these in bulk and find that the slices freeze well. I find that they work best in curries (Thai and Indian style) and chillies (especially if you cook them in a pressure cooker with all the beans and spices).

I also just snack on them on their own, but that's maybe an acquired taste, like raw tofu or tempeh. (I also sometimes make my own tempeh. It's quite fun! Making tofu turned out to have a really low yield, so I stopped doing that.) 

These will turn out quite chewy. Some people don't love that. To make them less dense, I have in the past added baking powder which makes them puff up when boiling - you'll need a big pot for that!

Currently working on seitan sausage recipes, but not happy with any of those yet. If anyone has recommendations, please let me know!

[Edit: This post had negative karma when I made this comment]

I'm sorry that your first post on the forum is getting a bit of a negative reaction. It's great to have you here and I hope this isn't super off-putting! 

If you are interested in some actual numbers on demographics, check out the EA Survey posts, like this one from 2024.

My thoughts on your questions:

I am curious on the communities thoughts on this lack of diversity.

I personally don't mind much. Almost any community will have demographic weirdness of some kind, and I don't inherently value diversity. I know others find it concerning, but I am not aware on survey data on this. You can definitely find quite a bit of writing on this topic if you search the forum.

if there are any initiatives being taken to improve diversity within the EA community

I am unsure what you mean by "improve". But most EAG events I have been to have meet-ups for various demographic groups. I have never attended these (despite "qualifying" for a few). But I know others really like organising and attending these. The most recent EAG London had meet-ups for the following: neurodiversity, people of colour, Christians, women and NB people, people from low and middle income countries, Jews, socioeconomic diversity, LGBTQ+.

(You may be getting downvoted for the line "This demographic has historically been disconnected from social impact". Perhaps consider elaborating why you think that.)

Here are the top picks sorted by protein per kcal and price (based on Feb 2024 prices).

This is why I make my own seitan.