This dramatic rise will only continue to wreak havoc on natural ecosystems and the growing populations that call Earth their home. Therefore, if you want to defend the planet and benefit the environment, the best way to do so is to eat less meat. However, meat-eaters use far more space than vegetarians. As the human population grows, farmers will have to reduce livestock production to make room for people. The world will also have to devote more land to reforestation operations.
Like trees, crops produce oxygen, which is incredibly beneficial to the environment. Animals, however, produce methane, nitrous oxide, and other gasses that pollute the air, warm the earth, and accelerate climate change. Cows are the worst culprit by far, emitting four times more GHGs per calorie than pigs or chickens.
Beef also emits 20 times more GHGs per gram of protein than common plant proteins, making crops more beneficial to the environment. The entire process of producing, packaging, and transporting meat also produces more emissions than it does to process plants. Whether they use this energy to light their facilities or grow animal feed, it ultimately burns off as GHGs and ends up in the atmosphere.
Vegetarianism can also minimize non-atmospheric pollution. Growing feed crops also entails more fertilizers and pesticides than most other crop varieties. Thus, cutting out meat and replacing it with vegetables could effectively minimize chemical use and subsequent pollution. Manure and wastewater containing livestock excrement severely harm ecosystems as well. Once the waste contaminates the environment, it will severely damage ecosystems and pollute underground water supplies with nitrogen, phosphorus, and nitrates.
However, leaving shellfish, fish, and crustaceans off your plate can benefit the environment — most notably by protecting marine ecosystems. Our diet-related environmental burdens are in no way minuscule. These burdens include using almost half of the land that spans the United States, whilst emitting more than 70 percent of the nitrogen runoff that can choke rivers and streams.
Numerous studies have found that beef production contributes to about 90 percent of the above mentioned environmental problems.
This is because vast areas of land have to be taken over and converted into grazing grounds. Also, beef production uses the most irrigation water and emits far higher greenhouse gases 41 percent than other types of meat. The average American eats around grams of beef every week. We have found that cutting that down to grams instead could make the U.
While vegetarian diets are seen as far more sustainable, recent studies are finding that a diet which includes small portions of meat can have a lower carbon footprint. In , we launched the website HoldtheBeef. This is another great resource to gain a better understanding of the impacts of different types of meat, vegetables, and dairy products as well.
To answer the question on whether going vegan helps in terms of reducing carbon footprint, the short answer is: yes. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, after beef production, cattle milk is responsible for the most emissions 20 percent on a commodity basis.
The two major greenhouse gases that are being emitted due to animal agriculture are methane and nitrous oxide, because of manure storage and the use of fertilizers, respectively. So, while going vegan would certainly help the environment, it is also unrealistic for most people to follow a dairy-free and meat-free diet. Almost as good is to consume meat and other animal products in moderation. And most especially, hold the beef! Got a burning science question?
Send us an email or message us on Instagram. Exactly what I thought after reading this otherwise excellent article. Very disappointing with the soft…. I find that kind of sentiment really common when I am in conversation with most people…. At least the message is getting out there. After all,I spent most of my life just ignorant,too. If these diets are significantly more environmentally friendly, as we know they are, please refrain from sharing inaccurate justifications for not partaking in that behavior.
If everyone made an effort perhaps through encouragement by leaders in the field to be more plant based, the food industry would respond by providing more meat-free options to suit our evolving tastes and that would be a win win for everyone, to include future generations.
Yeah I had the same issue and you see this type of thinking often in articles like this. Good info is presented, and then when you get to the part where the author can really make a statement and encourage a very helpful and healthy!
Going vegan or vegetarian is not at all unrealistic. I am curious as to the impact of a pescatarian diet — is that as helpful? A Pescatarian diet is helpful in terms of the climate-changing gases that are typically caused by standard agriculture i. A kilogram of mangoes requires litres gallons of water while the same amount of plums needs litres 67 gallons.
After harvesting, however, some avocadoes and mangoes are also bathed in hot water for over an hour to prevent insect infestations and control decay. Their highly delicate flesh and rapid ripening also means that much of the fruit imported to Europe and the US is flown there by air. Avocado Credit: Getty Images. Together with the amount of waste, special storage conditions and packaging needed for avocados, this helps to give the fruit a hefty carbon footprint — the equivalent of 2.
It also estimated mangoes emitted 4. These figures may be lower because not all countries have to freight their fruit by air to get it fresh. From dark rooms filled with steaming piles of compost buds a mainstay of the vegan diet. They are commonly used in many meat-free alternatives.
But for a crop that flourishes without light by feeding on rotting organic waste, they can have a surprising impact. One study, funded by the US Department of Agriculture, showed that producing a kilogram of Agaricus bisporus — the common button, chestnut and portobello mushrooms we buy in the shops — emits 2.
Most of the emissions come from the energy needed to keep the rooms where mushrooms are cultivated warm. Growing rooms and compost need to reach temperatures of up to 62C , depending on the system being used, in order for the mushrooms to grow. But carbon dioxide is also produced by the mushrooms themselves as they respire and grow. Much of this is kept inside sealed rooms where the carbon dioxide concentrations are carefully controlled.
Different mushrooms will grow at different sizes and shapes depending on the CO2 concentrations and at times varieties can require CO2 levels that are up to 48 times higher than the outside air. At times, excessive CO2 is often exchanged with fresh air. Still far less than beef. And less than the "greenest" farmed meat — chicken — which produced 4.
Of course, fishing has its own environmental and biodiversity issues on top of that, though. Much of the carbon footprint of mushrooms comes from the heat needed to grow them indoors Credit: Getty Images. One further consideration is the use of peat in many of the composts used by the mushroom industry.
Unless extracted sustainably, this can damage delicate bog ecosystems and deplete their ability to store carbon in the future. But there are hopes that by using more food and agricultural waste to create sustainable compost substrates for mushrooms to grow in, using the material left after harvesting to make biodegradable packaging, and piping carbon dioxide into greenhouses to grow plant-based crops, it may be possible for mushrooms to become truly green.
Another popular meat substitute grown from fungi, mycoprotein has some surprising environmental impacts. Making it uses a fraction of the land compared to chicken, pork or beef, but the carbon footprint is estimated to be 5. More than half of this, however, comes from processing after the fungi produces the protein — some vegetarian mycoprotein products, such as mince, are combined with egg white to bind it together.
Some companies are now exploring whether mycoprotein fungi could grow on agricultural food waste rather than sugar, which could halve the amount of carbon emitted by the process. Quorn, one of the leading mycoprotein manufacturers, recently released a detailed breakdown of the different emissions from its products.
To make the mycoprotein itself produces just 0. But to produce its vegan chicken-free slices, for example, releases 3. The company says it hopes that by publishing the information it can help its customers make informed decisions about what impact the food they eat is having on the environment, and has called on other brands to follow its example. It may have developed something of a reputation as a health food in recent years, but cocoa and raw cacao products have a dark side when it comes to the environment.
Exact figures for how much forest is being lost due to cocoa production are hard to pin down, but it is estimated that million hectares 4. Others have found that 2. As demand has gone up, so has the amount of land being cleared for use by cocoa plantations. The cacao pods we make chocolate from can come with a bad taste: rainforest being torn down to plant trees Credit: Getty Images.
0コメント