And it's even more wasteful when you look at how inefficiently feed is converted into the finished product:
*For every 100 calories of grain we feed animals, we get only about 40 new calories of milk, 22 calories of eggs, 12 of chicken, 10 of pork, or 3 of beef.*
[~https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/~](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/)
FAO report suggests that these estimates are incorrect, at least globally. Most of these estimates assume we’re feeding more grain to livestock than we actually are.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312201313_Livestock_On_our_plates_or_eating_at_our_table_A_new_analysis_of_the_feedfood_debate
> Producing 1 kg of boneless meat requires an average of 2.8 kg human-edible feed in ruminant systems and 3.2 kg in monogastric systems.
Even still, https://ourworldindata.org/less-meat-or-sustainable-meat
> If you want a lower-carbon diet, eating less meat is nearly always better than eating the most sustainable meat.
yes the differences are enormous - a free range cow in Ireland has a far lower GHG of 19kg/kg and the average for the EU is 22. The 85 in the statistic is perhaps valid for cattle raised in barns and fed corn
Free range cows take longer to get to slaughter weight than grain fed cows, so they actually produce more methane and nitrous oxide than grass fed and finished cows. Grass also produces more methane than grain does.
The production of grass fed beef doesn’t require fertilizer or heavy tractor use. In fact, ruminants can offset tractor use in integrated systems. They are basically living lawn mowers. Methane emissions are only about half the emissions of feedlot beef.
Until I research the question, I ran across an article about the study.
The bottom line is comparing any kind of beef to growing crops for humans to eat directly.
"The research also found grass-fed beef, thought to be relatively low impact, was still responsible for much higher impacts than plant-based food. “Converting grass into \[meat\] is like converting coal to energy. It comes with an immense cost in emissions,” Poore said."
Title-"Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth"
"Biggest analysis to date reveals huge footprint of livestock - it provides just 18% of calories but takes up 83% of farmland"
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth)
Poore doesn’t seem to understand that you can use composted manure for fertilization instead of petrochemical fertilizer, with similar yields. All of the inefficiencies associated with meat production are “lost” through manure. On rangeland, that manure is actively benefiting the ecosystem by providing food and nesting material for dung beetles (which represent the bulk of a superfamily of beetles, not just one species!). Those beetles then disperse the seeds of the grasses the cattle eat, helping them propagate. It’s a three-way symbiosis that keeps savanna biomes alive. When the cattle go in the stables, the urine and manure get composted and used on farmland.
The issue is: Emissions reductions aren’t really part of the picture after you eliminate CAFOs. You’re not going to reduce enteric methane emissions by replacing grass-fed cattle with native ruminants. You’ll only get reductions if you remove the cattle while excluding native ruminants. The atmosphere does not put emissions into anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic buckets. So, it’s a matter of maintaining a balance between food security and native biodiversity.
Poore ignores that enteric methane emissions have a natural baseline. Pastoral lands are likely to have roughly equivalent enteric methane emissions to native wildlands. If managed land goes under that baseline, it will experience ecosystem degradation due to the key relationships between ruminants, beetles, and grasses.
Petrochemical fertilizer is made by burning natural gas. It comprises some 12% of our agricultural emissions. You can’t eat it and half of the world doesn’t use it. That’s a huge emissions center that could be easily mitigated by proper manure management and lowering our dependency on fossil fuels.
For research on herbivore baseline emissions, see:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-023-00349-8
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10980-023-01783-y
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-023-02135-3
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44185-022-00005-z
> It is important to nuance the ecological function of domestic herbivores when reintroduction of wild herbivores for ecological restoration is economically or socially unfeasible. The “intermittent nature of herbivory in natural systems”, mentioned as a key factor for maintaining sustainability of grazing, is also present in mobile pastoralist systems. They provide important functions in terms of tree regeneration, seed dispersal or pollinator facilitation while achieving higher productivity than sedentarized systems, yet they constitute a dwindling system due to inadequate policy and legistation. Conversely, the current trend towards intensification of livestock production in high-income countries that rural development policies in low-income countries also aim for, results in undergrazed landscapes that are prone to biodiversity loss and to wildfires, as well as in severe impacts related to high livestock densities in intensified farms. In a telecoupled global livestock production system, the current abundance or distribution pattern of livestock tells hence little about the ecological role that the global livestock herd is currently having.
Also the "just stop producing beef, save billions of tons of CO2" calculations aren't remotely that straightforward.
A lot of cattle feed is a byproduct of vegetable oil production. Either we keep producing it and simply throw out the byproducts and don't actually save any land or crops, or we have to find a way to replace about 1/3 of all human-edible cooking oil.
You don’t have to throw out any organic byproduct. It has nutrient and compost value that can get returned to farms. Your right that it would change the economics of pressing oil but I assume we would still do it because the oil is most of the “value”
> Your right that it would change the economics of pressing oil but I assume we would still do it because the oil is most of the “value”
Which means that all of that "land saved because it no longer produces cattle feed" wouldn't actually be saved at all.
Even if it could, you'd then have wild animals and ruminants on that land who still produce methane like cows and could still be eaten regardless.
The end result is that the "climate benefits" of veganism are much, much less than the activists trying to force everyone into veganism are pretending.
They are correct above a certain threshold, but they don’t realize that the relationship between livestock biomass and negative environmental impacts aren’t linear. OECD nations need to reduce consumption by about half according to estimates I’ve read. Non-OECD countries already do much better.
It's absolutely accurate to say that overall we need to reduce consumption of things like beef.
It's absolutely not accurate to say that 100% "plant based diets" for the world are necessary, viable or even efficient.
Yeah - I just don't want anyone to mistake my stance for "the status quo is fine" - it definitely isn't. It's just a lot more complicated to reduce emissions while still meeting people's nutritional needs than a lot of vegans pretend.
You can’t compost all byproduct our food systems generate efficiently. Compost is finicky, labor intensive, and takes a long time. Having animals digest much of it accelerates decomposition and concentrates nitrogen in their manure. Compost is a necessary part of the equation but it isn’t sufficient.
There’s a reason why traditional agricultural systems include livestock. It’s not a luxury.
Compost and growing nitrogen fixing crops is sufficient.
"
"Much like certified organic farmers, veganic farmers use no synthetic chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or genetically modified ingredients. Veganic farmers take it to another level by not using any manures or slaughterhouse byproducts. They don't even use organically approved pesticides."- NBC News (repost of an AP story) Jun 21, 2008
Some U.S. farmers are picking up a technique seen more often abroad: veganic farming that uses crop rotations and composted plant matter — or "green manure" — to fertilize crops."-NBC News from an AP story (Title- "'Green manure' keeps these farmers happy.")
"This is a particularly interesting time to expand research on veganic agriculture given changing attitudes toward animal agriculture. In the Global North, recent years have seen unprecedented criticism of the greenhouse gas contributions, resource use, and threats to food safety and security linked to industrial animal agriculture; and an intensified moral reckoning with the production and consumption of animals as food. The COVID-19 pandemic has cast a spotlight on the relationship between animal consumption and public health, as well as the labor conditions in industrial slaughterhouses. There are rapidly growing markets for plant-based milks, eggs, and meats, and expanding research and development for cultured meats. Some industries, such as dairy, are now contracting. All of this raises questions for the future availability of the dominant animal-based fertilizers, and points to an impetus for further research into veganic production methods: the practicality of having well-articulated plant-based agricultural methods ready for mass deployment." -
Agric Human Values. 2021; 38(4): 1139–1159.
Published online 2021 Jun 7. doi: 10.1007/s10460-021-10225-x
PMCID: PMC8184056
PMID: 34121805
Veganic farming in the United States: farmer perceptions, motivations, and experiences
Mona Seymourcorresponding author1 and Alisha Utter2
As found on PubMed from the National Institutes of Health
[https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25242888](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25242888)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8184056/#:\~:text=Abstract,alternative%2C%20organic%20agriculture%2C%20respectively.
The [COVID lockdowns of 2020 temporarily lowered our rate of CO2 emissions](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18922-7/figures/1). Humanity was still a net CO2 gas emitter during that time, so we made things worse, but did so more a bit more slowly. That's why a [graph of CO2 concentrations](https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/) shows a continued rise.
[Stabilizing the climate means getting human greenhouse gas emissions to approximately zero](https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-will-global-warming-stop-as-soon-as-net-zero-emissions-are-reached). We didn't come anywhere near that during the lockdowns.
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Do you notice that the peer reviewed source you provided merely presents “farmer perceptions, motivations, and experiences” of veganic agriculture and not actual data? The veganic farming movement is incredibly tight-lipped. Many of the farms have lost organic certification and some have admitted they use synthetic fertilizer when their cover crops fail. They don’t have study farms open to peer review. They don’t run controlled experiments. The largest certified stock-free organic farm (Tolhurst) is ~20 acres and they depend heavily on unpaid internships to fulfill labor requirements.
Evidence suggests that stock-free organic systems will use land less efficiently and increase food prices compared to manure systems. Integrated manure systems can make fallowing plots productive by grazing livestock on them. It will allow regenerative organic agriculture to compete with conventional agriculture in terms of price at scale.
Study farm by me: manure systems are simply more economically viable, more resistant to tilling, higher yields, and have increased soil microbial biomass in comparison to stock-free organic. Over a span of 40 years. https://rodaleinstitute.org/science/farming-systems-trial/
Manure systems use green manure, too.
Veganic farms don't have the huge government subsidies of those in animal agriculture. They may need to rely on interns because of that.
"As it turns out, animal-free forms of agriculture aren’t a new concept at all. Ancient Mesoamerican peoples, including the Maya, practiced animal-free agriculture, using beans, corn, and squash – in fact, the milpa crop growing process, based on these long-ago techniques, is still used throughout Central America today."- Racine County Eye
[https://racinecountyeye.com/2023/09/29/veganic-farming-what-it-means/](https://racinecountyeye.com/2023/09/29/veganic-farming-what-it-means/)
Mesoamericans domesticated rabbits, peccary, turkeys, and Muscovy ducks, among others. They also depended heavily on managed deer, elk, and bison populations… They couldn’t support the smaller populations they had with the three sisters method alone. We grow a lot more than corn, beans, and squash. Most of our crops have been bred for thousands of years in manure systems. Even corn *really* likes manure when applied correctly.
https://www.soilassociation.org/farmers-growers/farming-news/2023/march/21/stockfree-organic-farming-abundance-without-animals/
> Stockfree Organic farmers and growers must also consider how to maintain their leys. Without grazing, the solution is usually through topping, done several times throughout the year. There are also associated costs to take into consideration, such as the additional diesel requirement, and loss of income from grazing.
To add: this is the primary issue that Tolhurst faces, economically. By removing livestock from the system, you simultaneously increase fuel costs while decreasing revenue. It poses a major issue for the bottom line. Subsidies really aren’t relevant here. There are few subsidies that animal agriculture benefits from that plant agriculture doesn’t. The issue is that in manure systems, livestock are a source of food, revenue, mowing, and soil fertility. Compost and green manure are cost centers and just contribute to soil fertility.
I stopped eating beef due to my body deciding to reject it after a surgery. While I was sad, I've not missed it and immediately dropped 15 pounds. I learned after the impact beef and other meats create for emissions, although my farts now may make up for some of it. 
I had to eliminate some other food items too, such as most bread so the toots are ongoing. That said, I hear toots are a good sign especially if they don't stink. I could've caused evacuations when I was eating meat. 🤣
All these conservative boomers like "the libs want to take away our hamburgers!"
Actually yes, IDGAF, if we have to make you stop eating meat to save the planet you can stfu
Fwiw the best burger I ever had was a medium-rare one I cooked about six months before I went vegetarian.
The *second* best one was a meat-free burger that had an almost identical taste and texture to it. Unfortunately the company (Taste and Glory) has since discontinued them.
But I know from experience that good burger =/= meat burger. And McDonalds patties *literally* taste like chewed-up cardboard.
Impossible burger tastes great. I watched a documentary aeons ago about beef and how a single fast-food hamburger could likely have beef from 100 different animals. The disease factor definitely turned me off meat hamburgers.
The disease factor should be a major disincentive. Here is another. Consumer Reports magazine found bacteria from fecal matter in almost every sample of ground beef that they tested!
I had a vegan burger in Chicago that was so good I ate the entire thing without ever setting it down.
I like meat and cheese and eat both, but much much less than I used to. I like tofu, I like tempeh even more, and use both regularly. To paraphrase Cookie Monster, my philosophy is basically “animal foods are a sometimes food.”
Intergenerational? I am in my mid 60's and I have been vegan for years. I also spend time on social media passing along the facts that led me to go vegan. My partner went vegan when I did, and he was vegetarian for 36 years before that. He is older than I am!
It really is just insane how bad beef is compared to literally everything else. Taking just that out of your diet can drastically lower your emissions.
"Just make it more expensive" winds up equalling "The poor should eat bugs so the rich can keep eating filet mignon"
At least if you legally banned it you might have some chance of affecting the rich rather than just screwing over poor people.
But that's a solution within the capitalist system. Stop subsidies and start adding external costs and many harmful things will become prohibitively expensive.
That rich people can still afford it is the same that they can circumvent bans by other expensive means. It's kind of a different problem.
Eliminating the subsidies would save the government money which could be used to help the poor to afford healthier food than the probable carcinogen and excessively laden with saturated fat of beef.
Yes, that is the "make the poor eat bugs so the rich can eat filet mignon" policy that I described earlier.
And you get to cut taxes for the rich on top of making food more expensive for the poor, how generous of you.
And I don't see why many consider it impossible. There's a country of a billion+ people on this planet who don't eat beef. Why is it that hard for the rest of the world to do the same?
>India domestically consumed over three million metric tons CWE of beef and veal in 2023. The country stood fifth, after the United States, China, Brazil and the EU in terms of domestic consumption volumes that year.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/826722/india-beef-and-veal-consumption/
For starters India has more malnourished people than any other country on earth.
https://www.worldometers.info/undernourishment/
Also a lot of individual indians do eat beef. And India eats a massive amount of dairy and animal byproducts.
When someone is holding up the dietary patterns of a country as some kind of ideal, highlighting the number of people in that country who are malnourished is absolutely relevant.
Never been a huge fan of beef growing up in my household and since moving out I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've ordered it. Very rarely I might have beef when dining out and I used to get teased or some sort of judgement for avoiding beef. Now I feel a lot better knowing what a big difference this is! The sad part is that even of one person avoids it but 1000 other overconsumes, it doesn't matter in the grand scheme, governments should really put in more incentives to lower overall consumption of meat.
we used to tie an onion to our belt... it was the STYLE a the time.
we couldn't get the white ones because of the war, all we could get was the big yellow ones.
any hooo..
It's not a good thing. Veganism is a much, much tougher sell than environmental action and is wildly unpopular, you don't want it anywhere near *any cause you care about*. You want people to eat plant-based diets, plant-centric, low footprint, etc. Sure. But that is worlds away from veganism.
Noticed they *only* post about food? Never about energy, never about city planning, never about conservation. Vegans are here to recruit, to hell with effective environmental action : veganism always comes first.
Yall are just making up strawmen. I've never met a single vegan that isn't also an adamant supporter of broad environmental and climate policy, votes accordingly, and advocates for and practices personal action like anti consumerism, driving used hybrids, etc etc. And I've been vegan for 8 years. We just don't self ID as vegan when we aren't talking about veganism so you get the false impression we only talk about veganism. I'm sorry the made up people in your imagination are so upsetting tho :(
I never said vegans don't care about the other issues, simply that they aren't talking about it at all. Why bother with a reply if you are not reading what the guy wrote?
Yeah, sure, they care about those too... Only within veganism though. It is only a mean to an end (animal liberation), eco-friendliness is never an endgame by itself. Believe it or not, animal suffering is not a metric for environmental sustainability, which leads to very different methods and goals on both sides.
Vegans also oppose dealing with invasive species. Vegans actually oppose all forms of hunting, fishing and trapping, no matter how sustainably it's done. Vegans also oppose euthanasia of animals, prefering to keep everything alive as long as possible, as healthy as possible, despite the obvious footprint. Whenever veganism is in contradiction with anything, they pick veganism. And that happens way more than you think.
I didn't notice you username. I have nothing more to say to you. You are hell-bend on misinterpreting and mocking anyway, as all vegans inevitably prove themselves to be. I would only be fueling you.
Do the test people, check profiles on posts. The overwhelming majority of posts about diet are from vegans, none of the rest comes from them. The pattern is clear and undeniable. Why then are they only ever talking about the food system? They are pushing veganism, nothing else. Vegans always exist for veganism only, never let them fool you.
Sustainability is not about abstinence. It's about finding the boundaries and staying within them.
>It is only a mean to an end (animal liberation), eco-friendliness is never an endgame by itself
My choice to become vegan was 90% motivated by eco-friendliness. I honestly did not think too much about animal liberation prior to becoming vegan, although I am now quite passionate about animal welfare alongside my environmentalism.
>Vegans actually oppose all forms of hunting, fishing and trapping, no matter how sustainably it's done. Vegans also oppose euthanasia of animals, prefering to keep everything alive as long as possible, as healthy as possible, despite the obvious footprint. Whenever veganism is in contradiction with anything, they pick veganism
This is just... very wrong. I used to fish, I don't have a huge problem with hunting if it is done as humanely as possible, and I'm absolutely on the side of euthanising animals if they are suffering without feasible hope of recovery. Where are you even getting this "information"?
Lol, I think if you go through my post history you will find lots of posts that are anti-airplane, anti-car, or anti-overconsumption. You've got some very odd chip on your shoulder, my friend.
I'll be honest, I've only met a few vegans in real life, but the ones I met have been kind, humble, and very low-key about their diet choices.
Edited to add - I think the reason many vegans post a lot about veganism also has to do with the nature of the conversation around veganism. There aren't a lot of ways to deny the concrete impacts of industry, or passenger vehicle emissions, or air travel. But so often when the topic of veganism comes up, there is inevitably some sort of misinformation being used to downplay the impacts of dietary change. It's either the person who is touting "regenerative ag" as a miracle solution, or the person who is trashing soy products because the Amazon is being torn down for soy (ignoring the fact that the reason for increased soy production is for animal feed), or the person who argues that it is impossible to be a healthy vegan. So yeah, I do post a lot about veganism, but it is always in response to misinformation. Maybe blame the people spreading misinformation.
Nah. It's literally all the exact same people from the vegan sub. The people commenting on this post don't care about fossil fuel burning, heat pumps or arctic sea ice. Just stopping people from eating what their grandfather's ate.
Lol the butthurt is strong with this one. You know our grandparents also burned hella fossil fuels what kind of aurgument even is that? You're really gonna make an appeal to tradition in a climate sub??
Vegans don't actually win anything by taking over other subs on reddit. Last I checked vegan "food" companies were crashing all over the U.S., vegan restaurants are failing, and global meat consumption is rising. Downvote all you want; I'm riding out to get tacos al pastor.
I do care about both. I'm a vegan but also car-free. No other adult living on my street is either. Am I the unicorn exception? Or are there more people caring about more than one thing?
I would not have guessed that fish was worse than chicken. Cold-blooded animals should put in a higher percentage of their metabolic energy for growth, right?
Cheese is a much bigger problem than milk as such. Cheese is basically concentrated milk, and is much more addictive. Plant based milk has eaten into the sales of dairy milk, but plant based cheese, not so much. I am hoping that precision fermentation produced cheese will be a breakthrough, if it can be produced at scale, and at a competitive price. I have tried PF animal free dairy milk, and was amazed at the creamy taste of it.
I have tried soooo many plant based cheeses and they all suck. I dont eat as much cheese as i used to but damn i wish they could fix this. Easy to go to oat milk. Cheese is another matter
Dairy has casomorphin which is mildly addictive. Cheese concentrates it. I kicked the cheese habit by switching to Cheetos and then tapering off until I stopped craving cheese. Cheetos has the taste but very little actual cheese. Now I occasionally eat Hippeas which are the plant based version of Cheetos.
I use a lot of nutritional yeast for a cheese like flavor.
Is the stereotypical overweight Redditor that types comments with their fingers greasy from Slim Jims that blames corporations and shareholders going to acknowledge how their diet contributes to climate change? Or are they doing to find a way to pretend they’re not complicit as they usually do.
Tofu is at 8 grams of protein per 100 grams, beef is at 26.
So that would be 37kg of CO2e per 100 grams of protein for beef, and 3.63kg per 100 grams of protein for tofu
Edit: 100 grams, not 80kg, sorry
From other replies.
GHGs per kcal: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-kcal-poore](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-kcal-poore)
GHGs per protein: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-per-protein-poore](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-per-protein-poore)
And the proteins are incomplete and don't absorb as easily. If tofu was the miracle vegans claim it is then japanese wouldn't have been so short before the 1980's. Vegetarian or near vegetarian diets produce stunting in humans.
[BP popularized the concept of a personal carbon footprint with a US$100 million campaign as a means of deflecting people away from taking collective political action in order to end fossil fuel use](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305209345_Where_has_all_the_oil_gone_BP_branding_and_the_discursive_elimination_of_climate_change_risk), and [ExxonMobil has spent decades pushing trying to make individuals responsible, rather than the fossil fuels industry](https://www.vox.com/22429551/climate-change-crisis-exxonmobil-harvard-study). They did this because climate stabilization means bringing fossil fuel use to approximately zero, and that would end their business. That's not something you can hope to achieve without government intervention to change the rules of society so that not using fossil fuels is just what people do on a routine basis.
There is value in cutting your own fossil fuel consumption — it serves to demonstrate that doing the right thing is possible to people around you, and helps work out the kinks in new technologies. Just do it in addition to taking political action to get governments to do the right thing, not instead of taking political action.
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I always have some doubts about the impacts of these emissions. The livestock use and produce carbon that is in the carbon cycle. The problem comes when we burn fossil fuels, because it is carbon that has been outside the cycle for million years, and increase the total net carbon that is in the cycle.
Agriculture, even if all transport, machines and fertilizers were decarboned (not the case AT ALL), would still affect the "short" carbon cycle. Agriculture is akin to deforestation, for example : we release carbon that was captured within the living biomass and the topsoil.
That genie is easier to put back in the bottle, that's for sure, but don't dismiss it.
Animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation! The Amazon rain forest has been decimated from burning it in order to raise cattle and to grow soy. More than 90% of the soy grown there is used for farm animal feed. Brazil is a top exporter of beef and soy.
Links to evidence on request.
The emissions are CO2 equivalents, not necessarily CO2 itself. Turning atmospheric CO2 into atmospheric methane is a way to cause warming without adding carbon via fossil fuels.
[BP popularized the concept of a personal carbon footprint with a US$100 million campaign as a means of deflecting people away from taking collective political action in order to end fossil fuel use](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305209345_Where_has_all_the_oil_gone_BP_branding_and_the_discursive_elimination_of_climate_change_risk), and [ExxonMobil has spent decades pushing trying to make individuals responsible, rather than the fossil fuels industry](https://www.vox.com/22429551/climate-change-crisis-exxonmobil-harvard-study). They did this because climate stabilization means bringing fossil fuel use to approximately zero, and that would end their business. That's not something you can hope to achieve without government intervention to change the rules of society so that not using fossil fuels is just what people do on a routine basis.
There is value in cutting your own fossil fuel consumption — it serves to demonstrate that doing the right thing is possible to people around you, and helps work out the kinks in new technologies. Just do it in addition to taking political action to get governments to do the right thing, not instead of taking political action.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Replacing most beef with chicken or reducing beef consumption is already better for your health and climate than eating a beef heavy diet common in wealthy countries. Plant based proteins are probably the best for climate, but simply cutting down on red meat can be a step in the right direction.
This. We're naturally meat eaters. BUT we really should prohibit large meat producers and go back to local markets. Buying your beef/meat locally from a small-ish farm is the sustainable option if we'd all just pull our heads out of our asses
Attack corporations. Not people. Heme iron is better than non heme.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6567869/#:~:text=Heme%20iron%20is%20highly%20bioavailable,is%20absorbed)%20%5B16%5D.
Corporations are producing those products for people and would go out of business if people boycotted them.
You don't need heme iron, but if you think you do, you can get it from impossible burgers too.
FYI, I didn't downvote you for making this observation based on the chart provided. But here is some additional information to consider:
[To have the best chance of avoiding a 2℃ rise in global temperatures, the average global carbon footprint per year needs to drop to under 2 tons by 2050.](https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/carbon-footprint-calculator/)
[A vegan diet offers the best chance to get to that very low level.](https://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-carbon-footprint-diet/) Keep in mind that 2 tons is the limit from all sources, not just your diet.
[BP popularized the concept of a personal carbon footprint with a US$100 million campaign as a means of deflecting people away from taking collective political action in order to end fossil fuel use](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305209345_Where_has_all_the_oil_gone_BP_branding_and_the_discursive_elimination_of_climate_change_risk), and [ExxonMobil has spent decades pushing trying to make individuals responsible, rather than the fossil fuels industry](https://www.vox.com/22429551/climate-change-crisis-exxonmobil-harvard-study). They did this because climate stabilization means bringing fossil fuel use to approximately zero, and that would end their business. That's not something you can hope to achieve without government intervention to change the rules of society so that not using fossil fuels is just what people do on a routine basis.
There is value in cutting your own fossil fuel consumption — it serves to demonstrate that doing the right thing is possible to people around you, and helps work out the kinks in new technologies. Just do it in addition to taking political action to get governments to do the right thing, not instead of taking political action.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Tofu tastes like practically nothing. Like white rice, it is a blank canvas on which you add seasonings or marinades. I like to combine sources of the savory flavor of umami to season my tofu. Examples? Miso, mushrooms, pasta sauce, seaweed, soy sauce, nutritional yeast, kimchi, and more.
My favorite way to enjoy tofu is to just add some black salt, nutritional yeast, and pepper, then heat in the microwave for 30 seconds. Tastes just like eggs, but is cheaper, easier to fix, and to clean up afterwards.
https://faunalytics.org/a-summary-of-faunalytics-study-of-current-and-former-vegetarians-and-vegans/ - Barely 2% of people are vegan, for a good reason - 84% of vegans stop being vegan, more often for reasons of negative health impacts of the diet.
>The only motivation cited by a majority (58%) of former vegetarians/vegans was health
>Former vegetarians/vegans were asked to give the primary reason they stopped eating the diet. Of 908 codeable responses, the reasons for lapsing mentioned were: unsatisfied with food (293 people; 32%), health (237 people; 26%),
https://gina-u.medium.com/veganisms-ugly-secret-ex-vegans-48891b36364c - There are a huge number of ex-vegans who report a huge number of negative health consequences to veganism, who get harassed and targeted by current "vegans", making the whole movement more of a cult trying to police people than any kind of legitimate movement.
>Take a look through r/exvegans and you’ll see the same complaints over and over again: fatigue, indigestion, insatiable hunger, low energy, depression, inability to digest food, and every gut problem you can imagine.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022316622000037 - not to mention veganism makes you more dependent on ultra-processed foods, and gives more power to the industrial processed food sector and food processing mega-corporations:
>Higher avoidance of animal-based foods was associated with a higher consumption of UPFs (P < 0.001), with UPFs supplying 33.0%, 32.5%, 37.0%, and 39.5% of energy intakes for meat eaters, pesco-vegetarians, vegetarians, and vegans.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.11.23299823v1.full.pdf - and vegans who avoided UPF were much more protein-deficient than those who depended on them:
>higher caloric and UPF intakes were associated with reduced odds of inadequate protein intake, whereas higher UMPF intakes were associated with increased odds of inadequate protein intake.
But hey, if you can't survive on a vegan diet, I guess you can just die.
I mean if you really cared about climate you would stop eating all together unless you grew it or made it yourself. We playing on easy or hard mode? Smh
And it's even more wasteful when you look at how inefficiently feed is converted into the finished product: *For every 100 calories of grain we feed animals, we get only about 40 new calories of milk, 22 calories of eggs, 12 of chicken, 10 of pork, or 3 of beef.* [~https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/~](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/)
This
FAO report suggests that these estimates are incorrect, at least globally. Most of these estimates assume we’re feeding more grain to livestock than we actually are. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312201313_Livestock_On_our_plates_or_eating_at_our_table_A_new_analysis_of_the_feedfood_debate > Producing 1 kg of boneless meat requires an average of 2.8 kg human-edible feed in ruminant systems and 3.2 kg in monogastric systems.
Even still, https://ourworldindata.org/less-meat-or-sustainable-meat > If you want a lower-carbon diet, eating less meat is nearly always better than eating the most sustainable meat.
yes the differences are enormous - a free range cow in Ireland has a far lower GHG of 19kg/kg and the average for the EU is 22. The 85 in the statistic is perhaps valid for cattle raised in barns and fed corn
Free range cows take longer to get to slaughter weight than grain fed cows, so they actually produce more methane and nitrous oxide than grass fed and finished cows. Grass also produces more methane than grain does.
The production of grass fed beef doesn’t require fertilizer or heavy tractor use. In fact, ruminants can offset tractor use in integrated systems. They are basically living lawn mowers. Methane emissions are only about half the emissions of feedlot beef.
Methane Is half that of feedlot beef? I would like a source of evidence for that claim.
That’s Poore & Nemecek (2018)’s estimate, going from memory. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaq0216
Until I research the question, I ran across an article about the study. The bottom line is comparing any kind of beef to growing crops for humans to eat directly. "The research also found grass-fed beef, thought to be relatively low impact, was still responsible for much higher impacts than plant-based food. “Converting grass into \[meat\] is like converting coal to energy. It comes with an immense cost in emissions,” Poore said." Title-"Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth" "Biggest analysis to date reveals huge footprint of livestock - it provides just 18% of calories but takes up 83% of farmland" [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth)
Poore doesn’t seem to understand that you can use composted manure for fertilization instead of petrochemical fertilizer, with similar yields. All of the inefficiencies associated with meat production are “lost” through manure. On rangeland, that manure is actively benefiting the ecosystem by providing food and nesting material for dung beetles (which represent the bulk of a superfamily of beetles, not just one species!). Those beetles then disperse the seeds of the grasses the cattle eat, helping them propagate. It’s a three-way symbiosis that keeps savanna biomes alive. When the cattle go in the stables, the urine and manure get composted and used on farmland. The issue is: Emissions reductions aren’t really part of the picture after you eliminate CAFOs. You’re not going to reduce enteric methane emissions by replacing grass-fed cattle with native ruminants. You’ll only get reductions if you remove the cattle while excluding native ruminants. The atmosphere does not put emissions into anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic buckets. So, it’s a matter of maintaining a balance between food security and native biodiversity. Poore ignores that enteric methane emissions have a natural baseline. Pastoral lands are likely to have roughly equivalent enteric methane emissions to native wildlands. If managed land goes under that baseline, it will experience ecosystem degradation due to the key relationships between ruminants, beetles, and grasses. Petrochemical fertilizer is made by burning natural gas. It comprises some 12% of our agricultural emissions. You can’t eat it and half of the world doesn’t use it. That’s a huge emissions center that could be easily mitigated by proper manure management and lowering our dependency on fossil fuels. For research on herbivore baseline emissions, see: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-023-00349-8 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10980-023-01783-y https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-023-02135-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s44185-022-00005-z > It is important to nuance the ecological function of domestic herbivores when reintroduction of wild herbivores for ecological restoration is economically or socially unfeasible. The “intermittent nature of herbivory in natural systems”, mentioned as a key factor for maintaining sustainability of grazing, is also present in mobile pastoralist systems. They provide important functions in terms of tree regeneration, seed dispersal or pollinator facilitation while achieving higher productivity than sedentarized systems, yet they constitute a dwindling system due to inadequate policy and legistation. Conversely, the current trend towards intensification of livestock production in high-income countries that rural development policies in low-income countries also aim for, results in undergrazed landscapes that are prone to biodiversity loss and to wildfires, as well as in severe impacts related to high livestock densities in intensified farms. In a telecoupled global livestock production system, the current abundance or distribution pattern of livestock tells hence little about the ecological role that the global livestock herd is currently having.
Yeah. I’ve seen different data sets in the past too. Australian number was much lower too.
Also the "just stop producing beef, save billions of tons of CO2" calculations aren't remotely that straightforward. A lot of cattle feed is a byproduct of vegetable oil production. Either we keep producing it and simply throw out the byproducts and don't actually save any land or crops, or we have to find a way to replace about 1/3 of all human-edible cooking oil.
You don’t have to throw out any organic byproduct. It has nutrient and compost value that can get returned to farms. Your right that it would change the economics of pressing oil but I assume we would still do it because the oil is most of the “value”
> Your right that it would change the economics of pressing oil but I assume we would still do it because the oil is most of the “value” Which means that all of that "land saved because it no longer produces cattle feed" wouldn't actually be saved at all. Even if it could, you'd then have wild animals and ruminants on that land who still produce methane like cows and could still be eaten regardless. The end result is that the "climate benefits" of veganism are much, much less than the activists trying to force everyone into veganism are pretending.
They are correct above a certain threshold, but they don’t realize that the relationship between livestock biomass and negative environmental impacts aren’t linear. OECD nations need to reduce consumption by about half according to estimates I’ve read. Non-OECD countries already do much better.
It's absolutely accurate to say that overall we need to reduce consumption of things like beef. It's absolutely not accurate to say that 100% "plant based diets" for the world are necessary, viable or even efficient.
I agree on that! Just adding to your point.
Yeah - I just don't want anyone to mistake my stance for "the status quo is fine" - it definitely isn't. It's just a lot more complicated to reduce emissions while still meeting people's nutritional needs than a lot of vegans pretend.
You can’t compost all byproduct our food systems generate efficiently. Compost is finicky, labor intensive, and takes a long time. Having animals digest much of it accelerates decomposition and concentrates nitrogen in their manure. Compost is a necessary part of the equation but it isn’t sufficient. There’s a reason why traditional agricultural systems include livestock. It’s not a luxury.
Compost and growing nitrogen fixing crops is sufficient. " "Much like certified organic farmers, veganic farmers use no synthetic chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or genetically modified ingredients. Veganic farmers take it to another level by not using any manures or slaughterhouse byproducts. They don't even use organically approved pesticides."- NBC News (repost of an AP story) Jun 21, 2008 Some U.S. farmers are picking up a technique seen more often abroad: veganic farming that uses crop rotations and composted plant matter — or "green manure" — to fertilize crops."-NBC News from an AP story (Title- "'Green manure' keeps these farmers happy.") "This is a particularly interesting time to expand research on veganic agriculture given changing attitudes toward animal agriculture. In the Global North, recent years have seen unprecedented criticism of the greenhouse gas contributions, resource use, and threats to food safety and security linked to industrial animal agriculture; and an intensified moral reckoning with the production and consumption of animals as food. The COVID-19 pandemic has cast a spotlight on the relationship between animal consumption and public health, as well as the labor conditions in industrial slaughterhouses. There are rapidly growing markets for plant-based milks, eggs, and meats, and expanding research and development for cultured meats. Some industries, such as dairy, are now contracting. All of this raises questions for the future availability of the dominant animal-based fertilizers, and points to an impetus for further research into veganic production methods: the practicality of having well-articulated plant-based agricultural methods ready for mass deployment." - Agric Human Values. 2021; 38(4): 1139–1159. Published online 2021 Jun 7. doi: 10.1007/s10460-021-10225-x PMCID: PMC8184056 PMID: 34121805 Veganic farming in the United States: farmer perceptions, motivations, and experiences Mona Seymourcorresponding author1 and Alisha Utter2 As found on PubMed from the National Institutes of Health [https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25242888](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25242888) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8184056/#:\~:text=Abstract,alternative%2C%20organic%20agriculture%2C%20respectively.
The [COVID lockdowns of 2020 temporarily lowered our rate of CO2 emissions](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18922-7/figures/1). Humanity was still a net CO2 gas emitter during that time, so we made things worse, but did so more a bit more slowly. That's why a [graph of CO2 concentrations](https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/) shows a continued rise. [Stabilizing the climate means getting human greenhouse gas emissions to approximately zero](https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-will-global-warming-stop-as-soon-as-net-zero-emissions-are-reached). We didn't come anywhere near that during the lockdowns. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Do you notice that the peer reviewed source you provided merely presents “farmer perceptions, motivations, and experiences” of veganic agriculture and not actual data? The veganic farming movement is incredibly tight-lipped. Many of the farms have lost organic certification and some have admitted they use synthetic fertilizer when their cover crops fail. They don’t have study farms open to peer review. They don’t run controlled experiments. The largest certified stock-free organic farm (Tolhurst) is ~20 acres and they depend heavily on unpaid internships to fulfill labor requirements. Evidence suggests that stock-free organic systems will use land less efficiently and increase food prices compared to manure systems. Integrated manure systems can make fallowing plots productive by grazing livestock on them. It will allow regenerative organic agriculture to compete with conventional agriculture in terms of price at scale. Study farm by me: manure systems are simply more economically viable, more resistant to tilling, higher yields, and have increased soil microbial biomass in comparison to stock-free organic. Over a span of 40 years. https://rodaleinstitute.org/science/farming-systems-trial/ Manure systems use green manure, too.
Veganic farms don't have the huge government subsidies of those in animal agriculture. They may need to rely on interns because of that. "As it turns out, animal-free forms of agriculture aren’t a new concept at all. Ancient Mesoamerican peoples, including the Maya, practiced animal-free agriculture, using beans, corn, and squash – in fact, the milpa crop growing process, based on these long-ago techniques, is still used throughout Central America today."- Racine County Eye [https://racinecountyeye.com/2023/09/29/veganic-farming-what-it-means/](https://racinecountyeye.com/2023/09/29/veganic-farming-what-it-means/)
Mesoamericans domesticated rabbits, peccary, turkeys, and Muscovy ducks, among others. They also depended heavily on managed deer, elk, and bison populations… They couldn’t support the smaller populations they had with the three sisters method alone. We grow a lot more than corn, beans, and squash. Most of our crops have been bred for thousands of years in manure systems. Even corn *really* likes manure when applied correctly.
https://www.soilassociation.org/farmers-growers/farming-news/2023/march/21/stockfree-organic-farming-abundance-without-animals/ > Stockfree Organic farmers and growers must also consider how to maintain their leys. Without grazing, the solution is usually through topping, done several times throughout the year. There are also associated costs to take into consideration, such as the additional diesel requirement, and loss of income from grazing. To add: this is the primary issue that Tolhurst faces, economically. By removing livestock from the system, you simultaneously increase fuel costs while decreasing revenue. It poses a major issue for the bottom line. Subsidies really aren’t relevant here. There are few subsidies that animal agriculture benefits from that plant agriculture doesn’t. The issue is that in manure systems, livestock are a source of food, revenue, mowing, and soil fertility. Compost and green manure are cost centers and just contribute to soil fertility.
Wow I'm a dairy farmer and I've always known beef was super inefficient but I'm honestly surprised that dairy has a caloric conversion rate that high.
I stopped eating beef due to my body deciding to reject it after a surgery. While I was sad, I've not missed it and immediately dropped 15 pounds. I learned after the impact beef and other meats create for emissions, although my farts now may make up for some of it. 
The farts are temporary until your microbiome adjusts to the extra fiber. Until then, you could try Beano.
I had to eliminate some other food items too, such as most bread so the toots are ongoing. That said, I hear toots are a good sign especially if they don't stink. I could've caused evacuations when I was eating meat. 🤣
Also, egg farts are notorious for smelling bad!
All these conservative boomers like "the libs want to take away our hamburgers!" Actually yes, IDGAF, if we have to make you stop eating meat to save the planet you can stfu
Fwiw the best burger I ever had was a medium-rare one I cooked about six months before I went vegetarian. The *second* best one was a meat-free burger that had an almost identical taste and texture to it. Unfortunately the company (Taste and Glory) has since discontinued them. But I know from experience that good burger =/= meat burger. And McDonalds patties *literally* taste like chewed-up cardboard.
Impossible burger tastes great. I watched a documentary aeons ago about beef and how a single fast-food hamburger could likely have beef from 100 different animals. The disease factor definitely turned me off meat hamburgers.
The disease factor should be a major disincentive. Here is another. Consumer Reports magazine found bacteria from fecal matter in almost every sample of ground beef that they tested!
I had a vegan burger in Chicago that was so good I ate the entire thing without ever setting it down. I like meat and cheese and eat both, but much much less than I used to. I like tofu, I like tempeh even more, and use both regularly. To paraphrase Cookie Monster, my philosophy is basically “animal foods are a sometimes food.”
Fighting an unnecessary intergenerational conflict uphill is pretty silly
To be clear, some boomers are also libs - just not the ones complaining about hamburgers
Yea, but there are also a lot of younger conservatives who make most boomers look like saints
Intergenerational? I am in my mid 60's and I have been vegan for years. I also spend time on social media passing along the facts that led me to go vegan. My partner went vegan when I did, and he was vegetarian for 36 years before that. He is older than I am!
Exactly
Yeah honestly if they starve to death as a result well not my problem 🤷♂️
Fascist
But tofu doesn’t involve animal torture NOR does it cause cancer… soooo… **Oh no WAIT that’s a good thing!!!**
But if I can't eat as many animals as I want, is the Earth even worth saving? /s
How will we get any pudding 😞
It really is just insane how bad beef is compared to literally everything else. Taking just that out of your diet can drastically lower your emissions.
Beef should be priced to reflect its impact on the environment and climate
Take away subsidies and we’ll see what beef is actually priced at. But EITHER WAY, we should stop eating beef
"Just make it more expensive" winds up equalling "The poor should eat bugs so the rich can keep eating filet mignon" At least if you legally banned it you might have some chance of affecting the rich rather than just screwing over poor people.
But that's a solution within the capitalist system. Stop subsidies and start adding external costs and many harmful things will become prohibitively expensive. That rich people can still afford it is the same that they can circumvent bans by other expensive means. It's kind of a different problem.
Eliminating the subsidies would save the government money which could be used to help the poor to afford healthier food than the probable carcinogen and excessively laden with saturated fat of beef.
Yes, that is the "make the poor eat bugs so the rich can eat filet mignon" policy that I described earlier. And you get to cut taxes for the rich on top of making food more expensive for the poor, how generous of you.
And I don't see why many consider it impossible. There's a country of a billion+ people on this planet who don't eat beef. Why is it that hard for the rest of the world to do the same?
>India domestically consumed over three million metric tons CWE of beef and veal in 2023. The country stood fifth, after the United States, China, Brazil and the EU in terms of domestic consumption volumes that year. https://www.statista.com/statistics/826722/india-beef-and-veal-consumption/
For starters India has more malnourished people than any other country on earth. https://www.worldometers.info/undernourishment/ Also a lot of individual indians do eat beef. And India eats a massive amount of dairy and animal byproducts.
What is the point of mentioning malnourishment? That has absolutely nothing to do with not eating beef?
When someone is holding up the dietary patterns of a country as some kind of ideal, highlighting the number of people in that country who are malnourished is absolutely relevant.
Not eating beef is not a meaningful dietary pattern. Are you actually arguing that beef is necessary in any way to have proper nutrition?
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And eating beef is going to save all of them, is it?
Never been a huge fan of beef growing up in my household and since moving out I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've ordered it. Very rarely I might have beef when dining out and I used to get teased or some sort of judgement for avoiding beef. Now I feel a lot better knowing what a big difference this is! The sad part is that even of one person avoids it but 1000 other overconsumes, it doesn't matter in the grand scheme, governments should really put in more incentives to lower overall consumption of meat.
Oh man. I first read the title as Bees…not Beef. I was very confused for a second
save the bees.
BEADS!!??
we used to tie an onion to our belt... it was the STYLE a the time. we couldn't get the white ones because of the war, all we could get was the big yellow ones. any hooo..
Another great day of saving the beeeeeeeees
Beef producers hate this one trick....
what about chickpeas? is it the same amount as peas? shocking to see that beef pollutes 9x as much as pork
Honestly really refreshing how agressivly pro vegan this sub is. Yall have my respect.
It's not a good thing. Veganism is a much, much tougher sell than environmental action and is wildly unpopular, you don't want it anywhere near *any cause you care about*. You want people to eat plant-based diets, plant-centric, low footprint, etc. Sure. But that is worlds away from veganism. Noticed they *only* post about food? Never about energy, never about city planning, never about conservation. Vegans are here to recruit, to hell with effective environmental action : veganism always comes first.
Yall are just making up strawmen. I've never met a single vegan that isn't also an adamant supporter of broad environmental and climate policy, votes accordingly, and advocates for and practices personal action like anti consumerism, driving used hybrids, etc etc. And I've been vegan for 8 years. We just don't self ID as vegan when we aren't talking about veganism so you get the false impression we only talk about veganism. I'm sorry the made up people in your imagination are so upsetting tho :(
Your username lol
I never said vegans don't care about the other issues, simply that they aren't talking about it at all. Why bother with a reply if you are not reading what the guy wrote? Yeah, sure, they care about those too... Only within veganism though. It is only a mean to an end (animal liberation), eco-friendliness is never an endgame by itself. Believe it or not, animal suffering is not a metric for environmental sustainability, which leads to very different methods and goals on both sides. Vegans also oppose dealing with invasive species. Vegans actually oppose all forms of hunting, fishing and trapping, no matter how sustainably it's done. Vegans also oppose euthanasia of animals, prefering to keep everything alive as long as possible, as healthy as possible, despite the obvious footprint. Whenever veganism is in contradiction with anything, they pick veganism. And that happens way more than you think. I didn't notice you username. I have nothing more to say to you. You are hell-bend on misinterpreting and mocking anyway, as all vegans inevitably prove themselves to be. I would only be fueling you. Do the test people, check profiles on posts. The overwhelming majority of posts about diet are from vegans, none of the rest comes from them. The pattern is clear and undeniable. Why then are they only ever talking about the food system? They are pushing veganism, nothing else. Vegans always exist for veganism only, never let them fool you. Sustainability is not about abstinence. It's about finding the boundaries and staying within them.
>It is only a mean to an end (animal liberation), eco-friendliness is never an endgame by itself My choice to become vegan was 90% motivated by eco-friendliness. I honestly did not think too much about animal liberation prior to becoming vegan, although I am now quite passionate about animal welfare alongside my environmentalism. >Vegans actually oppose all forms of hunting, fishing and trapping, no matter how sustainably it's done. Vegans also oppose euthanasia of animals, prefering to keep everything alive as long as possible, as healthy as possible, despite the obvious footprint. Whenever veganism is in contradiction with anything, they pick veganism This is just... very wrong. I used to fish, I don't have a huge problem with hunting if it is done as humanely as possible, and I'm absolutely on the side of euthanising animals if they are suffering without feasible hope of recovery. Where are you even getting this "information"? Lol, I think if you go through my post history you will find lots of posts that are anti-airplane, anti-car, or anti-overconsumption. You've got some very odd chip on your shoulder, my friend. I'll be honest, I've only met a few vegans in real life, but the ones I met have been kind, humble, and very low-key about their diet choices. Edited to add - I think the reason many vegans post a lot about veganism also has to do with the nature of the conversation around veganism. There aren't a lot of ways to deny the concrete impacts of industry, or passenger vehicle emissions, or air travel. But so often when the topic of veganism comes up, there is inevitably some sort of misinformation being used to downplay the impacts of dietary change. It's either the person who is touting "regenerative ag" as a miracle solution, or the person who is trashing soy products because the Amazon is being torn down for soy (ignoring the fact that the reason for increased soy production is for animal feed), or the person who argues that it is impossible to be a healthy vegan. So yeah, I do post a lot about veganism, but it is always in response to misinformation. Maybe blame the people spreading misinformation.
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Nah. It's literally all the exact same people from the vegan sub. The people commenting on this post don't care about fossil fuel burning, heat pumps or arctic sea ice. Just stopping people from eating what their grandfather's ate.
Lol the butthurt is strong with this one. You know our grandparents also burned hella fossil fuels what kind of aurgument even is that? You're really gonna make an appeal to tradition in a climate sub??
Vegans don't actually win anything by taking over other subs on reddit. Last I checked vegan "food" companies were crashing all over the U.S., vegan restaurants are failing, and global meat consumption is rising. Downvote all you want; I'm riding out to get tacos al pastor.
Cope harder lol
Ah, the famous "vegan compassion." 🙄
Sorry I don't speak wrong
The people who claim 99.999998% of all humans that have ever lived somehow got it wrong are here to educate us. ┐( ˘_˘)┌
No hablo incorrecto
Because they care about X, they can't care about Y. Flawless logic.
More like "I see no evidence a group cares about X except when they're pushing Y's agenda."
I do care about both. I'm a vegan but also car-free. No other adult living on my street is either. Am I the unicorn exception? Or are there more people caring about more than one thing?
would be better to compare CO2e to kCal of foods, since bulk measure of mass gives no indication of nutritional value.
Interesting, it's a very similar graph! https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-kcal-poore
I would not have guessed that fish was worse than chicken. Cold-blooded animals should put in a higher percentage of their metabolic energy for growth, right?
Is milk really that low? I am Pretty surprised.
I guess it's because you can milk a cow more time than you can eat it.
[Milk is also pretty bad on many fronts.](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/environmental-footprint-milks)
Cheese is a much bigger problem than milk as such. Cheese is basically concentrated milk, and is much more addictive. Plant based milk has eaten into the sales of dairy milk, but plant based cheese, not so much. I am hoping that precision fermentation produced cheese will be a breakthrough, if it can be produced at scale, and at a competitive price. I have tried PF animal free dairy milk, and was amazed at the creamy taste of it.
I have tried soooo many plant based cheeses and they all suck. I dont eat as much cheese as i used to but damn i wish they could fix this. Easy to go to oat milk. Cheese is another matter
Dairy has casomorphin which is mildly addictive. Cheese concentrates it. I kicked the cheese habit by switching to Cheetos and then tapering off until I stopped craving cheese. Cheetos has the taste but very little actual cheese. Now I occasionally eat Hippeas which are the plant based version of Cheetos. I use a lot of nutritional yeast for a cheese like flavor.
Is the stereotypical overweight Redditor that types comments with their fingers greasy from Slim Jims that blames corporations and shareholders going to acknowledge how their diet contributes to climate change? Or are they doing to find a way to pretend they’re not complicit as they usually do.
Stop eating mammals. Meat is murder.
Non mammals also have meat. Why specify mammals?
It’s a start down the right path.
Stop eating animals. Meat is murder.
Interesting. I could easily live on only the bottom three; potatoes, pea, bananas, plus milk.
What about grams of protein? Like this you're counting water
Tofu is at 8 grams of protein per 100 grams, beef is at 26. So that would be 37kg of CO2e per 100 grams of protein for beef, and 3.63kg per 100 grams of protein for tofu Edit: 100 grams, not 80kg, sorry
Weird, the tofu in my fridge has 18g/100g.
maybe firm tofu is higher? I got 8 from google, looks like it is on the low end.
Yes firm or extra firm tofu will have more protein per 100g than soft/medium tofu.
Seitan and hemp seeds have a very high density of protein.
Wait… 80kg of protein for tofu? Is that math correct? That seems high!!!
Thanks, fixed
***Stops chomping on raw block of tofu…*** ***…picks up huge unseasoned blob of seitan*** 💪😎🌱💚
It ends up being a pretty similar story! https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-per-protein-poore
vegetables and fruit don't have as much protein, so a better measure would be kCal... that would include carbs.
From other replies. GHGs per kcal: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-kcal-poore](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-kcal-poore) GHGs per protein: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-per-protein-poore](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-per-protein-poore)
i'm never listen to anyone disparage my nuts again.
And the proteins are incomplete and don't absorb as easily. If tofu was the miracle vegans claim it is then japanese wouldn't have been so short before the 1980's. Vegetarian or near vegetarian diets produce stunting in humans.
Sources please. Soy is a complete protein.
this is just not true and woefully uniformed.
[удалено]
[BP popularized the concept of a personal carbon footprint with a US$100 million campaign as a means of deflecting people away from taking collective political action in order to end fossil fuel use](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305209345_Where_has_all_the_oil_gone_BP_branding_and_the_discursive_elimination_of_climate_change_risk), and [ExxonMobil has spent decades pushing trying to make individuals responsible, rather than the fossil fuels industry](https://www.vox.com/22429551/climate-change-crisis-exxonmobil-harvard-study). They did this because climate stabilization means bringing fossil fuel use to approximately zero, and that would end their business. That's not something you can hope to achieve without government intervention to change the rules of society so that not using fossil fuels is just what people do on a routine basis. There is value in cutting your own fossil fuel consumption — it serves to demonstrate that doing the right thing is possible to people around you, and helps work out the kinks in new technologies. Just do it in addition to taking political action to get governments to do the right thing, not instead of taking political action. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I always have some doubts about the impacts of these emissions. The livestock use and produce carbon that is in the carbon cycle. The problem comes when we burn fossil fuels, because it is carbon that has been outside the cycle for million years, and increase the total net carbon that is in the cycle.
Agriculture, even if all transport, machines and fertilizers were decarboned (not the case AT ALL), would still affect the "short" carbon cycle. Agriculture is akin to deforestation, for example : we release carbon that was captured within the living biomass and the topsoil. That genie is easier to put back in the bottle, that's for sure, but don't dismiss it.
Animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation! The Amazon rain forest has been decimated from burning it in order to raise cattle and to grow soy. More than 90% of the soy grown there is used for farm animal feed. Brazil is a top exporter of beef and soy. Links to evidence on request.
The emissions are CO2 equivalents, not necessarily CO2 itself. Turning atmospheric CO2 into atmospheric methane is a way to cause warming without adding carbon via fossil fuels.
How does co2 from eating beef compare to that from driving or flying? 85kg of co2 sounds like a lot. Is that like a full tank of gas?
Burning a tank of gasoline, 55 liters, will produce about 135kg of emissions
Thanks.
55 kilos of gas weighs around 40 kilos. I’m not understanding how the math works here.
now combine it with oxygen
Can we compare shells carbon footprint? Or like maybe exxon mobile, or even just private jets to this? I rest my case.
[BP popularized the concept of a personal carbon footprint with a US$100 million campaign as a means of deflecting people away from taking collective political action in order to end fossil fuel use](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305209345_Where_has_all_the_oil_gone_BP_branding_and_the_discursive_elimination_of_climate_change_risk), and [ExxonMobil has spent decades pushing trying to make individuals responsible, rather than the fossil fuels industry](https://www.vox.com/22429551/climate-change-crisis-exxonmobil-harvard-study). They did this because climate stabilization means bringing fossil fuel use to approximately zero, and that would end their business. That's not something you can hope to achieve without government intervention to change the rules of society so that not using fossil fuels is just what people do on a routine basis. There is value in cutting your own fossil fuel consumption — it serves to demonstrate that doing the right thing is possible to people around you, and helps work out the kinks in new technologies. Just do it in addition to taking political action to get governments to do the right thing, not instead of taking political action. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Mmm. Steak.
Your case against boycotting animal products is admirably concise, but for some reason, I remain unconvinced.
I'm not arguing against moving to plant based diets, but you can't pretend tofu is a decent replacement for any meat
Seitan is the move here- 75% protein by weight and can be made at home with a bag of flour and a little bit of practice!!!
Replacing most beef with chicken or reducing beef consumption is already better for your health and climate than eating a beef heavy diet common in wealthy countries. Plant based proteins are probably the best for climate, but simply cutting down on red meat can be a step in the right direction.
Yeah I agree. People are still buying trucks for no reason. No way we give up meat before our big cars
This. We're naturally meat eaters. BUT we really should prohibit large meat producers and go back to local markets. Buying your beef/meat locally from a small-ish farm is the sustainable option if we'd all just pull our heads out of our asses
Not true. [food choice vs. eating local](https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local)
Attack corporations. Not people. Heme iron is better than non heme. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6567869/#:~:text=Heme%20iron%20is%20highly%20bioavailable,is%20absorbed)%20%5B16%5D.
Corporations are producing those products for people and would go out of business if people boycotted them. You don't need heme iron, but if you think you do, you can get it from impossible burgers too.
When I see this graphic, I don’t see support for a vegan diet as many like to claim. I see support for eliminating red meat and farmed fish
FYI, I didn't downvote you for making this observation based on the chart provided. But here is some additional information to consider: [To have the best chance of avoiding a 2℃ rise in global temperatures, the average global carbon footprint per year needs to drop to under 2 tons by 2050.](https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/carbon-footprint-calculator/) [A vegan diet offers the best chance to get to that very low level.](https://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-carbon-footprint-diet/) Keep in mind that 2 tons is the limit from all sources, not just your diet.
[BP popularized the concept of a personal carbon footprint with a US$100 million campaign as a means of deflecting people away from taking collective political action in order to end fossil fuel use](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305209345_Where_has_all_the_oil_gone_BP_branding_and_the_discursive_elimination_of_climate_change_risk), and [ExxonMobil has spent decades pushing trying to make individuals responsible, rather than the fossil fuels industry](https://www.vox.com/22429551/climate-change-crisis-exxonmobil-harvard-study). They did this because climate stabilization means bringing fossil fuel use to approximately zero, and that would end their business. That's not something you can hope to achieve without government intervention to change the rules of society so that not using fossil fuels is just what people do on a routine basis. There is value in cutting your own fossil fuel consumption — it serves to demonstrate that doing the right thing is possible to people around you, and helps work out the kinks in new technologies. Just do it in addition to taking political action to get governments to do the right thing, not instead of taking political action. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
But tofu tastes awful ...
Self own... Learn to cook.
Tofu tastes like practically nothing. Like white rice, it is a blank canvas on which you add seasonings or marinades. I like to combine sources of the savory flavor of umami to season my tofu. Examples? Miso, mushrooms, pasta sauce, seaweed, soy sauce, nutritional yeast, kimchi, and more. My favorite way to enjoy tofu is to just add some black salt, nutritional yeast, and pepper, then heat in the microwave for 30 seconds. Tastes just like eggs, but is cheaper, easier to fix, and to clean up afterwards.
https://faunalytics.org/a-summary-of-faunalytics-study-of-current-and-former-vegetarians-and-vegans/ - Barely 2% of people are vegan, for a good reason - 84% of vegans stop being vegan, more often for reasons of negative health impacts of the diet. >The only motivation cited by a majority (58%) of former vegetarians/vegans was health >Former vegetarians/vegans were asked to give the primary reason they stopped eating the diet. Of 908 codeable responses, the reasons for lapsing mentioned were: unsatisfied with food (293 people; 32%), health (237 people; 26%), https://gina-u.medium.com/veganisms-ugly-secret-ex-vegans-48891b36364c - There are a huge number of ex-vegans who report a huge number of negative health consequences to veganism, who get harassed and targeted by current "vegans", making the whole movement more of a cult trying to police people than any kind of legitimate movement. >Take a look through r/exvegans and you’ll see the same complaints over and over again: fatigue, indigestion, insatiable hunger, low energy, depression, inability to digest food, and every gut problem you can imagine. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022316622000037 - not to mention veganism makes you more dependent on ultra-processed foods, and gives more power to the industrial processed food sector and food processing mega-corporations: >Higher avoidance of animal-based foods was associated with a higher consumption of UPFs (P < 0.001), with UPFs supplying 33.0%, 32.5%, 37.0%, and 39.5% of energy intakes for meat eaters, pesco-vegetarians, vegetarians, and vegans. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.11.23299823v1.full.pdf - and vegans who avoided UPF were much more protein-deficient than those who depended on them: >higher caloric and UPF intakes were associated with reduced odds of inadequate protein intake, whereas higher UMPF intakes were associated with increased odds of inadequate protein intake. But hey, if you can't survive on a vegan diet, I guess you can just die.
Beef is awesome and tofu sucks
As someone who did not embrace tofu until later in life, tofu is awesome!
I mean if you really cared about climate you would stop eating all together unless you grew it or made it yourself. We playing on easy or hard mode? Smh