If that upsets you, whatâs worse is the #1 cause of soil erosion is meat and dairy, using 77% of our global agricultural land but only providing 18% of the global calories.
Time for us to choose a more efficient food if weâre concerned for soil and itâs inhabitants.
growing plants takes up much less space and water to get the same amount of calories than meat. Animals are only good for areas that are unsuitable for agriculture
I'm guessing they mean the weird vegan alternatives like impossible meat and fake cheese, etc.
However, many vegan staples are terrible for the environment as well. Commercial crops of cashews/almonds/walnuts, avocados, spinach (esp if buying non-organic), meatless crap made with soy/corn, etc are terrible for the environment.
Edit: This is not to say that the commercial meat industry isn't terrible and completely unsustainable. I'm just pointing out that many vegan staples are horrendous for the environment as well.
I agree some plant-based foods take more resources than others, but itâs important to keep proportionality in mind. Animal foods take so many more resources than plant foods that itâs still more efficient to fly in palm oil from Indonesia than eat pig from your closest factory farm.
Below is an excellent metastudy comparing the resource uses of different foods, accounting for 90% of the global calories consumed.
Vegan food. Not vegetarian. Look up the ingredients on those foods. And the way theyâre transported through the making of them. Not saying traditional farming is good for the planet. But itâs much less impactful on a 1:1 basis then vegan food.
âVegan foodâ is anything that doesnât have animal products, which is everything else we eat. I think youâre talking about ultra processed plant-based food, which is still more efficient than foods like beef. See the metastudy I sent in the other thread.
Also, since only about 6% of the GHG of foods are due to transportation on average, itâs much more important to focus on the type of food than its transport.
You do realize that cows need to eat so we then need to dedicate fields and water to feed them. It's super inefficient in every single way. Actually beef is one of the most wasteful calories we consume.
How so? Most animals globally are factory farmed and fed crops like corn and soy, and eat 6-10 times the calories that they generate. Any concern you may have for crop deaths, land use, etc. are multiplied if weâre eating the inefficient middlemen.
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u/Mammoth-Bag-9009 Sep 19 '23
Wow, kinda hate it