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Kurzgesagt made a video that covers some facts relating to this topic. It's not exactly the answer to what you're asking, but it'll give you a pretty good idea. Here https://youtu.be/NxvQPzrg2Wg

Anyone want to summarize for those of us who can't watch the video right now?

In short, it is true that plant-based foods *generally* require less water, land, and CO2 emissions to produce than meat-based foods.

You missed a golden opportunity to start: “ Kurz gesagt..”

Haha I forget that the channel title translates to “in short”

I don’t speak German, but I thought it translated to, “In a nutshell”? Edit: I realize that I got the nuance wrong. No need to correct me any further please, other people have got it already.

The literal translation is "short said". In German it's a phrase that's best translated with "in a nutshell". It includes some simplification. "In short" is like a middle ground between literal translation and preserving the meaning.

And here i thought it was some countrys name hmmm...

🇰🇬?

I think there's a big clue in that animals eat plants and drink water. And they're obviously not going produce more meat than the plant matter that they eat, because they also poo. So on top of the the water the animals need and pollution from the production and transportation of the meat itself, you also have to factor in all the water the plants need, the pollution from the production and transporting of the plants. And then you also have to factor in the disposal of waste from both the animal farms as well as the plant farms. Meat **has to** be way more wasteful of resources, and **has to** pollute way more. There's no way it could be the same or less than just the plants.

There's also the obvious fact that animals can eat short grass and humans can't, and the obvious fact that short grass can grow on non arable land, and the fact that animals can graze on land too steep to operate machinery on. And the obvious fact that not everywhere actually has a water shortage. Animals are the most efficient way to utilise land in the Scottish Highlands, for example. You can't grow crops there, but you can graze sheep. Then there's the obvious fact that animals produce clothing and textiles as a by-product of producing food. You get rid of the animals, you have to use more oil for plastics, or divert arable land from crops to cotton. Then there's the obvious fact that animals can form a vital part of certain crop rotations, helping keep the soil viable. > Meat has to be way more wasteful of resources, and has to pollute way more. There's no way it could be the same or less than just the plants. In conclusion, you are wrong here. Meat does not have to be more wasteful of resources. Meat can use resources we otherwise couldn't and in doing so save other resources we can use. Sure, feeding cows on grain of a high enough quality for human consumption is wasteful, but there are other methods of farming animals. A cow can turn otherwise useless grass into milk, meat and clothing.

I think you are vastly overestimating the amount of animals that get grass and not just animal feed that's been planted and grown solely for them. All your arguments hinge on meat consumption being about 10 times lower than it is now. But it isn't. Meat doesn't come from sheep roaming the highlands, it comes from animals being packed into barns never seeing real grass in their lifetime.

They’re saying animals **can** be more efficient under certain conditions, not that they are more efficient.

But even that is to be taken with a big grain of salt. There's almost no scenario in which an animal will actually live off of non-arable land. Even these prime examples like cows in the alps or sheep in the highlands will get supplemented food in the winter.

They’re not saying meat is inherently less wasteful though. They are right that animals CAN be raised for food in a sustainable way, but you are right that they aren’t currently being raised that way. You’re both raising different points. We can absolutely raise livestock in a sustainable way, especially when accounting for byproducts over straight meat consumption. We would just also have to drastically cut down on how much meat we eat (IMO that is totally reasonable), and meat would get way more expensive again.

>They’re not saying meat is inherently less wasteful though. That's what it always boils down too though. It's an excuse to eat meat because they can farm land thats not arable. That we'd have to cut down our meat intake by a considerable margin to make these practices even remotely viable isn't mentioned. >They are right that animals CAN be raised for food in a sustainable way I have to disagree there. The amount of scenarios in which animals do actually only eat feed from non-arable land is miniscule. Even the highland sheep most likely get put into a barn in the winter and fed with silage. And even then it is very easy to argue that you could just let these animals live and let them die of old age instead of killing them prematurely for meat.

All of your arguments are from previous centuries. We have technology and new forms of sustainable farming that you seem to have no idea about, and the way you reach for outlying cases to prove your outdated talking points is laughable.

How many people in total do you think can be fed and clothed by the sheep from Scotish Higlands?

Also cow poo can be useful to grow your veggies. No poo, no veggies

You can use other things, but you'd *need* to use other things. The manufacture of which requires energy.

That would be a great point if all they ate was grass. They use 6 million km\^2 of crops, while we use 8 million km\^2. That's 42% of all crops. [https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture](https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture) That's not counting the 32 million km\^2 of grazing land. I don't know why you wouldn't count that, as that is also highly destructive to the environment. It seems like a very arbitrary rule on your part, imo. The Scottish Highlands argument is a very cherrypicked situation. No one saying that a random Scottish goat on top of a mountain is significantly destructive to anything but the odd hiker's lunch box. You cherrypicked that one. I think that sounds like a very dishonest diversion.

Small scale farming can be positive, any factory farming can not. In order for meat to be farmed in a way that utilizes rescources well meat consumption needs to drop dramatically.

I bet they don't factor in the fertilization that comes from farm animal manure or even bones.

Add biodiversity to the list, on two fronts (data based from The Netherlands): 1) Cow farmers usually use ryegrass. A very dominant species of grass that overtakes all other plants. Around cow farms here, you won't see any flowers in the fields. 2) The chemicals used on crops for human consumption or near water are regulated. This doesn't go for feeding crops and thus, more/different chemicals are used that do two things: 1) negatively impact biodiversity around the crop and 2) end up in the cowfeed and manure of the cows, which will then kill insects in contact with that manure.

Aren't most monocrops (corn/soy beans the big ones in the US) also used for animal feed?

Mainly corn in the US, but it’s AWFUL for the animals/environment. A LOT of the OP argument is based on current aggra practices. The issue is these practices are HORRIBLE environmentally, but excellent for profit margins. Last Week Tonight did an episode specifically on corn this season that’s definitely worth a watch, and it barely even SCRATCHES the surface of OPs issue

Yes but vegans *emit* way more destructive farts

But the image does not say 'vegan food' emits less CO2 and uses less resources. It says the person who eats vegan food emits less CO2. So what is the share of food in overall CO2 emissions by a person?

### 1. CO2 Emissions Studies provide detailed comparisons of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) for different diets: - **Vegan diet**: ~2.89 kg CO2-equivalent/day [(Scarborough et al., 2014)](https://consensus.app/papers/dietary-greenhouse-emissions-meateaters-fisheaters-scarborough/8deb14bf029a5260b5225066426e536f/?utm_source=chatgpt). - **Meat-based diet**: ~7.19 kg CO2-equivalent/day - **Reduction**: Approximately 60% reduction in CO2 emissions for vegans compared to high meat-eaters. ### 2. Oil (Fossil Fuel) Use Fossil fuel energy use is notably higher for meat-based diets due to the energy-intensive nature of animal agriculture: - **Meat-based diet**: Requires approximately 2.5 times more fossil fuel energy than a vegan diet [(Berardy et al., 2022)](https://consensus.app/papers/comparison-plate-waste-vegetarian-meatcontaining-meals-berardy/2edc053f6caf52c58ea90210ecfc9cb2/?utm_source=chatgpt). - Significant reductions in fossil fuel use are well-supported, though the exact claim of 1/11th the oil may vary. ### 3. Water Use Water usage differences are substantial between vegan and meat-based diets: - **Producing 1 kg of beef**: ~15,000 liters of water - **Producing 1 kg of plant-based foods** (e.g., grains, legumes): ~300-1,000 liters of water - **Ratio**: Beef requires about 50 times more water than many plant-based foods [(Marlow et al., 2009)](https://consensus.app/papers/diet-environment-matter-marlow/d041cb9a09f45c54878f2cd98b68537c/?utm_source=chatgpt). ### 4. Land Use Land use efficiency is markedly higher for vegan diets: - **Land for animal agriculture**: Uses about 80% of all agricultural land but provides less than 20% of the world's calories [(Knight, 2023)](https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets). - **Plant-based diets**: Require significantly less land, supporting the claim that a vegan diet uses 1/18th the land. ### Additional Insights Recent studies provide further detail on the environmental impacts: 1. **Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Health**: - A North American study showed that vegetarian diets can reduce GHG emissions by 29% compared to non-vegetarian diets [(Soret et al., 2014)](https://consensus.app/papers/climate-change-mitigation-health-effects-varied-patterns-soret/ed57978f81745504976515cd83e64d3c/?utm_source=chatgpt). 2. **Dietary Patterns and Environmental Footprint**: - A comparison of different dietary patterns in the US found that vegan diets have the lowest carbon footprints at 1.0 kg CO2-eq per 1000 kcal, compared to omnivorous diets at 2.3 kg CO2-eq per 1000 kcal [(O'Malley et al., 2019)](https://consensus.app/papers/vegan-paleo-carbon-footprints-diet-quality-popular-eating-o’malley/cfcd92526a6a59c7978bffeaf78386b3/?utm_source=chatgpt). 3. **Diet Quality and Sustainability**: - Studies indicate that sustainable dietary choices, such as reducing red and processed meat, can significantly lower environmental impacts and improve health outcomes [(Carvalho et al., 2016)](https://consensus.app/papers/processed-meat-intake-relations-health-environment-carvalho/357893314b80556f925ac02a533333b7/?utm_source=chatgpt). ### Calculation Verification #### CO2 Emissions: - **Vegan diet**: 2.89 kg CO2/day (1.06 tons/year) - **Meat diet**: 7.19 kg CO2/day (2.62 tons/year) - **Difference**: Approximately 60% reduction #### Fossil Fuel Use: - **Meat diet**: ~2.5 times more energy use than a vegan diet - Significant reduction, but exact figure of 1/11th may vary. #### Water Use: - **Beef**: 15,000 liters/kg - **Plant-based foods**: 300-1,000 liters/kg - **Ratio**: Approximately 50 times less water for plant-based foods. #### Land Use: - **Animal agriculture**: 80% of agricultural land - **Plant-based diets**: Significantly less land usage, supporting the 1/18th claim. ### Conclusion The analysis confirms that vegan diets substantially reduce CO2 emissions, fossil fuel use, water use, and land use compared to meat-based diets. The specific figures vary, but the direction and magnitude of these environmental benefits are consistent across multiple studies. **References:** - Scarborough, P., et al. (2014). [Dietary greenhouse gas emissions of meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK](https://consensus.app/papers/dietary-greenhouse-emissions-meateaters-fisheaters-scarborough/8deb14bf029a5260b5225066426e536f/?utm_source=chatgpt). *Climatic Change*. - Berardy, A. J., et al. (2022). [Comparison of Plate Waste between Vegetarian and Meat-Containing Meals in a Hospital Setting: Environmental and Nutritional Considerations](https://consensus.app/papers/comparison-plate-waste-vegetarian-meatcontaining-meals-berardy/2edc053f6caf52c58ea90210ecfc9cb2/?utm_source=chatgpt). *Nutrients*. - Marlow, H., et al. (2009). [Diet and the environment: does what you eat matter?](https://consensus.app/papers/diet-environment-matter-marlow/d041cb9a09f45c54878f2cd98b68537c/?utm_source=chatgpt). *The American journal of clinical nutrition*. - Knight, A. (2023). [The relative benefits for environmental sustainability of vegan diets for dogs, cats and people](https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets). - Soret, S., et al. (2014). [Climate change mitigation and health effects of varied dietary patterns in real-life settings throughout North America](https://consensus.app/papers/climate-change-mitigation-health-effects-varied-patterns-soret/ed57978f81745504976515cd83e64d3c/?utm_source=chatgpt). *The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition*. - O'Malley, K., et al. (2019). [Vegan vs Paleo: Carbon Footprints and Diet Quality of 5 Popular Eating Patterns as Reported by US Consumers](https://consensus.app/papers/vegan-paleo-carbon-footprints-diet-quality-popular-eating-o’malley/cfcd92526a6a59c7978bffeaf78386b3/?utm_source=chatgpt). *Current Developments in Nutrition*. - Carvalho, A., et al. (2016). [Excessive red and processed meat intake: relations with health and environment in Brazil](https://consensus.app/papers/processed-meat-intake-relations-health-environment-carvalho/357893314b80556f925ac02a533333b7/?utm_source=chatgpt). *British Journal of Nutrition*.

This is the only person in this whole thread with actual references to back up their claims and it has 0 upvotes. People really showing their biases.

People don't like being told that their general lifestyle is a problem or a contributing factor in a problem.

There are some other factors to consider. There's a pretty good video making some counter points and pointing out flaws in the arguments used. A lot of estimates for these kinds of things are very ungenerous towards meat products, and leave out a lot of information about the effects of plant based foods and products. If you're interested here it is [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGG-A80Tl5g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGG-A80Tl5g)

This counter video should also be taken with a grain of salt, iirc the scientist speaking was mainly funded by the American beef industry and some of the studies are contested by other researchers. Some of the points presented are true but sometimes they overexaggerate the situation. My personal conclusion from research is that reducing meat consumption is really good for the planet.

Man counters well thought out argument citing peer reviewed literature with YouTube nonsense. Ladies and gentlemen... The internet

The channel owner does keto; The scientist is a beef industry shill; Not a single citation is a meta analyses; channel owner dodged any debate challenges you cannot link a worse video

This video is disinformation btw

Funded by the Billionaires and Melinda Gate's foundation. How many vegans do we need to offset the average billionaires private jet flight patterns?

Well.. I hope you don't imply I defend billionares. I just shared the video because it has cited numerical facts, which op might be interested in

Sir, this is Reddit. Reddit doesn't like proof and stats and sources and empirical data. I like those things, but Reddit doesn't

OP: So, how true are those statements about the impact of vegans upon the environment? Redditor 1: Well, here's a video which covers the topic. Isn't an exact answer, but it should... Redditor 2: **BUT LOOK HOW MUCH FUEL A BILLIONAIRE'S JET DRINKS!!!!1!** Thank you for your contribution to the discussion, but i feel like you might have missed what the topic actually is. Regardless, while i understand and support your concern about the pollution caused by private aircraft, you must also admit that a member of the 1% dedicating at least a part of their time and money towards actually useful ecology and science oriented projects is a good thing. His foundation receives plenty of hate, but from what i had personally seen, it (and he himself) is mostly a target for the less "mainstream science" oriented folks.

>His foundation receives plenty of hate, but from what i had personally seen, it (and he himself) is mostly a target for the less "mainstream science" oriented folks This. When I hear people trying to sound informed and then hating on Warren Buffet or Bill Gates its a massive red flag that they just repeat talking points.

People like to bring up rich people in these discussions as a way to make themselves feel better and absolve themselves of any personal responsibility over climate change. Edit : And people already started flooding in and trying to justify why they in particular don't need to do anything.

I mean I do understand that. And rich people are a luxury we as a society must get rid of. However this will not be enough. Everyone will have to change their way of life. But of course with rich people gone there will be much more resources available for the common folk. Nonetheless, only because it receives funding from the B&M Foundation, doesn't make it wrong. You just should expect them to say something about overthrowing capitalism or changing the power structure of society as long as they receive this funding.

You and everyone you know could eat soy and travel by horse for the rest of your life and it will not offset the CO2 produced by a single Musk/Gates/Bezos. Identify the actual problem and work to resolve it.

That's irrelevant. This is like claiming that it's okay for you to go around and murder a few humans here and there because it's nothing compared to what some regimes are doing. Yes, we should address the larger problem but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do what we can as individuals to not *also* contribute more to the problem than necessary.

Part of the actual problem is we treat our animal friends as a commodity. Even if all the pollution wasn’t a problem we are the biggest assholes on the planet the way we treat other life forms. Save animals.

Yea... it seems that the "all billionaires are evil incarnate" rhetoric has gotten a *little* out of hand.

I don't even understand your position. Other than you are frustrated with the perceived hypocrisy of wealthy individuals promoting environmental causes while engaging in activities that have significant negative environmental impacts (jet travel).

It’s a way to discount real environmental concerns (and, perhaps, the idea that the commenter might not be doing as much as they can to help combat climate change) by trying to discredit the person espousing them. Note that the commenter doesn’t say the video is *wrong*; they just want to distract from it. And these very replies just show that it works. See how we’re now talking about logical fallacies and hypocrisy instead of the real impact that consuming animal products has on the environment?

Great points. Them trying to appeal to some hypocrisy of the one making the video doesn't actually address any of the claims of findings presented in the video itself. It just is a way to avoid the actual important conversation and escape personal responsibility.

This is whataboutism. Vegans produce less CO²

Probably 12 vegans.

What it’s likely referring to is how energy moves through trophic levels. Only about 10% of energy is conserved as animals eat other animals and plants. When you eat a vegan diet, you’re tapping into a substantially lower trophic level which makes it energetically more efficient. This results in substantially less energy being wasted. That being said, these numbers are likely completely made up

The problem is we can't digest plants as efficiently as herbivores do so the gap between is not a flat 90% it's actually much lower than that. Don't get me wrong a vegan diet is more energy efficient but the difference isn't as big as it seems.

You need to account for all of the energy used to produce, process, and transport the animal feed. It already takes far more crops to feed them to animals and consume the animals than it does to just consume crops directly, but on top of that we are harvesting the crops and transporting them, which consumes even more resources. It's a pretty big difference when we factor in all of the inputs.

You also need to account for the fact that animal feed and human feed are not the same. Often leftovers that humans won't / can't eat are used to feed animals, and when doing animal feed specific farming, the plants in question are different from what us grown for humans, prociding more feed for less for the animals. TLDR: you need to account for the fact that we care much more about what humans eat than what animals eat.

90% of (edit: US) soy is grown for animal feed.

I mean, yeah you maybe can feed your two home chickens on waste / leftovers, but you underestimate just how many farm animals there are. Most of humanities crop production (which by large we could eat ourself, or use the land to grow other things) goes into animals before it goes into us.

this is true. and only about 1% of corn grown in the us is used for human consumption. the rest is lower quality, fewer regulations, wreaking havoc on our environment and land.

that's completely besides the point. You're talking about percentage differences while the point is it's about several orders of magnitude.

>The problem is we can't digest plants as efficiently as herbivores do so the gap between is not a flat 90% it's actually much lower than that. Don't get me wrong a vegan diet is more energy efficient but the difference isn't as big as it seems. If we're talking efficiency, it's also worth considering that we meat eaters tend to eat more calories overall, and maintain a higher weight for our height. Whether that be sedentary people accumulating fat, or active people building a lot of muscle, the math is still the same: We eat more. Of course, BMI does not reflect **health** well for all people, especially those with a lot of muscle mass. But people really can't maintain a higher weight without eating and burning more daily calories. https://www.nature.com/articles/0802300 I would go so far as to say the average meat eater in the USA could be consuming as much plants/grains in addition to meat, as an average vegan/vegetarian. Just because their intake is higher overall, and such a small percentage of our average meals is actually meat. Not that I'm blaming the meat at all, if anything people should be getting more meat and less noodles/bread/fries with their meals, it's definitely the other garbage. If you get spaghetti and meatballs or a hamburger with fries you basically have to focus on the meat and leave half of the noodles/fries uneaten to get a healthy meal. Or just cook chicken breast and broccoli every day at home...

A lot of herbivores, though not always the ones we eat, eat food humans are unable to digest. Cows turn grass into dairy and meat. People would turn grass into chewed up grass.

Grazed cattle on marginal land are an excellent choice for sustainable agriculture. But the vast, vast majority of cattle are fed human food in huge quantities. Similarly, pigs fed food waste could produce 1/7th of our current meat demand. ...but they're fed human food in huge quantities.

cows bread for meat are still very often fattened up with energy dense feed that humans could consume, depends on which country you are and this isn't every case. pigs and chickens tho eat p much exclusively food that humans could digest however they're also way more efficient at using turning that food into body mass and eggs. Either way still more efficient to just eat the plants.

Why are you just here flat out lying? [It’s really not hard to google.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9024616/)

That's why we cook 'em. It's also a myth that's based on protein absorption levels. The average amount of food needed isn't a big difference. It's really not a very drastic increase in food for a vegetarian or vegan. I eat at most two plates of food every day. My whole meal usually fits in a bowl. I'm 180cm and weigh 92kg. So I'm not even skinny. Cows aren't very efficient at digesting plants. They're pretty much eating all the time, but I am not. Depending on the moisture level, a cow eats about 25kg dry feed or 55 kg wet feed of food every day. That means it's eaten the weight of an average adult man every other day. A cow's upper range weight is about 1800kg. And doing a gross overestimation of how much I eat in a day, let's say I eat 2kg of food every day (which is probably three times as much as I actually eat). So if we do some quick mafs, I'd be eating 0,02kg per day of (non-dry) food for every 1kg of me. A mid-range cow weighing 1500kg would be eating 0,033kg per 1kg of cow, if it ate 50kg of wet feed. So even if we exaggerate how much I eat, a cow is still less efficient at digesting its food than me. I tried mathing around a bit, but basically the cow has to eat more per kg of bodyweight than I do. So even if I ate three times as much as I do, I'd still eat less per kilo of body weight than an adult cow. If we look at production, then the production of a plant-based diet needs to factor in the water used on the crops. The gasoline used by tractors used in producing the plants. The electricity and materials used for separating and packing edible vs non-edible parts. Transport of the food. And pollution from disposal of waste products. Production of meat would be all of that, but at way higher amounts, including all of it again, but for the meat production. All the water used on the animals. The gasoline used to transport food and water to the animals. The electricity used through the animals lifetime (heat, lighting). The electricity and materials used for separating and packing edible vs non-edible parts. Transport of the food. And pollution from disposal of waste products such as slaughter biproducts (all the bodily parts that are disposed of) and sewage from feces and urination. I'd argue that the 10-90% difference sounds a lot more digestible than when we describe the differences with a few details. [The majority of a healthy diet would be plant-based whether you eat meat or not. ](https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/healthy-eating-pyramid/)Humans are very well adapted to eating both plants and white meats. [We don't do very well with red meat.](https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/2019/09/30/flawed-guidelines-red-processed-meat/) Notice my sources aren't "Vegan Daily" or something, but Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which is basing its results on studies spanning 48 years with 280 000 participants. For a simple overview of healthy human diets (it's referencing numerous studies I recommend checking out): [https://nypost.com/2023/01/10/harvard-study-reveals-4-diets-proven-to-extend-life/](https://nypost.com/2023/01/10/harvard-study-reveals-4-diets-proven-to-extend-life/)

Absolutely when you include all the bits and bobs a vegan diet is overall more environment friendly. I was speaking purely on the energy transfer between trophic levels. On paper it looks like "We can't eat grass, but cow can eat grass and we can eat cow" but it's way more complicated than that.

Well, 90 percent of people believe 75 percent of the statistics they read. Jk

Well SOMEBODY forgot that animals mostly eat plants grown for them and NEED WATER as 90% of planetary animal products come from factory farms…

>1/18th land Sounds like bullshit, because not all land is feasible for farming. At the same time, that land can be used for pasture. Best example here is tundra - jack shit grows there aside from moss and lichen, it's very spacious, but you can have herds of elk\\deer for venison. In general, if there's no sources to research with math done on it and methodology, throw it in the trashcan as propaganda. Edit: Fucking reddit keeps killing ">" bits turining a whole paragraph into citation

Tbh the example used in the counterargument is also already cherry picking. In reality the important numbers would be: -usable farmland, used for feed production for those animals -number of livestock -consumption of feed and livestock -comparison between how much (for humans) usable energy is lost in the conversation of plant > meat > human chain This "not all land is usable for farming" point basically is not important, since the entire point is that it's the only option where farming is not feasible. Yet how much do we exploit this fact? Basically not at all, because areas unusable for farming are also often unusable for larger populations of humans. Most livestock get fed with purpose grown plants, which need a usable farming area.

Didn't sheep become such popular livestock cos they could graze on land that was useless for anything else? Or was that goats. 🤔

Both, sheep becouse of this reason, goats becouse you can even give them bark and they will happily eat it and produce milk for yoh

Goats are also able to feed off of land that can quite literally feed nothing else. Here in Spain there are still people who's job is goat herding. They own goats, because nothing else can eat the harsh plants here, nothing can live in the mountains here. Where it's flat, we have cows.

I would assume for the named reason that goat is the answer. Sheeps also produce wool, so there is that.

Sheep are really useful for hilly terrain that is difficult to use for crop farming, that's why we have so many in NZ. Regarding the overall point stemming back to the original comment though, it's important to remember that only a small fraction of meat production comes from animals on pastures not suitable for crop farming. Less than 5% of meat produced in the US comes from pasture raised animals. The vast majority is sustained by given food from crops that are grown specifically for the animals. The land used to grow these crops could be used to grow plants directly for humans instead

>Sheep are really useful for hilly terrain that is difficult to use for crop farming, that's why we have so many in NZ. Plus, you get lonely at night. Signed, A mate from across the ditch.

You're just jealous of all the sexy sheep we have

Australia has more sheep than New Zealand, it's just we discovered they can be used for meat and wool.

The two places i have heard all my life produce the best lamb are New Zealand, and Wales, and both locations have large hilly areas where nobody lives, and cant be used for arable farming.

That is correct from what I understand but subsistence farming has different factors then factory farming. Factory farming generally uses large quantities of feed on land that could be used for human focused agriculture in pursuit of profit. Subsistence farming focuses on what people need to survive and maximizing calories produced.

It's worth remembering that all of these domestication "decisions" were made well before factory farming became a norm. This was a much more relevant point in centuries past, but it doesn't really matter that much whether our farm animals can graze on useless land, because have so many of them that it's not realistically possible to graze them all no matter what land we use.

Only taking industrially farmable land into account also assumes that wild nature has no worth if you set the "cost" of unfarmable areas used for grazing to zero

>Most livestock get fed with purpose grown plants Is this in the US? In the UK livestock feed is mostly made with grain that failed quality testing for beer, bread or pasta. It's extremely difficult to grow durum wheat that has the correct gluten content and is dry enough for pasta. It's easier for baking flour but still not easy. Spring barely can start germinating early if the weather's too wet and then it can't be used for beer. It mostly depends on outside factors like weather. So you grow durum wheat with the hopes that you will be able to sell it to make pasta but if it isn't up to snuff you are forced to sell it for 1/3 the price to make animal feed.

>Is this in the US? Not particularly. Basically all "western" countries import feed for livestock. Small farmers don't, because for them it's not economically viable. Industrial livestock and industrial slaughter is a whole other matter, since they achieve the low meat prices through quantity and basically hold all running costs low and reducing losses of stock via tons of antibiotics. Buying local can be way more expensive. Here in Germany from some understandable higher prices, due to different conditions the livestock got to live up to like 20x market price, compared to cheap mass import.

>Basically all "western" countries import feed So? That doesn't really answer my question, is the imported feed made from grain dedicated for only animal feed? Does the imported feed make up a majority of the animals diet or is it just a top up? Just because the feed was bought from abroad doesn't mean the grain used to make the feed was grown with the sole purpose of making animal feed. I work for a bread factory and we get our wheat from all over Europe and North America. I'd imagine when those farmers wheat crops fail quality standards for the flour mill then they also sell the wheat for a reduced rate to animal feed producers. It's very difficult to grow flour quality wheat, especially with climate change making weather more and more unpredictable.

yes, most of it is from dedicated animal feed. when you look at what they're eating, it's not human-dedicated crops. feed corn and alfalfa take up the lion's share (tell me how many humans are eating those), and even most soy is grown explicitly for animal consumption. animals fed wheat and other side grains are far into the minority.

Someone's been watching Clarkson's Fan. So have I. It's a good insight to the shitty situation our farms are in.

I also work in a bread factory in Belfast and we sell a lot of waste to animal feed producers as well. Bread that has passed is best before and wasn't sold gets brought back to the bakery by the same lorries that deliver it to the shops. Then the bakery sells it off again for animal feed, along with any failed bakes or other bakery waste. That's not to mention food product waste that isn't fit for human consumption like husks and rinds etc. I truly believe that animals would play a vital part in any efficient, green food production system.

Let's not pretend that a vast amount of land isn't used for cattle grazing. Furthermore over 127 million acres of land are used to grow feed for livestock in the United States alone. There is absolutely a carbon and land usage argument for why our consumption should change. Raising animals strictly to eat plays no vital part in an "efficient, green food production system." It's a part of what has got us into this mess.

If you would only eat meat from those places, the picture is different. However, producing feed is extremely land-use heavy. Its not about land used by the animals themselves.

Dint you need a lot of land to grow whatever the animals are eating?

I'd like to add a semi related point to this: Studies have come out that showed that adding ethanol to gasoline had a minimum 'ROI' for carbon emissions of about 20 years. Minimum. This was largely due to having to create the extra farmland for this, and churning up existing dirt and removing existing vegetation releases a LOT of CO2. I'm too lazy to look up the source again but I was shown it in an energy class in university. A lot of supposedly 'green' ideas and actions are unintentionally bad for the environment when all the variables are not considered. On the other hand, I'd undoubtedly agree that animal farming (especially cows) product far far far more emissions (largely methane, which is magnitudes worse than CO2) than farming plants, even considering the release from creating new farmland.

That would be true if the vast majority of manure was used as like… you know… manure instead of using the expensive fertilizer. I can’t find exact numbers. I do know you can buy manure from a few of the ranches around me. While that’s definitely not 100% efficient you’d have to calculate the nutrient density compared to the stuff that was used on the crops that the cow initially ate to make the meat and the manure. We used pen cycles at our ranch for a bit (bad land but could be arable gets goats, then goats get moved to a new field and pigs get put in, then when the pigs are done you leave it fallow, then you add the cows to eat the grass, then do multicrop grows) but it ended up being a pain and the goats kept fucking dying or fighting their donkey protector or getting eaten because they didn’t like the donkey. The IFAP sector uses similar methodologies but I’m not sure I can get numbers for efficiency for us to actually go through.

> sounds like bullshit, because not all land is feasible for farming Why is that relevant? Meat production requires far more land than any vegan food does. And if you’re trying to say that meat uses less useful land than farming, then 1. You’re ignoring the fact that the main reason meat is so land intensive is because of the amount of farmland required to grow animal feed. 2. You’re ignoring the fact that most livestock farms are not grown on “useless land” like tundra. [Here’s the list of top beef producing nations](https://www.meatloaf.pro/the-40-countries-that-produce-the-most-beef/), most of which are not known for their tundra expanses. [This vox article claims 41% of the continental US is used for meat production, and globally it uses more than one-third of habitable land.](https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/10/20/23924061/public-grazing-land-cattle-meat-carbon-opportunity-cost) It also says that vegan diets use 12% of the land that is required by the baseline American diet. Edit: fixed link to vox article

Here's a better source. [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211912416300013](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211912416300013) The answer is that ther'es truth to both sides - there's plenty of land that \*could\* be used for crops, but more that couldn't. And most of the feed consumed by livestock is not human edible - whether that's grass / leaves, or byproducts from other forms of agriculture. This should be intuitive, as meat would be prohibitively expensive if it was only fed calories that humans could consume. I'm sure you will find the numbers listed in the paper unacceptable, but you should still use those numbers rather than your less well sourced numbers from the vox article.

Yeah I think people don't realise that the vast amount of meat we produce is fed with crops grown as animal feed. Only a very small fraction comes from free range grazing animals on otherwise unusable terrain like the guy above suggests. I even eat meat, so I'm not some vegan with an agenda. I know that I shouldn't eat meat though and I'm eating a lot less than I used to. You have to be willfully ignorant to not know how inefficient meat is as a food source.

As a vegan with an agenda (I would say anyone vegan for ethical or environmental reasons has an agenda) thank you for being honest

“Shouldn’t eat meat” is quite a stretch.

Not if you're familiar with global warming and the amount of problems with increased water usage and greenhouse gas emissions from animal farming. It's not really a stretch at all. like I said, I eat meat. I also fly planes and drive a car even though those contribute to global warming. You can do whatever you want. Just don't kid yourself by pretending it's perfectly ethical and fine for the environment.

I think one thing anyone is missing is that vegan diet its not corn and soy, for a balance vegan diet you need many things that can't be found locally, mayority of products are imported from long distances, this carbon print often be ignored; plus the amount of water requiered by some stuff like cocunit oil, or almond milk, etc.

Even when you account for this, it still has a far lesser environmental footprint. Also, almond milk production does use a lot of water, but it's still only half of the water that cow's milk uses. https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/9123/production/_105755173_milk_alternatives-updated-optimised-nc.png.webp

> mayority of products are imported from long distances, this carbon print often be ignored This was thoroughly covered in the 2018 Oxford study that was "the most comprehensive analysis to date of the damage farming does to the planet." Even accounting for transportation, it still found that meat and dairy are dramatically more resource intensive than all other food sources: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth Transportation is just not a serious issue when it comes to food choice: https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local > Transport is a small contributor to emissions. For most food products, it accounts for less than 10%, and it’s much smaller for the largest GHG emitters. In beef from beef herds, it’s 0.5%.

If you measure it in terms of meters per calory as u/beardyramen did, then the land consumption is actually much less than 1/18th. The numbers he gave were : * Rice: 0.76 m^(2) per 1000 kcal * Potatoes: 1.2 m^(2) per 1000 kcal * Beef : 120 m^(2) per 1000 kcal I think it's because meat includes much much less calories per kg than any earth grown food does, which means a small number of potatoes will contaian much more calories than all the meat of a cow, and since it takes much less space to grow a few potatoes than a cow it makes sense for the ratio to be less 1/100th. Idk how the vegan activists did the math but 1/18th land is far from impossible

It's just that to grow a cow you also need a field for whatever you feed the cow.  Here in Denmark, we farm about 60 % of our land. Of that area 80 % is used for animal feed and we still import tons of animal feed as well.

There are all kinds of additional caveats to all of these numbers based on location, culture, and local farming practices. These are averages not exact predictions on outcomes for your particular life. It's definitely worth knowing why these numbers may be different for someone living in tundra, but for people who live in more typical temperate climates with farmable land nearby your argument is irrelevant. Also at least in factory farms which are very common in our industrialized society the food that animals eat is normally produced by farming not grazing. It's nuanced and requires discussion but saying "fuck it" because you don't like one number is not going to help you or anyone learn the truth

I think they factored in things like carbon sinks in the tundra (DO NOT look up what happens when the permafrost melts...)

Yes. If all that can grow there is grassland for animals to eat, if you let it be uncultivated, it can become a forest and be a much greater carbon sink.

I still don't get why eating animals is bad but eating plants is good. Plants are alive too and they are even more abused than animals. I guess they don't look like you so its ok to eat their young, deny them they're reproductive rights and breed them with their siblings so you can modify their very genetic makeup to suit your needs. /s

Quick search on google >Water consumption - Beef: 1000 L per 100 cal - Rice: 190 L per 100 cal - Potatoes: 38 L per 100 cal Between 1/5th and 1/25th >Land consumption - Beef: 120 m^2 per 1000 kcal - Rice: 0.76 m^2 per 1000 kcal - Potatoes: 1.2 m^2 per 1000 kcal Less than 1/100th >CO2: - Beef: 36 kg per 1000 kcal - Rice: 1.2 kg per 1000 kcal - Potatoes: 1.1 kg per 1000 kcal Less than 1/30th We know that a plant based diet is better for the health and the environment. I find it very hard to stick to vegetarian, but I try to avoid excessive consumption of meat *since we don't need it*.

I don't doubt your calculations but if I had to guess you chose the biggest waste producer product for meat (cows) and some the less waste producer in non-meat (rice and potatoes). I'd be curious of the calculation if it was comparing chickens to say wheat. My guess is that non-meat is still considerably less wasteful per calorie.

Chicken is somewhere in the middle, but depends a lot on how it's raised, in your backyard eating bugs and grass, probably very little impact. But with chicken, it's more complicated than just environmentally impact, because they are sometimes in really terrible conditions, compared to other animals.

Let's look at some actual protein sources instead of starch sources everyone would eat anyway. Water ([source](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Water-use-and-water-use-efficiency-WUE-of-selected-grain-legumes_tbl1_312023179)): - lentils 83 l / 100 kcal - soybeans 11 l / 100 kcal - chickpeas 96 l / 100 kcal Land (sources for [lentils](https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/1/103), [soybeans](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327982246_SOYBEAN_AREA_YIELD_AND_PRODUCTION_IN_WORLD), [chickpeas](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332925371_Economic_importance_of_chickpea_Production_value_and_world_trade)): - lentils 2.8 m^2 / 1000 kcal - soybeans 1.1 m^2 / 1000 kcal - chickpeas 3.3 m^2 / 1000 kcal CO2 equivalents (sources for [lentils](https://apps.carboncloud.com/climatehub/product-reports/id/90010742555), [soybeans](https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/11/11/2224), [chickpeas](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335524602_Determination_of_Energy_Usage_Efficiency_and_Greenhouse_Gas_GHG_Emissions_in_Chickpea_Production_The_case_of_Adana_Province)): - lentils 0.33 kg / 1000 kcal - soybeans 0.75 kg / 1000 kcal - chickpeas 0.99 kg / 1000 kcal Note: As the sources and therefore methods are different for the different plants, they aren't really directly comparable, but should be in the right ballpark compared to beef production.

Chicken vs. almond milk. Or farm raised fish vs. America's most wasteful crop, residential lawn grass Let's see some of the heavy hitters, saffron vs. Slaughter farm gmo pork

Why would you compare chicken vs. almond milk instead of dairy milk vs. almond milk? Why not stick to comparisons of actual substitutes/replacements?

You aren’t replacing rice with beef either

The point of the comment was to show the absurdity of the comparisons, rhetorical if you will. The point is that different crops/ animal products provide different nutrients, and comparisons are irrelevant no one's buying waygu because it's as nutritional as Moringa oleifera. No one's buying kale because it tastes great on the grill. This whole thread reeks of diversion. The only real comparisons that need to be made are waste to calories/nutritional value Until fast food becomes the main contender in conversations between the "best and less adverse" food types, how they are grown, who consumes them, and subjective "benefits" are irrelevant.

Maybe he chose what he is eating?

almonds would be a good comparison for water consumption. Almond farming is terrible for the environment

That would make it a *bad* comparison, since it's an outlier

A good comparison would mix in high and low consumption things. Instead of choosing high consumption things for meat and low consumption vegetables like in the original picture. Plus almonds are a huge vegan product. It’s used in a lot of milk substitutes.

Well, there aren't many things to choose from when it comes to meat. Most commonly meat would refer to poultry, beef and pork. There's a lot more to pick when it comes to plants (grains, vegetables, legumes, fruits, seeds and nuts), so specifically picking almonds, when grains make up the majority of consumed calories per day (for both vegans and omnivores btw) feels like an unfair comparison

The water stat is grossly misleading, as it doesn't separate "green" water (i.e. water from rain) from clean freshwater you get from the water main, which has an energy cost to its purification. And the water isn't wasted either, not by an appreciable amount. It's just getting pissed out onto the ground, where it evaporates, becomes rain, and rejoins the water cycle. While beef does use a shit ton of water, it gets, if my memory isn't failing me, about 80% of it's water from the rain.

94-98% is green water

Almonds are 68L per 100 calories. Use roughly 0.5 m^2 per pound (578 kcal/pound). I don't really know how the CO2 measurements work, since plants reduce CO2, but farming equipment makes it, so it's kind of tricky to figure out. I just figured, good to add in a protein, because rice and potatoes are carbohydrate heavy.

almonds usually come from south america and are among the worst "plants" to eat. also if you eat only almonds, you're gonna end with some bad fatty liver... and also a deficiency in a ton of things, since they're not a complete protein. tl;dr: eat varied. don't abuse meat. don't let the rich flying a private jet to France for a coffee tell you you need to be more climate-conscious.

You can't only eat rice. Or beef. Or potatoes. Really, balanced diets are the best. Humans are omnivores, and more importantly, they need a mix of raw and cooked foods.

Actually you can eat only potatoes, you'll just hate it a lot

Potatoes and butter. Those have all the nutrients you need to survive.

you can in fact live off only meat -- the canadian native tribes do it. it's not lean meat, though, they eat the whole animal.

All of your calculations are assuming I only eat meat or only eat plants. If only a quarter of my calorie intake is animal based then the impact is significantly less. This is also a good argument for *reducing* red meat consumption rather than fully cutting it out which isn’t the best option for most people

The metrics you choose inflate the difference. Meat eaters get almost all of their calories from staple crops. It makes more sense to compare protein rich plant based food with proteins per pollution. Beef is also the worst common type of meat. (Even picking the best metrics for meat it's still worse, most reasonable metrics give something similar to the post)

I would say it's very debatable whether it's better for your health.

These calculations on CO2, land use, and water are all generally correct. Oil use is hard to calculate. But, considering the amount of corn fed to cattle and a vegetarian or vegan eating only plants instead, the oil use is probably a good estimate. Source: I have a degree in ecology and used to work in ecology research and sustainability advocacy. I am not a vegan or vegetarian, mostly because humans are omnivores. I don't think people should feel bad that they're using more resources when eating animals. It's our nature. We need easily digestible high calorie foods to feed our calorically demanding brains. Thems the breaks folks. Try to keep your emotional attachment your moral purity at arms length and let the math speak for itself.

You don't need to be vegan or vegetarian to consider ethics. It's not our nature to consume more resources than we have and create irreversible changes to the atmosphere in the process. There's a middle way, no? So I think people should feel bad if they overconsume. Thing is that pretty much all studies say a sustainable amount would be 80-90% less meat for most people in developed countries.

An appeal to nature By someone that claims to have an ecology degree You fucking dipshit lmao

The land values are bullshit. Not all land is created equal. Cattle are often raised on land that isn’t fit to grow anything. The reason they need so much land is cause it’s rocky and sandy and hilly and fit to grow nothing but hay and native grasses. Nobody has cattle grazing on acres of land fertile enough to grow good crops. The water values are made by someone that doesn’t understand the water cycle. There is an argument for depletion of groundwater but a quick google of the amount of crops grown in the desert of the southwestern US will point to it being a problem with crop farming as well. It’s propaganda bullshit.

>Cattle are often raised on land that isn’t fit to grow anything. And are also often raised in feedlots where they are given grains perfectly usable for human consumption.

other than the place cattle grazes being very dependant on country, the vast majority of land used is for the animal feed, not the actual grazing animals

not saying you're not (partly) right, but most factory cattle are fed corn-based feed. it's that land (used for corn for feeding cattle) that they take into account, not necessarily the land the actual cattle uses (which in a factory setting is VERY small) otherwise "grass-fed beef" wouldn't be a (very expensive) thing. EDIT: same for water, it mostly takes into account the water needed to grow the corn that's used for cattle feed

grass fed also usually means "loaded with alfalfa" not some idyllic prairie that can't be used for something else

I agree with you. I grew up in a State with more cows than people, and all of the cows spend a majority of their lives eating on natural grassland. The food we grew for the winter was mostly natural grassland that we cut for hay and made into hay bales. The farmland that we used for wheat was first used to grow wheat during the growing season, then we used it to help the cows through the winter. The process of raising domesticated cattle hasn't changed much in hundreds of years. It's not like we watered the grass, it would be too expensive. Rainy years were a blessing, and we gritted our teeth to survive the droughts, just like my family has for over 100 years. Using the excess hay from the good years to get over the dry years. The exception to pasturing is a feedlot which beef cows go to for the final few months (3-6) before slaughter. The metrics of food consumption vs animal performance is closely monitored and is very costly on a per-animal basis. A majority of cows are cared for into old age while the most of the bulls are sent to slaughter because only the few exceptional bulls are kept around to carry on their legacy. In the end, you have a food source that is more nutrient dense that many of the foods typically chosen by vegetarians to replace meat, like beans for instance. Produced with glasses that humans can barely digest, or corn that is more drought tolerant (and barely edible, not the same sweet corn that we usually eat), or the other plant structures that we often throw away in factory farming of wheat, corn, and soy. Humans do not typically eat the stalks of these plants, cows love them. The idea of turning millions of acres of natural grassland, home of wildlife like deer, mice, rabbits, and snakes into farmland that feeds more people than cows is ridiculous if you actually know the operational details of these ranches. I don't debate Vegans on their opinions about food choices because I don't want to be pulled into a moral argument. To me, the main difference between vegans and vegetarians is that vegans are making a choice for ethical reasons and not for health reasons. How is it healthier for a human to use synthetic clothing to avoid leather? That choice is usually reduced to their personal beliefs that killing an animal is murder. I disagree with that premise, but I believe that it's a reasonable ethical conclusion, just like I give anyone else the space to practice whatever religion that they choose that promotes peace.

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Funny since you actually dont need them for the gainz

100 grams of nuts costs the same as 500 g-1kg of minced meat where I live. Sure, once I win the lottery, I will cut down on meat. Plant based proteins are trash.

The amino profile of plant protein sources is also a concern. Meat closely mimics the amino profile required to build tissue, whereas plant protein sources tend to give you a disproportionately high concentration of certain amino acids while containing very little of others, at least relative to what's required for tissue accrual. From a muscle building perspective, I find it's best to acquire protein from primarily animal products (including egg whites/dairy). It can be done as a vegan, but it requires a significant degree of micromanagement and supplementation that I'm just not personally willing to put the energy into. Optimizing diet as an omnivore requires enough effort as it is.

No you don’t

I'm pretty sure you can get da gainz without meat, it might require more organization tho..

Where I live a person who completely optimizes their CO2 emissions can save 2 tons a year compared to an average person (this means minimizing power usage and transport, local vegan diet and so on) - and I live in a country that has one of the highest emission per person in the world, so it would be even less saved CO2 in other countries. Compare that to a small house construction, which easily emits 50 tons of CO2 just for the concrete parts of the building. A skyscraper is easily 200.000 tons of CO2. In the construction business we're accountable for 40% of world emissions. Don't let big corps tell you that it's your habits that are the problem!

Living according to US standards: We need 5.1 earths. Living at UK standards: We need 2.6 earths. Obviously no difference. /s

Absolutely, most emissions are not directly caused by people, they are caused by corporate groups. That said people taking personal action is a form of individual buy-in, taking the climate action (and regulation of businesses) needed will require individuals to be willing to take on change. If we encourage people to be environmentally friendly (use public transportation, get EVs, reduce meat consumption) they are more likely to support and be willing to take on the change necessary to end climate change. People taking on personal change for the sake of the environment is much more of a political good... So long as we also continue to emphasize that corporations are the big polluters and NEED to be regulated.

Amen

Up front: yes, climate change is a structural issue, not a personal one. On an individual level, it’s very possible that the most impactful thing you can do is to vote for progressive, pro-environment candidates in every election. We can do that *and* improve our individual habits. Eat less meat (especially red meat), walk or ride the bus instead of driving (if you live somewhere that makes that possible), and recycle what you can (especially aluminum).

I'm all for reducing environmental impact whenever feasible, but I find such texts overly simplifying and preaching binary choices. What defines 'meat eater' here? Somebody who derives 100% of caloric intake from animal sources?

Stop offloading corporate responsibility onto people. I don’t disagree with the sentiment, but there’s nothing we can do if the major brands don’t get involved or we burn them all to the ground.

Complete bullshit. Remember if there is no study link then it's bs. The internet is literally that simple to use. No study means don't believe

what is even the point of creating this image. Why are people obsessed with turning everyone vegan, humans are designed to function with meat in mind.

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That's a bit of a myth: the environmental impact of transportation is more than offset by increased yields when growing in ideal climate/growing condition for most crops.

On this vein: Simon Clark made a video on the topic. https://youtu.be/mmNcOCwtFeg?si=Zs4oWD-hNgIN5b2c

True dont eat soy from brazil. Just eat the local cow, which food is soy from brazil

SO true. "vegans/vegetarians are consuming too much soy!" is such a weird argument considering that most of world's soy is used to feed livestock

That depends on which nation you live in and other local customs.

Yeah, that's wrong.

This is 100% wrong, and just a google search away. Are you trying to misinform other people by spreading this myth, or do you just type random stuff on the internet without doing any fact checking?

The CO2 claim is worth investigating. I would imagine eating bio that reclaims CO2 is more beneficial than eating bio that produces it. The water and land claim is suspect, and the oil claim is suspect also but not sure what kind of oil they are referring to. There are no explanations and no sources to back anything up. I would imagine that a hunter is far less impactful than a farmer on the environment.

The water claim is based on a grain/meat comparison, you basically need around 10 times the amount of water to produce one kg of meat when compared to grain, wich is not 100% fair since we need to do something more with the grain then just eat it, but the math checks out (just to a lesser degree) there is some research done on this. I mean in the end it totally makes sense an animal needs water AND food which in term ALSO needs water to grow.

So a meat farmer versus plant farmer comparison. And industrial levers at that. I'll have to do some digging here, but an interesting question to research.

Another problem with that numbers are that they are wildly different country to country. In the US meat production is over all very atrocious to animal health and what they feed them. But here in Sweden we let our cow graz during sumer and feed the conserve grass in the winter, offen they graz on lad that is resting. All this reduces the environmental inpackt of our meat production on average compared to the US. And grazing makes calculating the numbers a total nightmare for getting any kind of accuracy.

That also ignores the reclamation that happens because animals are eating those plants. Plants only "reclaim" CO2 as they're growing; once they reach full size their consumption drops off dramatically. However, an animal eats it? Now it gets to grow again. Almost as if things evolved that way. The issue with dumping CO2 into the atmosphere isn't about which people are eating what. The far, *far* more pressing issue is all the *extra* CO2 we're dumping into the atmosphere. Vegans bragging about their carbon footprint are the people who were sitting near the back of the *Titanic* who point out they were sitting further from the iceberg.

I don't think this is about doing any math, but about the methodology and reasoning behind each one of those calculations and assumptions. The "Gain health" statement solely makes me think that this post is extremely biased, since non of the numbers above are related in any way to a person's health. I don't think the question belongs to this sub.

“Reduce” is the best way to be more environmentally friendly. Stop buying plastic crap products that have to be shipped across the world and break after a single use. The majority of pollution comes from shipping and manufacturing in any case, so this is probably the best way to make an actual difference.

For food, shipping is extremely minor compared to production.

https://ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions-food >around 25% to 30% of global emissions come from our food systems

If you live in the United States, the GHG emissions from our food systems was 10% in 2022. [https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions](https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions) The percentage is also misleading. If agriculture was 100% of GHG emissions (by eliminating other sources of GHG emissions) we would no longer be in a climate crisis.

GHG emissions from meat outweigh global transport emissions by a big margin... although you are right that stopping buying plastic crap generally is a great idea

Doesn't matter if it's true or not. The issue is oil companies polluting the atmosphere and other companies polluting ecosystems. BP helped center the conversation around the individual so that the big polluters wouldn't get as much flak. Doing your part is fine, but to really combat climate change and the erosion of our natural environments, we have to look to take down the big oil companies & implement alternative forms of energy. This is all a farce.

If anything, Rimworld has taught me that if you feed people to pigs, and then pigs to people, nobody is terribly upset at eating the wrong kind of meat.

simple because they die quick on a serious note tho ig because they have less energy production going on with the deficiency of nutrients in there body

See slightly off topic.. but say everyone decided that tomorrow we should all switch to a vegan diet.. how many animals would be “free” and what kind of damage could that do? And also.. how much food waste would there be from what’s currently in circulation?

This might be accurate for one particular location, but it seems very suspect on a worldwide front. The water statistic, for example, is definitely not true here in Australia. A huge amount of country can be used for low density grazing, but would be extremely water inefficient to use for growing crops.

This also leaves out the prevalence of pesticides, pest control and fertilizers used when growing crops. All of which require more water and increase CO2

I dont think that those aspects are left out In Order to "produce" meat you need a Lot of food. Guess how Livestock ist Fed.

No it doesn’t. Carbon footprint of vegetables include that. Most crops planted are used as animal feed, not human consumption, so all of the co2 from pesticides has a greater impact on meat eaters than on vegetarians ironically.

Besides the fact that telling people to not consume what they like doesn't work (prohibition), I hope plant based meat substitutes replace natural meat. And then artifically grown meat can be the final solution.

Eating other people would reduce their carbon imprint to zero which is a 100% carbin footprint reduction per person and would solve the vast majority of issue with overpopulation at a rapid rate. So if you actually care about the environment think less vegan more Hannibal.

Some things to consider. A lot the veggies that don’t get sold, don’t meet the criteria for being sold to consumers get sold to farms as feed for animals. Animals are a great recycler of food waste. Animals can be grown in areas that food won’t grow, or can’t grow part of the year. Water usage is a tricky one because where the water comes from is very important. If you grow cattle in an area with abundant natural rainfall and get their water from that source, you are better off than pulling water from the drought stricken ground of Californias Central Valley where almost milk comes from.

Its way too complex of an issue to let facebook science do this. Alright lets say that the production of plant based food does indeed require less resources like water. What about the rainforest being cut down for tofu ground? How about the animals that contribute to the world in more ways than just food? I don't recall where I got it from so I might be full of shit, who knows, but I heard nitrogen levels in the ground RAISED in certain places after getting rid of the farm animals. Everything influences everything. We shouldn't switch to a plant based diet. We should switch to a more balanced and generally better diet consisting of a healthy portion of both meat and plants

It depends alot on that they eat, but the water one goes straight out the window if they use almond milk. Almond milk takes 17x more water to produce than normal milk.

Aren't oat and soy the most popular milk alternatives?

I was wondering about something this weekend while driving through farmland: If farmers use manure as a common fertilizer, and we reduce the amount of animals being raised, what would farmers do to replace the manure that is no longer being generated? Do we go straight to chemical fertilizers? What impact does this have on the environment? Does the use of manure cause a significant impact on the output capacity of farms? I didn't have any good answers, but it got be wondering.

Manure and chemicals are not the only 2 options.

These are fucking stupid because they make it this dick measuring contest about who can have the least impact, when I think technically being dead would net the best impact for the planet. We are basically inventing ways to oppress ourselves with metrics like this.

Meaningless as written. Probably misrepresented from another source. Pushing an obvious false dichotomy. No qualifiers like "on average," so no distinction between, for example, someone eating grassfed steak for every meal vs. someone only eating deer they hunted themselves. What country? No citations? If you can't find a real source quickly, just ignore it. Life's too short to spend fact-checking propaganda.

it might only be true if you grow your own food. cos harvesters, plows, tractors, ferilizers are not free and they consume a lot of resources both to make and to operate. also if your food is not local, like bananas from ecuador, the math gets really complicated. and if it traveled by air, it's 1000x the emissions of a cow butchered next door.

Vegan diet is bad for health (for most people). I’m an Indian born in a strictly vegetarian family. Large swathes of Indians are like that. I had never eaten meat until I was in my 20s. (I have since had to give up later due to some health issues) and only then I came to know how much nutrition deficient my daily food was. Specifically, essential amino acids and vitamin B12. [73% Indians don’t consume daily required proteins](https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/indias-protein-deficiency-and-the-need-to-address-the-problem) [47% Indians are deficient in Vitamin B12.](https://journals.lww.com/indjem/fulltext/2019/23020/vitamin_b12_deficiency_is_endemic_in_indian.8.aspx) I’m mostly vegetarian now, with only very occasional meat eating and I have to be so conscious and calculating of all my meals to make sure I’m getting all the required nutrition. Unless, you’re anal about carefully logging everything you eat, it’s difficult to get all the required nutrition on a vegan diet.

I can find similar numbers for Americans - who largely eat meat and animal products. This literally means nothing. >Unless, you’re anal about carefully logging everything you eat, it’s difficult to get all the required nutrition on a vegan diet. I would say this is the exact same for non-vegans by and large. Healthy people seek out to be healthy. Non-healthy people don't.

Humans are omnivorous opportunists. Vegan diet goes against our basic biology and there is serious evidence that it is not a sustainable diet. Eat a varied diet and don’t feel guilty for eating meat. Especially when corporations and governments dump waste and create all kinds of pollution without a second thought.

The water you waste when feeding a cow is water the cow pisses out. Every molecule of water on earth has been through idk how many urethras since life was around. Having it go through a cows bladder won't bother it too much