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Be careful thinking just going vegan is better for the planet. "The vegan diet is widely regarded to be better for the planet than those that include animal pr

by ipaddr 6y ago

Be careful thinking just going vegan is better for the planet. "The vegan diet is widely regarded to be better for the planet than those that include animal products, but not all plant-based foodstuffs have a small environmental footprint." https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200211-why-the-vegan-diet-is-not-always-green https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200211-why-the-vegan-di...

maccard 6y ago
From your link, asparagus "the largest environmental footprint of any of the 56 vegetables they looked at, including its land use and water use", with 5.3kg of CO2 per kg of Asparagus. According to [0], "The average footprint of beef, excluding methane, is 36 kilograms of CO2eq per kilogram" - so even the worst vegetable imported from the farthest part of the world is 10x better per kg than beef. Also, I think that article you've shared is pretty clear that going vegan is better, it's just not 0 cost to the planet. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-footprint-food-methane https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-footprint-food-methane [1] https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
- mizzack 6y ago
  ...conveniently ignoring that beef is 10x as calorically dense as asparagus.
  - morsch 6y ago
    Who the hell eats asparagus for its caloric density? You get plenty of calories from the hollandaise sauce and the potatoes. Given our sedentary lifestyle, low caloric density seems like an advantage, if anything.
    - mizzack 6y ago
      We were comparing carbon input to food output, gram for gram. Caloric/nutrient density is completely relevant. You've thrown that basis out the window by adding additional foods and reframing the argument.
      - morsch 6y ago
        And yet you have merely restated that caloric density is relevant, not explained why it would be. (Nutrient density wasn't your original point.) Asparagus is not grown or eaten for it's calories.
  - maccard 6y ago
    Sweet potato is ~30% the calorie density of beef, and causes 0.01kg co2 per kg according to [0]. I didn't ignore the calorie density,I used the worst case comparison from the article the parent shared, and compared it against the worst case of meat. [0] https://cigrjournal.org/index.php/Ejounral/article/view/3461 https://cigrjournal.org/index.php/Ejounral/article/view/3461
- morsch 6y ago
  They get 5.3 kg CO2eq for asparagus because they are looking at asparagus air shipped from Peru. Of course that's terrible. Don't buy fruits and vegetables shipped via air. If you buy locally grown asparagus -- where I live, that means around four weeks every year -- it's fine. Stuff that gets put on a boat is in-between; no idea if that's viable for asparagus, it never occured to me to buy it out of season.
  - maccard 6y ago
    The links I shared have a chart breaking down the co2 cost by land usage, transport, feeding and even the worst vegetables transported the farthest have an order of magnitude less of an impact than local beef.

by ipaddr 6y ago

maccard 6y ago

From your link, asparagus "the largest environmental footprint of any of the 56 vegetables they looked at, including its land use and water use", with 5.3kg of CO2 per kg of Asparagus. According to [0], "The average footprint of beef, excluding methane, is 36 kilograms of CO2eq per kilogram" - so even the worst vegetable imported from the farthest part of the world is 10x better per kg than beef. Also, I think that article you've shared is pretty clear that going vegan is better, it's just not 0 cost to the planet. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-footprint-food-methane https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-footprint-food-methane [1] https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

mizzack 6y ago
...conveniently ignoring that beef is 10x as calorically dense as asparagus.
- morsch 6y ago
  Who the hell eats asparagus for its caloric density? You get plenty of calories from the hollandaise sauce and the potatoes. Given our sedentary lifestyle, low caloric density seems like an advantage, if anything.
  - mizzack 6y ago
    We were comparing carbon input to food output, gram for gram. Caloric/nutrient density is completely relevant. You've thrown that basis out the window by adding additional foods and reframing the argument.
    - morsch 6y ago
      And yet you have merely restated that caloric density is relevant, not explained why it would be. (Nutrient density wasn't your original point.) Asparagus is not grown or eaten for it's calories.
- maccard 6y ago
  Sweet potato is ~30% the calorie density of beef, and causes 0.01kg co2 per kg according to [0]. I didn't ignore the calorie density,I used the worst case comparison from the article the parent shared, and compared it against the worst case of meat. [0] https://cigrjournal.org/index.php/Ejounral/article/view/3461 https://cigrjournal.org/index.php/Ejounral/article/view/3461
morsch 6y ago
They get 5.3 kg CO2eq for asparagus because they are looking at asparagus air shipped from Peru. Of course that's terrible. Don't buy fruits and vegetables shipped via air. If you buy locally grown asparagus -- where I live, that means around four weeks every year -- it's fine. Stuff that gets put on a boat is in-between; no idea if that's viable for asparagus, it never occured to me to buy it out of season.
- maccard 6y ago
  The links I shared have a chart breaking down the co2 cost by land usage, transport, feeding and even the worst vegetables transported the farthest have an order of magnitude less of an impact than local beef.