Researchers have linked dietary data from over 55,000 individuals with data on the environmental impacts of the foods they eat. The team, from the Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) project at the University of Oxford, found that the dietary impacts of vegans were around a third of those of high meat eaters. They also saw a 30% difference between high- and low-meat diets for most of the measures of environmental harm.
    • @purahna@lemmygrad.ml
      13•1 year ago

      look, a vegan diet isn’t perfect, but I’m genuinely confused - literally every single animal product, meat or otherwise, takes at least several pounds of plant matter per pound of product, often dozens or hundreds of pounds of plant matter per pound of product. This is the basic physics of metabolism and energy conservation. This doesn’t even regard the extra energy and equipment of shipping around feed, clear-cutting land, building structures, using dozens to hundreds of times more water, and using far more fertilizer and farming energy to make feed. Do you have an argument that eating meat is better for the climate, or is this objection all based on vibes?

      • @1stTime4MeInMCU@mander.xyzEnglish
        13•1 year ago

        Um, not positive what OP meant but I interpreted them as saying you are in a bubble if you think its obvious, not a bubble if you think its true. Which to be honest, I also had the gut reaction of “well duh this is pretty obvious” but for some people it very much is not obvious.

    • Herding Llamas
      12•1 year ago

      Ohhh I most definitely am in a bubble. But it’s also just common sense. You have to produce plant food, then ship the food to cows for them to eat and grow then to be killed and eaten. And it’s not like you put 60 kilos in and you get 60 kilos of meat. Just look at yourself for an example. So it’s only natural that if you simply feed the plants to the humans it would be better in every way. People should know this shit mate.

      I asked how bad this really is: to produce one kilogram of beef requires 25 kilograms of grain – to feed the animal – and roughly 15,000 litres of water

        • Herding Llamas
          17•1 year ago

          Yeah and no. Cows eat about 2% of their weight each day. Over 98% of this comes from food that we grow for them. It’s true that a lot of it we humans wouldn’t eat, but we still grow it for them to eat. The idea of cows eating grass in a field and that’s what they eat is extremely rare.

          For the US as a example less than 1% of the cows feed is grass. The majority of things like soy (77% of what is grown and we could eat) goes to cow feed.

          “There were about 92 million head of cattle in the United States at the end of 2015, with roughly 30 million head slaughtered that year. For perspective, the grass-fed industry currently slaughters about 230,000 head, or less than 1% of the total conventional slaughter.”

          • @commie@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            2•1 year ago
            • approximate percent of soybean that is oil = 20.00
            • percent of soy fed directly to animals = 7.00
            • percent of soy fed to dairy = 1.4
            • percent of soy fed to beef = 0.5
            • percent of soy fed to pets = 0.5
            • percent of soy fed to aquaculture = 5.6
            • percent of soy fed to pig = 20.2
            • percent of soy fed to poultry = 37.0
            • percent of soy that becomes human food = 20.00
            • percent of soy that becomes oil for food = 13.2
            • percent of soy that becomes soy milk = 2.1
            • percent of soy that becomes tofu = 2.6
            • percent of soy that becomes tempeh etc = 2.2
            • percent of soy that is fed to animals = 76.0
            • percent of soy that is used industrially = 4.00
            • percent of soy that becomes biodiesel = 2.8
            • percent of soy that becomes lubricants = .03
            • percent of soy that has other industrial uses = .07
            • percent of soy not fed directly to animals = 93.00
            • if all soy not fed directly to livestock were pressed for oil = (approximate percent of soybean that is oil / 100) * percent of soy not fed directly to animals
            • soy eaten not as oil = percent of soy that becomes soy milk + percent of soy that becomes tofu + percent of soy that becomes tempeh etc
            • if all soy not eaten directly by livestock and not as non-oil food is pressed for oil = (percent of soy not fed directly to animals - soy eaten not as oil) * approximate percent of soybean that is oil / 100

            If we take 7% of all soy out because it’s fed directly to animals, and another 6.9% is eaten, but not as oil, and 20% of each of the remaining beans are made of oil, we find 17.22% is the maximum amount of oil we could get if all the soy beans not fed to animals or eaten by people are pressed for oil.

            It turns out that the chart shows 13.2% is oil for humans to eat, and 4.0% is used industrially (and these are all oil uses), totaling 17.2%,then basically all soy not eaten directly by animals or as various human foods is pressed for oil.

            source https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2021/02/Global-soy-production-to-end-use.png

          • @commie@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            1•1 year ago

            “grass fed” means they aren’t grain-finisged, but most of their diet is grass until they get to the feedlot.

          • @commie@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            0•1 year ago

            almost all soy is pressed for oil. what is fed to livestock is almost entirely industrial waste from that process.

            • @DarthFrodo@lemmy.world
              5•1 year ago

              Using it to make plant-based meat alternatives or tofu or soy milk would be more efficient than feeding it to animals, where most of the nutrients and calories are used up by their metabolism.

              • @commie@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                -2•1 year ago

                yea. we do. but we don’t use all of it for human food. i don’t see anything better to do with the industrial waste than feed it to livestock.

                • @DarthFrodo@lemmy.world
                  1•1 year ago

                  After extracting the protein and nutrients for plant-based products there’s not much nutrition left to use it as animal feed though. It’s probably not nutritionally appropriate for cows, pigs and chickens at that point. Using it for insect farming would seem more realistic to me, or as a growth medium for edible mushrooms.

    • maegul (he/they)English
      1•1 year ago

      EDIT: Ignore … I didn’t realise this was all about the environment … though that being said … it’s basic common sense … each stage of processing adds inefficiencies.

      It’s fairly universal common sense that plenty of fruit and vegetables and core to a healthy diet. From there it really isn’t a stretch to at least wonder whether going vegan is pretty healthy. The only things that would preclude such an idea from seeming feasible are probably propaganda around dairy and meta products, unfortunately. But even then, you can start thinking about the health problems of red meat and high fat diets.