I am a person who does not enjoy eating meat all that much, but I still eat it, because it is more 'convenient' for me. According to an article by shrinkthatfootprint.com, a vegetarian's food carbon footprint is about two thirds of the average american. This means that eating meat has a big negative impact on your carbon footprint overall. Becoming a vegetarian would be a great thing to do to help your carbon footprint overall, but it's not an easy feat. I know it would be quite difficult for me to give up chicken. Quite interestingly though, eating chicken instead of beef cuts a quarter of your emissions. This is why although I won't become a vegetarian, I am willing to cut out all beef from my diet. How do you think you could change your diet to cut your carbon footprint? Would you be willing to go even further and become a vegetarian?

References:
http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-car … print-diet

Hi Jasmine,
You are right! A vegetarian diet has definitely a lower impact on the environment and I really respect those people that makes this choice. This would be very difficult for me as well. However, I try my best to reduce my carbon footprint: Normally, I eat meat only twice a week and my family and I try to buy food that grows locally. I think that if everybody in the world would reduce meat in his diet, like you and me, we will have less pollution and we could feed more people. The key of the problem is to sensitize people from rich countries.

Actually I think it's so hard for me to completely give up meat, but according to the results of carbon footprint, I'm willing to eat more vegetable instead of meat. Also, I wonder that are vegetarians really healthier than others？We also can get a lot nutrition from meat.

This is an interesting and informative article !
Vegeterianstvo really affect the environment.

I think that it would be hard to cut meat out of my diet completely, but even just giving up beef and lamb would reduce my carbon footprint a lot. I remember hearing in middle school that a vegetarian's carbon footprint is even smaller than a Prius driver's but I didn't know how much going vegetarian would reduce my footprint until recently when I was doing research. According to the Huffingtonpost, annual agricultural carbon emissions could be reduced up to 90 percent by 2030 with agriculture adjustments, including a reduction in global beef consumption (http://www.huffingtonpost.com).

Could each of you help with cooking at home and find new recipes that use less meat?

Hello Jasmine,
I was wondering how we would be able to control all the farming space if everyone turned vegetarian, There would be a huge lack of soil and space if we expected everyone to turn vegetarian or vegan which would probably harm the earth more with all the construction to make the farming space.

I do agree that vegetarianism would help, but couldn't that potentially 1) harm the earth in order to make space for it, and 2) cause overpopulation of animal. I think a good solution would be local farming because it would take out the huge factor of transportation. I mean the fact that even other than food we trade with places like China causes mass amounts of CO2 to be released into the atmosphere. However vegetarianism is a good idea, it just needs to be more developed.

It's very hard to cut meat from your diet because meat gives iron, a important mineral that you can get from taking pills that give you iron, but it is not as effective as eating meat. I would agree that eating more vegetables than meats is healthier and better for the environment, but we can't completely cut meat from our food choices.

i am a vegetarian and i noticed that it still impacted my carbon footprint in a large way. Obviously meat production produces a lot of co2 into the atmosphere because of all the land that goes into it, to farm the animals and the food for the animals. This is land that was once was used for plants and trees. However, it is much better for the earth to be a vegan because dairy and eggs also impact the amount of co2 that you put out into the atmosphere.

I am a vegetarian that also happens to hardly eat eggs (out of distaste for them). It has been extremely easy for me to cut meat out of my diet entirely. Now, I used the carbon footprint calculator, and the food portion was extremely low. Vegetarianism really does have a huge positive impact on CO2 production. Frances, I agree wholeheartedly. It would be nice if we as an entire population could plant more trees and other vegetation in place of all the forests we've cut down to replace with industrial work. Ideally, I'd be vegan so I could cut my emissions by an even higher amount. I have set a goal for myself to really watch my impact on the environment even more, and to watch what I eat. Something else I am going to do is make sure more of my food is sourced locally. Buying food locally cuts one's carbon footprint as CO2 is emitted from the transportation of the food from other countries, states or provinces other than one's own. Shopping at farmer's markets is pricier, yet more environmentally friendly. One can also support local businesses and merchants by doing so.

i would be willing to become a vegetarian to shrink my carbon footprint because i was a vegetarian for six months and it honestly wasnt that hard. Meat isnt a big part of my diet anyways i eat a lot of rice, beans, vegetable, and meat alternatives and it never impacted my health from when i did eat meat more often, if anything it has made me healthier by eating more vegetables. the only argument i would have against everyone going vegetarian is that it does cost more in America to be vegetarian and a lot of people arent able to afford it.