What did you learn about dietary choices from using the footprint calculator? Now imagine that you could translate what you learned into an effective societal policy on food- what would it be? And how would this policy effect the need to alleviate world hunger?
925 million people on earth do not have enough to eat according to the FAO [Food and Agricultural Organization]. That's almost 1 in 7 inhabitants of our planet!
Food & Hunger >
Being a Vegetarian
Eating less meat can greatly decrease your carbon footprint, as well as help the environment. It takes a huge amount of resources. Like energy, land, and food to raise animals that will become food people. By decreasing the amount of meat you eat in a week, you can help reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. There are so many factors in the meat production process that contribute to the emission of CO2 gas. The factories that produce meat generate CO2 which is then released into the atmosphere, harming the Earth. I personally, am a vegetarian and I know that by being a vegetarian I am helping decrease my carbon footprint and help the environment. I know becoming a vegetarian can be hard, so an alternative option is to try giving up meat once or twice a week.
I agree that raising animals to be eaten as meat does play a large role in greenhouse gas emissions. While going vegetarian may be a great option, I know many people aren't willing to give up meat. With the growing technological advancements in stem cell and "lab meats" (wired.com), I wonder if these can help reduce the impact on earth of raising animals to be eaten. After doing a little research, I think that lab grown meat can be a viable solution. With lab grown meat, scientist collect a few animal cells and grow them with proteins and other things until the cells and tissue turn to meat. This would reduce greenhouse emissions because animals produce tons of greenhouse gases from their bodily functions, in fact 4.2 percent of all GHG (Greenhouse gas) emissions come from livestock production (ucdavis.edu). With lab grown meat, there are no living animals involved which means there are no animals to produce greenhouse gasses. Other neat benefits of lab grown meat is that it doesn't involve killing animals, it's a sustainable food source to feed the growing population on earth, and if production get's cheap enough it can help feed the poor (nbcnews.com). Reducing our livestock co2 footprint is a challenge, and I'm curious to know if there are any other ways people are trying to solve the problem.
Sources:
1. https://www.wired.com/story/lab-grown-meat/
I agree with your statement. More meat=more greenhouse gasses and more co2 emitted into the atmosphere
I 100% agree with you. It's not something you've just made up, it has scientific proof backing it up as well. I read (or heard, not sure) somewhere that livestock makes up for over 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions which is equal to what all the transportation (ships, cars etc.) produce combined. That's not counting all the fertilizers and grains that go into all that. You could feed almost 4 billion people with the amount of grain that is used for livestock. It's really not that hard switching up your diet, veggies can taste just as good (even better) than meat.
Reducing eating meat or eating locally sourced meat is also a very important thing because just the amount of co2 going into the atmosphere from the transportation of these resources is a very large amount that people sjhould be aware of.
This is a really great idea. Going vegetarian is a great way to decrease your carbon footprint, but there are still people who don't have access to vegetarian meals, can't afford to stop eating meat, or have to eat meat to stay healthy (mainly anemics, or people who have such a low level of iron in their blood they can faint). Meat is a great source of iron.
Lena, I agree with what you are saying. There are many less fortunate families who do not have money to go to the grocery store and buy healthy vegetarian food/meals. Some resort to fast food joints that serve meat in many of their meals. However, if you are fortunate enough to be able to buy healthy vegetarian meals, and mind having no meat, you definitely should. If one is an athlete and requires a heavy protein based diet, turkey and chicken are good cow alternatives. More demand for cow meat will increase its supply. Cows produce methane, a greenhouse gas. Therefore fewer cows mean less methane. Therefore, try and cut down on cow product consumption!
I noticed this when I was entering in my data that eating vegetarian meals emits a lot less CO2 than eating meals with meat. This was one of the only things that added up in my carbon footprint for my food intake. Being all vegan can dramatically reduce your carbon footprint however vegetarian is still a good option. I'm not asking you to not eat meat but just to consider what happens when you buy and eat the meat.
That's a really great way of thinking about it. Even if it might not be possible to cut meat and dairy completely out of our diet, cutting down on those kinds of products could be really beneficial in decreasing our carbon footprint. I definitely know that for myself, meat consumption made up a large portion of my overall CO2 emissions.
Wow, I really agree. If I didn't have to spend electricity and gas on cooking meat then my carbon footprint will most likely go down. I will try to decrease the amount of meat I eat each week to see if it impacts my carbon foot print.
Being vegan or vegetarian seems like such a good idea on paper, and it is very environmentally beneficial. However, personally having gone through a vegetarian phase myself, it can make things difficult when just deciding what to eat. I couldn't eat some of the food my dad made for dinner, and eating out was always a challenge.
Committing to a vegan or vegetarian diet is a positive lifestyle choice, but it is also a choice you need to consider the downsides of.
Yes I agree with you as a vegetarian. But being vegetarian is also very expensive due to the fact you have to spend more money on food items that will deliver the necessary nutrients. I feel may be we need to look into ways to reduce CO2 emissions from eating meat