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
Dear Dylan, I understand you stance on the issue. Personally I respectfully disagree. In theory if everyone were to go vegan the livestock population and farmers would be greatly affected. If no one ate meat there would be terrible environmental affects that would cause even more methane emissions and overpopulation, eventually leading to livestock animals going extinct due to running out of food and many business' and farmers would go out of business.
-Ethan
You make some valid points, but I still disagree. Began vegan is highly expensive because the prices for healthy foods is much higher than other foods, such as MEAT. Also humans evolved to be able to eat both meat and non-meats. Since it has been a tradition to eat meat since the beginning of humanity, you cannot expect the rest of the world to just go vegan. Many people enjoy their meat, and if we were to go vegan many jobs would be lost.
I agree 100% that being vegetarian/vegan is an amazing way to reduce our carbon footprints. I personally have been vegetarian for four years. The reasons I decided to stop eating meat is because 1) The meat industries treat the animals HORRIBLY and I believe that all animals should have a chance at a good life and 2) The meat industries use massive amounts of fuel and gasses to power their factories, which is a major factor in Global Warming. If you want to help the environment, don't eat meat.
I think that telling everyone to be fully vegan is wayyyy too much to ask, but maybe if some people were vegetarian or meat was more expensive or hard to get maybe that could help.
It is improbable to expect everyone to go vegetarian even if it did help the environment, meat has been a part of human life for so long and repercussions of everyone needing a different way to get protein might be even worse. There are different ways to prevent climate change so instead of asking the general public to spend more money on going vegetarian try and keep the 100 businesses that cause 71% of the co2 emissions.
Dear Abby,
I agree that being vegan is a lot to ask. I was vegan for over a year and it was very difficult. I didn’t have much energy and it was always hard to find food to satisfy my hunger. I also had to take 3 supplements every day to stay healthy. I switched back to just being vegetarian a few months ago and I have soooo much energy now. Being vegan is a lot to ask, but being vegetarian will make a huge positive impact and still give your body what it needs.
Dylan, I think what you're saying makes a lot of sense. Even not having any meat a few days a week will make a difference.
As being a vegetarian myself, i do believe its possible to not eat meat when you don't have to. Asking a "meat eater" to become vegetarian in one day is asking a lot. but you don't have to that quickly, just slowly start decreasing the about of meat you eat. every time you eat meat, that's another animals life your taking away from them just for the pleasure. And not even just that, every time an animal get slaughtered it goes through a factory and we know what that does to the environment.
I agree but i think we should find a way to keep continuing to eat meat but have not affect the environment so much.
I absolutely agree. We waste so much food. I recently heard about a business called ugly produce which sells strange looking produce for cheap. I think more ideas like this will help reduce our food waste.
I think a great way to compromise between total vegetarianism and meat eating is possibly to start buying less meat itself, but local and sustainable farms products from animals, like eggs, milk, cheese, etc. It will create a less supportive community of cruel meat production but will still be a good source of protein. I know some people even keep their own chickens in their gardens to help provide eggs for protein, and yet still cut down on meat. I think that that is a great way to be less cruel to animals and enviromentaly friendly, if you can't [ or don't want to] be completely vegeterian.
cait, i agree with you. if there are many more local farms, transportation impacts will be lessened. i also like how you brought animal cruelty into this because it will kill at least two birds with one stone.