Cooked: Do I have to go vegan to be a sustainable eater?
Source: https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/08/30/cooked-newsletter-sustainable-veganism
Author: Barbara Moran
Fruits, grains and vegetables have a lower carbon footprint than farmed animal products because you need to grow crops to feed the animals. Animals also poop, and pools of poop generate more emissions. So, it's no surprise that a potato has lower emissions than a pork chop. The scientists reviewed the existing research and found that the average carbon footprint of plant-based chicken was 43% smaller than its actual-meat counterpart. Fake pork’s footprint was 63% smaller; fake beef’s was 87% to 93% smaller.The Johns Hopkins folks were not funded by the alt-meat industry, by the way. But they included this very important, red-flag-waving disclaimer: “much of the existing environmental research on plant-based substitutes and cell-based meats has been funded or commissioned by companies developing these products, or by other non-profit organizations promoting these products.”