nonword
Registered: 11/06/09
Posts: 3
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Reply with quote | #1 |
Anyone read this study?
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=1091328
I'm considering buying the article. I read several news summaries that interpret the study as concluding that a vegan diet does not necessarily use land as efficiently as a diet with small amounts of meat (due to the higher value of land required to grow vegetables as compared with the land required to raise beef). I suspect the data is very local or more inconclusive than assumed, but the presumed implications are dangerous. One long-time vegetarian friend of mine read this summary:
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct07/diets.ag.footprint.sl.html
.. And promptly returned to eating meat!
I'd really like to get my hands on the full study and pick it apart. In particular the specific kind of vegan that may have a higher relative footprint is a "high fat vegetarian diet", the definition of which is not apparent (and seems a little oxymoronical). Thoughts?
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Celene
Registered: 01/09/08
Posts: 40
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Reply with quote | #2 |
Here are some questions:
1. What is the definition of a high-fat vegetarian diet?
2. The authors define "meat" as coming from animals that graze and seem to base all the land-use information on those types of animals. However, it seems to completely discount the amount of land, water, pesticides, etc. needed to grow the vast amount of corn and soy - what the vast majority of animals in farms are fed.
3. The last sentence in the 2nd link mentions that the animal-based food would need to be limited to 2 ounces per day to have a footprint lower than that of the high-fat vegetarian diet. I don't know about you, but it seems to me that most Americans, who probably consume 10-15 times that amount per day, wouldn't notice much difference between a diet consisting of 2 ounces of animal-based food per day, and a pure vegan one, so drastic a change in meat/dairy consumption the 2 ounce limit would require.
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Celene
Registered: 01/09/08
Posts: 40
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Reply with quote | #3 |
Another point worth considering is whether the study's definition of "footprint" is really a definition of "local footprint." Many environmentalists believe that transportation is the critical factor of greenhouse gas emissions in food production. But an agricultural historian, James McWilliams, has written a book called "Just Food" that debunks the locavore theory and instead, proposes that how food is produced plays more of a global warming role than the distance the food travels. I've heard McWilliams interviewed on podcasts. He was an ardent meateater before investigating the locavore issue, and when he became aware of the reality of food production, became vegetarian.
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nonword
Registered: 11/06/09
Posts: 3
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Reply with quote | #4 |
Good points, Celene. "Footprint" is indeed a charged term and I fell into the trap that I think a lot of news agencies did of assuming that "land resource requirements" are really just "footprint", which isn't actually mentioned in the abstract. "Footprint" has a lot of interpretations. Most frequently I think it refers to greenhouse gasses. But in fact the study seems specifically concerned with the amount of land used per diet - and the quality of the land used. Naturally the study finds that as you add meat to an otherwise vegan diet, land use requirements increase. The shocking realization seems to be that some "high fat" vegan foods require a disproportionate amount of "quality" land than is available in New York state. Thus, for New York state, vegans eating close to 40% of their calories as fat ("low fat" being closer to 25%) actually use land resources less efficiently (based on the types of land available) than those eating a diet with small amounts of eggs and meat.
First of all, what are these vegans eating that achieve 40% fat calories!?
Secondly, even if I was a "high fat" vegan, I'm having trouble caring about using land "less efficiently" - as quantified by this study, which seems really to be an academic investigation into the hypothetical question: If New Yorkers were to completely max out their agricultural resources, what diet, adopted end masse, would feed the most people. It's an interesting question, but it addresses an alternate reality, no? Maybe I'm naive about the dangers, but the more pressing issue seems to me to be the greenhouse gas footprint, which doesn't seem to be addressed in this study. (Also, you know, there's the animal suffering, but that's off subject..)
Thirdly, the study is being read as a recommendation, but it's folly for a reader in the current dietary climate to read it as such. The study concludes that IF everyone in New York state were to adopt the SAME diet, a vegan diet with a small amount of meat would be the best choice for all. But the way I see it is as long as there are other people in New York eating 10+ ounces of meat a day, my vegan diet goes a little way to offset their impact. If I were to add 2 ounces of meat to my diet daily, the net efficiency impact would actually be worse because there are still so many people eating well over the amount of meat this study recommends - as you point out. Does that make sense? I think that may be the crucial fallacy here and I hope other vegans concerned about their "land use requirements" see that..
I'm going to try to get this study through the library so I don't inadvertantly fund anything by purchasing it.
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