Another “fun” chart on various food sources green house gas emissions adjusted per kilogram of food product.
I love how the chart breaks cows into multiple categories making it look that much smaller even though it’s still chart topping.
Edit: Oddly enough they’re citing the same data in both the one I link and OP’s link.
Why is Kilograms of food product the one axis? shouldn’t it be kcals or something?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-kcal-poore
They have that too. Beef is still the worst by a huge margin
That would also be a very nice comparison and honestly probably a better one given how different food have very different calorie densities.
Now I’m really curious about calorie density of the various categories listed in the chart, I’m probably going to have to do some napkin math to get a small ball park.
I know I won’t be anywhere close to the actual figure but I may be close enough to satisfy my curiosity.
Edit: Thinking about it a bit though brings to mind that the calculations there would be incredibly difficult and would likely require a lot of averages.
You should probably take into account beneficial and harmful effects of each food type as well (including externalities such as healthcare costs), although that would be an even more difficult task.
Though this is a great chart, it isn’t quite the whole picture either for climate impact. Almonds and almond milk get to be a lot worse alternative option if you consider the water consumption concerns where they are grown in California. They have many similar charts that attempt to quantify holistic carbon footprint.
Long story short, though not eating animal products is best for the environment, even just eating beef less often and not worrying about eggs and chickens can get you to over half the climate impact of full veganism and is a much easier transition for some.
Isn’t air travel and large ships far worse for the environment? I don’t mean to derail a conversation, but I suspect that air travel and ocean liners have a significantly bigger impact and I don’t see as much coverage on that issue.
Fortunately, we have a series of tubes connecting every computer on the planet that can help answer questions like this!
In short Aviation (1.9%) and Shipping (1.7%) are smaller than Livestock & Manure (5.8%) even before factoring in the secondary impacts that are largely driven by the livestock industry, like land use change, soil loss, and deforestation.
If you’re specifically talking about transportation emissions for food, there’s a graph for that as well!
Supply chain represents ~18% of the overall food footprint, smaller than livestock and land use changes.
Talking meat specifically, the transportation emissions are a tiny piece of their overall footprint, as is shown in the OP.
Damn these charts are nicely made.
Agriculture makes up a full quarter of our total emissions. Some of that is because of shipping it, of course, but there is absolutely no question whatsoever that agriculture is a huge contributing factor to climate change
Data about greenhouse emissions from transportation is talked about more frequently than any other source in my experience. I don’t see the relevance to this data as beef and tofu can be produced locally or shipped overseas, so the emissions to produce the product would be a separate discussion versus emissions in transit.
I don’t see as much coverage on that issue.
No, there’s plenty of coverage. If anything, there isn’t enough coverage on animal agriculture because people can’t fathom a world where they don’t eat meat (or even just significantly reduce their consumption).
You are not derailing, you are putting the topic back on track.
We can talk about both issues, as I think they are both important, but I suspect that the larger issue is being ignored because it threatens establishment interests.
This dude’s puns are seriously underrated
Would it make more sense to compare based on calories and not weight? Since you need to eat more tofu than beef for the same calorie intake. If my math is right, tofu is about 760 kcal per kg while beef is 2500 kcal per kg so that makes it ~34 grams of CO2 per kcal for beef and ~3 grams of CO2 per kcal for tofu.
Definitely tofu is still better obviously, just wanted to compare with that metric. Not sure if it makes more sense or not.
The website has a graph for that and for protein as well. It’s pretty neat
If the non-food products (which account for about 40% of the animal) are accounted for, the food-CO2 falls by ~40% to about 51.
This doesn’t seem to take into account methane production and its effect on the climate either, which would probably put cows and pigs much higher.
Can I get some numbers on a bottle of Gochujang sauce?
I don’t like tofu. I like other meat substitutes but idk tofu is not the greatest comparison to meat in my opinion
I always find the comparison between tofu and meat a bit unfair, as it wasn’t invented for that purpose. In many asian cultures it is simply a thing in its own right, only we in the West have popularized it as a meat substitute and I don’t think that does tofu justice.
yea it is just another type of food,you like it or don’t
other meat substitutes
Tofu is not a meat substitute. Tofu is just tofu, unless someone specifically picks it as a substitute for meat and sticks to it, in which case I guess it’s their personal substitute for meat.
anywhere that compares by calorie? just curious
Someone shared below, but here you go: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-kcal-poore
oops forgot to update comment when I saw that. thanks tho
The carbon that we dig out of the ground and put in the air, that is the ony one relevant to global warming. Everything else is just a change of phases in a cycle.
Yeah but problem is that the methane phase is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2
CO2 in air » plant » cow » methane in air (cow bacteria farts and burps) » CO2 in air
Also carbon sinks around the globe are being replaced by systems that are at best carbon neutral. Every acre of carbon sequestering rainforest cleared to farm cattle is a net decrease in our ability to process atmospheric carbon.
True, add to that CO2 emission for transporting all that animal feed around the world
Why is beef from a beef herd worse than beef from a dairy herd?
I think just because dairy cows live longer. Beef cows are killed younger, you don’t need to wait until their milk production dwindles. It’s not clear if accounting for the milk carbon footprint was taken into account or not.
I freakin love tofu, air frying it is so tasty. I just wish it were cheaper.
Aldi and Fresh Thyme tofu is pretty cheap around me if you have those.
Yeah but if you tell the factory farms to lower the beef number they’ll just cram the same number of cattle into a smaller area.
But i need to eat meat.
No one here is saying you can’t, are you trying to get permission? This is just pointing out it has a larger environmental impact than non-meat food sources.
No you don’t.
Less people, less problems. Walk around Bandung Indonesia and I’ll show you 10 people polluting to your 1 American. Good luck.
My beef also isn’t genetically modified to survive glyphosate, which gets absorbed by the soy that gets turned into your tofu.
If industrial farms would sell the manure and spread it on fields rather than blanket them with petrolchemicals (fertilizers) this entire argument would be completely moot.
We need to return to traditional farming where the cattle can graze and naturally fertilize the land instead of being confined and mainly fed corn (which exacerbates the spread of ecoli).
Traditional farming can also reverse desertification of land therefore can reduce the CO2 footprint of this industry.
I’m not saying don’t be vegan, just take a look beyond these studies that are cherry picked to cement your opinions on us monsters that are so apparently destroying this planet.
Also get mad at the military and they are the top contributors of CO2 emissions and they have 0 restrictions and are omitted from every study.
This is a lot to unpack, but I’ll do my best in case it helps someone understand theses issues better:
My beef also isn’t genetically modified to survive glyphosate, which gets absorbed by the soy that gets turned into your tofu
Glyphosate is bad, and should be banned. That said, beef is not somehow immune to glyphosate, as it is a contaminant in much of the food sources cattle eat, and the food for our food is not as strictly regulated as our food. Source Additionally:
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Much of the glyphosate found in food is found in grains, which are often served as accompaniment to a primary protein (e.g., meat or plant proteins). Swapping a beef burger for a veggie burger (or, your tofu straw man), likely does little to reduce overall glyphosate exposure, which would be coming from the bun. Using plant glyphosate levels as a negative for going vegan is deceptive at best.
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Glyphosate is not allowed in organic farming, so buying organic foods, including plant based protein alternatives, like organic tofu, dramatically reduces exposure to glyphosates. The system isn’t perfect but has been shown to quickly and effectively reduce glyphosate levels. Source
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While “there is currently no consensus among the scientific community, and there is controversy over the safety of glyphosate and its health consequences” Source, there are studies showing correlation with negative health outcomes, so someone playing it safe may want to avoid these chemicals out of an abundance of caution. THAT SAID, there is a significant body of evidence that consuming red meat is linked to increase the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and premature death. Source. Another Source. If you’re avoiding “tofu” for your health, you’re not doing yourself any favors.
If industrial farms would sell the manure and spread it on fields rather than blanket them with petrolchemicals (fertilizers) this entire argument would be completely moot.
No. Manure is only a small part of the issue. Much of the methane produced by cattle comes from digestion, not excrement. Additionally, much of the carbon footprint of cattle is a result of land use change, specifically deforestation and other land use change. None of this is solved by spreading shit around. (And its unclear from your comment but just in case it needs to be said, fertilizers and glyphosate are unrelated, but I think you know that, it was just unclear)
We need to return to traditional farming where the cattle can graze and naturally fertilize the land instead of being confined and mainly fed corn (which exacerbates the spread of ecoli).
The concept of regenerative farming is thrown around a lot as a justification for eating beef. First of all, its not happening, so stop using a pretend what if to justify bad behavior.
Secondly, a cow can graze the food it needs off of ~2 acres of (highly productive) land per head. Source.
To meet today’s meat demand, there’s ~1.5 billion cows on the planet. If you were to give each cow 2 acres, that would take 3 billion acres of land, or 1.5x the land area of the continental US. This would be a logistical nightmare in addition to all of the other challenges that come with this land grab. There’s no scenario where we maintain current meat consumption levels sustainably.
At some point people are going to have to put down the steak and gasp eat some tofu.
Traditional farming can also reverse desertification of land therefore can reduce the CO2 footprint of this industry.
No beef required for this one. Though it is worth noting much of the desertification is directly a result of clearing land for cattle and their feed.
Also get mad at the military and they are the top contributors of CO2 emissions and they have 0 restrictions and are omitted from every study.
Agreed!
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