How to Sustain Ourselves and the Planet: A look into the realities of a plant-based diet

“You can’t be an environmentalist and eat animal products.” Controversial? Most definitely. True? Perhaps.

This week, I endeavored to explore the realm of plant-based diets and the environmental benefits of abstaining from eating meat and other animal products.

My earliest memory of vegetarianism consists of my older sister announcing her intention to be a vegetarian at the dinner table, and my dad responding resolutely, “You can eat what I make or you can go hungry,” as he brought a plate of medium rare steak to the table as if to emphasize his point. A proprietor of a restaurant with a specialty in BBQ, my dad would ultimately come to loosen his staunchly pro-meat views, at one point accommodating two vegetarians and one vegan among his four daughters. 

I first became a vegetarian in the Spring of 2015 as a result of partaking in an immersive semester program focused on sustainability and sustainable food systems. My vegetarianism lasted for 1 ½ years before I was “back on the product,” as my dad liked to say. The why behind my decision to once again eat meat was a pretty weak one—it was easier and I wanted to. 

It was only recently, roughly two weeks ago, that I decided to reinstate my vegetarianism, inspired in large part by this blog. How could I, a self-proclaimed environmentalist, actively and willingly choose to participate in the single most environmentally destructive daily practice an individual can do? It may seem dramatic, but as someone seeking to explore and eradicate sources of waste in our daily lives, diet is a key factor that needs to be taken into consideration.
     
The leading cause of environmental destruction is animal agriculture. Animal agriculture, the process of raising animals for human consumption, is an environmental nightmare. The process is water-intensive, contributes significantly to global warming, promotes and necessitates deforestation, and produces huge quantities of animal waste that contaminate our waterways and oceans, contributing to ocean dead-zones incapable of supporting life. As food researcher, writer, and activist Michael Pollan describes it, it’s a “brutal system at every level” for the planet, the animals, and the humans involved in the animal agriculture industry.

This week, I further investigated the topic of replacing animal-based diets with exclusively plant-based diets by watching two documentaries on the topic—both available on Netflix.

The first, Cowspiracy, follows the journey of Kip Andersen, an endearing, man-bun clad environmentalist inspired by Al Gore’s 2006 An Inconvenient Truth, who is hell-bent on getting answers as to why the environmentally destructive impacts of animal agriculture were being overlooked and under-emphasized by environmental advocacy groups. 

The film ultimately showcases the dangerous corruption which runs rampant in our country’s oligarchical pseudo-democracy in which the rich and powerful (in this case, those profiting from Agribusiness and cattle industries) are able to influence government regulations and policies to operate in their favor at the expense of the health and wellbeing of individuals and our planet as a whole.

Promoting an anti-meat / anti-animal product platform while challenging individuals in their everyday habits and lifestyle choices is an unpopular, and even dangerous, thing to do. However, this film does just that, while using an impressive array of statistics to back up their claims.

I’ll highlight some of the most compelling, here:

1. Animal Agriculture is responsible for 51% of human-caused climate change from loss of carbon sinks via deforestation, animal respiration, and methane production:
-animal livestock produces 65% of nitrous oxide emissions worldwide—a gas with a global warming potential 296 times greater than CO2
-agriculture emissions are projected to increase 80% by 2050 (due to global increase in meat and dairy consumption)
-raising livestock produces more greenhouse gas emissions than all of transportation combined

2. The animal agriculture industry accounts for a massive amount of water consumption:
-Raising livestock, in the U.S. alone, consumes 34 trillion gallons of water each year
-A 4oz hamburger requires 660 gallons of water to produce
-1 pound of beef requires 2,500 gallons of water to produce
-55% of total water usage is attributed to raising livestock as compared to 5% for domestic water used in the home (e.g. taking showers, washing dishes)
-An average dairy cow consumes 30-40 gallons of water every day
-1 gallon of milk takes upwards of 1,000 gallons of water to produce
-raising animals for food is responsible for 30% of the world’s water consumption

3. Animal agriculture is resource-intensive and socially irresponsible:
-Animal agriculture occupies 45% of earth’s land
-on average, dairy cows eat 140-150 pounds of feed per day
-world cattle populations drink 45 billion gallons of water and consume 135 billion pounds of food every day
-50% of grains and legumes grown worldwide are fed to animals
-82% of the world’s starving children live in areas where food is fed to livestock that are then consumed by more affluent individuals in developed countries
-The world’s cattle eat enough grain to feed 8.7 billion people (grain used to fatten cattle could feed malnourished populations all over the world)

4. The livestock industry is the leading cause of deforestation worldwide and accounts for massive amounts of pollution:
-1 acre of rainforest is cleared every second to graze animals and grow their feedcrops, with a staggering 136 million acres of global rainforests lost to date due to livestock grazing and feed production
-As global rainforests are deforested, many plant and animal species are lost along with it 
-116,000 pounds of farm animal excrement is produced every second in the US
-Pollution from animal agriculture is the leading cause of ocean dead zones and is responsible for the creation of more than 500 nitrogen-flooded dead zones completely devoid of life in our oceans

The bottom line: animal agriculture is a resource-intensive, polluting,  environmentally destructive enterprise that is not sustainable. 

The alternative? A plant-based diet.

On any given area of land, you can produce 15 times more protein from plant-based sources than from meat. Meat has an energy conversion of 38:1 (on average, one calorie derived from animal sources requires 38 calories of energy to produce) as compared to a 2:1 ratio with plant-based alternatives, making a plant-based diet the clear winner in terms of being a more efficient, less energy-intensive system of food production.

You can still be healthy and thrive without consuming any animal products, and veganic farming (food production requiring no animal inputs) has the benefits of being the more efficient and the more compassionate option.

-To feed a person on a vegan diet for a full year requires ⅙ of an acre of land.
-A vegetarian diet, including eggs and dairy, requires 3 times as much land
-A high-consumption diet of meat, dairy, and eggs requires 18 times as much land
-You can produce 37,000 pounds of veggies on 1.5 acres of land, but only 375 pounds of meat on that same plot of land

You can also cut a substantial amount of CO2 emissions in altering your diet:
1.4 tons annually by eating no beef
1.6 tons vegetarian
1.8 tons vegan

A vegan diet produces ½ as much CO2 as that of an American omnivore, uses 1/11th the amount of fossil fuels, 1/13th the amount of water, and 1/18th the amount of land.

Per day, a vegan diet can save:
1,100 gallons of water
45 pounds of grain
30 square feet of forest
10 pounds of CO2
1 animal’s life

These savings are every day for every individual choosing to eat a plant-based diet in lieu of animal products.

If you’re not convinced on environmental ramifications alone, there are also significant personal health benefits to consuming a plant-based diet, as showcased in the documentary, Forks Over Knives.

This documentary explores the obvious, but often overlooked and neglected, link between food and health. With diet-related health expenses costing our country over $120 billion each year in procedures and medications associated with heart disease, obesity, and diabetes, the film explores a whole-foods (non-processed), plant-based diet as a solution to the multitude of health problems resulting from the highly-processed, animal-based diet that pervades much of our country.

The film ultimately highlights the “revolutionary” conclusion of the two nutritional researchers featured in the film that “Many of our most crippling conditions could be greatly reduced, if not completely eradicated, simply by eating a whole-foods, plant-based diet” (fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes) and avoiding processed food (refined sugars, bleached flour, oils, and animal products including meat, dairy, and eggs).

It may sound far fetched, but the film highlights interesting findings, research, and testimonials to back up this claim.

For example, research featured in the film found that cancer cells in mice grew more rapidly when fueled by animal proteins than by plant proteins.

Similarly, mortality from Cardiovascular Disease in Norway underwent a dramatic decline in 1939 when German occupiers confiscated all livestock for their consumption, and Norwegians had to eat a primarily plant-based diet. The mortality rate subsequently increased in 1945 following cessation of the occupation.

The American diet has changed dramatically over the years, marked specifically by a rise in the consumption of meat, dairy products, and processed sugars. Near the beginning of the 20th century, Americans each ate about 120 pounds of meat annually, but that figure has since risen to 222 pounds.

Such a diet provides the protein that many folks use to justify their meat consumption, but it also brings with it an increase in dietary cholesterol levels that can build up in arteries and cause restricted blood flow to the heart, contributing to a variety of life-threatening cardiovascular diseases.

In reality, all the protein you need can be obtained from whole-food, plant-based sources such as rice, potatoes, grains, seeds, nuts, legumes, and vegetables.
Consider checking out this list of the 17 best sources of protein for vegans and vegetarians to learn more about non-animal alternative protein sources. 

Individuals interviewed and chronicled in the film who made the switch to a whole-foods, plant-based diet reported losing weight, gaining more energy, and having better health (lower cholesterol and blood sugar levels) as a result of changing their diet.

With the two-fold environmental and personal health benefits offered by an alternative whole-foods, plant-based diet, making the switch should be a no brainer!

However, as humans, we rarely do what is best for ourselves or for our environment. I’m an ice cream-loving vegetarian who is slowly but surely committing myself to a vegan lifestyle. I’m not suggesting everyone needs to cut out all animal products from their diet immediately, but I am suggesting that you at least give it a try. Start out by cutting out red meat. Or try instituting “meatless Mondays” (if you end up watching Cowspiracy, you’ll find one commentator who is vehemently opposed to the idea of meatless Mondays, but I’m a huge proponent of it as a useful stepping stone on the pathway to plant-based diets). Challenge yourself to eat vegan for one day. One week. One month. You can even sign up for the free 30-day vegan challenge and access lots of resources on Cowspiracy’s website.

Plant-based diets are a viable solution to climate change that can have immediate positive impacts on the planet. Moreover, it’s a diet that is kinder to our bodies, our planet, and our fellow living creatures. Changing our diets is unmistakably the most profound thing we can do, as individuals, to help the environment. 

If you’re planning on trying to change your diet to be more sustainable, let us know how it goes in the comments section below. Likewise, if you refuse to even entertain the idea of trying, I’d be interested in hearing the reasoning behind your refusal. Are you already a full-blown, committed vegan? Feel free to impart some wisdom, insight, tips, and recipes!

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Until next week,
~Sam