Environmental Impacts of a Plant-Based Diet

Written By Gabby Pogel
Environmental Impacts of a Plant-Based, Vegan Diet - Plant-Based Pals Blog

*All sources listed at the bottom of this blog

Without considering where our food comes from, we may be making lifestyle choices that have unintended consequences. 

If health, sustainability, and environmental impact are priorities for you, we recommend pursuing a plant-based lifestyle. 

Though veganism is not without its faults, “research shows that meat and dairy products are fueling the climate crisis, while plant-based diets—focused on fruits, vegetables, grains, and beans—help protect the planet.”

In this article, we explore the three greatest environmental impacts of a vegan, vegetarian, or plant-based diet. Learn how water, atmospheric gases, and land are affected by food production. Also, explore why a vegan diet isn’t 100% green, and why conscious consumption requires more than a few guidelines.

Additionally, we use terms like “vegan,” “vegetarian,” and “plant-based.” If you’d like an in-depth clarification of these terms, please read our blog here.

For ease of reference, vegan means consuming no animal products whatsoever, while vegetarians consume mostly plant-based materials, with the exception of dairy, eggs, and cheese. Plant-based diets primarily consist of vegetables and fruits, with the exception of meats, dairy, and fish on occasion. 

Plant-Based Diets Conserve Water

Did you know nearly half of all water used in the United States goes to raising animals for food?

When we look at the amount of water used in the production of animals for meat versus water used to grow vegetables, it is clear to see the disparities. While it takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce just 1 pound of meat, it takes only 25 gallons to make a pound of wheat. 

A vegan diet requires just 300 gallons of water per day on average, while a carnivorous diet requires a massive 4,000 gallons per day.  

What do these numbers really mean though? Consider this: you can save more water by not eating one pound of meat than you can by not showering for 6 months!

Water is used not only for feeding and raising animals for slaughter, but also for waste-treatment facilities. Creating a massive amount of groundwater pollution, these facilities take care of the 89,000 pounds of excrement created per second by animals raised for food.

In fact, chicken, hog, and cattle excrement has polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states in the US alone.

Veganism and Land Usage

Plant-based diets reduce the amount of land designated for agriculture.

The difficult reality of feeding billions of people every day: animal agriculture devours more land and water, causing more environmental damage, than a plant-based diet.

Land masses roughly the size of Asia, or 30% of the Earth’s usable land, is used for raising animals for food. While the surface of the moon is only 14.6 million square miles, we on Earth use nearly 17 million square miles just for animal production. That’s greater than the surface of the moon!

Research from the University of Oxford found that cutting back on meat and dairy consumption on the global scale could reduce 75% of farmland, an area similar to the size of the United States, China, Australia, and the EU combined. 

Reducing the amount of land designated for animal farming has a domino effect on greenhouse gas emissions. Cutting animal products from an individual’s diet could reduce their personal carbon footprint by up to 73%.

Land Used in Animal Farming Causes Mass Extinctions

In addition, this reduction would result in the freeing up of wild land lost to agriculture. This is one of the primary causes for mass wildlife extinction, and a major existential threat of the 21st century. In the United States, livestock grazing is the leading cause of plant extinction and endangerment.  

Grain is used to feed farmed animals. More than 260 million acres of forests in the United States have been destroyed to create cropland to grow this grain. Every minute, the equivalent of 7 football fields worth of land are bulldozed to feed farmed animals. 

Choosing a plant-based diet requires far less land. Similarly, consuming animal products from a local farm uses less land than meat harvested from a massive factory farm. 

As always, we are striving for progress, not perfection. While a plant-based diet doesn’t completely eliminate land designated purely for agriculture, it is a step in the right direction.

Plant-Based Diets Emit Fewer GreenHouse Gas Emissions

Vegan diets are associated with the greatest reductions in harmful gas emissions

In a report published by The Lancet in 2019, we see that a consumption shift towards plant-based foods is vital in promoting the health of our planet. In fact, the world’s five biggest meat and dairy producers emit more combined GreenHouse gases than ExxonMobil, Shell, or BP (the top three oil production companies).

According to a climate change calculator, consuming a typical fast-food hamburger once a day throughout the year contributes the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as driving a car for 7,196 miles! That’s enough to cross the United States more than twice. 

While the typical fast-food hamburger only contains 75 grams of beef, a third of a can of beans contains 150 grams. While you get more food per serving with the plant-based alternative, you inversely get less greenhouse gas pollution. Eating beans once a day throughout the year is comparable to driving a car only 93 miles.

We can break down these harmful pollutants to better understand their impact. Our focus lays on three primary culprits: Carbon Dioxide, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide gasses.

Carbon Dioxide

Which reduces emissions more, switching to a hybrid car or switching to a plant-based diet?

  • Exchanging a typical style car for a hybrid reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 1 ton per year

  • Exchanging meat for a vegan diet reduces carbon dioxide by 1.5 tons per year

  • If every American dropped one serving of chicken per week, we’d save the same amount of CO2 emissions as removing 500,000 cars from the road

Methane Gas

How does it contribute to global warming?

  • Methane is 20x more powerful than Carbon Dioxide at trapping heat in the Earth’s atmosphere

  • Animals farmed for meat (chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows) are the largest producer of methane in the United States

Nitrous Oxide

Even worse?

  • Compared to Carbon Dioxide, Nitrous Oxide is 300x more powerful at trapping heat in the Earth’s atmosphere

  • The meat and dairy industries produce 65% of the worldwide nitrous oxide emissions

When we boil down the numbers, we see a carnivorous diet producing seven times the greenhouse emissions of a plant-based diet. 

Though we may not have the power to change the world all by ourselves, we are the only ones in control of our own consumption habits. Making the switch to meatless Mondays or a plant-based lifestyle can impact your own world.

Greenhouse effect diagram – how harmful gasses get stuck in the Earth’s atmosphere and contribute to global warming

Vegan Diets Aren’t Perfect

While pursuing a plant-based lifestyle has many benefits, it is important to note that it is not entirely without fault. One of the greatest shortcomings of this lifestyle is the pollution associated with transportation.

“Air-transported fruit and veg can create more greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram than poultry meat.”

Water, land, and carbon gas emissions increase substantially once plant-based items are transported on a global scale. This is particularly true for perishable fruits.

Ultimately, we all have a personal responsibility to be conscious of the food we consume.

Reducing the intake of red and processed meat is the first step. These cancer causing items contribute to the greatest destruction of land and pollutants of water while hurting your health. From there, one can explore additional measures to take to protect their health and environment.

Without carefully considering the source of our food and the manner of which it is grown, our consumption habits can have unintended consequences.

If you have the resources, please consider switching to a plant-based lifestyle.

Graphic by CulinarySchools.org

Sources: 

Gabby Pogel
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