To say that being a vegan is no better for the environment than being a meat eater?

[OnlyInYourDreams]

Unless you eat only home grown, locally sourced products?

Obviously some people are vegan because they don’t like the idea of using any kind of animal products. But all too often people say that they’re vegan because “it’s better for the environment when this is categorically not the case.

Lots of fruit/veg have to be imported which is actually worse for the environment because it involves pumping man-made substances into the environment.

Products like almond milk are terrible for the environment because e.g. it takes 1600l of water to produce 1l of almond milk. Coca-Cola is practically a green product in comparison…

If people want to be vegan, why not just say you want to be vegan. Coming up with reasons such as “it’s better for the environment” which are just rubbish and laughable is only going to increase the amount of people who don’t take vegans seriously.

You’ve had the facts around emissions pointed out multiple times now so I’m sure you get the picture.

I also think anyone who takes the fairly drastic choice of going vegan for the environment isn’t likely to sub in food with high air miles, or other things are bad for the environment.

I went vegan for the environment (although currently eat a small amount of dairy as I’m breastfeeding) and where my food comes from is front of mind in all my purchasing decisions. I’m not perfect but I committed to an environmentally friendly diet, including being vegan but that isn’t the beginning and end of the changes. I don’t know any environmental vegans who don’t take this approach, it’s just logical.

"You’ve never had a decaf coffee? Or a Diet Coke?"

Given that coffee beans are a crop that need to be imported, with a water footprint of 1120 litres of water per litre of coffee, I can't imagine the OP drinks it.

Because that would make the frothing about almond milk (370l of water per litre of almond milk) REALLY hypocritical.

Wouldn't it?

@Sixsillysausagessizzlinginapan

I don't care why people make their choices but I don't like the way some vegans try to force their views on others. Or when they try to make their pet dog/cat/hedgehog/lion etc vegan. I am very grateful for the increased choice in affordable vegan soy free foods though. Made life so much easier with my milk and soy allergic kids. I prefer to eat locally sourced foods where possible. Pyo places are great in the summer and I like to go to the butcher's for the meat from the farm down the road. We grow our own strawberries and herbs. The rest of the time I get the supermarket stuff with the UK flag on.

“Force their views on others”? What, like we’re in the middle of a climate emergency that is making species extinct, destroying habitats and will eventually kill millions of people - and that eating less meat will help?

The way the world is currently consuming meat, fish and dairy is catastrophic for the environment. There is no counter argument. Our ancestors didn’t eating meat, fish or dairy every single day - it was entirely unsustainable and completely unaffordable. We consume far, far too much. We don’t need it to survive and our collective greed is, in fact, killing us as a species.

It’s quite easy really. You don’t have to become vegan. No one is asking you to become vegan. But we ALL need to consume fewer animal products.

(And I’m not even going into the utterly inhumane farming practices that produce cheap meat / dairy / fish here.)

You could say that but you would be wrong and people might think you're a bit dim.

You’d be wrong but only because actually in the U.K. if you only bought locally sourced and stopped all animal production you’d fuck over the environment.

Environment measures in only emissions terms is a ridiculous approach, it doesn’t consider soil structure and microbiology, the carbon sink that is pastureland Vs cropped. Water usage (98% of water used for livestock is rainfall), biodiversity of pastureland, destruction of soil health and wildlife from cropping. Articifial fertiliser usage without farmyard manure. The lack of land suitable for cropping (11%), food waste (Most of the fees given to beef cattle and sheep is crop wastage NOT soya, blame pigs and poultry for that, and most of that is now even regenerative.

And on and on and on...

But no let’s focus just on carbon, of which only 5% is animals in the U.K., and a lot of those emissions are methane which has a shorter natural breakdown and could be harnessed to replace fossil fuels.

I'm vegan and have never bought almond milk ever but it's funny to see how it's so so often used to slate vegans.
I welcome the increase in veganism and it doesn't worry me what the reasons behind it are.The end result is a reduction in animal misery.

Eating in a more considered away, reducing wastage and stopping overconsumption is the way forward, not plant Vs animal unless on an ethical ground not environmental.

Can someone explain why water consumption is used as a top trump figure? When.. icebergs are melting at increasing rates.

I believe its better for the environment as well as kinder to animals (I'm not vegan) but it isn't for us to decide whether or not someone else's life choices and the reasons for them, are valid ?

You can bash vegans all you like but I like having the peace of mind that I am doing my best for the planet and for animal welfare.

There's no doubt in my mind that eating less or no meat is better for the environment.

@Sixsillysausagessizzlinginapan

try to force their views on others

Like meat eaters forcing their wants on the animals they devour? Your food had no choice. It had a face, though. It had a life. It had a horrific death too of that you can be sure.

Lots of ill health comes with eating meat too. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes...

I agree OP. This is the same as when the Govt persuaded us to change petrol for diesel without researching it.

Soya has bad effects on eostrogen and fertility. There will be a huge, as yet unmeasured, environmental cost to mass-producing vegan products that are only niche at the moment.
I think it is poorly researched blather.

Vegans tend to focus on emissions but that is only one aspect of environmental damage. As many people on here have said there's a huge amount of damage due to crops grown to produce enough protein & fats to sustain a vegan diet. Almonds, avocados, and soy among others. Everything has to be considered in the round. Pesticides, water use, food transport, interference with the food chain or local biome. There's also the big issue of land suitability. Much of the land used effectively around the world to graze livestock is not actually suitable for growing plant based food.

Some meat is better than other meat.

Of course it's a good idea to reduce our consumption of meat, dairy, eggs and fish. But to eliminate their consumption completely and ensure the world gets a nutritionally complete diet from the plant based alternatives has many issues of it's own.

It had a horrific death too of that you can be sure.

Not necessarily. The UK does have animal welfare laws relating specifically to slaughter with the intention of minimising pain etc.

Soya has bad effects on eostrogen and fertility. There will be a huge, as yet unmeasured

Except you’ve been eating meat pumped with soya for decades and appear fine.. or not.

@Welshmaenad
Higher risk of hip fractures in vegans and others compared to meat-eaters.

@Orangesand I believe you. But nonetheless, countries with high rates of childhood stunting are also countries with low proportions of animal-sourced foods in people's diets.

Meat production doesn't have to be bad for the environment. Grazing land can sequester carbon. I'm just boggled that there is such a massive focus on the evils of meat when we're still burning fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow (indeed, if we carry on doing it we may have no tomorrow), co-incidentally just at a time when massive multinationals and hugely wealthy individuals are investing in producing 'plant-based' foods like Impossible Meat.

@SnackSizeRaisin

Most sheep and beef eat grass. My sheep eat grass and haylage which is harvested grass. Dairy production in the West of Scotland where I am is traditionally based on grass/silage.

Soya protein is widely used to feed sheep and beef cattle in the UK. And probably all dairy cattle eat soya as a proportion of their diet. As you would know if you were really a farmer. Yes their diet may be largely grass...for 6 months of the year. In the winter in the UK cattle are housed and sheep are fed extra in the form of silage or hay. Which is produced using artificial fertilizer and harvested using heavy machinery powered by fossil fuels.

As you would know if you were really a farmer My 100 Lleyn ewes and 180 lambs must be a figment of my imagination.

If we didn't need so much land to grow food to feed cows for people to eat, would we be as at much risk of novel virus jumping from animals whose habitats have been destroyed to humans as we are now?

@DrSbaitso you summed that up beautifully.
I'm sorry the truth offends you OP.

I’m a meat eater but tempted to go vegan just so I won’t be associated with a bunch of whiny babies upset about meat-free products being called sausages.

I actually quite like a lot of fake meat and cheese products. Great for people like me who want to reduce the animal products they eat but still like the taste and texture.

Ducks/chickens/cows/sheep of varying breeds? Without eating them or using them for other bi-products there is literally no reason for them to exist.

Did a real person with an actual brain write this?

There's no reason for animals to exist, unless we eat them?

Have you seen an intensive chicken farm OP? Pretty sure they'd rather be extinct than live through that hell, so overfed they can't stand up, never seeing daylight, covered in their own faecal matter (which is, LITERALLY, sprayed into the environment by the tonne in the USA), alive for an average of 6 weeks

It had a horrific death too of that you can be sure.

Not necessarily. The UK does have animal welfare laws relating specifically to slaughter with the intention of minimising pain etc.

Do you mean high welfare farms like this one? www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pigs-farm-animal-cruelty-scotland-b1840471.html

See this is what I don't get. Can a meat eater honestly watch the footage of how a standard supermarket chicken lives its life and think that it is acceptable? Would you be enraged if cats and dogs were treated in such a way? How is a chickens life of less value? How is it normal, or sustainable to treat a sentient being in his way?

If we all had meat and dairy now and again from a local farm with high welfare standards then it would be different. But we're not. And it disgusts me.

Would you be enraged if cats and dogs were treated in such a way?

If it were cats and dogs it would be illegal.

So the “scientific studies” are clear pulling fast one by calculating the land, food, water to raise a pig to slaughter and comparing it to zero...nothing....no pig existing

But there wouldn't would there because they are artificially bred in huge numbers to satisfy demand. If demand dropped there'd be little point in artificially breeding in huge numbers.