Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: In a striking new study, vegatarian foods are considered to be more harmful to the environment than non-vegetarian, Lettuce (vegetable) is “over three times worse in greenhouse gas emissions than eating bacon (processed meat)”, according to researchers from the Carnegie Mellon University, United States, who analysed the impact per calorie of different foods in terms of energy cost, water use and emissions.
Published in the Environment Systems and Decisions journal, the study goes against the grain of recent calls for humans to quit eating meat to curb climate change.
Researchers did not argue against the idea people should be eating less meat, or the fact that livestock contributes to an enormous proportion of global emissions — up to 51 per cent according to some studies.
But they found that eating only the recommended “healthier” foods prescribed in recent advice from the US Department of Agriculture increased a person’s impact on the environment across all three factors — even when overall calorie intake was reduced.
The experts examined how growing, processing and transporting food; sales and service; and household storage and use all take a toll on the environment for different foods.
Paul Fischbeck, study co-author and CMU’s professor of social and decisions sciences, said, “Lots of common vegetables require more resources per calorie than you would think.
“Eggplant, celery and cucumbers look particularly bad when compared to pork or chicken,” he said.
According to the authors, the study analysed the impact on the environment from changing the average US diet to three new “dietary scenarios”.
Simply reducing the number of calories consumed, without changing the proportion of meat and other food types, cut combined emissions, energy and water use by around 9 per cent
Perhaps understandably, maintaining calorie intake but completely shifting to healthy foods increased energy use by 43 per cent, water use by 16 per cent and emissions by 11 per cent, explained the study.
Download the all new Deccan Chronicle app for Android and iOS to stay up-to-date with latest headlines and news stories in politics, entertainment, sports, technology, business and much more from India and around the world.
