Veganism and The Environment: Myths vs. Facts
Discover > Farm to Table Eating in Texas > Veganism and The Environment: Myths vs. Facts
Is a vegan diet good for the environment? Well, the answer might be a little bit more complicated than it at first seems. But being in Texas, we're so lucky to have an almost endless selection of seasonal produce all-year-round, but we're not talking about that. We're talking about the other side of veganism, one that is being paraded out there non-stop. Oh, you know what we're talking about, all those "I can't believe it's not beef" or "It's vegan so it must be good" types of things.
More than half of the members of the vegan community will state unequivocally that a plant based diet and other plant based alternatives is the best diet for the sake of the whole world due to less environmental impact (i.e. reducing global greenhouse gas emissions), but it might not be quite so simple. There exist different types of vegans with different corresponding diets. Not all vegans are created equal.
Plant-based diets and plant-based foods are one way to help the environment and combat climate change. In fact, food production is one of the many factors under sustainable systems that determine the future of planet earth.
Plant-based diets are deemed ideal for sustainable living and are environmentally friendly because they require fewer resources, and less water, land, and energy consumption to produce. This contributes to lesser global acidification, unlike traditional animal based food that is dependent on mass meat production and has various environmental impacts such as agriculture's greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel emissions, and waste produced from meat and dairy production.
Furthermore, practices involving raising animals according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also have several environmental implications, especially animal waste, which can result in immense cost affecting natural resources and worsens climate change.
The Vegan Vision
The idealized vision of veganism is a great concept to aspire to. This ideal plant-based diet is incredibly healthy and great for the environment due to the fact that it will reduce meat production and in turn reduce meat consumption, which will result in total environmental benefits and address the critical environmental crisis (i.e. global warming), but while this ideal plant-based diet is often preached, it isn’t always practiced.
Whole ingredient or raw ingredient vegan diets/plant based diets can be great, but a junk food vegan meal can be just as bad or worse for the environment than a diet that incorporates animals for food. As with most things, there are a number of contributing factors that go into making a particular approach net positive or net negative.
Rich Roll is an ultra-endurance athlete and one of the 25 fittest men according to Men’s Fitness Magazine. He has also endorsed a whole food plant-based diet as part of his health and fitness regimen, which he believes is the most effective way to eat.
Rich Roll’s endorsement of this diet is not just based on personal experience though. A whole-food vegan diet has been claimed to have a positive effect on the human environmental footprint, by way of reducing greenhouse gases, leading to a reduced overall human carbon footprint.
Rich Roll’s book, The Plant Power Way, can be recommended in good conscience. But let’s take a look at the junk food vegan diet and see if the same can be said of that lifestyle.
In general, the idea is that going vegan helps in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which is a major contributor to climate change. This is because the food industry (i.e. meat and dairy industry) is one of the largest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions. Just to feed animals would result in half of all human-induced emissions. In fact, according to a recent study by Oxford University, going vegan reduces an individual's carbon footprint by more than 50%. That is why going vegan is not just great for human health but healthier for the environment as well.
Globally, however, the primary sources of environmental degradation are not just greenhouse gases, but as well as overall human activities. This includes growing crops, raising farmed animals for dairy products/the meat industry, feed production, converting coal for energy, consumption of animals in large amounts, and inefficient land use and water use just to satisfy the world's appetite.
The Junk Food Vegan Diet
A junk food vegan is pretty much what it sounds like, someone who refrains from animal products, but whose diet consists mainly of so-called junk food. Many junk foods are vegan, dispelling the myth that all vegan food is healthy. Masa Ofei of The Minimalist Vegan estimates that less than half of all vegans actually follow healthy diets and eating habits.
Many foods that meet the strict requirements to be considered vegan products are far from natural. Many vegan-friendly foods are concocted in laboratories and are full of chemicals, GMOs, and synthetics, whether it’s in an attempt to replicate non-vegan foods, or just to maximize taste and addictive qualities.
Junk food production methods often rely on using grains harvested as a result of monocultures. Corn, rice, wheat, and soy are all grown as monocultures by industrial factory farm corporations.
These monocultures are one of the largest contributors to the climate crisis and are extremely damaging to the total environment as they require huge tracts of agricultural land use to grow. Monocultures are also treated with far more chemicals, herbicides, and pesticides than to grow crops non-industrially, which leaves the soil health and nearby rivers (i.e. water pollution) in far worse condition according to scientific reports.
A junk food vegan who eats products made from monocultures is not living up to the vegan ideal of helping fight climate change.
The Myth of Vegan Food
The myth that all vegan food is healthy can be a damaging one. There are plenty of unhealthy vegan food options and even some vegan equivalents of animal products that are less healthy than their genuine counterpart. Vegan cheeses, burgers, and sausages can often contain higher salt and fat content than the real deal.
Researchers found that vegan snacks can also include industrially farmed grains that have been overly sprayed with pesticides and other chemicals, which pose environmental concerns that cause air pollution and various health risks. Another health concern regarding vegan ingredients is their often synthetic, scientifically engineered composition. These vegan snacks often contain ingredients that are nowhere near natural and that you would never find at any global farmland or at any farmer’s market, which also violates certain agriculture and trade policy.
Research shows plenty of classically unhealthy ingredients make it onto the “safe for the vegans” list. Salt, sugar, soy, oils, high fructose corn syrup (how long does corn syrup last?), dyes, and batter for fried foods (What wine goes well with fried foods?) are all vegan. Many products that junk food vegans find themselves eating are what PETA calls “accidentally vegan”. These are snacks and foodstuffs that make no effort to be healthy or environmentally beneficial, they just happen to not include any other animal products. This accidentally vegan list includes products like Hershey’s chocolate syrup and lays barbecue chips. Yep, they're vegan, but are they healthy?
Positive Impact of Veganism
A study published based on the united nations’ extensive report, gathered some astonishing facts about the environmental impact of animal agriculture, wherein farm animals are found to be the major cause of greenhouse gas emissions, which include carbon dioxide emissions and methane emissions. But is this true for all animal farms?
This is all said without mentioning the positive environmental impact that the vast majority of non-industrial farms can have. While the major corporate farming industries are extremely damaging to the environment due to massive amounts of methane emissions, the same cannot be said of the independently owned farms and ranches that embrace sustainable farming.
That is why eating meat and dairy as well as other animal product consumption does not necessarily mean that you are contributing to the environmental harm or the current condition of climate change, just like how becoming vegan does not necessarily mean that you are contributing positively to the environment.
There are nuances to both animal protein consumption and veganism that must be explored when trying to discern the best diet for yourself and your family. Whichever choice you make, sourcing and eating locally is always a smart choice and fits with any human consumption diet.
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Sources:
Are you a junk food vegan?
Raw Vegan to Junk Food Vegan
Accidentally Vegan Food
