Study Claims Lettuce Is "Three Times Worse Than Bacon" For GHG Emissions (cmu.edu)

davidshenba writes: Sticking to a vegetarian diet may not the best for environment — in fact, it might be harmful to it. According to new research from Carnegie Mellon University, following the USDA recommendations to consume more fruits, vegetables, dairy and seafood is more harmful to the environment because those foods have relatively high resource uses and greenhouse gas emissions per calorie. "There's a complex relationship between diet and the environment," Ph.D. student Michelle Tom said. "What is good for us health-wise isn't always what's best for the environment. That's important for public officials to know and for them to be cognizant of these tradeoffs as they develop or continue to develop dietary guidelines in the future." As you might suspect some find the study dubious at best.

Comments

If this is debunked in the summary, why post it?

[Sowelu]

Subject says it all. Editors, this is literally your job. Don't give equal time to obvious lunatics.

Ha

[liqu1d]

nasty vegetarians try to take my precious.

Re:Ha

[ArmoredDragon]

The simple fact is that if animals weren't meant to be eaten, then they wouldn't have been made out of food. Besides, there is plenty of evidence that shows that animals are, in fact, delicious.

The actual paper says nothing of the sort

[burtosis]

The paper simply cites that on a per calorie basis many vegtables like lettuce, cucumbers, celery, etc are worse for the enviornment. It's actually obvious because these foods have no nutritional value with respect to calories, yet require water and other resources to bring to the table. The same paper states nutrition rich plant materials are actually better. The "debunking" article is just a knee jerking response and addresses "issues" that were never brought up in the paper. What we need to help fix this planet are people that run off of logic, not emotions.

Re:How about...

[hawguy]

Let's focus on truly man made emissions, you know shit coming out of cars, coal plants, etc and stop trying to figure out how much a cow farts or how much is generated by eating lettuce. What a waste of time and money. All of the cows and lettuce eating people on the planet pail in comparison to one coal plant.

Those cow farts are pretty much just as man made (and damaging) as your car when you look at a typical cattle (or chicken or hog) farm and the amount of mechanization that goes into turning grain and other feed into the meat in your supermarket.

http://www.independent.co.uk/e...

But in almost every case, the world's 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.

3x GHG emissions *per calorie*

[Namarrgon]

Since lettuce has far more water than calories, that's not much of a surprise. You'd have to eat a mountain of lettuce to get the same caloric intake as a couple of rashers of bacon. But few people eat lettuce for the calories; vegetarians often get most of theirs from nuts, mushrooms & soy, for example - none of which appear to be covered in the study

eating a vegetarian diet could contribute to climate change

Sure, but less so than most diets involving meat (disclaimer: not a vegetarian). The study also includes dairy foods and even seafood, which seems odd for a vegetarian diet but maybe bolsters their desired conclusion (cheese in particular is pretty GHG-intensive). The result seems to be more useful for fuelling misleading media quotes like the above, than for making informed decisions.

Re:3x GHG emissions *per calorie*

[Guybrush_T]

Yeah. Big news : mushrooms are 0 calories, so they're emitting *infinite* greenhouse gas per calorie. I'm surprised there is not an infinite quantity of greenhouse gas on earth.

Oh, wait, because we're not trying to get even 1 calorie from eating mushrooms !

Re:3x GHG emissions *per calorie*

[runningduck]

The problem with the study is the selective use of calorie as a measure instead of nutrient.

Re:3x GHG emissions *per calorie*

[ShanghaiBill]

The problem with the study is the selective use of calorie as a measure instead of nutrient.

There are many problems with this study. Comparing cucumbers to pork is silly, since people don't eat cucumbers as a substitute for bacon. If you want to compare something to bacon, then you should compare tofu, beans, tempeh, or peanuts. But then you would find that per calorie or per gram of protein, the veggie option is far better for the environment, and then there is no shocking headline to generate clicks.

Re:3x GHG emissions *per calorie*

[TechyImmigrant]

It's not 0 when I sautee them in butter and eat them with bacon.

Re:3x GHG emissions *per calorie*

[tbannist]

Comparing cucumbers to pork is silly, since people don't eat cucumbers as a substitute for bacon

Actually, it isn't. Comparing the GHG per calorie of any two foods isn't silly, it's basic research. However, drawing conclusions about different diets based on unrepresentative samples of the components of the diets is silly, and that's what a lot of the people writing the articles around this study seem to be doing. It is important, however, to always remember that it's the job of those writers to get us to click on the links and see the ads, not provide us with rational analysis.

The original study compares the USDA recommended food mix to the current American diet and finds that the USDA recommended diet would increase GHG emissions and energy usage, even if the number of calories was reduced to the recommended amount to maintain a healthy weight. It should be noted that the recommended diet is not vegetarian, and that a vegetarian diet was not considered in the study, so anything about how vegetarian diets compare to omnivorous diets is trolling for clicks.

Bacon sales down?

[k6mfw]

Kind of like when wine sales are down, a scientific report is released about health benefits of occasional glass of wine.