this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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[–] zlatiah@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thanks! Wowzers I've never heard of Nature Food, didn't realize this journal had such a high impact factor. A few things of interest to me from the article...

  • Vegans are one standard deviation younger than heavy-meat-eaters and eat fewer calories... although they should have adjusted for the difference
  • This didn't show on the fancy Monte Carlo simulation they did, but vegans emit much, MUCH less methane than any other group
  • Literally any group is significantly better than heavy meat-eaters, especially low meat-eaters or below

The questionnaire they used to determine categories:

  • Do you eat any meat (including bacon, ham, poultry, game, meat pies, sausages)? (Vegans, vegetarians and fish-eaters respond ‘No’.)
  • Do you eat any fish? (Vegans and vegetarians respond ‘No’.)
  • Do you eat any eggs (including eggs in cakes or other baked goods)? (Vegans respond ‘No’.)
  • Do you eat any dairy products (including milk, cheese, butter, yoghurt)? (Vegans respond ‘No’.)
    And meat-eaters are divided by grams of meat eaten per day: <50 g/d, 50-100 g/d, >100 g/d. Apparently one patty from McDonald's (Big Mac has two) is like 45 grams of beef so...

I mean the conclusions aren't anything surprising, cows are literally one of the major sources of environmental damage... But it does provide some way moving forward I suppose. I suspect banning steakhouses would have a much better impact than forcing everyone to be vegan lol