Dietary changes will be necessary to feed more people as the human population continues to grow, while also limiting environmental impacts. An analysis of diets and farms led by the Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) project at Oxford University found that vegan diets have a major reduction in environmental impacts, from land and water use to emissions to pollution. Vegan diets had about 75% less emissions and land use compared to diets with high meat consumption, defined as more than 100 grams of meat consumed per day. Vegan diets also had nearly 54% less water use than high meat diets and about 73% less water pollution via runoff. “Even in ‘worst case scenarios’ where most foods that are eaten in low meat diets are produced by methods with high environmental impact and most foods that are eaten in high meat diets are produced with low impact methods, low meat diets still have substantially lower environmental impact,” Scarborough explained.

Source: ABC News July 25, 2023 17:22 UTC