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Vegan Diets Cut Emissions, Water Pollution and Land Use by 75%, Major Study Finds (www.ecowatch.com)

submitted 1 year ago by alyaza@beehaw.org to c/science@beehaw.org

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study link is here: Scarborough, P., Clark, M., Cobiac, L. et al. Vegans, vegetarians, fish-eaters and meat-eaters in the UK show discrepant environmental impacts. Nat Food 4, 565–574 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00795-w

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[-] Electricorchestra@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 year ago

I'm not saying that soil health isn't a problem for making vegan food. Since their is a significant less amount of crop farming needed to feed a vegan population we would significantly cut the amount of farmland needed and free up a significant amount of soil.

Being vegan as well as fighting for animal rights we of course demand a more sustainable food system and everyone in it getting paid fairly.

[-] dog@suppo.fi 4 points 1 year ago

Biggest step up would probably be for vertical farming to go mainstream. It's not too great for meat industry, but for vegan industry it works more than well.

Another step up will be mass produced lab grown animal proteins/oils/fats (meats) which a healthy human diet requires. On other hand we can still also have a remnant of meat industry be left alive, which is to repurpose animals that have died of natural causes, rather than inhumanely farming animals enmasse.

[-] Electricorchestra@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

I mean we don't need animal proteins for a healthy human diet...

[-] dog@suppo.fi 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346522135_An_Expanded_Genetic_Code_Enables_Trimethylamine_Metabolism_in_Human_Gut_Bacteria

Ultimately, these findings point to new avenues of research that could increase microbiome-informed understanding of human health and hint at potential biomedical applications in which specialized bacteria are used to curtail CVD development.

[-] Electricorchestra@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

And what does this have to do with my previous point?

[-] dog@suppo.fi 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Basically the study found that previous research on TMA's (which are abundous in animal protein) saying they're harmful to humans, may actually be wrong, and that they're in fact beneficial to our health. (edit 2: due to rapid bilophia production in the microbiome, which converts it to DMA?)

I'm not a microbiologist though, and I hope someone with background could expand this into an ELI5.

Edit: If you scroll down on the page, you can find a figure (FIG 1) which gives a more easy to understand view on the study and the impacts animal proteins were found to have.