Go vegan, they said. Save the world, they said. But, is the plant-based diet truly as beneficial for the animals and environment as people like to believe? What would happen if everyone converted to a plant-based diet?
Veganism is defined by The Vegan Society, as “a way of living which seeks to exclude as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose”. These restrictions also apply to leather, wool, pearls, and even ivory-keyed pianos. Another example of a “true” vegan lifestyle would be avoiding sources of entertainment that exploit animals, such as aquariums and zoos, or taking part in horse racing.
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Flesh-avoiding lifestyles can be traced back to ancient Indian and Eastern Mediterranean civilizations (Suddath, 2008). Vegetarianism was first mentioned by the Greek philosopher and mathematician, Pythagoras of Samos, in 500 BCE; he promoted benevolence among all species. Similarly, Buddhists, Hindus, and Jain believe that humans should not inflict pain on other animals, and have been following a vegetarian diet. It was only in 1847 that the first vegetarian society was formed in England. It was only in 1944, that a British woodworker announced that “because vegetarians ate dairy and eggs, he was going to create a new term called ‘vegan’ to describe people who did not” (Suddath, 2008). The previous year (1941), Tuberculosis was detected in 40% of Britain’s dairy cows and Watson used this to his advantage, claiming that “the vegan lifestyle protected people from tainted food (Suddath, 2008). Three months after coining the term, he issued a formal explanation of the way the word should be pronounced: “Veegan, not Veejan”, he wrote in his new Vegan Society newsletter, which had 25 subscribers. By the time Watson died at age 95 in 2005, there were 250,000 self-identifying vegans in Britain and 2 million in the U.S. (Suddath, 2008).
'There is no single reason why people choose to become vegans or vegetarians, in many cases, their reasons are multifaceted”, says Emeritus, Professor of animal sciences at Oregon State University. In a study conducted by Vomad Life, in which participants were asked their main reasons for following a vegan lifestyle, 16% mentioned their health as their primary motive, another 11% listed the environment, and 68% of them claimed to do it for the animals. This is interesting because humans have been known to hunt and exploit animals for as long as we can remember. There are records of ferocious dog and cockfights tracing back to the 12th century in Britain, additionally, small family farms and traditional ranches have been abusing livestock for centuries, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. So what has changed? The recent growth of plant-based diets around the world d can be linked to the growing accessibility of data-sharing technology as well as an increase in media coverage surrounding the benefits of veganism. In another survey carried out by Vomad Life, 36.6% of participants reported that the first thing that made them seriously consider veganism was a feature-length documentary or a video on the internet (three-quarters of these made references to vegan media such as Cowspiracy, What the Health, or Earthlings) and another 18% admitted to being primarily influenced by online blogs and social media posts. In only a decade, the number of people identifying as vegans in the U.K. increased by 350% (Ipsos, 2016). Similarly, in only three years, that number increased by 600% in the U.S. (Global Data, 2017). These statistics show the large impact that images depicting unjust and cruel treatment of animals have on people’s pathos.
The leading contemporary environmental issue is irrefutably climate change. Mankind’s monumental dependence on fossil fuels in all industries coupled with the West’s prolific food waste problem accounts for most of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The production of meat requires tremendous amounts of energy; crops to feed livestock have to be farmed and fossil fuels are burned in the husbandry, slaughtering, and transportation of farm animals.
This being said, rounded and averaged statistics claiming that livestock and their by-products account for 51% of annual greenhouse gas emissions (Goodland and Anhang, 2009) are misleading. For example, In reality, when talking about factory-farmed cattle, 65% of beef GHG emissions are produced by only 25% of beef producers. The simplest solution would be to get rid of that 25% of producers. However, these producers mostly live in dryland regions, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, which are areas that often have very poor soil and low rainfall. Due to the poor conditions, livestock in these regions are producing a significantly larger amount of methane as a result of very poor-quality herbage and the slower rate at which the livestock tend to grow. People living in the global South could reduce their carbon footprint from food significantly if they gave up meat and dairy, but they would also very quickly starve. It is not an unknown fact that vegetarianism, other similar diets, and most specifically veganism are a luxury and a relatively Western construct. In many cultures and developing nations, meat is a staple food for the majority of people. The emissions associated with meat consumption in the drylands, such as the global South, are more or less the only carbon footprint these people have, and amount to just a small fraction of people living in the global North, who mostly have cars, fly abroad and use central heating. People often overlook that greenhouse gas emissions produced by the agricultural sector include more than just methane. Methane only accounts for 16% of all GHG emissions (Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions, 2015). Production of livestock in Northern Europe, especially in the UK and Ireland, is highly efficient and sustainable; due to their climates and soil types that are ideally suited to growing grass and only marginally suited to for crop production. That results in a reduction in carbon emissions due to cattle consumption in these countries; because these places have (Young 2018).
Another case made by vegans is that veganism is significantly more water-efficient. Animals need water to drink, wash, and clean their living spaces, as well as to cool themselves during hot periods. It is not surprising that it takes 70 times the amount of water it takes to produce one kilogram of tomatoes than it does to produce one kilogram of beef (IME, 2016). However, beef contains 10 times the calories, 30 times the amount of protein, and 40 times the amount of unsaturated fats (Cosgrove, 2005) than tomatoes do(Bjarnadottir, 2019). Generally, people following a vegan or vegetarian diet will substitute meat with protein-dense foods such as tofu and will substitute dairy milk for almond or soy milk. At first glance, almond milk seems to be less water-intensive than regular dairy milk, as it requires only two-fifths of the water to produce the same amount (Miles, 2017). However, the mass production of almonds is terrible for the ecosystem where they are produced. Over 80% of the world’s almond crops are grown in California, an area that has been experiencing its worst drought on record (Sumner, 2014). California’s almond crops require 3.8 trillion liters of water annually (Jerew, 2014), which is as much water as there is in the Sea of Galilee. Almonds are useful for many things; they can be eaten by themselves, turned into butter or milk, or used to cook foods. On the other hand, milking cows produce about 10 times more milk than a calf would need. The average cow carcass yields approximately 490 kilos of boneless meat (NAMP Meat Buyers Guide, 2010), and the cowhide can be turned into leather which can then be used to manufacture clothes, furniture, or even sports equipment. Additionally, many smaller-sized farms still use cows as riding and draft animals. Additionally, over 100 drugs varied functions such as aiding in childbirth, settling an upset stomach, preventing blood clots, controlling anemia, and relieving symptoms of asthma, including cow by-products (McLure, 2014). Insulin specifically, is derived from the pancreas of cattle or suids (McLure, 2014). The vegan option which is commercially available: “human insulin”, is still highly experimental. Yes, it does take more water to produce dairy milk, but there is so much more than milk that can be gained from cattle. This suggests that a vegetarian lifestyle could be the best diet for water efficiency.
Technically, there is enough food on Earth to feed over 10 billion people and people are now more likely to die from obesity than they are from famine. This food is simply inaccessible to a large percentage of people, most of whom are resource-poor farmers cultivating unviable, small plots of land (Holt-Gimenez, 2014). The idea that countries will ever be diplomatic enough to distribute food based on need is unrealistic and idealistic. Avocado is a staple food for many vegans and is the fruit in the highest demand after bananas and apples (The Packer, 2018). Not only amount of fossil fuel is burned transporting these exotic goods in the time frame, but Western demand for exotic goods has pushed prices so high, that they have become unaffordable to some who depend on them in their country of origin. For example, Kenya, the sixth largest exporter of avocados, prohibited the exportation of the fruit in 2017 when the price for a 90kg-bag reached 2,560 Kenyan shillings (34$CAD), the highest in the country since May 2014 (Henderson, 2018). Furthermore, back in 2017, the Mexican government announced that it was considering importing avocados even though the country supplies around 45% of the world’s avocados because the price per kilo was equivalent to the daily minimum wage (Henderson, 2018). The fact that Mexico is making more money from the fruit than it does from petroleum has been a driving force behind illegal deforestation to make way for the planting of more avocado trees (Henderson, 2018).
Ironically, the rabbits, hares, deer, moles, and wild birds killed each year to protect food crops are also animal vegan endeavors to protect. The decline in hedgehog and other small mammal numbers since the 1950s can also be attributed in part to the removal of hedgerows to make fields larger for crop production. Plant-based diets could even be responsible for the deaths of as many mammals and birds as animals slaughtered from the livestock sector (Young, 2018).
People have been mistakenly encouraged to switch from animal to vegetable fats 35 years ago, furthermore, people also consume and use ever-greater quantities of palm oil from south-east Asia. What about the environmental impact of palm oil, soya bean oil, rape oil, and even sunflower oil production; the over-enrichment of the environment from nitrogen fertilizer; the decline in pollinating insects; the use of pesticides with known harmful impacts that would have been banned years ago were it not for the fact that intensive crop and vegetable growers can’t produce food without them (Ceballos, Ehrlich, and Dirzo, 2017)? Its production has been responsible for the near annihilation of many species, including orangutans, pygmy elephants Sumatran elephants, rhinos, and tigers (Young, 2018). With demand still growing, similar pressures are now building in equatorial countries in Africa and South America where palm oil production is also taking off. The scientists behind some of the most recent research on species decline blame “human overpopulation and continued population growth, and overconsumption, especially by the rich,” rather than livestock production specifically (Ceballos, Ehrlich, and Dirzo, 2017). So many foods and products claiming to be vegan and vegetarian focus a lot of people’s basic knowledge of the materials used to make them. A common mistake made by many is associating ‘organic’ and healthy with environmentally friendly and cruelty-free, this is not often the case. There is a lack of research done by consumers, and their surface-level knowledge of purchased products shows.
Influential documentaries like What the Health and Cowspiracy have shed light on the intensive meat and dairy industry urging people to consume more industrially grown soya, maize, and grains Rather than consuming instead of meat. Once again, a problem of lack of research. Consumers and viewers are not often aware of the bias behind such productions. Adopting a vegan diet is not a legitimate solution simply because the agriculture sector is only responsible for 11% of manmade GHG emissions, a big fraction of which would still exist even without the demand for animal products within our diet. It is important to realize that even if animal products were no longer consumed, it is unrealistic to assume that all products related to animals, such as milk, leather, etc, would stop being harvested. Many countries depend so heavily on the export of such products that it would not be a realistic goal within the decade at least.
A more efficient solution would be to support sustainable forms of meat and dairy production. Modern technology offers a unique and valuable opportunity to optimize the efficiency of traditional agricultural methods such as crop rotation, permanent pasture, and grazing. Furthermore, instead of blindly replacing a local steak with mangoes from India and avocados from Mexico, people should ask themselves “Where has this food come from?”.
Veganism seems like a legitimate way of reducing GHG emissions on the surface, but, when taking a deeper look, it doesn't tackle the real problem. Many vegans and vegetarians advocate that what must be done to make food production sustainable is to stop eating meat when clearly, research has shown more sustainable and realistic solutions.
It’s too easy to say that people should just cut meat from their diet. So, they simply consume more soya, maize, and grain products. But said products that are believed to be so much better for the environment are also industrially produced and require a large amount of resources. Continuous crop production is not sustainable; the Sumerians made this mistake 5,000 years ago the Romans 2,000 years ago in northern Africa, and in both cases, the soils have never recovered (Young, 2018). A more recent example of this can be seen in Iraq, in which the current continuous crop production has had a very strenuous and detrimental effect on their soil and agricultural industry.
Not every issue is black and white. Though veganism may have its perks, there is an environmental, ethical, and economic downside that we are not often told about. Every choice comes with a cost, veganism included. Research shows statistics and evidence that the solutions that veganism has provided for the problems of environmental degradation and animal cruelty are not so effective. Too much credit is given to the plant-based diet that is merely a band-aid solution to a much greater problem. Professionals have proven that even if those striving for a vegan world succeed in converting all of society, it still would not be the end-all-be-all solution. This, raises the question, is veganism really what society has been led to believe it is?
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