It’s easy to say what is ‘green’ and what isn’t, when all the reasoning is done based on slogans. It’s much harder when one looks for scientific proof behind the slogan. When we do that we find, for example, the vegan diet’s big limit as a way to feed the planet: it’s not sustainable. Six US-based universities joined forces to show how the complete conversion of the world’s population to a vegan diet would create a production system that is uncapable of utilizing the land in the best possible way.
The research’s focus
The research, we were saying, investigates the dietary component only. It lives behind the lifestyle-related issues that are also dear to those following the diet. As reported by Business Insider, participating scientists “developed a bio-physic simulation model that sees the USA as a closed food system”. The created a demographic and geographic perimeter that helped them evaluate “the per-capita land required for human consumption” and the “potential population currently supported by the cultivated land currently in existence”, based on 10 different dietary types. The goal was to establish which dietary model is more sustainable and which “would improve the possibility of supporting human life on earth”.
Vegan diet’s big limit
Researchers reached several conclusions. One, for example, is that it is preferrable to choose products that occupy the least land. Additionally, it puts a tombstone on the advertised sustainability of a vegan diet. It’s just not true. Because the diet “leaves too many resources unutilized”. Different crops require different types of land to have proper yealds – reported Business Insider -. Not all crops can be farmed on any land that is used for grazing, because often the soil doesn’t have the necessary nutrients”.
True sustainability
The matter of how lifestyles influence the food insutry is still open. The US research though has moved many of our habits. But the most important lesson is this: people should get informed, rather than let themselves be persuaded by slogans. For example: vegan and green aren’t the same thing.
Read also:
- “Made of vegan leather is more sustainable”: one more joins the number…
- EU makes no decision on veggie burger veto and leaves things as they are
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