Is veganism better than meat eating?

Introduction
This question will focus on what kinds of effects going vegan and veganism itself can have on the
environment and whether they are beneficial for the environment in relationship to its rival 'meat'.
Firstly, we will be going over the carbon footprint both of these have. Secondly we are going to see
which one of these two is more resource thirsty. Main focus will be on multiple global aspects of things
however we will somewhat focus on national perspectives of 1-2 countries. We will focus on all of this to
see whether going vegan is really better fir the environment as compared to meat.

Content
ISSUE 1
Greenhouse gasses and Carbon emissions are known to be extremely deadly to the environment,
especially since they can deplete the ozone layer thus can lead to a variety of problems for everyone.
Meat and dairy livestock are responsible for 18% of manmade greenhouse emissions To put this into
context as UNEP said “The greenhouse gas footprint of animal agriculture rivals that of every car, truck,
bus, ship, airplane, and rocket ship combined “. This obviously as a result greatly contributes to this
problem of carbon emissions. now according to Scientific American it is far better to use plant based
food rather than meat one since they have a comparatively smaller carbon footprint for example the
production of a pound of meat will result in emissions equal to driving a car for 9.8 miles but for a pound
of potatoes it will be equivalent to driving the same car for 0.17 miles. Plus the world count has
measured that peas despite being an important ingredient of many vegan products has six times less
contribution to carbon emissions as compared to beef. on top of that Time For Change states that a cow
releases 70 - 100 kg of methane per year so in total it will be equivalent to a car driving 12.5k km per
year now this is bad as methane has a 23 times more bigger carbon footprint as compared to Carbon di-
oxide thus as a consequence this has greatly contributed to the issue [CITATION HOW19 \l 1033 ] and So
we can see that production of meat is far more harmful for the environment as compared to the
production of plant based foods so as a course of action it will be one beneficial to adopt veganism in
your and everyday lifestyle and to back this up according to a report by the PNAS if we all were to
convert veganism then the global food based emissions will decrease by 70% by the year 2050
[ CITATION bbc \l 1033 ] thus turning vegan is an appropriate course of action in order to benefit the
environment.

ISSUE 2
Our earth's resources were always limited and wasting them can be very troublesome in the long run.
Firstly we will be talking about alternative milks, these alternative milks are produced for vegans as a
substitute for dairy milk however the production of these milks is very water thirsty. For example the
production of a single glass of almond milk can consume up to 74 liters of water then come rice milk
which doesn’t fall very far behind taking up to 54 liters for the production of a single glass now
consequently this is bad for us since it greatly consuming our resources however veganism should not
be shunned because of this since dairy milk consumes far larger amount of water as compared to
almond and rice milk thus being vegan would be better option to adopt in this case. Then moving on to
avocados, these avocados are very popular amongst vegans especially because of its nutritional value
however Water Footprint Network says that in order to produce even a kilo of avocados up to 2000
liters of water will be needed for example this is 4 times higher than amount needed for a kilo of
oranges and 10 times higher than the amount needed to make a kilo of tomatoes which as we can see
isn't very favorable if you want efficient allocation of resources on top of that since the demand is
already very high as the population grows the demand for these further rises. We can see a
consequence of this in Mexico where the farmer started cutting tress illegally to meet this demand and
to profit off this valuable crop. So not only do avocados consume a huge amount of water but they can
lead to further wasting of resources like illegally cutting trees. Now a course of action for this avocado
problem could be that is people should buy avocados which are certified by some sort of scheme for
example equal exchange or fair trade which will help in minimizing the effects. Also another course of
action can be that people should choose alternatives to avocados which provide the same amount of
nutrients for example as Joanna Blythman explains, "if you’re looking for vitamin K, broccoli or cabbages
have it. If it’s vitamin E you’re seeking, there’s plenty in wheat germ oil, sunflower seeds or almonds.
Folate/vitamin B9 is in kidney beans, lentils or cauliflower. If it’s about monounsaturated oils, extra
virgin olive oil and sesame or peanut oil are great alternatives" Next up soya beans which are an
extremely popular product in meat alternative products for example tofu, flour, vegan burgers,
vegetables sausages, etc. However soy is the 2nd largest agricultural driver of deforestation around the
world. WWF states that, "from the US to the Amazon, forests, grasslands, and wetlands are being
plowed up to make room for more soy production" this is bad for the sustainability of our resources plus
the environment as well but just like earlier we should not get too hasty in shunning veganism due to 2
reason, the first is that only 6% percent of this soya is consumed directly by humans and that the rest is
grown for meat & dairy companies then coming over to the second reason which is that beef is the 1st
agricultural driver of deforestation meaning it has a far bigger effect on the sustainability of our
resources and the well-being of our environment so the course of action here will be to adopt veganism
in order to stop the effect of the meat production plus this can be further minimized by adopting the
method the nation of brazil is using which is that they formed an agreement between major soy
companies to not buy soy from newly deforested land in order to slow down the rate of deforestation.
[ CITATION bbc \l 1033 ] plus on top of that as the demand of meat increases on order to deal with this
enormous demand huge amounts of land will end up getting cleared to make room for these animals
and the crops needed to feed them, this can also lead to illegal cutting of trees like the one in Mexico
mentioned above. Now in the country of USA just to meet this demand of meat 80% of all its agricultural
land is used for the purpose of growing crops to feed the livestock and make space for these animals.
After all this we see that veganism is a better option as compared to meat in case of sustainibility of
resources so the appropriate course of action overall will be to adopt veganism.

ISSUE 3
Affordability of products is an important aspect to many people's life and greatly effects their everyday
decisions thus we are going to see whether vegan products are more affordable as compared to meat
products. As the vegan meat market grows, more and more fast food chains, restaurants, etc. join in on
this trend however there is one problem with this that is vegan meat is often more expensive as
compared to normal meat. Firstly companies want to maximize profits then secondly since the market
for vegan meat is small as of right now, people have a harder time negotiating for ingredient prices as a
consequence of this vegan meat tend to be more expensive compared to their counterparts. Thus
people will obviously choose normal meat over vegan meat due to its affordability. However since the
vegan meat market is growing at such an incredibly fast rate it would not be very long until these vegan
meat prices go down[ CITATION VEG \l 1033 ] but still as of right now normal meat is a better option
when it comes to affordability. a course of action for this could be that vegans can adopt a diet which do
not include expensive products like these at least or they can cook these products from home because
prepared food will always be more expensive and that these ingredients are generally cheaper so it will
be cheaper to make vegan meat products at home[ CITATION Veg \l 1033 ]. But alas this may be
inconvenient for many and as far as buying from markets and shops go normal meat is a better option.

Conclusion
1. https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/vegan-diet-better-environment#:~:text=Studies
%20show%20that%20vegan%20diets,because%20they%20only%20ate%20fruit
2. https://www.livekindly.co/this-is-why-a-vegan-diet-is-better-for-the-environment/
3. https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/animals-used-food-factsheets/vegetarianism-
environment/
4. https://www.peta.org/about-peta/faq/vegan-options-are-more-expensive-than-their-
nonvegetarian-counterparts-can-i-afford-to-go-vegan/#:~:text=Veggie%20staples%20such%20as
%20pasta,staples%2C%20like%20fruits%20and%20vegetables.
5. https://www.livekindly.co/vegan-meat-cheaper-animal-meat/