(Montreal) People who decide to abstain from consuming animal products such as meat, dairy products or eggs reduce greenhouse gases from their plate by 75%, according to data collected from a sample of 55,000 people.
The vegan (vegan) diet emits 75% less GHG than that of heavy meat consumers and uses 75% less land to produce the food.
Also, the amount of water needed to produce and process vegan food is 54% less than that needed to feed those who eat 100 grams of meat a day.
A vegan diet also reduces the potential loss of biodiversity caused by food production by 66%.
This is the conclusion of a recent study published by 10 English researchers, mainly associated with Oxford University, in the journal nature food.
The relationship between environmental impact and the consumption of food of animal origin is clear and should encourage its reduction.
Quote from Oxford University study
Many studies have shown in recent years that meatless diets have much less negative impact on the environment, but what makes the study by English researchers special is that “it is not based on modeling eating behaviors, but rather on real eating behaviors,” said Alexia Renard, doctoral student in political science at the University of Montreal and co-author of a book on veganism.
This new research required colossal work, the English researchers having collected data from “55,504 vegans, vegetarians, fish and meat eaters”. They also determined the environmental footprint of food by studying the life cycle of 570 products from 38,000 farms in 119 countries.
The study authors point out that food production accounts for 34% of total global GHG emissions and is responsible for 70% of global freshwater use. These impacts are mainly caused by animal husbandry.
“It takes large spaces to grow food that is not intended for human consumption, but rather for consumption by cattle. We therefore use a lot of agricultural land, which leads to deforestation, so there is an impact on biodiversity, on climate change, on water consumption and the use of pesticides,” summarized Catherine Houssard, researcher in life cycle analysis at CIRAIG at Polytechnique Montréal.
According to the researcher, if study participants published in nature food had been from Quebec, the conclusions would have been the same, but probably with different deviations.
“For example, in Quebec, we are fortunate to have one of the milk producers with the lowest environmental footprint in the world, in particular because it is a producer that consumes very little water. But despite the regional differences, it would give the same conclusion”, that is to say that “consuming less animal products has a positive impact on the environment”.
Catherine Houssard indicated that “the study reminds us that food is a very significant lever of action for consumers who want to have an impact in the fight against climate change”, adding that it represents 20% of the carbon footprint of Quebecers.
This is an observation that political science doctoral student Alexia Renard also underlines, who recently interviewed 50 young vegans as part of university research. “Eighty percent of them give the fight against climate change as one of the reasons for their change in eating behavior. »
Nearly 600,000 Canadians said they were vegan in 2020, according to researchers at Dalhousie University, which represents less than 2% of the population.