For a lower climate footprint, vegetarian diet beats local

Did a new years resolution to try and do what I can to lessen climate change. Calculated carbon foot print with a calculator. Concluded main changes needed was to changes required eat less red meat and drive and ride cars less. Try and consume less new things, prefer buying used things. Buying quality items that lasts long instead of cheap buy and throw.<p>Changing to vegetarian diet and driving less had the biggest impact.

Btw it&#x27;s not really necessary to consume &gt;only&lt; vegetarian &#x2F; vegan food. Since couple of months I try and eat vegan meals for one day per week and reduce eating meat to at most 2 times per week. I can gladly say that this is manageable, not a big deal for all of us and doesn&#x27;t require so much strictness ( IMO ). Nevertheless the benefit for the environment is not as big than being a vegan &#x2F; vegetarian, but still bigger than eating meat 7 days per week.<p>Side topic, but meat these days is quite expensive if you really take it from a quality manufacturer ( Bio meat in Germany costs 3 times more than the &quot;regular&quot; one ). You can imagine what kind of meat you get if you don&#x27;t have to dig deep into your pocket for a meal.

As a cooking enthusiast I struggle with finding vegetarian recipes that are appealing to me, my wife and kids, even if we’d like to eat more vegetables.<p>As a “carnivore” or at least omnivore, most dishes feel like they’re either missing some part (i.e. “dinner is just a salad”) or trying to imitate a meat product.

The biggest takeaway I get from the article is that the average annual food-sourced CO2 emissions is equivalent to driving 6000km. Average car owners in North America do quite a bit more than that annually (and likely in a vehicle that produces much more CO2 per km than the europe-based study would use)

This isn’t really why people like to eat “local”, though. Local food is popular primarily because it tastes better since it’s fresher.

Greenhouse emissions from meat&#x2F;dairy production (the all chain) in highly efficient meat industries of 1st world countries, are negligible when compared to to other sources. [1]<p>Even when looking at the global numbers and taking into account countries with less efficient systems, the global total is still less than 15% of all greenhouse emissions. [2]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ourworldindata.org&#x2F;co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ourworldindata.org&#x2F;co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Environmental_impact_of_meat_production" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Environmental_impact_of_meat...</a>

Makes sense, cows are bad for the environment, no matter how far away they live from you.