I genuinely don’t think you’ve researched the environmental impact of beef production. Your reference of methane production tells me everything I need to know.
To be fair, the Italians have a very varied diet that includes lots of veggie meals. It's just that we (well, the Americans mainly) then go throwing meat into them. Never had any trouble at all when visiting Italy as a vegetarian. The same cannot be said for Spain and France however! Nightmare there.
We went to France with a gang that included vegetarians this summer and we had no problem. We were however mostly cooking in the accommodation we'd rented, and at the height of summer there was plenty of fantastic fresh fruit and veg around. I can imagine that eating out would be a massive pain though by and large. The French do seem to think that vegetarianism is something very fringe. And I reckon being vegan there would be absolutely terrible! I spent most of the time eating bread and cheese, and drinking the local grape juice....
China didn't really do vegetarian/vegan on the whole when I lived there in 2002. May have changed since then plus I was in quite a remote place. Some of my colleagues didn't eat meat and they asked for fried rice which came out with bits of ham in it. He told them he didn't eat meat... came back out and they'd clearly tried to pick out all the bits but some were left in!!
Well. It takes the same resources to produce 8kg of grain as it does 1kg of beef. Animal agriculture is the single biggest pollutant on the planet. The carbon footprint difference is that of a baby's shoe compared to a size 10 pit boot.. The evidence is overwhelming & very easy to find.. & that's without me playing the AR card, which in itself is a global disgrace..
I haven't eaten meat for such a long time, I wouldn't know what is better. Except for your health. The veggie/vegan alternatives have improved massively over the years with loads more variety. If people bought into it, which they appear to. E, even here - the environmental & health benefits would improve enormously.. The proof is there, if you care to look for it..
Just reading the uninhabitable earth, Americans waste a quarter of their food, staggering And numerous studies showing nutritional value of plants diminished by as much as 30 percent due to increased carbon. Mankind is doomed, just a matter of when.
I think meat free options are still a limited market, hence pricing. & there will always be firms with a superior product. Prices will reduce with increased consumption.. I understand arguments to the contrary, plant based products from California for example. They are growing these things in the wrong place though..
My friends went to China around 2008, and were thrilled to meet a Russian guy on the Trans-Siberian who also spoke very good English and Chinese. They explained that they were veggies, and asked their travelling companion to write down a long list of useful phrases, explaining that they were vegetarian and didn't eat meat. Bingo! First stop in China, they got off the train and bounded off to the local restaurant, useful phrases in hand. The lady in the eatery nodded, appearing to have understood their request. Imagine their disappointment when they were brought several dishes which not only contained chicken, but actually seemed to consist of every part of the bird imaginable, with the exception of the beak and feathers! My friend who lived in China later explained that the Chinese word for "meat" only actually means pork. Everything else isn't meat (including ham, seemingly!).They also think that people who eat dairy products are uncouth savages, which for a nation which routinely eats penis soup, is a touch odd.
Having witnessed on a recent trip to Alabama and Mississippi the amount they do manage to shove down their greedy cake holes and the subsequent effect on their bulging waistlines, that's a proper fckload of food waste.
We're talking about different things. You're talking about food production, I'm talking about transport, packaging, processing and that's all pretty easy to find too... Actually, it's not. Getting a true carbon footprint of food is actually difficult because these things are rarely taken into account. The solution to not eating meat is not to eat processed food made in America processed from grains and pulses grown on another continent that were themselves processed in yet another continent.
I’ve an American client who I often trade insults with, and he shared an image of a local convenience store and what lunch constituted. The most common drink was soda, the most common size was I think he said 72oz.. refillable... for 79 cents. The local convenience store is the bedrock of American civilisation, cheap, over sugared, overly packaged gluttonous crap sold for pennies... and that’s the daily norm for millions of people. The average American has double the carbon footprint of the average European. Frightening.