Thrive Foods: 200 Plant-Based Recipes for Peak Health

2  Eating Resources: The Environmental Toll of Food Production

Producing the vast amount of food required to support our population places a significant draw on our ecosystem, but it’s a necessary exchange. Nonetheless, the divide between the resource requirements of plant-based food production and those of animal-based food production is impressive, greater than I ever could have imagined.

In the pages that follow, I explore the use of natural resources in relation to food production. The three natural resources required to produce food are arable land, water, and fuel (most of it fossil fuel). I also factor in the carbon dioxide, or CO2, emissions that are released into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuel during the food production process. In addition, I consider other emission sources such as methane and nitrous oxide.

ARABLE LAND

Arable land refers to land that can be used for growing crops. It is undoubtedly one of our most precious natural resources and without it we couldn’t produce even close to enough food to meet the demands of our rapidly growing population. While the land—the geographical space that croplands occupy—itself is vital, of equal importance is the quality of soil covering it.

Healthy topsoil is in fact a complex blend of elements that are vital to the growing process of nutritious food. Composed of a mixture of organic material, such as decaying plant matter, fungi, bacteria, and microorganisms, soil is much more than simply dirt. Just one acre can be home to 900 pounds of earthworms, 2400 pounds of fungi, 1500 pounds of bacteria, 133 pounds of protozoa, and 890 pounds of arthropods and algae.1

Topsoil also comprises a vast quantity of minerals that are the necessary catalysts for plants to produce vitamins, enzymes, antioxidants, a plethora of phytonutrients, and amino acids (protein), and that give them the ability to formulate hormones. Without minerals, none of these vital nutritional components can be constructed.

Plants are the medium. They draw minerals from the soil, passing them on to us in a form we can assimilate.

And since we can’t digest soil, plants come to our aid; they draw minerals into their stalks, leaves, and seeds, and then act as the delivery system through which the nutrition originating in the soil (the minerals) is passed on to us, through the food we eat.

Plants are the medium. They draw minerals from the soil, passing them on to us in a form we can assimilate.

Minerals are not only vital for good health but are in fact the base on which health is built. Low mineral intake is now accepted as a substantial increased risk factor for myriad conditions, including osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, depression, and obesity. Mineral deficiencies have been shown to play a role in cardiovascular disease (CVD), which kills 910,000 people in the United States annually.2 That equates to an American death every 35 seconds. And while nutrient-absent food isn’t the only contributing factor, it’s among the most significant. According to the World Health Organization, a major reason for the widespread incidence of CVD is that “people are consuming a more energy-dense, nutrient-poor diet and are less physically active.”3 So basically people are eating more calories than they need while getting too few micronutrients—the textbook definition of a low nutrient-dense diet. In fact, two-time Nobel prize–winning chemist Dr. Linus Pauling stated that “you can trace every sickness, every disease and every ailment to a mineral deficiency.”4 As mentioned earlier, nutritional stress is primarily a result of a lack of micronutrients, such as minerals and phytonutrients, in our food, and they cannot be present in the food if minerals are lacking in the soil. And as we know, stress is the root cause of most diseases. And the lack of micronutrients in food is the root cause of nutritional stress. So good health actually begins in the soil.

Today, the mineral content in our soil is drastically lower than it was even just a few decades ago, contributing to the strange paradox of a population overfed yet undernourished, an increasing and widespread health issue. According to the findings at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Earth Summit, held in 1992, North America “leads” the continents of the world in soil mineral depletion, having lost 85 percent of the mineral content in its soil over the past century (in comparison, South America’s and Asia’s minerals are 76 percent of what they were 100 years ago; Africa’s, 74 percent; Europe, 72 percent; and Australia, 55 percent).5 Sodium, calcium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, copper, zinc, and iron—all of them began their taper about 100 years ago, as population growth began to strain the land and its ability to produce an adequate supply of food.

For reasons such as population growth, the demand we place on our dwindling supply of arable land continues to increase. As the population increases, not only are there more mouths to feed, but housing more people also leads to suburban sprawl, which paves over arable land. So, as our demand for food continued to grow, the geographic space in which to grow it continued to shrink.

Conventional farming has reacted to this dilemma with a simple objective: to grow as much food as possible on as little land as possible. Mass and volume of production became paramount, but unfortunately the quality of the food grown was neglected in the process.

Since traditionally food has been understood to be synonymous with nutrition, the thinking traditionally has been that the more food we eat, the better nourished we’ll be. But, not so, as I explained in Chapter 1; I learned this the hard way when I tried to better nourish myself in hopes of propelling my athletic performance. I ate more food to try to correct my lack of nourishment, which led to being overfed yet undernourished, a condition that unfortunately affects a significant percentage of the population. As I know now, I should have eaten not simply more food but more nutrient-dense food. The disconnect I and so many others have experienced is that though food once equalled nutrition, it’s not necessarily so today. Not taking mineral content into account, conventional farming aims simply to produce more food on less land. Volume, mass, and calories are all that’s considered when evaluating crop yield.

Because of heavy demands on the North American food system, genetic modification and widespread pesticide use have become the rule, not the exception. Despite the increasing awareness and popularity of organic food, its production worldwide pales in comparison to that of conventionally farmed and genetically modified organism (GMO) crops. According to Organic-World.net, only 0.8% percent of the world’s total crops are grown without genetic modification and organically.6 Clearly, a minuscule amount. Specifically looking to North America, Organic-World. net states that as of 2008 only 0.93 percent of Canadian crops were grown organically, only slightly better than the world average, while the United States’ organic food crops registered at a dismal 0.6 percent. While genetic modification and chemical pest deterrents allow for a greater volume of food to be produced on less land, they may prove to cause serious health problems in years to come. And the decline of nutrient density is likely just one of the negative effects of producing our food this way. The possible complications of long-term GMO crops in our food supply are as yet unknown, and the effects on our health of chemical residue from pesticides are still to be determined.

Since there is a finite amount of each mineral in a given plot of land, the plants grown are limited by what is present in the soil. More plants doesn’t mean more nutrition. The more food that’s grown on a given plot of land, the less total amount of minerals each plant will contain, rendering each plant less nutrient dense. Clearly that’s a problem.

Another factor is the type of crop. Each species of plant has a set limit as to how much of a given mineral it can draw into its cellulose. Here’s how it works: when we eat food grown in over-farmed, mineral-depleted soil, to obtain the same amount of health-essential minerals, we need to consume more food. This of course equates to a greater intake of calories. In addition, the chemical hunger signal that I mentioned in Chapter 1 will remain active until it’s satisfied that we’ve got the minerals—and the vitamins and the phytochemicals that the plant can produce only once it has drawn an adequate supply of the minerals from the soil—that we need to be healthy. And if our body is not satisfied—and it won’t be if the minerals aren’t in the soil—it will urge us to eat more the only way it knows how: by making us hungry. So hunger doesn’t necessarily mean we haven’t eaten enough food. More often than not, today hunger means we haven’t eaten enough nutrient-rich food.

Lack of minerals in the soil



Micronutrient deficiency in our food



Chronic hunger; tendency to overeat



Weight gain and risk factor increased for

·               Type 2 diabetes

·               Hypertension

·               Arthritis

·               Osteoporosis

·               Cardiovascular disease

Since the consumption of more calories with fewer minerals leads to a chronically active hunger signal, the tendency to overeat, followed closely by weight gain, will be the result. Being overweight will increase the risk factor for a wide range of diseases: type 2 diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, osteoporosis, and cardiovascular disease. So, simply producing a greater volume of food should not be our goal, but rather producing food that is of the highest nutrient density, which is governed, in large part, by soil quality.

Clearly the consumption of more calories and fewer nutrients equates to a diet of lower nutrient density, which can lead to health concerns and disease. And in fact, it’s what the Standard American Diet is built on: lots of calories but very few micronutrients, such as minerals.

Crop “yield” needs to be redefined and assessed as “nutrition contained within the food” as opposed to the total weight, volume, or caloric value of the food harvested.

Brian Halweil, a senior fellow at the Worldwatch Institute covering issues of food and agriculture, and the co-director of Nourishing the Planet, lays out the argument in a 2007 report titled Still No Free Lunch: Nutrient Levels in U.S. Food Supply Eroded by Pursuit of High Yields. Halweil describes the shortcomings of striving simply to obtain crop volume, mass, and calories from food. Instead, Halweil suggests, food producers ought to focus on the nutrient value of the food. Halweil eloquently concludes the report by saying:

Yield increases per acre have come predominantly from two sources—growing more plants on a given acre, and harvesting more food or animal feed per plant in a given field. In some crops like corn, most of the yield increase has come from denser plantings, while in other crops, the dominant route to higher yields has been harvesting more food per plant, tree, or vine.

But American agriculture’s single-minded focus on increasing yields over the last half-century created a blind spot where incremental erosion in the nutritional quality of our food has occurred. This erosion, modest in some crops but significant in others for some nutrients, has gone largely unnoticed by scientists, farmers, government and consumers.7

Crop “yield” needs to be redefined and assessed as “nutrition contained within the food” as opposed to the total weight, volume, or caloric value of the food harvested.

Once I’d become familiar with the workings of this problem, the value of arable land was firmly impressed on me. I’ve never looked at rolling pastureland the same way since. What I learned next was hard to comprehend.

Livestock production uses a staggering 70 percent of all arable land and 30 percent of the land surface of the planet.

In 2008 I participated in the Students for Sustainability National Campus Tour, which was a joint initiative of the Canadian Federation of Students, the Sierra Youth Coalition, and the David Suzuki Foundation. We visited 22 campuses across Canada in 30 days, talking about the urgent need to create sustainable communities and campuses. While doing research for the speech I was preparing to deliver on the tour, I came across an extremely fascinating—and equally horrifying—piece of information. As unbelievable as it may seem, multiple reputable sources, such as the United Nations and the Worldwatch Institute, corroborated that 70 percent of the food grown on—and drawing minerals from—our precious arable land was not in fact for us to eat but would serve instead as animal food, specifically, livestock feed.8

Animals being raised to be eaten—and animals being raised so that their by-products can be eaten, such as cows for milk and chickens for eggs—are collectively termed livestock. According to the United Nations, the raising of livestock is by far the single greatest anthropogenic use of land. Twenty-six percent of the ice-free surface of Earth is used as grazing land. Additionally, 33 percent of total arable land is used to grow food—primarily corn, soy, and wheat—to feed to animals. Factoring in grazing land and feedcrop requirements, livestock production uses a staggering 70 percent of all arable land and 30 percent of the land surface of the planet.9

While soil mineral depletion began approximately 100 years ago, the sharpest decline started about 30 years later, beginning in the 1940s. Not so coincidentally, this is when large-scale animal agriculture began commandeering the vast majority of our land.

Also, since 1940, cardiovascular disease has been on the rise.10 And interestingly, its escalation has been in concert with widespread animal agriculture and the corresponding decline of mineral-rich soil. Coincidence?

Unfortunately, even those who don’t eat meat are impacted by inefficient farming because of loss of nutrient-rich soil, since it affects the whole food supply.

Note that the lack of mineral content in animal feed is not a concern—in fact, it’s desirable. As with humans, when animals eat nutrient-absent refined starch-based calories, they gain weight. The whole point of feeding animals this grain-based diet is to quickly increase their mass. And that it does. Of course, as I’ve mentioned, if there are no nutrients in the soil, then there are none in the animal, or in the person who eats it.

Raising animals for food is clearly an exceptional draw on arable land. But, to make matters worse, it’s also an incredibly inefficient way of utilizing the dwindling supply that remains. For example, for every 16 pounds of plant matter (primarily composed of corn, wheat, and soy, most of which is genetically modified) fed to a cow, one pound of meat is returned.11 Where do the other 15 pounds go? While a fraction is burned to fuel the cow’s movement and some is lost into the atmosphere in the form of heat, the vast majority ends up as manure. So, we are literally turning one of our most valuable natural resources into manure.

Currently, the livestock population in the United States consumes more than seven times as much grain as the human population eats.12

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the amount of grain fed to U.S. livestock would be able to feed about 800 million people (2.7 times the entire U.S. population) who followed a plant-based diet.13

A factory-farmed cow needs to consume 16 pounds of cattle feed (wheat, corn, soy) to yield 1 pound of meat for human consumption.

And that estimate’s based on people simply eating the crops grown for livestock. Now, if instead of growing GMO corn, soy, and wheat—destined to be fed to animals—we were instead to sow the fields with non-GMO, organic, nutrient-rich crops, such as hemp, flax, yellow peas, and kale, we would not only be able to feed more than double the U.S. population with ease but, most importantly, we’d be feeding them with nutrient-dense whole food. Far fewer people would be overfed yet undernourished, and disease would significantly decline.

Factory-farmed animals are fed wheat, corn, and soy, which are primarily carbohydrate based. Yet because of the sheer volume these animals are fed, they ingest six times as much protein as they yield in return.14 And it takes 20 times as much land to grow beef for protein as it does to grow plants for protein.

What about grass-fed beef? If all who ate factory-farmed beef were to switch to grass-fed, there simply would not be enough meat to go around. Factory farming was created for a reason: to produce more food on less land. And it works. However, as already pointed out, it does so by yielding volume, mass, and calories rather than the true components of nutrition.

If beef eaters in the United Sates were to switch to exclusively grass-fed beef, one small steak about once every three weeks is all that would be available. There simply wouldn’t be enough to meet demand. And if more grazing land were to be created, of course deforestation would be the result.

THRIVE AT A GLANCE

·               Arable land with mineral-rich soil is vital to the production of micronutrient-rich food.

·               Mineral-deficient food is a leading cause of disease in North America.

·               More food doesn’t necessarily mean more nutrition.

·               As minerals decline, disease goes up.

·               Calories without micronutrients cause overconsumption that leads to weight gain.

·               Mineral content in our food has been declining since the 1940s, when industrialized farming began to take over the plains.

·               Animal agriculture is an inefficient use of land and therefore depletes the soil of minerals.

·               Seventy percent of food grown is destined to be fed to animals.

·               If nutrient-dense food crops were planted in place of animal feed, a population over twice the size of North America’s could be fed on the highest quality of food.

And as we know, it makes sense to “be the change we want to see in the world.” So what if North Americans made the switch to eat grass-fed beef instead of factory-farmed meat? Would the result be a change we want to see? While one problem would be solved, another problem would arise—lack of grazing land. Clearly, swapping one problem for another will not give us a sustainable solution. We need to make the change—to be the change—that is a true, lasting solution.

FRESH WATER

Having grown up in North Vancouver and having rain fall from the sky for most of the year, learning to appreciate the value of water wasn’t always easy. But in October 2008, while on the Students for Sustainability National Campus Tour, I met Maude Barlow. She is an author, an activist, and a world authority on water, and served as senior advisor to the United Nations. Understandably, I was honored to speak before her talk at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

After my speech, I sat back, watched, and listened. Barlow clearly articulated facts about water that I had never even considered. And as I began to see how the rest of the world lived—without water for proper sanitation or even adequate water to drink—I developed a newfound appreciation for it.

Usable non-polluted fresh water is less than 1 percent of the Earth’s total. And 70 percent of that 1 percent is primarily used for agriculture animal feed.

Referring to the much greater public concern about our looming energy crisis, Barlow stated that “no one ever died from a lack of energy.”

That prompted me to delve deeper to find out more water-related facts. As nicely illustrated by the diagram on the next page, the United Nations research team concluded that fresh, non-polluted water should be considered one of our most valuable resources. While we are all acutely aware of the vital role water plays in keeping us alive, it wasn’t until recently that the world’s supply of drinkable water became a concern.

Using numbers put forth by the United Nations, 75 percent of the Earth is covered by water, yet 97.5 percent of that is salt water, which leaves just 2.5 percent as fresh water. However, 70 percent of that is frozen, leaving only 30 percent as ground water that we have access to. Unfortunately, a large amount of that water is polluted, so what we are left with as usable non-polluted fresh water is less than 1 percent of the Earth’s total. And 70 percent of that 1 percent is primarily used for agriculture animal feed, and another 22 percent for industry. Therefore, what we have remaining is about 0.08 percent for domestic use.15 Clearly, there is good reason to make a concerted conservation effort when using water around the house by using low-flow showerheads, not letting water run as we brush our teeth, and so on. But by far the most significant impact we can have on our conservation efforts is to reduce agriculture water usage. The 70 percent of non-polluted water that we use to irrigate fields is mostly going to animal feed crops. Not only are we using an inordinate amount of water in the production of animal feed, but upward of 85 percent of that feed is turned out as manure soon after consumption.16 And that’s the next concern. Farmed animals are not much more than a system for converting natural resources into manure, a by-product, which, to add insult to injury, is largely responsible for increasing the amount of water pollution so that our already dwindling supply of usable water becomes still scarcer.

And of course to transport the manure away, well, that takes energy too, from, of course, fossil fuel.

Of the usable water we have, most is used to irrigate feed crops for animals, leaving very little water for direct human consumption.

(Adapted from the original at treehugger.com. Used with permission.)

This depiction does not take into account the water damage that livestock contributes to. The livestock sector not only uses a vast amount of water directly but, according to the United Nations, is responsible for significant water pollution. This is from the executive summary of a U.N. report, speaking of livestock production:

It is probably the largest sectoral source of water pollution, contributing to eutrophication, “dead” zones in coastal areas, degradation of coral reefs, human health problems, emergence of antibiotic resistance and many others. The major sources of pollution are from animal wastes, antibiotics, and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and pesticides used for feedcrops, and sediments from eroded pastures.17

Water requirements to produce 1 pound of beef, not taking into consideration the water pollution caused by manure are as follows:

Factoring in irrigation for feed crops, it takes at least 2500 U.S. gallons of water to yield 1 pound of beef18 (some sources estimate it can take as much as 12,000 gallons19). That’s 59.5 standard bathtubs’ worth of water to get a couple of sirloin steaks or a big helping of prime rib to your table.

In contrast, only about 60 gallons of water, enough to fill 1.36 bathtubs, are needed to produce a pound of sweet potatoes.20

About 100 gallons of water, the capacity of 2.3 standard-size bathtubs, are needed to grow one pound of hemp seed.21

In short, the amount of water it takes to produce a pound of beef is 25 times more than needed to grow a pound of hemp seed, and about 42 times more than needed to produce a pound of sweet potatoes.

THRIVE AT A GLANCE

·               Our fresh water supply is dwindling.

·               Producing animals for food requires more water than producing plants for food.

·               Industrialized animal agriculture pollutes large amounts of scarce fresh water.

FOSSIL FUEL

Oil, coal, and natural gas are collectively known as fossil fuel and abundantly overused in North America. In fact, 85 percent of energy produced in North America is derived from the burning of these carbon-rich deposits.22Essentially, fossil fuel is made up of prehistoric plant matter that, millions of years ago, extracted and “quarantined” carbon from the ancient atmosphere. As with plants today, they were made up of a combination of cellulose and sunlight. A plant is primarily the result of the process of photosynthesis, in which chlorophyll converts sunlight into carbohydrate for the plant to “eat.” Cellulose is the plant matter created. Therefore, plants are in fact solidified sunlight and, as such, the energy of the sun will be released back into the atmosphere when these ancient plants are burned or decay. As Thom Hartmann eloquently puts it in his excellent book The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, fossil fuel is our savings account for the sun’s energy that shone on Earth millions of years ago. Allenergy originates from the sun. Plants, of course, cannot exist without sunlight, and animals, of course, cannot exist without plants. We, as humans, are solar-powered too. Eating plants that, through photosynthesis, trap sunlight and use it to fabricate vitamins, grow cellulose, and draw minerals from the soil pass on to us the energy that originated from the sun.

Plants are in fact solidified sunlight and, as such, the energy of the sun will be released back into the atmosphere when these ancient plants are burned or decay.

Since our population began to grow considerably, and since our demand for energy paralleled this expansion, we got to a point where we could no longer rely simply on the current sunlight—solidified into trees—as a form of fuel (firewood) to keep pace with our escalating energy needs. So, we had to break open our savings account. Coal was the first of the fossil fuels to be burned since it was easily accessible and needed no refinement. Initially it was used in place of wood as a means to heat a room. The warmth and light from sunlight that had shone down on the Earth millions of years ago, combined with cellulose and carbon dioxide, was now being released back into the atmosphere. Enter the age of artificial climate change.

Soon after came the discovery of oil and the realization that it could serve as a dense source of energy, at that time primarily used for heating. The ability we accrued to refine and utilize it changed our path of evolution. It allowed us to grow our population more rapidly and has led to our ability to sustain its swift growth rate. Since the first chunk of coal was ignited, we have grown ever more dependent on our savings account, primarily consisting of two sources of oil.

The United States gets its oil from Canada and the Middle East. Neither source is without its share of challenges.

The Alberta oil sands, often referred to as the tar sands, supply a vast amount of the world’s oil. Canada is now the number-one supplier of oil—ahead of Saudi Arabia—to the United States.23

The rich carbon deposits found in the oil sands are in the form of a thick, heavy type of oil called bitumen. Geologically, bitumen has not been “cooked” long enough to reach the light viscosity of coveted Middle Eastern crude.

The energy required to take bitumen from the earth and transform it into usable carbon products is extraordinary. In fact, some estimates suggest that for every unity of energy we obtain from the oil sands, we have used an equal amount of energy to extract and process it.24 And since that energy comes from the burning of fossil fuel, our net energy gain would be zero. Clearly, this cancels out the oil sands as a solution to our energy shortfall. In addition, for every barrel of oil extracted and processed, three times that amount of water is needed, 90 percent of which is then deemed polluted.25

But the oil sands are great for the economy. Within our current structure, inefficiency is at the root of a robust economic system. The more people we can put to work doing things—and being paid well for it—the better. Alberta leads the way; it is the only Canadian province with a monetary surplus, so the argument is that that province must be doing something right. Or is it inefficient?

The crude oil imported from the Middle East is much easier to extract from the earth and therefore takes much less energy and involves a less labor-intensive process. Plus, turning it into a usable product, such as gasoline, is considerably less involved, so that the process again requires less energy to be burned and fewer hands to make it happen.

There are clearly issues with both sources of oil. While less energy is required to extract and process crude oil form the Middle East, it must be transported to North America to be of use. As you can imagine, an immense amount of energy must be spent to load millions of gallons of oil on a freighter and have it shipped thousands of miles to North America. Also, it is not desirable that the United States be dependent on Middle Eastern nations for its energy, since its relationship with some of these nations is tumultuous. Should those nations decide to “turn off the tap,” they would bring the United States, at its current rate of oil consumption, to its knees within a month.

Energy independence starts with reduced demand. And being more efficient is something we can all begin immediately. From there, new energy solutions can be developed domestically to sever our reliance on foreign oil.

And then there’s the question of remaining supply. “How much more oil is left?” With deposits to our energy savings account being made only every few million years, how long can we continue to spend without earning before we’re broke?

That’s exactly the question being asked by many prominent scientists, many of whom subscribe to the “peak oil” theory. Defined as “the point at which maximum global oil production is reached, after which the rate of production goes into terminal decline,” the “peak oil” hypothesis has become widely accepted.26 Most who study the subject agree that the Earth will at some point simply run out of oil. But when exactly that time will come is hotly debated. Many scientists who study the subject believe we are on the cusp of peak oil now, or may have already experienced it, dating the start of the decline around 2009. But even the optimistic peak oil theorists warn that the peak is likely to happen within our generation, beginning in 2020. From there, as peak oil believers point out, a steep and terminal decline will abruptly follow.

A minority within the scientific community feels the decline will occur much later. If we were to run out of oil, they theorize, it would be centuries, or even millennia, from now. At which point, according to this minority, it is assumed that by then we’ll have developed the technology to harness alternative forms of energy from the sun, wind, and the ever-changing sea tide.

But I think it’s safe to say that no one really knows when that point will be. Or, as some see it, if it will come at all.

I should point out that there are in fact a handful of prominent scientists who dismiss the peak oil theory altogether. These people, subscribers to the abiotic hypothesis, as it is called, believe oil regenerates itself more quickly than what is classically believed, because, they theorize, it’s not actually fossil fuel at all.27 Therefore, it is not subject to the multi-million-year process of turning ancient decaying plants and dinosaurs into crude. The abiotic hypothesis posits that oil is a natural product produced in the mantel of the Earth. Therefore, as the theory goes, millions of years are not needed to create oil; the Earth manufactures and spews it out in a timely fashion.

Since the combustion of oil creates toxic gas and releases pollution into the air that significantly increases the risk of disease, the less oil we need to burn, the better off we’ll be.

So let’s assume, against the vast scientific majority, that we will not reach peak oil in our generation—and maybe never. There’s still an undeniable problem with our level of oil consumption: emissions. Best known as greenhouse gases, these emissions are being blamed for some pretty big problems. And some observers (the United Nations, for example) suggest those emissions are what cause climate change. (I expand on this topic in the “Air Quality” section on page 50.)

Regardless, I think we can all agree that, since the combustion of oil creates toxic gas and releases pollution into the air that significantly increases the risk of disease (including cardiovascular disease),28 the less oil we need to burn, the better off we’ll be.

As humans, we obtain our energy from food, which we produce by burning fossil fuel. So, essentially, we are trading the stored energy of fossil fuel (which originated from the sun) for caloric energy that’s of biological use to us.

And each time we do this, as with any energy transfer, there is a loss. But when we pass that energy through an animal, the loss becomes significantly greater.

Growing food to feed to animals, which will in turn feed us, requires significantly more arable land than growing plants for our direct consumption. The reason so much food needs to be grown to feed these animals is that very little of the food energy passed on to the livestock is returned through their meat.

To give an idea of how energy is lost in the production of animals, here’s a breakdown:

On average, in the United States it takes 25.4 calories of fossil fuel energy to yield one calorie of animal protein for human consumption.29

In contrast, to obtain one calorie from plant-based protein, 2.2 calories of fossil fuel need to be burned.30 This figure takes in account all fuel expenditures, including the energy it takes to produce fertilizer to grow the food and to run the farm machinery that harvests it.

Source of data: Cornell Science News, “U.S. Could Feed 800 Million People with Grain that Livestock Eat …”31

*Of course, meat is inherently higher in protein than plants, so to make this comparison fairer, I’ve compared only the calories from protein. Contrasting the total number of calories produced from animal sources and those produced from plant sources would give an even more dramatically lopsided picture.

THRIVE AT A GLANCE

·               Modern life is dependent on fossil fuel.

·               Fossil fuel is our energy “savings account” from which we make regular withdrawals.

·               Alberta’s oil sands are not a solution to our energy shortfalls because of the amount of energy they use in extracting and processing the oil.

·               The majority of scientists believe that oil is running out and that reaching “peak oil” is likely within our generation.

·               The combustion of fossil fuel creates greenhouse gases and creates pollution that increases the risk of a variety of diseases.

·               Taking into consideration food production to meet livestock consumption needs, significantly more fossil fuel must be burned to produce animal-based food in comparison to plant-based options.

AIR QUALITY

When it’s burned, fossil fuel provides us with energy by releasing stored heat and light from “ancient sunlight.” However, along with the release of energy from prehistoric rays of sun comes the unwelcome by-product of sequestered carbon from prehistory, known as emissions. As dinosaurs and other ancient animals exhaled, plants collected their wayward carbon dioxide and over millions of years reduced it to fossilized sludge, which we know as coal and oil. When we burn coal and oil, the combustion releases this long-quarantined and ancient animal breath into our modern world. Believe it or not, each time you start your car, the emissions from the tailpipe are, in part, dinosaur breath being set free.

While plants may consume carbon dioxide, it’s poisonous to us oxygen-breathing creatures. And because of this, reducing the amount of emissions set free into our atmosphere is in our best interest. Besides being deadly to inhale, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions are being blamed for one of the most feared threats of modern times: artificial climate change. While most scientists agree that the Earth has experienced, and will continue to experience, a natural fluctuation in temperature change, a growing body of evidence suggests that emissions created by the combustion of fossil fuel—known as greenhouse gases—are playing a significant role in manipulating this cycle. Commonly referred to as global warming, the average temperature of the Earth is continuing to rise.

As the sun’s warm rays shine on the Earth, some of their heat is absorbed, while some is reflected back into the atmosphere, escaping into space. However, greenhouse gases trap atmospheric heat from the sun’s rays within the Earth’s atmosphere, thereby causing temperature on Earth to rise. This is aptly known as the greenhouse effect. As the amount of greenhouse gases increases, so too does the average temperature of the Earth. Even a small temperature change can have a profound negative effect on ecosystems. And there have been significant changes already.

Former U.S. vice president Al Gore’s 2006 Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, shone a spotlight on the human hastening of this dire phenomenon. Citing evidence from the leading scientists on the subject, the film put forth the hypothesis that we are indeed to blame for the rapidly increasing average temperature rise of the Earth’s atmosphere. Corroborated by a glut of scientific heavy-hitters, the film captured the world’s attention and in doing so sounded the alarm bell. Its message was simple: we are to blame and we must change our ways before it’s too late.

In one of the most compelling scenes of the film, computer-generated images showed areas, such as Florida, Shanghai, Calcutta, and Manhattan, slipping beneath the ocean surface as the polar ice caps melted because of an increase in global temperature, causing sea levels to rise. According to the film, if we continue on our current path, the polar ice caps will melt enough “in the near future” to cause a 20-foot rise in sea level, which would trigger the destruction of major coastal cities and result in “one hundred million environmental refugees.”

The volume of emissions created by operating cars, trucks, buses, airplanes, and ships, while considerable, pales in comparison to the volume of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gases released through raising animals for food.

The film blamed our seemingly insatiable thirst for energy. Required to fuel our modern lifestyle and derived from burning fossil fuel, our energy needs and “wants” create emissions. A lot of emissions. And as a result an extraordinary amount of greenhouse gases are produced. Everything we do requires energy. And almost all of it is obtained by the burning of fossil fuel.

While the film certainly captured the world’s attention, it drew criticism for offering few solutions to a problem it so passionately described. Adamantly making a case for human-hastened climate change and impending global disaster as a consequence, it left many feeling helpless. Other than suggesting, “Drive hybrid cars and replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents,” the film left viewers wanting to know how they could mitigate the part they might be playing in the advancement of the crisis.

Coincidentally, also in 2006, a United Nations report was released stating that animal agriculture is one of the greatest contributing factors to anthropologic climate change because of its inordinate energy demands. The report went on to say that animal agriculture is a larger producer of greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore a larger contributor to artificial climate change, than all modes of transportation. Combined. The volume of emissions created by operating cars, trucks, buses, airplanes, and ships, while considerable, pales in comparison to the volume of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gases released through raising animals for food. According to the U.N. report, Livestock’s Long Shadow, a whopping 18 percent of these emissions result from raising livestock for food. In comparison, 13 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions (measured in CO2 equivalent) can be attributed to the transportation sector.32 As you can imagine, when the information was released that raising animals for food created 5 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than did all of transportation, people were in a state of disbelief.

Those best-intentioned carpooling hybrid drivers who stopped at the drive-thru to pick up their daily ham and egg sandwiches were caught off guard. Now there was confusion.

Here’s the reason: greenhouse gas emissions comprise three types of gases: CO2 (carbon dioxide), nitrous oxide, and methane. While CO2 is the most common in terms of volume (it’s what’s expelled from a car’s exhaust pipe), its global warming potential, or GWP, is 23 times lower than that of methane.33 Emitted primarily from ruminants, most notably cows, methane has been fingered by the United Nations as a major contributor to anthropologic climate change. When cows and other ruminants eat grass, their digestive system breaks it down, mechanically, through chewing, and chemically, through fermentation. And a natural by-product of fermentation is gas, in this case, methane.

Yet, even worse, the vast majority of cows in North America are “produced” in factory farms where grass is not on the menu. Wheat, corn, and soy are popular feed choices since they “encourage” cows to reach their slaughter weight sooner. Cows have four stomachs, designed for the assimilation of grass, so when cows eat wheat, corn, and soy, digestive issues “erupt.” And as a direct result, excessive gas is created and released into the atmosphere, contributing to the containment of atmospheric heat. And then there’s the manure. Nitrous oxide has a global warming potential 296 times greater than that of CO2, and 65 percent of the world’s nitrous oxide emanates from livestock manure.34

So, clearly, the greatest single thing we can do as individuals to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we contribute to producing is to eat foods that create fewer emissions in their production.

But what about those who dismiss the theory that we humans (and our farmed animals) have anything to do with climate change? Those who believe that the Earth is going through a natural cycle and we are just along for the ride and are in no way responsible for the average warming of the Earth? They are going against the overwhelming scientific majority and contradicting the findings by United Nations scientists, but to be fair, there is still a small scientific community that doesn’t believe we are to blame, at all.

However, even if this small group of scientists turns out to be spot on, this is undeniable: when fossil fuel (and oil, if it turns out not to be fossil fuel after all) is converted into energy, it must be burned. And burning fossil fuel creates toxic gases, most commonly referred to as pollution.35 And there’s a direct correlation between air pollution levels and mortality rates.

Beginning in 1974, researchers at Harvard University set out to conduct a long-term study in hopes of revealing the correlation between air pollution and our number-one killer, cardiovascular disease. It had long been thought that air pollution could not be a good thing, but a long-term study on its health effects hadn’t yet been conducted. And while we knew that the lack of minerals in our food is a major contributing risk factor for CVD, what about the microscopic particulates that we breathe in—air pollution? For this investigation, known as the Six Cities Study, the researchers collected data—over the course of 14 to 16 years—on 8000 people. The results showed what a rational person might suspect; that the greater amount of pollution in the air, the greater the risk of death from cardiovascular disease.36But the unmistakable correlation between the amount of air pollution and the cardiovascular disease mortality rates was striking.

The pollution in rural areas is generally created by food production.

The researchers concluded that there was a clear connection.

While it’s true that most of the thick layer of pollution over the cities is attributable to automobiles, the pollution in rural areas is generally created by food production. Fewer people live in those areas, so perhaps, we might think, fewer people are directly affected by the pollution, but this is also the geographical space where our food is grown. As we know, plants quarantine carbon dioxide. When those plants are food crops, having them take in pollution becomes a problem. The pollution literally becomes part of our food. And then us.

As you can see, the correlation between pollution and risk of death from CVD is striking.

Data adapted from Harvard Six Cities Study.

WHAT ABOUT EATING LOCAL TO REDUCE EMISSIONS?

Eating food that’s been produced locally—commonly understood to be within a 100-mile radius—makes sense. Logically, the less distance food needs to travel to reach those who will consume it, the fewer emissions will be created.

In fact, this simple concept began gaining acceptance, and then even popularity, in 2005. Some early adopters were hailing it as our solution to climate change by reducing those dreaded “food miles” (the distance food must be transported from producer to consumer).

The thought of air-shipping food all over the world—bananas from Ecuador, pineapple from Hawaii, coconut from Thailand—seemed excessively decadent. Food miles were mounting, adding hundreds of thousands of pounds of CO2 emissions to our atmosphere each year. But what was most disconcerting to those making an effort to eat local was our desire for out-of-season fruit—pears from Australia, peaches from South America, grapes from Chile—that, if we were patient, could be obtained locally in a few months.

Several books were published on the subject and, as the movement continued to progress, pop culture embraced it.

In fact, the word “locavore” was coined to describe proponents of the movement, and in 2007 the term not only made its way into the New Oxford American Dictionary but was named that dictionary’s “word of the year.”37The dictionary defined locavore simply as “a person who endeavors to eat only locally produced food.” The locavores had arrived.

While I subscribe to the concept, grow a bunch of my own food, and shop at farmers’ markets weekly, I couldn’t help but wonder: of all the greenhouse gas emissions created by the production and delivery of food, how much of those were as a result of transportation (food miles) as opposed to production? Well, as I found out, I wasn’t the only one with this question. Thankfully, some of those who shared my curiosity happened to be research scientists at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. And with the means to get an answer, Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews conducted a study to determine the actual amount of CO2-equivalent gases emitted by transportation of food, compared to the amount emitted by its production. The results were fascinating. Weber and Matthews published their findings in the prestigious journal Environmental Science & Technology.38

In the report the authors state, “Our analysis shows that despite all the attention given to food miles, the distance that food travels only accounts for around 11 percent of the average American household’s food-related greenhouse gas emissions, while production contributes to 83 percent.” A significant divide to say the least: 7.5 times more greenhouse gas emissions are created in the production of food than by its delivery. Specifically, nitrous oxide and methane, inadvertently produced by fertilizers (for animal feed crops), manure, and gas expelled during the animals’ digestion account for a large portion of the CO2-equivalent gases created during production.39

7.5 times more greenhouse gas emissions are created in the production of food than by its delivery.

The findings shed light on what many others and I had suspected: while eating local is sensible, environmentally speaking, what we eat is of greater importance. Significantly greater importance.

THE GREATEST EMISSION CREATOR

In July 2007, the compelling results of a study conducted by a team at the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Tsukuba, Japan, were published, and reported on in the U.K. press.40New Scientist magazine immediately picked up the story, and within hours the hard-to-believe numbers had gripped the scientific community’s attention.41 The study found that, when all factors were taken into consideration, the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere from the production of 2.2 pounds of beef was the equivalent of 80.08 pounds of carbon dioxide. To put that latter figure into perspective, it’s the equivalent in CO2 emissions of a midsize car that gets 26 miles to the gallon being driven 160 miles.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average Canadian eats about 68.4 pounds of beef per year.42 The CO2 equivalent from its production would be equal to roadtripping in a midsize car from Vancouver to Toronto, and 90 percent of the way back: a total distance of 4976 miles.

The U.S. numbers are even higher, considering the average American eats 96.4 pounds of beef per year.43 Producing that beef would create 1595 kilograms of CO2, which equates to driving 7008 miles, or a road trip from New York City to Los Angeles and back, and then one-way from NYC to Miami. That’s one person, for one year.

Not that this is at all realistic, but what if everyone in the United States stopped eating beef for one year? With a population of 307 million, the savings in CO2 equivalent would be the same as what would be conserved by not driving that midsize car the distance of over 2 trillion miles (2,151,501,902,400, to be exact). Considerable, to say the least. And, in fact, since the average distance to the moon is 238,857 miles,44 if everyone in the U.S. stopped eating beef for one year, that would be like not driving a distance equivalent to 9,007,489 trips to the moon. Think about it: the driving distance of over 9 million trips to the moon.

If everyone in the U.S. stopped eating beef for one year, that would be like not driving a distance equivalent to 9,007,489 trips to the moon.

And if Canadians abstained from eating beef for one year? We’d save in emissions as much as if we’d chosen to not drive our cars a distance equal to 693,961 trips to the moon.

Driving equivalent in CO2-equivalent savings if the average American did not eat factory-farmed beef for one year.

The same study also noted that the energy needed to produce the amount of fertilizer required to grow the feed to be consumed by that cattle is significant. For each kilogram of beef, 160 megajoules of energy is burned in fertilizer production. That’s the same amount of energy that would be used to light a 100-watt bulb for 20 days.

So, to produce enough beef for the average Canadian to consume in one year would require the same amount of energy as keeping one 100-watt bulb lit for 622 days, or 14,928 hours.

By not eating beef for a year, an average American would conserve enough energy to light the bulb for 876 days.

Cows are not the only problem. According to a U.K. government agency called the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (or DEFRA), while ruminants, such as cows and sheep, produce the most methane, other animals are not completely free from blame. The agency states that for every unit of meat from a pig that’s produced, five times that amount of greenhouse gas is released into the atmosphere. For chickens, it’s four times.45So while ruminants are the greatest offenders, energy inefficiency, and therefore excessive emission production, is a factor in raising all livestock. While raising chickens produces less CO2 emissions than raising any other farmed animals, the level of emissions is still double that of even the most inefficient plant crops.

For every one pound of chicken produced, four pounds of CO2-equivalent emissions is released.46 Therefore, the production of about 2.2 pounds of chicken releases as much CO2-equivalent emissions as driving 14.6 miles.

Since the average amount of chicken eaten per person in Canada is 66.22 pounds47 and for every pound of chicken produced four pounds of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, that would add an annual amount of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere equivalent to the emissions from a midsize car being driven 439.4 miles (the distance from Prince George to Calgary).

And for Americans it’s worse since they eat, on average, 102.3 pounds of chicken meat per year,48 contributing 409.2 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere—the equivalent of driving 679 miles (the distance from Chicago to Washington, D.C.).

Driving equivalent in CO2-equivalent savings if the average Canadian did not eat chicken for one year.

Driving equivalent in CO2-equivalent savings if the average American did not eat chicken for one year.

As for pork?

Since for every 2.2 pounds of pork produced, about 11 pounds of carbon dioxide is released, that’s the same amount of CO2-equivalent emissions as driving 18.25 miles.

Therefore, because of the average Canadian’s annual pork consumption of 50.49 pounds,49 114.5 pounds of CO2-equivalent emissions would be released into the atmosphere. This works out to the equivalent of driving 418 miles, about the distance from Saskatoon to Lethbridge.

The average American eats 62.25 pounds of pork per year,50 its production releasing 148 pounds of CO2-equivalent emissions, which translates into what would be emitted driving 540.2 miles, about the distance from Pittsburgh to Providence, Rhode Island.

As more reports were conducted and as studies emerged, the inordinate amount of emissions created by livestock become an article of public knowledge (among the informed public, at least). And as such, concerned citizens begin wisely looking for ways they could be part of the solution. Those seeking to mitigate climate change and address other issues surrounding emission production began entertaining creative ways to do so.

In August 2007, The Sunday Times newspaper in the United Kingdom ran an article with the headline: “Walking to the shops damages planet more than going by car.”51 As we can assume was the intent, it captured attention. The article, penned by a staff writer, consisted of an interview with Chris Goodall, author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life. Quoting Mr. Goodall’s book, the article stated that based on official government fuel emission figures, about two pounds of carbon dioxide would be released into the atmosphere by driving a typical U.K. car three miles. In comparison, walking three miles would burn about 180 calories. If those calories were obtained by eating beef, the emissions associated with its production would come in at about 7.9 pounds, nearly four times as much as the emissions from driving the car. What about obtaining the calories from milk? It would take about 1¾ cups of milk to match the caloric requirements of the three-mile walk. So, if the milk came from a modern dairy farm, 2.6 pounds of carbon dioxide would be released, which is 25 percent more than would be released by the journey by car.

And as you may imagine, this article garnered attention, most of it from those who mistakenly assumed Chris was advocating we forgo walking and increase our use of the automobile. Of course, this wasn’t Goodall’s point. By simply drawing our attention to the fact that all energy originates somewhere else, in my opinion, Goodall powerfully made his point: nothing is free. Even if we “generate” the energy ourselves, it had to come from somewhere, in his examples, from food. And, as we know, food production is a major energy draw. What I appreciate about this example is its articulation of energy origin, transfer, and use.

Driving equivalent in CO2-equivalent savings if the average Canadian did not eat pork for one year.

Driving equivalent in CO2-equivalent savings if the average American did not eat pork for one year.

A food source that emits fewer emissions during its life cycle is a good start for a more environmentally friendly food choice.

Of course, there are several factors not addressed in his example. How fit was the person? As we know, the fitter the person, the fewer calories he or she will burn, since a trait of greater fitness is improved efficiency. As efficiency improves, the fuel requirements (food in this case) to travel a given distance will decline. And by how much did this fictitious person reduce his or her risk of osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease by walking to the store? And what about the significant amount of energy used to manufacture the car? But that wasn’t the point.

Certainly Chris Goodall did an excellent job in communicating his point in a “sticky” manner that started a discussion.

WHAT CONSTITUTES ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY FOOD CHOICES?

Obviously, simply not eating isn’t a viable long-term solution. Clearly, a food source that emits fewer emissions during its life cycle is a good start for a more environmentally friendly food choice. And one that isn’t a land, water, and fossil-fuel hog would be nice too.

In 2008 my colleagues and I at Sequel Naturals enlisted the help of a Calgary-based company called Conscious Brands to determine the best food options from an environmental perspective. Focusing on breakfast, the report considered the following three different types of breakfasts:

TRADITIONAL AMERICAN BREAKFAST

Consisting of two eggs, two slices of bacon, two links of sausage, one slice of toast, and 5.3 ounces of hash browns, the traditional breakfast scored 2.9 pounds of carbon dioxide.

LIGHT AMERICAN BREAKFAST

The light American breakfast comprised ½ cup of cereal, 1 cup of cow’s milk, 1 cup of yogurt, and half a banana; it came in considerably lower, at just 12.3 ounces of carbon dioxide.

PLANT-BASED WHOLE FOOD SMOOTHIE BREAKFAST

The fully plant-based smoothie option, made up of a dry weight of 2.3 ounces of hemp protein, yellow pea protein, brown rice protein, flaxseed, maca, and chlorella came in at only 1.2 ounces of carbon dioxide. That’s 10 times fewer emissions than that of the light American breakfast, and 38 times fewer than the traditional American breakfast. If we wanted to blend the smoothie with half a banana, it would come in at 2.1 ounces, still 22 times lower than the traditional American breakfast, and 5.8 times lower than the light American breakfast.52

CO2-equivalent emissions comparison between breakfast options.

So, with these numbers in hand, we can consider some options. For example, if one person were to switch his or her traditional American breakfast for a plant-based whole food option, the CO2-equivalent savings would be equal to driving a midsize car from Vancouver, B.C., to Tijuana, Mexico: the whole length of the Western United States.53

Now, if everyone in the United States swapped his or her traditional breakfast for the plant-based option, the amount of emissions saved would be the equivalent to those created driving over 409 billion miles (409,853,744,250 miles, to be exact). That’s equal in distance to over 1.7 million trips to the moon.

Driving equivalent of CO2-equivalent savings if the average American swapped his or her traditional American breakfast option for a plant-based smoothie for one year.

In reality, not everyone in the United States eats a traditional American breakfast. Some eat lighter. Some eat heavier. But even if we use the light American breakfast and compare it to the greatly more nutritious plant-based option, the emission savings is impressive. In fact, it’s with this information that we were able to fine tune my Vega Complete Whole Food Health Optimizer blender drink formula so that its production would require the least amount of each natural resource (more information on page 342).

This report was all very encouraging to me. It nicely illustrated that even though a substantial amount of natural resources are spent in obtaining our required nutrition, each of us has the ability to measurably reduce environmental strain by simply making informed food choices. What we eat is paramount.

But simply spending natural resources—and incurring the environment’s cost associated with their use—is not the only consideration when selecting food. As I discussed in detail in Chapter 1, micronutrients are the most valuable component when assessing a food’s nutritional worth.

If we knew that a food company was using less of each natural resource to produce more nutrient-dense food, we could, appreciating the importance of this, then choose to “vote” for that company by buying its products.

And realizing that an inordinate amount of natural resources are required to produce food in this country, as well as appreciating the bearing on overall health that micronutrients have, I grew curious to see if there was a system that took both related issues into account when producing food, a system with a simple mandate: gain the highest levels of each micronutrient, expend the fewest resources to do so. I couldn’t find one. In my search I did, however, come across carbon labeling—the displaying of a given food product’s CO2-equivalent emissions during its life cycle—and I did find an unrelated nutrient labeling system that indicated the nutrient density of select foods. But I found nothing that worked in concert to marry the two. This seemed to me to be a blind spot. A blind spot with ubiquitous, varied, and expensive consequences: excessive soil depletion, extreme fresh water consumption, fossil fuel gluttony, exorbitant greenhouse gases belching, to name just a few of the environmental issues. The health issues associated with this blind spot were also rampant: constant hunger; overeating co-existing with malnourishment; general fatigue, difficulty sleeping, and dependence on stimulants, such as coffee and refined sugar; as well as significantly increased risk for many diseases, including cardiovascular disease. Could the solution be a simple ratio displayed on food labels, one part the amount of each natural resource expended, one part the micronutrients within the food that are gained in return? I believe that such a label would add another layer of transparency and completeness to the food system as a whole. It would clearly give us, as consumers, vital information upon which to base our buying decisions. If we knew that a food company was using less of each natural resource to produce more nutrient-dense food, we could, appreciating the importance of this, then choose to “vote” for that company by buying its products. And of course, in doing so, we would facilitate its growth, based on our values aligning with its values.

THRIVE AT A GLANCE

·               The burning of fossil fuel releases CO2 into the atmosphere.

·               It’s commonly accepted by experts that climate change is a result of too much CO2 and CO2e in the atmosphere.

·               Due to inefficiency, animal agriculture requires that many times more fossil fuel be burned (and CO2 be released) than for the farming of plants.

·               Excess CO2 in the atmosphere has been linked to higher levels of heart conditions such as cardiovascular disease.

·               CO2e greenhouse gasses such as methane and nitrous oxide emitted from animals (and animal waste) have a Global Warming Potential many times greater than that of CO2.

·               The inefficient production of food is a far greater producer of CO2e than the transportation of food.

·               More CO2e is released into the atmosphere as a result of animal agriculture than by all of transportation, combined.

·               For the average American, switching to a plant-based diet would prevent more CO2e from being released into the atmosphere than by eliminating driving altogether.



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