Vegan is the answer to what this should be.
this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
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Environment
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I would say that you can be vegan and still be eating food that was shipped in on boats then trucks. Vegan would be a net positive for any switch from the conventional western diet, but I see the merit in focusing in on carbon footprint of the food in question. And as potentially silly as calling oneself a ‘regenivore’ is, it still conveys a message and invitation for others to learn about alternatives and things they might too value.
yeah i think vegans sometimes forget that veganism right now is still, in a global context, not a very prominent dietary habit and may not scale up particularly well or sustainably (especially since not every place currently has an abundance of food, much less vegan food). vegan actions, while ethically better, are also not inherently sustainable either--some vegan products are less sustainable than their animal-based counterparts for a variety of reasons.
that is true, but the scalability is actually fairly reasonable. we know that only around half of the food crops we grow are used for human consumption. the rest is used as feed for livestock. not to mention that the majority of agricultural land, like 80 percent or something like that (i think), is allocated for livestock as well. whatever quantity of calories we obtain from meat consumption, we currently produce several times more than that in animal feed, so paradoxically if we stopped raising livestock, we might be able to feed more people that we currently do, and would have lots of extra land to grow stuff on. theoretically.
So whilst you are right that transport does create lots of emissions it is still only a small percentage of the total. Any localy produced meats would have a higher footprint than legumes from anywhere. A localy based food system would be great but to get that we would need mass land ownership reform.
While you're right that reducing consumption of animal products is the largest impact on carbon emissions, I think you can be vegan and still eat foods that have a significant carbon footprint, if you don't also purchase local vegan produce.