Here’s Another Case For Switching To A Vegetarian Diet

When it comes to the food we eat, there’s practically no such thing as a “guilt-free” diet — practically any food, unless you grow it yourself without using excessive pesticides or water, comes with nutritional, environmental or ethical consequences. But according to new research published last week in the Elementa journal, some diets fare far better than others when it comes to the important measure of how much agricultural land is required to produce the food they require. Specifically, diets that contained less meat tended to be far less land-dependent and, therefore, held the potential to feed a larger population on a per-square-foot basis. “A population eating less meat than we eat now would, generally, feed more people,” Christian Peters, Tufts University associate professor and the paper’s lead author, told The Huffington Post. He added, however, that’s only true to a certain point. The paper, authored by a team of Tufts researchers, considered the land requirements — or “food-prints”— of 10 different diet scenarios that ranged from one resembling the average American’s meat diet to a completely meat-free vegan diet. Perhaps surprisingly, the octo-lavo and lacto vegetarian diets — which both include dairy products and, in the case of octo-lavo vegetarians, eggs — showed the potential to feed a larger population than a vegan diet. function onPlayerReadyVidible(...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news