[toasterlovin]

It's a pretty common trope that meat requires more resources to produce than plants, but it is wildly inaccurate.

Rather than breaking things down by meat or plant, we should just be looking at cost per calorie.

There are classes of plants which use much less resources than meat to produce a single calorie. These are generally grains, potatoes, and anything which produces edible oils (olive oil, canola oil, etc.)

There are also classes of plants which require much more resources than meat to produce a single calorie. Generally speaking, all fruits and vegetables, especially leafy greens (which are an order of magnitude more expensive per calorie than meat).

So, veganism or vegetarianism are not necessarily good for the environment. If you switch to being a vegan/vegetarian, but your grocery bill stays the same, then you environmental impact is probably about the same.

[passivepinetree]

Your grocery bill point isn't valid because of a) the complicated state of farming subsidies (in the U.S. at least) and b) the interests certain companies take in pricing various items (for example, at McDonald's a burger is much cheaper than a salad, but one could argue this is because McDonald's has invested much more in making their burger production efficient and has a vested interest in making their customers eat burgers rather than salads).

The bottom line is that your food bill in no way accurately reflects the cost required to produce your food.

[toasterlovin]

Yeah, but we're talking orders of magnitude here, not a few percent.

So, lettuce, for example, is an order of magnitude (10x) more expensive per calorie than ground beef. And ground beef is almost an order of magnitude more expensive per calorie than cereal grains.

My guess as to the reason for these differences is some aspect of the chemistry involved in creating the foods, combined with how easily they spoil during transport. And I don't think it's any accident that the advent of human civilization coincides with domestication of grains.

[eggy]

I think focusing on calorie cost is a good start, but has its caveats. A cup of lettuce is 8 calories, an ounce of beef is 70 calories. People generally eat a cup or less of lettuce in their serving of salad. Whereas they eat 8 oz. or more of beef per serving (16 oz. burgers anyone?).

For decades my bodyweight would not go below 195 lbs. I turned vegetarian and now vegan, and my bodyweight is 178 lbs. I can do more pull ups, my body fat is at 14% vs. 21%, and I feel more energetic than before. I am very active compared with the average person.

One of the great revelations to me was how many calories I was actually consuming compared to what I thought I was consuming. When I was an omnivore, I was trying to keep my caloric intake to 1900 to 2200 calories per day given my activity level and weight. When I actually counted every piece of food put in my mouth for two weeks, I realized I was generally consuming 2500 to 2800 calories. It was cultural and habitual.

When I went vegetarian, and became more conscious of what I was putting in my mouth, I was down to 1850 or less calories a day. My body has stabilized at this weight. All of my standard blood tests show I am in good health.

My point of this expose was to point out that at 10x the expense eating green or vegan gets chipped away at by:

1. I only eat one-tenth of the lettuce or leafy greens based on calories vs. old beef consumption. 2. I eat 33% less calories per day as a healthy, active person. 3. If everyone ate healthier, and more greens (but less calorically), I think the numbers work out better.