[harimau777]

A challenge that I could see with convincing people to adopt a more plant based diet is that there is a carbon cost associated with shipping food across the country, but in many parts of the US a plant based diet might be much less appetizing if it is restricted to local crops. For example, much of the country wouldn't have access to citrus fruits, bananas, pineapples, or avocados.

Maybe a solution would be to tax food based on how long it was shipped but to exempt fruits and vegetables from the tax.

[the_gastropod]

This isn't exactly true. The greenhouse gas emissions from shipping, say, bananas, pales in comparison to emissions from even local grass fed beef.

Shipping things that spoil quickly or need refrigeration, obviously, will be less efficient. But on average, plant-based food sources will be significantly more efficient, even if shipped further, than meat ones.

[HunOL]

Well, solution would be to tax carbon, not the specific field. I don't see the reason and disagree to accept meat tax without banana tax. Carbon footprint should be taken into account the same way fuel cost is taken.

[jbob2000]

Na, that's a red herring. We can reduce our meat consumption and not replace it with anything. Americans are over consuming food, we can definitely reduce meat intake without needing to replace it with foods shipped in from out of county.

Also, most of the US population is around the coasts. Shipping a bit of food inland to the people there isn't that big of an impact.

[corodra]

Eh, best to start with stop wasting food, then go with proper calorie count diet. Food waste in America is pretty bad. The gov already does PSAs to try bringing attention to the matter.

[ben509]

> Americans are over consuming food

Overconsumption is generally less than 10% of their caloric needs, so they can't just drop a large source of nutrition.

[mytailorisrich]

Apparently, Americans throw away the equivalent of a third of the calories they consume, and interestingly a lot of fruits and veg. [1]

Reducing waste would dramatically help the environment.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/18/american...

[jnwatson]

So you’re just asking humans to consume fewer calories? Good luck with that.