Dietary greenhouse gas emissions of meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK

By P. Scarborough, P. Appleby, Anja Mizdrak, A. Briggs, R. Travis, K. Bradbury, T. Key. Climatic Change, 2014

600 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The production of animal-based foods is associated with higher greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than plant-based foods. The objective of this study was to estimate the difference in dietary GHG emissions between self-selected meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK. Subjects were participants in the EPIC-Oxford cohort study. The diets of 2,041 vegans, 15,751 vegetarians, 8,123 fish-eaters and 29,589 meat-eaters aged 20–79 were assessed using a validated food frequency questionnaire. Comparable GHG emissions parameters were developed for the underlying food codes using a dataset of GHG emissions for 94 food commodities in the UK, with a weighting for the global warming potential of each component gas. The average GHG emissions associated with a standard 2,000 kcal diet were estimated for all subjects. ANOVA was used to estimate average dietary GHG emissions by diet group adjusted for sex and age. The age-and-sex-adjusted mean (95 % confidence interval) GHG emissions in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents per day (kgCO2e/day) were 7.19 (7.16, 7.22) for high meat-eaters ( > = 100 g/d), 5.63 (5.61, 5.65) for medium meat-eaters (50-99 g/d), 4.67 (4.65, 4.70) for low meat-eaters ( < 50 g/d), 3.91 (3.88, 3.94) for fish-eaters, 3.81 (3.79, 3.83) for vegetarians and 2.89 (2.83, 2.94) for vegans. In conclusion, dietary GHG emissions in self-selected meat-eaters are approximately twice as high as those in vegans. It is likely that reductions in meat consumption would lead to reductions in dietary GHG emissions.

Subfields: Ecology, Food Science, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7924e479f871b217e94156df6ac26c7a03e2a5df

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Citations in the corpus

Vegan Killjoys at the Table—Contesting Happiness and Negotiating Relationships with Food Practices (2014, background): “Firstly there is a scientific argument that veganism can constitute the lowest carbon eating practice [4–6] and there is thus a duty to investigate it further, especially given the urgency of climate change.”
Pulses for Sustainability: Breaking Agriculture and Food Sectors Out of Lock-In (2018, background): “more pulse-based diets have lower greenhouse gas emissions and land use (Friel et al., 2009; Scarborough et al., 2014; Hallström et al., 2015; de Boer and Aiking, 2018).”
Low carbon lifestyles: A framework to structure consumption strategies and options to reduce carbon footprints (2016, background): “…mounting evidence of the environmental bene ﬁ ts of substituting meat products with lower carbon intensive alternatives within the same product group, like changing from GHG-intensive meats (ruminants) to less intensive meats (pork and poultry) (Hoolohan et al., 2013; Scarborough et al., 2014).”
The environmental sustainability of insects as food and feed. A review (2017, background): “Halving the consumption of these products would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 65% in the UK (Scarborough et al. 2014) and by 25–40% in the European Union (Westhoek et al. 2014).”
‘Nudging’ as an architect of more responsible consumer choice in food service provision: The role of restaurant menu design (2017, methodology): “…carbon intensity indices were extracted from a range of sources, such as: freeto-access life cycle assessment (LCA) databases (LCA Food Database 2007), peerreviewed literature (for instance, Scarborough et al. 2014) and specialist industry and supplier publications (for example, Kingsmill 2015).”
Limiting livestock production to pasture and by-products in a search for sustainable diets (2016, background): “However, while there can be major environmental and health benefits with vege- tarian or vegan diets (Scarborough et al., 2014; Tillman and Clark, 2014), such diets may not be the best option for the entire population since: (1) dairy and egg production for vegetarian diets also give meat; and (2)…”
Which Diet Has the Least Environmental Impact on Our Planet? A Systematic Review of Vegan, Vegetarian and Omnivorous Diets (2019, background): “Another study estimates that meat and dairy production processes account for 80% of all GHGEs from the food sector and 24% of total GHGEs [2].”
The Impacts of Dietary Change on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Land Use, Water Use, and Health: A Systematic Review (2016, background): “Studies have shown that large reductions in GHG emissions are possible without complete exclusion of animal products [9], and studies using self-selected sustainable diets imply these could be culturally appropriate for at least some individuals [24, 27, 49, 50, 96].”