(NewsNation) — A new study of over 55,000 people’s dietary habits in the United Kingdom has found vegan diets produce only 30% of the environmental impact as high-meat diets.
The report, published in July in the journal Nature Food, examined what its participants ate and drank over the course of a year and related this information to environmental measures including greenhouse gas emissions, water use and potential biodiversity loss.
While researchers have previously argued that vegan diets are better for the environment than meat-based ones, what separates this latest study from earlier research is its emphasis not just on the environmental impacts of different foods but how that impact changes based on where a food is produced.
“Carrots grown in a greenhouse in Spain,” the authors of the study write, “will have a different impact from those grown in a field in the UK.”
Professor Peter Scarborough of Oxford University, who led the team of researchers behind the study, told The Guardian, “Our dietary choices have a big impact on the planet. Cutting down the amount of meat and dairy in your diet can make a big difference to your dietary footprint.”