I’d like to see the stats on beef consumption. Cows are way worse for the planet when it comes to climate change. People eat more chicken than they used to because beef prices have skyrocketed. I wonder what the actual change in carbon emissions looks like.
Per capita beef consumption is down slightly, but not as much as chicken / poultry consumption has increased. People are generally eating much more meat overall per capita. Chicken and poultry still have a pretty heavy emissions profile, it’s just that beef is somehow worse. The net increase in meat consumption is still a massive net negative on the climate
In terms of ethics, switching to chicken results in significantly more induvidial chickens being killed because of their lower slaughter weight. The factory farms that house the vast majority of chickens keep growing larger and larger and quite disturbing. This is true around the world. For example just in England alone, there are at minimum over 700 factory farms for chickens, four of which have over a million chickens
Ah, I had tried to, but there was a giant popup asking me for money, so I thought it wasn’t available for free. Turns out, my PiP window was covering the button to collapse the popup. Apparently beef has stayed steady, which is nuts IMO. Most people I know eat a lot less beef than they used to. My best buddy used to have a steak every Friday, now he only eats it on his birthday.
Average person eats six times more chicken than in 1961, and also, there’s 2.67 more people (~3.1 billion people in 1961 versus ~8.3 billion today).
So the real terms increase is huge!
I’d like to see the stats on beef consumption. Cows are way worse for the planet when it comes to climate change. People eat more chicken than they used to because beef prices have skyrocketed. I wonder what the actual change in carbon emissions looks like.
Graph from the article:
Per capita beef consumption is down slightly, but not as much as chicken / poultry consumption has increased. People are generally eating much more meat overall per capita. Chicken and poultry still have a pretty heavy emissions profile, it’s just that beef is somehow worse. The net increase in meat consumption is still a massive net negative on the climate
In terms of ethics, switching to chicken results in significantly more induvidial chickens being killed because of their lower slaughter weight. The factory farms that house the vast majority of chickens keep growing larger and larger and quite disturbing. This is true around the world. For example just in England alone, there are at minimum over 700 factory farms for chickens, four of which have over a million chickens
Plus there’s all the damage caused by these chicken “farms”: nutrient overflow killing rivers is only one aspect.
Read the article. It says
Ah, I had tried to, but there was a giant popup asking me for money, so I thought it wasn’t available for free. Turns out, my PiP window was covering the button to collapse the popup. Apparently beef has stayed steady, which is nuts IMO. Most people I know eat a lot less beef than they used to. My best buddy used to have a steak every Friday, now he only eats it on his birthday.