If you start investigating lifestyle changes that can reduce your carbon footprint, switching to a plant-based diet is one of the first items that pops up on most sites. The obvious dietary culprit in climate change is beef. Keeping cows alive is energy intensive, uses lots of water, and, well…cows produce methane. Lamb is pretty bad too, as shown on greeneatz.com. This Washington Post article also helps make the case for reducing the amount of beef in your diet.
As I wrote in a previous blog, giving up beef hasn’t been easy. However, the greenhouse gases produced by eating cheese are what’s most soul-crushing. We love cheese. In fact, I’m pretty sure cheese is the sole reason I’m on Pravastatin. Thus far, vegan cheese substitutes just don’t cut it. But, it’s been healthy for us to reduce our cheese consumption, which we’ve done steadily, and it’s the right thing to do for the planet.
Blah blah blah. Cheese is f*cking awesome. Are my kids and the future of the planet worth giving up cheese for? My answer is dependent on my proximity to aged cheddar. Signs point to no.
Reducing out milk consumption, by contrast, was surprisingly easy. I’m genuinely enjoying my glass of vanilla soy milk in the morning, though I do have a glass of real milk a couple times a week (after breaking my fibula last February, I’m taking all the help I can get, even if my calcium supplements are more than sufficient).
The most confusing decision related to milk consumption isn’t whether to reduce it, but whether almond, soy, or some other substitute is best for the planet. What’s frustrated me to no end in this process of lifestyle change is all the conflicting information. Most of the studies I’ve come across on the milk alternative question were funded and conducted by the almond/soy industry. Perhaps as a result, one can just as easily find an article deriding almond farming for sucking up so much of California’s dwindling water as one praising almond production because trees like the ones almonds come from stabilize soil, add oxygen to the air, and decrease erosion.
The obvious issue is that there isn’t just one environmental dimension to consider when defining what “best for the planet” means. For our family, we decided our top criterion is to reduce global warming followed by preserving water. Even then, the answers aren’t always clear. Our educated guess at this point is that any plant-based milk like soy or almond is better than cow’s milk. If we find out different, we’ll update this blog.
Another debate we’re having is whether to phase out less impactful meats like poultry, and how many of these changes we’re making should apply to our kids. The latter is a topic worth of its own blog post (or several). As for chicken, we’re leaning towards having it (or fish) once a week with an option to go to twice per week if we’re traveling and finding vegetarian options is harder.