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Comment by herbst | Hacker News Reader

IMO this is a lot harder than just looking at the current numbers. It is relevant to see the individual differences and impacts as well.

A lot of the commonly sold 'vegan' alternatives from the hipster food section in our super markets are produced by big corps and shipped around the world. A lot of the popular super food here in Europe comes from south America. More and more fruits and vegetables either from Asia or some huge (essentially slave holding) agriculture areas in Spain or Italy.

On the other side I consume Mostly local food. I love to waste time in meat areas to find the single most ecological variation I can buy. Rarely eating beef. Except for pure luxury import stuff (mango, pineapple, nuts) I eat my vegs and fruits seasonal.

If you account for all the transports, cooling, storage of imported super foods it could very well be that the local meat eating approach still is a lot better purely based on your ecological footprint.

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This is why we need carbon taxes. Instead of having to do hours of research for each item you buy, the environmental impact would be baked into the price.

While I agree with you about the complexity of the issue, it doesn't seem fair to compare local meat to imported plants. What about local meat vs local plants? Local plants vs imported meat? Imported meat vs imported plants? By cherry-picking a single one of these combinations, you can make either side look favorable.

That is true. However to have a healthy diet as vegan you very likely pick a lot of imported food (at least here in Europe, even more in winters).

Not saying this is true for anyone, but for basically all vegans I know it is.

My general Point is that the 'historical' local diet may still is the most favorable due to its locality.

I haven't looked at each case specifically. But I'm willing to bet that meat would lose to plants in calories/carbon in every case. Transportation does add carbon but it is often overestimated.

Local plants vs imported plants is counter-intuitively not always straightforward. Inefficient farming in worse climates can sometimes use more fuel than farming it elsewhere and shipping it, transport only accounts for a small portion of greenhouse gas emissions in the production of the food.

http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2012/09/04/how-green-is-local-f...

http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/14/the-inefficiency-of-local...

I want to break down your comment a bit here =)

"A lot of the commonly sold 'vegan' alternatives from the hipster food section in our super markets are produced by big corps and shipped around the world."

You're making a few conjectures here: (1) vegan food is produced by big corps (2) vegan food is "shipped around the world."

On (1): which big corps are you referring to? which vegan food? Have you noticed any broccoli or kale propaganda from these companies? Or maybe some vegan sausage commercials, or oat milk radio ads or.... any vegan food propaganda/ads? Isn't this the characteristic marketing approach for these companies?

On (2) Most vegan meat alternatives are soy based, so it's not as if these products use some rare ingredients that have to be grown in Peru. Side note: 70%-80% of the soy we grow is actually eaten by animals [1] [2],

"I love to waste time in meat areas to find the single most ecological variation I can buy" It's cool that you eat local meat, but regardless of where it comes from, animals have to eat food in order for you to eat them, so this is inherently a less efficient process than just eating the food directly (plus local animals still need to be transported to a slaughterhouse, disemboweled, etc). As for grass fed beef, they are an immensely inefficient use of land and still produce plenty of methane [3].

[1] https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexisten... [2] https://globalforestatlas.yale.edu/amazon/land-use/soy [3] http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/grass-fed-cows-won-t-...

It would be interesting to see more transparency in the data about the carbon footprint of what we eat. My personal feeling is that plant-based food from across the world has a smaller carbon footprint than local beef, but I haven't seen any data. You may be right. In either case, eating more local food and more plant based food are both good trends.

The article does say less beef, more local fruit and veg.

Also agriculture in Spain/Italy is not based on slavery.

I think some people may disagree with you there: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/oct/24/t...

Being scammed by a bad boss is not the same as slavery. Not even remotely.

This people can still quit a bad job anytime and change their company and city. Can rent or buy legally a house and have a right to private property. Can obtain a citizenship after some years. Can walk by the street with a reasonable expectative to keep their personal integrity (and not being detained and executed by the police, just because). Albinos can walk without the fear to be hunted and killed for selling their viscera. Can obtain a drive license (yes, women also). Their children go to school and minors aren't allowed to work. If a boy is beaten or a girl falls in a risk group for genital mutilation there is a law and a system that try to protect him/her and pursue the offenders. Minors can't be forced to marry or have sex with other people. There is a clearly regulated age of consent. Inappropriate conducts in the workplace can be denounced... etc, etc

Not entirely. But to a scarely high degree.

Ex. https://www.ecowatch.com/europes-dirty-little-secret-morocca...

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