Diet and the Environment

Presenter(s): Alice Floyd-Preston

Faculty Mentor(s): Sarah Stoeckl

Poster 173

Session: Environmental Leaders ARC

In the sphere of sustainable living, veganism is hailed as the ideal diet to reduce environmental harm and degradation because plants require fewer resources and veganism does not contribute to the animal agriculture industry. Numerous scientific studies have demonstrated that a vegan diet emits less carbon than a traditional omnivorous diet but these studies are flawed because they do not consider all of the foods vegans consume. Many vegans supplement their diet with vegan substitutes that are often made with imported ingredients and rely on intense food processing and transportation to get to consumer. The goal of this research project is to analyze the ingredients and transportation of vegan substitutes and compare them to their non-vegan counterparts to determine if these alternatives are really better for the environment. In this research project, our primary indicator of sustainability is carbon emitted per pound. While carbon emissions does not illustrate the full picture, it is the easiest way to quantify environmental damages. Going into this project, our hypothesis is that the biggest indicator of environmental harm would not necessarily be the carbon emissions of the food itself, but how far it had to travel to get there. We thought vegan foods would have lower carbon emissions but since they had to be transported longer distances, they might have similar emissions to their non-vegan counterpart. The conclusions of this paper will add nuance to the discussion of diet and the environment and help consumers make more educated decisions.