When Vegetarianism Isn't Good for the Planet

Take a look inside some vegetarians' freezers and you'll see a bevvy of frozen, fake-meat fare. Veggie burgers, fakin' bacon, "chicken" patties—if there's a real meat you're hankerin' for, chances are you can find a veggie-based substitute. And while these faux meat entrees serve as a source of lean protein, in most cases, they're also heavily processed.

Last week, I wrote about ongoing plans to decrease cows' carbon emissions, a pretty huge effort considering that livestock account for about 18 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Many folks promote vegetarianism or eating less meat as a method of curbing greenhouse gas emissions and combating climate change. But does swapping a beef burger for a Boca Burger really benefit the planet?

Mother Jones' editor Kiera Butler explores this exact topic in a recent column. Her discoveries may make the vegan and vegetarian set think twice before buying up veggie burgers.

Butler spoke with Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist who studies food production's impacts on energy and the environment. "It's true that raw veggies are an excellent nutritional bargain: For every 100 calories of energy put into producing conventional beef, from farm to supermarket shelf, you only get six calories back to eat," Butler writes. "Compare that with apples, which yield 110 calories, or raw soy: an amazing 415." But when you take that soy and transform it into a meat substitute, that's where the balance gets thrown totally out of whack. According to a 2009 study from the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology, producing a plate of peas requires significantly less energy than producing the same number of calories of pork. But when you turn those peas into a veggie burger, the energy costs are about equal to that of producing pork.

It's true that not all vegetarians consume processed foods like veggie burgers. In fact, many of them make a concerted effort to not consume processed foods at all. But companies like Boca, Morningstar, and Amy's Kitchen make their millions, so it's clear that lots of folks do consume these products pretty regularly.

At the same time processed, vegetarian foods' huge carbon footprints come to light, meat production is starting to tread a little more lightly. Grass-fed beef, meat CSAs, the rise of small slaughterhouses, free-range chickens—all of these relatively new trends are way more eco-friendly than their conventional counterparts.

I'm not trying to argue that vegetarianism doesn't produce planetary benefits—it does, so long as it's done correctly. But if folks are going to chow down on a veggie burger in an effort to lessen their carbon footprints, they might just be better off swapping it for a grass-fed beef patty.

Photo credit: Spencer Cross via Wikimedia Commons