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The Balance of Health

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Cheese vs chicken

A comparison that surprises people: vegetarian is not automatically lower-impact than meat.

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Same amount of protein from each food. Fairer for protein foods. That is 400 g of cheese against 323 g of chicken.

Greenhouse gas emissions

kg CO₂e per 100 g protein

Cheese has about 3.0 times the emissions of Chicken, so Chicken has the lower impact here.

Cheese: Roughly about 56 km of driving (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, 2024)

Chicken: Roughly about 19 km of driving (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, 2024)

All greenhouse gases released producing the food, from land clearing to retail, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalents.

Calculation basis
  • Cheese: Poore & Nemecek (2018), OWID version accessed 2026-09-06; life-cycle assessment through retail, per kg retail weight.
  • Chicken: Poore & Nemecek (2018), OWID version accessed 2026-09-06; life-cycle assessment through retail, per kg retail weight.
Cheese: Global average

Land use

m² per 100 g protein

Cheese has about 8.9 times the land of Chicken, so Chicken has the lower impact here.

Cheese: Roughly about 0.13 tennis courts (International Tennis Federation, 2024)

Chicken: Roughly about 0.02 tennis courts (International Tennis Federation, 2024)

Farmland needed to produce the food, including grazing and land for animal feed.

Calculation basis
  • Cheese: Poore & Nemecek (2018), OWID version accessed 2026-09-06; life-cycle assessment through retail, per kg retail weight.
  • Chicken: Poore & Nemecek (2018), OWID version accessed 2026-09-06; life-cycle assessment through retail, per kg retail weight.

Water pollution (eutrophication)

g PO₄e per 100 g protein

Cheese has about 2.5 times the pollution of Chicken, so Chicken has the lower impact here.

Nutrient run-off from fertiliser and manure that causes algal blooms and dead zones, in phosphate equivalents.

Calculation basis
  • Cheese: Poore & Nemecek (2018), OWID version accessed 2026-09-06; life-cycle assessment through retail, per kg retail weight.
  • Chicken: Poore & Nemecek (2018), OWID version accessed 2026-09-06; life-cycle assessment through retail, per kg retail weight.

Protein

g per 100 g protein

Cheese and Chicken are about the same.

Protein content of the food as eaten.

Fibre

g per 100 g protein

Neither contains fibre.

Dietary fibre. Animal foods contain none.

Saturated fat

g per 100 g protein

Cheese has about 26 times the sat. fat of Chicken, so Chicken has the lower impact here.

Saturated fat content. Higher intakes raise LDL cholesterol.

Animals slaughtered

animals per 100 g protein

Chicken involves slaughtered animals; Cheese involves none.

Approximate number of animals slaughtered for this amount of food. Small fractions mean one animal yields many portions. Zero for plant foods; dairy and eggs involve animals indirectly.

Calculation basis
  • Cheese: Approximate retail yield per animal inverted; yield assumptions are illustrative, not counts of individual animals spared.
  • Chicken: Approximate retail yield per animal inverted; yield assumptions are illustrative, not counts of individual animals spared. 1.74 kg carcass × assumed 75% retail yield: roughly 1.3 kg per bird.
Methodology, sources and caveats
  • Environmental values use retail-weight averages, converted to the basis you choose. Nutrition can use cooked weight; preparation and proxy assumptions are listed below. Farms vary widely around these averages; thin lines on the bars show the reported range where the source gives one.
  • Where a food has figures for more than one country or production system, the default is the all-systems figure for your country (or the global average). The figure menu under a chart lets you choose another; the source and geography update with it.
  • Nutrient values are reference composition figures. Preparation and variety change them, and absorption differs between plant and animal sources (see the nutrient panel).
  • No single metric tells the whole story. A food can score well on emissions and poorly on water, or well on protein and poorly on fibre.
  • Freshwater use: Water use matters mainly where water is scarce. A litre in a rainy region is not equivalent to a litre in a drought-prone one, so treat this as indicative only.
  • Scarcity-weighted water use: Scarcity weighting depends on where each food is actually grown. Global figures blend many regions; country figures are shown where a source provides them.
  • Animals slaughtered: Dairy and eggs are shown as zero because no animal is slaughtered per unit sold, but both systems involve animals; this metric only counts direct slaughter.
  • Cheese: Nutrition approximates cheddar (FDC 328637); cheese types vary.
  • Chicken: Nutrition uses roasted breast; environmental factors use retail weight. FDC 171477 pending confirmation.

Sources: Poore et al. (2018); Service (2024); Nations (2024). See how we rate evidence.

Cheese: sources and nutrients · Chicken: sources and nutrients

In short, per 100 g of protein

  • Cheese has about 3.0 times the emissions of Chicken, so Chicken has the lower impact here.
  • Cheese has about 8.9 times the land of Chicken, so Chicken has the lower impact here.
  • Cheese has about 2.5 times the pollution of Chicken, so Chicken has the lower impact here.
  • Cheese and Chicken are about the same.
  • Neither contains fibre.
  • Cheese has about 26 times the sat. fat of Chicken, so Chicken has the lower impact here.
  • Chicken involves slaughtered animals; Cheese involves none.

Change the basis above to see how the picture shifts by serving, weight or calorie. Build your own comparison in the full tool.