Environment
Food is one of the largest ways humans shape the planet. Farming covers roughly half the world's habitable land and produces around a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.
Different foods have very different footprints. The gap between the highest- and lowest-impact ways of producing the same food is large, but the gap between food types is usually larger still.
This section looks at climate, land, water, pollution and the oceans, one question at a time, and shows the numbers behind each answer.
Yes. Animal foods produce over half of food's greenhouse gases, and beef and lamb produce the most by far. Eating less of them is one of the biggest dietary changes a person can make.
Read the evidenceAlso in Environment
The strongest version of each, and what the evidence makes of it.
Yes. Animal foods produce most of food's emissions, and beef and lamb produce the most per gram of protein. Eating less of them lowers a diet's footprint substantially.
Beef is in a different league from plant proteins on emissions. Chicken and eggs sit in between.
Most farmland feeds animals, not people directly. That land delivers a relatively small share of our food.
Soy grown for tofu and soy milk is a small slice of the total. Most soy feeds chickens, pigs and cows.
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