TY  - JOUR
AU  - Eshel, Gidon
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/12/25
TI  - How to Prioritize Voluntary Dietary Modification
JO  - Advances in Environmental and Engineering Research
SP  - 005
VL  - 01
IS  - 04
AB  - Environmentally motivated voluntary diet modifications are the focus of much research and public discourse. Yet the nuanced multi-faceted, multi-dimensional nature of agriculture-earth interactions, and limited public environmental knowledge likely combine to undermine the efficacy of environmentally motivated dietary shifts, squandering limited good will. To counter this, here I devise two related indices for crudely estimating importance of various environmental impacts of alternative dietary choices. Based on the devised indices (which—coarse, simple and inexhaustive—are best viewed as preliminary assessment) I find that in the U.S., soil conservation and water use in the arid west may well dominate the environmental impacts of food, easily eclipsing greenhouse gas emissions, and that of a limited considered subset of possible dietary shifts, replacing beef with tofu, some legumes, and some cereals are the most beneficial modifications.
SN  - 2766-6190
UR  - https://doi.org/10.21926/aeer.2004005
DO  - 10.21926/aeer.2004005
ID  - Eshel2020
ER  -