Banning cow slaughter has become a major political and social issue in India but a study published by US researchers suggests this may indeed help mitigate global warming.
\nA team of researchers from four American universities report that \u201ceating beans instead of beef would sharply reduce greenhouse gasses (GHG)\u201d responsible for climate change.<\/p>\n
The team, headed by Helen Harwatt of California\u2019s Loma Linda University (LLU) concluded that \u201cif Americans would eat beans instead of beef, the US would immediately realise approximately 50 to 75 per cent of its GHG reduction targets for the year 2020\u201d without imposing any new standards on automobiles or manufacturing.<\/p>\n
Shifting dietary patterns to achieve the required GHG reductions has long been advocated by researchers. But so far food consumption has not been anchored in climate change policy to the same extent as energy production and transportation.<\/p>\n
In a 10-page paper published in the journal Climatic Change, the researchers said they performed a relatively simple analysis to calculate the difference in GHGs resulting from the replacement of beef with beans in terms of both calories and protein.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur results demonstrate that substituting beans for beef could achieve approximately 46 to 74 per cent of the reductions needed to meet the 2020 GHG target for the US. In turn, this shift would free up 42 per cent of US cropland,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n
It said that while not currently recognised as a climate policy option, \u201cthe beans for beef scenario offers significant climate change mitigation and other environmental benefits, illustrating the high potential of animal to plant food shift\u201d.<\/p>\n
The researchers explained that beef cattle are the most GHG-intensive food to produce and that the production of legumes (beans, peas et al) results in 1\/40th<\/sup> the amount of GHGs as beef.<\/p>\n The researchers note that more than a third of American consumers are currently purchasing meat analogs\u2014plant-based products that resemble animal foods in taste and texture, a trend suggesting that animal-sourced meat is no longer a necessity.<\/p>\n \u201cOur findings demonstrate that substituting plant-sourced foods for animal-sourced foods can play an important role in climate change mitigation,\u201d the researchers conclude.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile substituting beans for beef does not entirely satisfy the US GHG reduction targets, it could be combined with mitigation efforts for other major emitters such as power generation or transportation,\u201d the researchers said.<\/p>\n IANS<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Picture source: Alamy Image<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Picture used for illustrative purposes alone<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Banning cow slaughter has become a major political and social issue in India but a study published by US researchers suggests this may indeed help mitigate global warming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28,44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4357,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4355\/revisions\/4357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}