What's Better For the Planet - Organic or Vegetarian?

By Sara Novak, Planet Green

We’ve made some big strides in terms of environmentally conscious diets. Veganism and vegetarianism are making their way to the mainstream.

Celebrities and important figures along with expanded animal-free offerings are making a meat-free diet more appealing. The same is true of organic foods. The market for organic foods is actually on the rise more this year than the market for conventional. But which does more good for the planet? If you had to make a choice, which should you choose?

According to a new study found on Food Navigator, it’s more important to eat more plant-based foods than it is to buy organic foods. Researchers in Austria found that the amount of land needed to feed each individual would be reduced from 3,600 square meters per person to 2,600 square meters per person. The diet change would also decrease the about of fertilizers needed.

Led by Professor Matthias Zessner from the TU Vienna, the research team argued that a low meat diet has substantial ecological advantages, whilst finding that switching to organic is less effective than eating more vegetables and less meat.

Cutting way back on meat had a much more far reaching impact than eating organic. However, while researchers downgraded the implications of choosing organic, here’s what they missed:

If you’re looking to reduce fertilizer use, which come from fossil fuels as listed above, you have to choose organic in addition to cutting back on meat. Additionally, avoiding GMOs means choosing organic foods as well. GMOs are grown using an onslaught of pesticides and they are a monoculture, which can create dead zones and erosion, all a problem for the planet.

In the end, do both: it’ll be better for you and the planet.

Read more: Diet & Nutrition, Food, Green, Health

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

J.L. A.

8:10AM PDT on Apr 6, 2012

good to know

send a green star

Pego R.

12:23PM PDT on Mar 17, 2012

Those fact and figures have to do with our industrialized food system and even our veg is unsustainable by that standard.

You still have not even bothered to look up the book I was talking about or even read the C2 opine piece on it; http://www.care2.com/news/member/281888439/2717608

richa b.

7:43AM PDT on Mar 17, 2012

read. thank you

Past Member .

5:00PM PDT on Mar 16, 2012

Vegetarian by a landslide. The facts and figures that support the reality that being vegetarian is not only better for the planet, but in fact according to many many very good sources, such as the United Nations, becoming vegetarian is truly the only hope that mankind has. Now if you are a person who is 1 of the 1/1000% who has the resources to raise creatures that you can grow without having to feed it, Then, it is not a strain on the planet, but, you also get the added bonus of having to murder it with your own hands.

Michael S.

6:32AM PDT on Mar 16, 2012

Who knows.

Rosie L.

1:04PM PDT on Mar 15, 2012

thnx for sharing

Ashley M.

3:29PM PST on Jan 30, 2012

Interesting read and comments :)

11:59PM PST on Dec 1, 2011

Oops "Massivly less energy"

11:10PM PST on Dec 1, 2011

Simon Fairlie in "Meat" and several other studies and resources are now confirming that these traditional Ag methosds return more food for maddivly less energy consumed; http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/can-animals-save-us/just-the-facts-should-we-eat-animals

11:03PM PST on Dec 1, 2011

You bring up a critical point Shalvah

Traditionally. That is to say before the industrial age and fossil fuel based and transported fertilizers. All the things that passed through an animal (or a human) was moved back over the fields and worked in by the passage of the various livestock. Next, human foodstream wastes, that is to say, moldy or out of date foods were returned into the livestock foods (mostly for the omnivores like pigs and fowl who's digestion can handle that and not give us prions) so that the calories weren't wasted and the livestock, in their turn, also pooped that back into the soil matrix.

All this relieves us of the cost and damage that chemical dependency has been sticking our farmers with. This also helps relieve us of actually growing food just for livestock. Instead, livestock like cattle range in areas that cannot raise crops and actually improve that land to eventually provide, at minimum, more for the livestock and even more cropland, instead of being cropland destroyers with poor management. This is why this type of livestock is called "Default" They only feed on foods that CAN'T come into or back to the human foodstream and are used to manage pests and weeds to that there, again, they relieve us of the human and planetary damage that pesticides and herbicides endow us with.

The end goal being to restore land to a fully fertile and more resilient soil matrix with the natural systems that can handle weather extremes and still prod