Eating away at climate change – substituting beans for beef to help meet US climate targets

Abstract

Numerous climate change analyses have highlighted the role of food consumption in achieving the required greenhouse gas reductions. We quantify an idealized example of this role, the greenhouse gas reductions from exchanging one food for another. We calculated the greenhouse gas savings from replacing beef, a popular high carbon footprint food, with a low carbon footprint food, black beans. The carbon footprint of beef was derived using total US consumption data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and greenhouse gas emissions factors from a published meta‐analysis of 52 life cycle assessments on meat and meat alternatives. The amount of replacement beans is calculated based on full energy and protein equivalency, using nutrient data from the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference. The results show that nationally substituting beans for beef, on an equal energy and protein basis, can achieve 25%–50% of the reductions needed to meet the US 2020 greenhouse gas target. The ‘beans for beef’ scenario illustrates that replacing animal with plant foods in the US diet offers policy makers simple, high climate change mitigation potential options. In addition to climate benefits, the substitution will offer population health benefits, starting with increasing vegetable and dietary fiber consumption, currently below government recommended levels nationwide. Other co‐benefits include reducing chronic disease such as heart disease, diabetes and some cancers exerted by red meat consumption.