{"id":27357,"date":"2026-09-21T10:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T14:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=27357"},"modified":"2026-08-27T13:00:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T17:00:06","slug":"independent-science-based-non-profit-asks-how-much-beef-is-too-much-for-climate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2026\/09\/21\/independent-science-based-non-profit-asks-how-much-beef-is-too-much-for-climate\/","title":{"rendered":"Independent, Science-based, Non-profit Asks \u201cHow Much Beef is Too Much for Climate?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_27358\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/photo-from-Project-Drawdown.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27358\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27358\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/photo-from-Project-Drawdown.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"265\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-27358\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">photo from Project Drawdown<\/p><\/div>\n<p>by Reed Mangels, PhD, RDN<\/p>\n<p>Walk down most supermarket or convenience store aisles these days and notice how many times you see a label touting protein. Despite all the hype, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2026\/07\/03\/questions-about-plan-to-expand-protein-access\/\">Americans, for the most part, are not lacking protein<\/a>. Most get more than they need.<\/p>\n<p>There are some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/14\/is-there-such-a-thing-as-too-much-protein\/\">health concerns with excess protein<\/a>, especially if that protein comes from animal products. A recent, thought-provoking <a href=\"https:\/\/drawdown.org\/insights\/how-much-beef-is-too-much-for-climate\">post<\/a> from the non-profit organization <a href=\"https:\/\/drawdown.org\/about\">Project Drawdown<\/a>, pointed out the potential damage to the environment associated with an increase in protein, especially from beef. Some of the points that were made in this post:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Producing a pound of beef generates 20 to 50 times more greenhouse gas emissions than does burning a pound of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel.<\/li>\n<li>Production of beef, lamb, pork, and other meat classified as \u201cred meat\u201d accounts for 30% of food-related greenhouse gas emissions, worldwide.<\/li>\n<li>If the United States, China, Brazil, and Argentina reduced beef consumption to one serving a week and ate other protein sources in place of beef, greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by the equivalent of 1.7 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. [Note that this model replaces beef with chicken, fish, dried beans, soy products, nuts, and eggs. Greenhouse gas emissions would be further reduced if all animal products were eliminated].<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These sobering facts may be useful in conversations about eliminating beef consumption. You can read the full post, which provides more information about the environmental effects of red meat consumption, <a href=\"https:\/\/drawdown.org\/insights\/how-much-beef-is-too-much-for-climate\">here<\/a>. The post encourages reducing consumption of red meat but does not explicitly promote a vegan diet.<\/p>\n<p>To read more about protein, specifically related to a vegan diet, see:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/14\/is-there-such-a-thing-as-too-much-protein\/\">Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Protein?<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2026\/05\/06\/do-we-really-need-high-protein-pretzels\/\">Do We Really Need High Protein Pretzels?<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2026\/03\/25\/how-much-protein-do-vegans-need\/\">How Much Protein Do Vegans Need?<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2026\/07\/03\/questions-about-plan-to-expand-protein-access\/\">Questions about Plan to Expand Protein Access<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/nutrition\/protein.php\">Protein in the Vegan Diet<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/nutrition\/Protein-1.pdf\">Protein for Vegans &amp; Vegetarians<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2024\/02\/26\/protein-for-vegan-children\/\">Protein for Vegan Children<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Reed Mangels, PhD, RDN Walk down most supermarket or convenience store aisles these days and notice how many times you see a label touting protein. Despite all the hype, Americans, for the most part, are not lacking protein. Most get more than they need. There are some health concerns with excess protein, especially if [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27359,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27357\/revisions\/27359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}