Heres Another Case For Switching To A Vegetarian Diet

This, Peter explained, is because all farmland consists of both cultivated cropland where edible products like corn, fruits and vegetables are grown and perennial cropland, where plants that are inedible to humans but do not require cultivation, like alfalfa, are grown.

Vegans derive no benefit from the perennial cropland, whereas the ovo-lacto and lacto vegetarians as cows eat the alfalfa and other perennials and then go on to produce the dairy products they eat. 

All of this is not to say, Peters added, that going vegan for environmental reasons is a bad step to take. The vegan diet still dramatically out-performed more meat-intensive diets when it came to the number of people it could potentially feed.

“If someone says, ‘I think vegan is the way for me to go,’ one person going vegan does, probably, reduce in a small way the total amount of meat production demands,” Peters told HuffPost. “It’s the behaviors in the whole or the aggregate that matter.”

So why is this important? As Peters noted, the bulk of the food Americans eat comes directly from agricultural production. As the global population increases additional agricultural output is needed, but with expanded farming comes environmental concerns.

Among these are increased greenhouse gas emissions , which are linked to methane production from livestock and improper manure storage on farms. These emissions have already been on the rise in recent years, according to the EPA.

Another issue is nutrient runoff from farms that use excessive fertilizer on their crops. This runoff can cause algal blooms like the “guacamole-thick” ones spotted in Florida recently or those that have grown into a Connecticut-sized dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

To address these problems, a delicate balance must be struck between enough, but not too much, farming. And dietary choices should be factored into any consideration of how the U.S. and the world can meet future food needs.

Most importantly, the paper emphasized that there is a big difference between the way that Americans typically eat today and the diet scenarios which showed more efficient use of agricultural land.

Promisingly, though, Americans have been eating less meat over the past decade , reversing a long-standing trend of ever-increasing meat consumption. And new food identities like flexitarian  and reducetarian  have formed around the idea of eating less meat while not eliminating animal products all together.

Still, though there’s a long way to go toward practicing eating habits that are less resource-dependent, every little bit helps.

“This is a big change for a lot of people,” Peters said. “Is that something that could be achieved within 10 years? Definitely not. It takes a long time for habits to change.”

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Joseph Erbentraut covers promising innovations and challenges in the areas of food and water. In addition, Erbentraut explores the evolving ways Americans are identifying and defining themselves. Follow Erbentraut on Twitter at @robojojo . Tips? Email joseph.erbentraut@huffingtonpost.com.