ModVegan wrote:I think it's admirable that you want to do something about it, and I'm sure that efforts can be made to reduce any environmental impact that rice has.
If the methane emissions are lower in colder climates (how much, and how do yields compare?), that might be an option. Like buying Canadian grown rice and avoiding that grown in warmer regions?
But then water use is also a major concern.
ModVegan wrote:That said, any food that provides 50% of the world's calories will have a serious environmental impact. Think about it - it wheat provided half the worlds food supply, there would likely be all sorts of unforeseen consequences for that crop as well.
That's true, but it's the proportional impact I'm concerned about mainly: impact per calorie. If wheat is the better option there, it makes sense to eat Orzo instead of rice, as long as I'm not gluten intolerant. It seems easy enough to do.
ModVegan wrote:If animal agriculture, which only gives us 9% of our calories, causes half of the world's greenhouse gas emissions - it gives you some idea how much less harmful rice is.
That's quite an if. Those cowspiracy numbers are pretty questionable.
I talked about an article here on it:
http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2167
Here's a direct link:
http://www.vegan.com/articles/environment/a-sympathetic-but-skeptical-look-at-goodland-and-anhangs-livestock-and-climate-change/
I'm not even sure we can go by 30%, although that seems more plausible. It could be down to around 15% or so, in line with official estimates.
That's still very large. We need to eliminate most sources of greenhouse gas in order to have a hope of reversing global warming before there are catastrophic consequences.
It makes sense to give up animal products for environmental reasons, but if rice is such a close second in terms of harm per calorie, doesn't it make sense to switch it out for something better? And it might not even be second to factory farmed chicken (despite being the highest in cruelty), since they don't produce as much methane, have a higher FCR, and are fed on largely corn.
Beans as a replacement for meat are a huge improvement, since beans are one of the most efficient and sustainable crops in the world.
How does wheat compare to rice (or potatoes) as a staple?
ModVegan wrote:So rice isn't perfect, but if a meat-eater brought it up in an argument "well you eat RICE so how can you criticize me for eating meat" - I'm pretty confident I could still destroy them with the logic that it's still orders of magnitude less harmful than beef, lol

.
But what if it's only five times better than eating beef, and it's the same as chicken?
Sources like this (
http://www.greeneatz.com/foods-carbon-footprint.html ) which are common across the net only show rice and potatoes as a little less than half the output per
kg than chicken, and 10% compared to beef. It's not clear if that's dried or prepared (it's probably dry).
But prepared rice has only about half the calories per kilogram, and something like 10% of the protein compared to chicken.
Thanks to that methane output, calorie per calorie, it could be the same as chicken. Since the numbers quoted are probably dry, it's probably still better (about twice as good), but it's an important question to ask.
There are people making anti-vegan arguments by looking at the damage of crops like these:
http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1185
And they're arguments people find pretty compelling.
ModVegan wrote:And unless you flagellate yourself for consuming lettuce (which has a shorter shelf-life and far fewer calories than potatoes, and has been shown - though dubiously, I'll admit - to be less environmentally friendly than bacon), I don't think you should feel bad about potatoes. If all vegans ever ate was lentils, then WE would become the greatest source of methane emissions on the planet, hehe (I'm kidding - or am I?)

Lettuce is a vegetable; it's categorically different. It's used as more as a garnish and a source of certain micro nutrients, not as a source of calories or protein.
When we compare meat and beans, we're making a sound comparison of two protein sources.
When we compare rice or potatoes to wheat or oats or even corn, we're comparing starch/staple sources.
I would feel bad if I ate enough lettuce (or other store bought veggies) to be a significant source of calories. I think diets like that Emily of Bite Size Vegan demonstrated are probably worse for the environment than the standard American diet. Not that they're more harmful to animals, though.
A few vegetables are good for us, more is not necessarily better and definitely not better for the environment when compared to dry staples.
Where do we draw the line of having done enough?
And particularly where environment is concerned, any line we try to draw between factory farmed chicken and a substantial number of calories from rice/potatoes seems very tricky. I like a larger margin than that.
When it comes to the ethical argument for avoiding cruelty to animals, it's a fine argument to make. But it becomes weaker from an environmental perspective.