A lot of news articles on the subject of animal agriculture have caught my eye lately. The environmental impact of animal agriculture is pretty large, including the impacts of water pollution as well as on climate change. Animal source foods are an important part of child nutrition, though in the US there is no shortage.
* Starting off with a bang, here is the iffy source "Eco-watch" making a point about Tyson foods. While it may be a little ambitious to attribute the very real dead zone entirely to Tyson, the larger point is valid: crops in the US Midwest let a lot of fertilizer runoff into the Mississippi River, which then leads to algal blooms in the Gulf of Mexico.
* The same is true in Europe. Taking into account the costs of the environmental damage, the prices of meat and dairy products are much lower than they should be once external costs are taken into account. From Nature, a pretty legit source.
* A peer-reviewed article on nutrition and the environment- food systems FTW.
* Also Brazil is seeing a rise in vegetarianism even as Brazilian President Bolsanaro fueled the fires of deforestation in the rainforest that dominates the interior of his country.
* Animal-source foods are key to child nutrition.
* A peer-reviewed article from 2017 says that animal agriculture is key to human health in the US: particularly a few niche chemicals must come from (or at least are most accessible via) animals.
* A 2019 article says that animals are key but right now they are too large a share of the US diet: having more protein come from plant sources would be better. From the introduction: "According to the 2018 report, in the years 2015–2017, meat consumption in North America was an estimated 200 lbs per person per year. In comparison, annual meat consumption in Latin America and the Caribbean averaged approximately 130 lbs per person, in East Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific approximately 60 lbs per person, and in Africa only approximately 30 lbs per person."
* A 2020 article has nothing good to say about meat: they blast the chemicals, links to cancer, and environmental issues like the carbon footprint.
* Update Jan. 26: Beyond Meat announced a partnership with Pepsi today that has given their (Beyond's) stock a boost. While this is promising news, it could also simply be a sign of the overheated stock market that the news has triggered an impact though, "The specific portfolio of products is still in development."
