Scientists say the usual methods of growing animals to feed humans contribute more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere than gasoline fueled cars, ships, trucks, and planes combined. As typically raised, chickens, cows, and pigs produce vast quantities of carbon dioxide and methane, both threatening runaway climate change if current trends continue.

If we want to be environmentally sensitive and so switch from carbon-based fuel vehicles to electric, yet still eat a lot of meat, we have done less than half what we could to stave off further global warming. Even eating cheese and other dairy products or eggs but not the flesh of beef or poultry does not exempt us from damaging the environmental. After all, egg laying fowl and dairy cattle or goats still need to fart and do so in prodigious quantities. Runoff of nitrogen used in raising food for the animals we eat also is a major contributor to environmental degradation. Avoiding meat and dairy, then, is the most effective way individuals can stop harming the biosphere. Vegan diets have been found to be up to 84% less harmful to the environment than characteristic American vittles. We may not even be safe limiting our animal protein to fish. Catfish aquaculture, for example, is about as polluting as beef production, creating roughly twenty times as much greenhouse gas as small capture fisheries or farmed mollusks. The trouble is, though, on average we just love our meat!

Help for our inner carnivores may be on the way though. From "Good News Network," (New Cow Feed Causes Fewer Farts, Say Swiss Inventors Who Want to Curb Global Warming, by McKinley Corbley, 10/4/18), we learn that a Swiss firm, Agolin, is marketing a specialized type of feed for cattle that reduces their fart generation by 10%. The feed inventors have already begun supplying the food for about 4% of European cattle. Since a single cow produces three tons of greenhouse gas annually, Agolin's positive contribution is becoming substantial.

Even more benefit may come from the next item of helpful news on this front. In labs around the world scientists are developing ways to grow meat from animal cells synthetically. Cultured meat has up to a 45% lower carbon footprint than conventional methods of meat production. Recent developments with synthetically grown chicken cells are especially promising. In the next several years they might contribute significantly to things like chicken pot pies or chicken tenders.

Insects also are a large potential source of protein, once efficient means are found to collect them, remove their exoskeletons, and mix them with other foodstuffs in a manner to make them palatable for the initially squeamish eater. They are often available in vast numbers, ripe for harvesting. The carbon footprint of a pound of mealworms vs. the same weight of beef is miniscule. Twenty years ago, few outside the orient were attracted to Sushi, yet now it is in demand. Similarly, new ways of presenting and popularizing insect protein will likely be developed. In the future, just as cornmeal looms large in the plant-based food industry, so bug butter may be part of later generations' staple diets, or, how about cicada fried rice? Mmm, good!

A huge contribution to reducing our average edible contribution to global warming could come from simply being more efficient with the food already produced. Estimates range from 30-50% for the amount of food that is wasted in our country. Were we to cut that down to 20%, a vast savings in greenhouse gases production could be achieved. Since there are countries where the food waste is far less than here, it surely can be done, though some of our habits might need to change. One way to help cut down on food waste is to follow France's example and make throwing out good food illegal. Instead, there it must be either composted or donated.

Another interesting idea in reducing the carbon footprint of our diets is to simply lower one's average meat consumption. Americans often exaggerate the amount of protein we need. Our systems likely evolved in a time when we were mainly hunter gatherers. In contrast to how things are frequently depicted in the movies, that probably meant we ate only a small part of our total nutrition as mammal flesh. Nuts, beans, tubers, seafood, leafy plants, fruits, grains, birds, mushrooms, insects, eggs, and small land animals eaten sparingly seem to have been the more routine fare on which folks survived and were healthiest. One way to get closer to a more natural type diet and help the planet at the same time might be to simply substitute a denser non-animal food, such as an apple or perhaps a serving of mushrooms mixed in a salad for a helping of meat once a week or daily.

As human populations grow, there will need to be more efficient means of feeding ourselves. To do so with less expenditure of energy, more nutritional gains for us, and less negative impact on the environment will increasingly be a matter of necessity. Happily, there are a variety of means toward achieving these ends.