The common American at present eats greater than 270 kilos of meat each single 12 months. To place that in perspective, that’s the equal of greater than 1,000 burgers or over 6,000 slices of bacon yearly. It’s plenty of meat, however the Trump Administration thinks it’s not sufficient.
Earlier this month, up to date Dietary Pointers for People had been launched alongside a redesigned US Meals Pyramid. On the prime sat meat and dairy, positioned alongside vegatables and fruits. Towards the underside had been nuts, legumes, and entire grains.
The brand new tips sparked fast backlash from well being specialists. Christopher Gardner, a diet scientist at Stanford College, warned that encouraging increased consumption of pink meat and saturated fats runs counter to “many years and many years of proof and analysis.”
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Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nonetheless, framed the shift as a strategy to finish what he known as “the conflict on saturated fat.”
However there’s one other challenge. Past the well being considerations, environmental specialists say the steerage may carry severe penalties for the planet.
The doubtless devastating environmental impression of the brand new US dietary tips
Animal agriculture accounts for round 15 to twenty p.c of world greenhouse gasoline emissions, in response to organizations together with the FAIRR Initiative. The business is a main supply of methane and nitrous oxide and is a number one driver of deforestation worldwide. Beef manufacturing alone is liable for not less than 41 p.c of world deforestation.
With extra meat consumption, these points will solely worsen, specialists say.
“We’re seeing tens of millions of acres of forest reduce down, and agricultural growth is the main driver of that,” Richard Waite, director of agriculture initiatives on the World Assets Institute, instructed The Guardian. “Including one other 100 million acres to feed the US would place extra pressure on the world’s remaining ecosystems.”
“It’s already exhausting to feed the worldwide inhabitants whereas decreasing emissions and stopping deforestation, and a shift on this path would make the problem even tougher,” he added. “We have to cut back the impression of our meals techniques urgently, and the US is a vital piece of the puzzle in doing that.”
Waite argues that People searching for extra protein ought to as a substitute flip to lower-impact plant-based sources similar to beans and legumes, the meals now relegated to the underside of the brand new pyramid.
Linda Soper-Kolton
A rising physique of analysis helps that view. A 2025 research printed in Frontiers in Vitamin discovered that switching from a Mediterranean-style food plan to a vegan one may reduce a person’s environmental footprint almost in half.
“We in contrast diets with the identical quantity of energy and located that shifting from a Mediterranean to a vegan food plan generated 46 p.c much less CO2 whereas utilizing 33 p.c much less land and 7 p.c much less water, and in addition lowered different pollution linked to world warming,” stated research chief Noelia Rodriguez-Martín, PhD, on the College of Granada.
One other 2025 research by the College of Michigan and the College of Minnesota flagged severe environmental considerations about American diets. After analyzing the carbon footprints of greater than 3,500 cities within the US, researchers concluded that the nation’s meat consumption has a carbon footprint bigger than Italy’s complete carbon footprint.
“[Eating more meat] is a wide selection we make that has actual penalties,” added Waite. “If individuals need extra protein, there are methods to do this by way of consuming plant-based meals with out the environmental impacts. We are able to have our protein and our forests, too.”
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Charlotte is a VegNews editor and author primarily based in sunny Southsea on England’s southern coast.
