Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

Cornell Study Assesses "Food Print" Related to Consumption, Diets

Researchers at Cornell
<http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct07/diets.ag.footprint.sl.html>
University have taken a close look at which type of diet
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1363/diet.html>  needs the most,
and
the least, amount of land to support it. They found that a low-fat
vegetarian diet <http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1363/diet.html>  is
very efficient in so far as how much land it requires, but it is not as
efficient as a diet <http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1363/diet.html>
that also includes a small amount of meat.

They equated their findings out to the fact that if everyone in New York
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1484/new_york.html>  State were to
follow a low-fat vegetarian diet, the farm land in the state could support
close to 50% more people than it can now, which amounts to about 32% of the
current population of the state. With the high meat diet
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1363/diet.html>  that most people
follow today, the state is able to feed 22% of the population without
having
to get food <http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1356/food.html>  from
the other states.

The researchers compared a total of 42 diets that all contained the same
amount of calories. They also had the same core products
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1487/products.html>  of grains,
fruits, vegetables and dairy products, all of which can be grown and
produced in New York
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1484/new_york.html>  State. The
only
variables in the diets were the amount of meat and fats. The meat ranged
from none to 13.4 ounces a day and fat
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1559/fat.html>  which ranged 20 to
45% of the total daily calorie count. They then designed an agricultural
land footprint for each diet.

There was five times the difference between the diets that came in on the
opposite ends of the scale.

Someone who follows the low fat
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1559/fat.html>  vegetarian diet
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1363/diet.html>  needs less that a
half acre of land per person per year top produce all the food
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1356/food.html>  they need. The one
on the opposite end of the scale is the high fat, high meat, diet
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1363/diet.html>  and in this case,
each person needs 2.11 acres to produce their food.

But a diet <http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1363/diet.html>  that
adds just a little bit of meat is still more efficient than the vegetarian
one because of the type of land it uses, not only the acreage.

Fruits, veggies and grains need high quality crop land to grow, Meat and
dairy products <http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1487/products.html>
come from animals
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1519/animals.html>
that can be supported on lower quality land which is also more available
than the high quality land. In other words, although a vegetarian diet
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1363/diet.html>  uses less land
overall, it uses more high quality land than a diet
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1363/diet.html>  with just a bit of
meat added, making the meat added diet
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1363/diet.html>  more efficient
when
all the variables are considered.

Found at:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/407798/cornell_study_assesses_food_

print_related.html