So if you give up eating meat, but your grocery bill is the
same because you’re eating lots of salads and kale
smoothies, then you haven’t really done the environment any good.
If you're buying more food that has less "calories per $" you're either eating less calories or you live in a magical land where mathematics is for losers.
(in a footnote) It doesn't take into account externalities that occur while producing food.
Oh, so the author lives in that magical land, that's sorted it...
Author here. My point is more that most people are missing the forest for the trees. Sure, animal based food has externalities. But how do the externalities of chicken production vs kale production make up for chicken using 18x less resources per calorie of food produced?
