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Washington • A new study says raising beef for the American dinner table does far more damage to the environment than producing pork, poultry, eggs or dairy.
The study says that compared with the other animal proteins, beef produces five times more heat-trapping gases per calorie. It spews six times as much water-polluting nitrogen. And it uses 11 times more water for irrigation and 28 times more land.
The research was conducted by Gidon Eshel, a professor of environmental physics at Bard College in New York, and appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The cattle industry says the study is a "gross oversimplification."