I would agree with you if the metrics were even close. Beef being like 100 times less efficient than legumes in many metrics makes it absolutely clear it’s better to grow legumes than beef, regardless if people want to consider, say, leather as a waste product.
given that beerf cattle can simply graze, that when they do make it to the feedlot they are fed fodder and crop seconds, what metrics do you think can meaningfully inform the “efficiency”?
our food system is so complex and interconnected that it makes no sense to claim any individual food product has a particular impact: each operation must be evaluated individually and improved in its own context.
This would be true if the foods weren’t so extremely far apart in terms of efficiency. The least efficient legumes are still much more efficient than the most efficient beef, per gram of protein. Please see table one in the largest meta study ever done on the topic below, constituting 38,700 farms and 90% global calories consumed (also included in the documentary): https://globalsalmoninitiative.org/files/documents/Reducing-food’s-environmental-impacts-through-producers-and-consumers.pdf
