Input and Output Data in Studying the Impact of Meat and Fat on the Land Resource Requirements of the Human Diet and Potential Carrying Capacity: The New York State Example

Abstract

Consumer dietary preferences influence the amount of land needed for food production. We modeled the impact of fat and meat consumption on land requirements for food production in the context of New York State (NYS). This publication contains the input data used to create a spreadsheet-based model and the output data from the program. Per capita land resource requirements were calculated for 42 diets ranging from 0 to 381 g/day (0 to 12 oz/day) of meat and eggs and 52 to 117 g/day of fat (20 to 45% of total calories). All diets contain equal numbers of total calories, and many meet national dietary recommendations. The potential human carrying capacity of the NYS land base was then derived based on recent estimates of available agricultural land.