本文探讨了从动物福利和环境角度来看，吃鸡和吃牛肉的优劣。作者分析了每种肉类生产所需的动物数量、动物福利和碳排放量，并计算了从鸡肉饮食转向牛肉饮食的道德成本。作者认为，从动物福利角度来看，吃牛肉更符合道德，因为每单位热量所需的动物数量更少，但从环境角度来看，吃鸡肉更符合环保，因为其碳排放量更低。

🤔 **动物福利：吃牛肉更道德？** 本文作者认为，从动物福利角度来看，吃牛肉比吃鸡肉更符合道德。作者分析了每种肉类生产所需的动物数量，发现吃鸡肉需要比吃牛肉多出 160 倍的动物，因为鸡的体型比牛小得多。作者还考虑了动物的意识水平，认为牛的意识水平可能比鸡高，因此牛的痛苦更值得关注。综合考虑动物数量和意识水平，作者认为，从动物福利角度来看，吃牛肉比吃鸡肉更道德。 作者还引用了牛的脑神经元数量比鸡高 6 倍这一事实，并认为大多数人认为牛的道德价值比鸡高 10 倍。作者假设牛的道德价值相当于 20 只鸡，并计算出从全鸡肉饮食转向全牛肉饮食可以每年拯救 60 只鸡的等效价值。 然而，作者也承认，动物意识水平是一个复杂的问题，尚未完全了解，因此这一结论可能存在争议。

🌎 **环境影响：吃鸡肉更环保？** 从环境影响角度来看，吃鸡肉比吃牛肉更环保。作者分析了每种肉类生产的碳排放量，发现牛肉的碳排放量是鸡肉的 10 倍。作者认为，这是因为牛会产生甲烷，而甲烷是一种强效的温室气体，而鸡不会产生甲烷。 作者还计算了不同饮食方式对个人碳排放量的影响。假设一个人每年吃 250,000 卡路里的肉，如果他全部吃牛肉，那么他的年碳排放量将增加 2.2 吨，而如果他全部吃鸡肉，那么他的年碳排放量将减少 1 吨。 然而，作者也承认，碳排放量只是一个指标，还有其他因素会影响环境影响，例如土地利用和水资源消耗。因此，这一结论也可能存在争议。

💰 **权衡取舍：道德成本与环境成本** 作者最后讨论了如何权衡动物福利和环境影响之间的关系。作者认为，从动物福利角度来看，吃牛肉更道德，但从环境影响角度来看，吃鸡肉更环保。作者还分析了碳排放抵消的成本，发现每吨碳排放的抵消成本在 0.1 美元到 44.8 美元之间。作者建议，消费者可以根据自己的价值观和预算来选择饮食方式。 作者没有明确给出结论，而是鼓励读者思考如何权衡道德成本和环境成本之间的关系。作者认为，这是一个复杂的问题，没有简单的答案。

🤔 **思考：如何做出选择？** 这篇文章引发了人们对肉类消费的道德和环境影响的思考。作者分析了吃鸡和吃牛肉的优劣，并为读者提供了权衡取舍的参考。最终，如何做出选择，取决于每个人的价值观和优先级。

🤔 **思考：如何做出选择？** 这篇文章引发了人们对肉类消费的道德和环境影响的思考。作者分析了吃鸡和吃牛肉的优劣，并为读者提供了权衡取舍的参考。最终，如何做出选择，取决于每个人的价值观和优先级。

🤔 **思考：如何做出选择？** 这篇文章引发了人们对肉类消费的道德和环境影响的思考。作者分析了吃鸡和吃牛肉的优劣，并为读者提供了权衡取舍的参考。最终，如何做出选择，取决于每个人的价值观和优先级。

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/moral-costs-of-chicken-vs-beef

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I.

I've previously argued that meat-eaters concerned about animal welfare should try to eat beef, not chicken. The logic goes: the average cow is very big and makes 405,000 calories of beef. The average chicken is very small and makes 3000 calories of chicken. If you eat the US average of 250,000 calories of meat per year, you can either eat 0.5 cows, or 80 chickens. If each animal raised for meat experiences some suffering, eating chicken exposes 160x more animals to that suffering than eating beef.

Might cows be "more conscious" in a way that makes their suffering matter more than chickens? Hard to tell. But if we expect this to scale with neuron number, we find cows have 6x as many cortical neurons as chickens, and most people think of them as about 10x more morally valuable. If we massively round up and think of a cow as morally equivalent to 20 chickens, switching from an all-chicken diet to an all-beef diet saves 60 chicken-equivalents per year.

But some people have argued that we also need to consider global warming. Cows produce methane, which is a powerful greenhouse gas. Chickens don't. How does this affect the calculations?

According to Eshal et al 2014, chickens produce about 2 kg CO2 equivalent per 1000 calories of meat, and cows about 10 kg (here "CO2 equivalent" means a collection of greenhouse gases, especially methane, that produce as much global warming as that many kg CO2). Going back to the average person who eats 250,000 calories of meat per year, the person who eats all beef is producing 2500 kg CO2 per year; the person who eats all chicken is producing 500 kg.

How much does this change things? The average US citizen produces 17.5 tons of CO2 per year. Suppose this average person was originally eating half beef and half chicken, in which case they would get 1250 kg CO2 from beef + 250 kg from chicken = 1.4 tons from beef + 0.3 tons from chicken. That leaves 15.8 tons coming from other things like cars and plane flights.

So if this average person switched to eating only chicken, their yearly CO2 production would drop from 17.5 tons to 16.4 tons. If they switched to eating only beef, their yearly CO2 production would rise from 17.5 tons to 18.6 tons. So the CO2 difference between an all-beef and an all-chicken diet is 16.4 tons of CO2 yearly vs. 18.6 tons yearly, or about 10%.

So switching from all-chicken to all-beef saves about 60 chickens per year, at the cost of 2.2 tons extra CO2, a 10% increase in your yearly production.

Nobody agrees on exactly how much it costs to offset a ton of carbon. This site says "anywhere from $0.10 per tonne to $44.80 per tonne", but eventualy settles on $3.30. QZ says "between $4 and 13 per metric ton". Terrapass sells offsets for $10 a ton; let's stick with that for now, while admitting it's at best an order-of-magnitude estimate.