I want to argue that you should neither eat meat or an vegetarian diet, especially if either is produced through artificial fertilizers. As an Baltic ocean diver I am almost daily reminded of the destructiveness caused by farming, and I continuously witness the horror of asphyxia when low oxygen water get flown near the areas I dive, and when the visible-from-space algae bloom occurs. Artificial fertilizers is such a huge problem that practically every single fresh water lake in Europe is considered damaged by eutrophication. Sourcing food free of that is a major step to reducing ones personal climate footprint.
Eggs are actually great if you have your own flock of chickens. They work almost for free in keeping grass down without requiring fossil fuels or complex machinery. They are almost perfect in handling food waste, and they can reduce harmful insects and weed without using any herbicide or pesticide. For insects they are likely less cruel than poison, and do not spread the poison to bees or birds. They also fertilizer the garden in a very natural way. A fairly small flock can easily maintain the need of eggs for a small family, often producing so much that you want to give it away to friends and relatives.
A bit of an anecdotal but when the natural gas prices went up after Russian invasion of Ukraine, one food product that got hit hard was fresh tomatoes. Farming them during off-season is very energy intensive and so require a lot of electricity, which in most countries mean a lot of fossil fuel. Even if you use renewables, that is energy that would otherwise go to to displace fossil fuel. It is indirect, but fresh tomatoes is right now connected with fossil fuel and war. Meat is also effected, but analysts seem to argue that people can easier switch over to farm more animal feed than they can fix the energy dependence on Russian fossil fuels. People could stop eating fresh vegetables when its off season...
Eggs are actually great if you have your own flock of chickens. They work almost for free in keeping grass down without requiring fossil fuels or complex machinery. They are almost perfect in handling food waste, and they can reduce harmful insects and weed without using any herbicide or pesticide. For insects they are likely less cruel than poison, and do not spread the poison to bees or birds. They also fertilizer the garden in a very natural way. A fairly small flock can easily maintain the need of eggs for a small family, often producing so much that you want to give it away to friends and relatives.
A bit of an anecdotal but when the natural gas prices went up after Russian invasion of Ukraine, one food product that got hit hard was fresh tomatoes. Farming them during off-season is very energy intensive and so require a lot of electricity, which in most countries mean a lot of fossil fuel. Even if you use renewables, that is energy that would otherwise go to to displace fossil fuel. It is indirect, but fresh tomatoes is right now connected with fossil fuel and war. Meat is also effected, but analysts seem to argue that people can easier switch over to farm more animal feed than they can fix the energy dependence on Russian fossil fuels. People could stop eating fresh vegetables when its off season...