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 »  Home  »  food  »  Cutting meat consumption
Cutting meat consumption
By Green Living Tips | Published  05/14/2009 | food
Livestock, red meat and the environment
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(first published March 2007, updated May 2009)

I've never been much of one for extremist vegan propaganda, but I've been making some changes to diet based on increasing evidence that the production of meat, or should I say our consumption levels, is a major environmental and humanitarian issue.

I could quite happily eat meat in 3 meals a day, 7 days a week. I'm not particular; you name the species, I'd probably eat it - rather strange for someone who professes to love animals and the environment I guess, but I've always seen meat consumption as being quite natural for a human and risky to go without it for any length of time.

What I did come to realize is that my meat consumption was way over the top and I needed to do something about it. I also needed to look more closely at how I source meat products and the treatment of the animals that have died for my meal. I'm not one of those people who balks at the idea of killing my own meat at all,  but I don't want an animal to suffer terribly for my dinner.

The idea of living without meat may seem rather frightening, but...

A report from the LEAD (Livestock, Environment And Development) Initiative; which is supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and other major "mainstream" organizations has really set my mind spinning. The 400+ page report really spells out what our meat addiction is doing to the environment.

Some key findings:

- Meat production by 2050 will double what it was in 1990

- Livestock currently provides a third of human protein intake

- Grazing lands take up 26% of the ice-free land on this planet

- Feedcrop production is 33% of all arable land on Earth

- 70% of previously forested land in the Amazon is taken up by pasture

- Livestock account for 9% of all human activity related carbon dioxide emissions

- Livestock are responsible for 37% of all human activity related methane emissions, and methane has 23 times more global warming potential compared to carbon dioxide

- Livestock account for nearly two thirds of human related ammonia emissions

- In the USA, Livestock are responsible for over half of the country's erosion and sediment issues.

- Livestock account for 20% of the Earth's animal biomass

- 30% of the earth's land surface which was once wildlife habitat is now occupied by livestock

.. and these incredible statistics are only scratching the surface. While I haven't read the full 400 hundred pages of "Livestock's Long Shadow", a skim through the data certainly stirred up some guilt in me. You can download a copy of Livestock's Long Shadow here (pdf 5 mb)

A few more mind boggling statistics from the New York Times:

- The world’s total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961

- In 2007, meat supply was estimated to be 284 million tons. 

- World meat consumption is expected to double again by 2050

- Americans make up around 5 percent of the world’s population, yet slaughter nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent of the world’s total.

Even trying to imagine 10 billion animals is hard, let alone the thought of them all being consumed every year - and factory farms can be truly horrifying places.

So, what to do? Well, for starters I cut right down on red meat as I understand this to be the most resource intensive animal-derived food. If you're a heavy red meat eater, you may not want to go "cold turkey" so to speak. Try replacing a few meals a week, say one lunch, one dinner, one breakfast; where you would have red meat with poultry, fish to start getting accustomed to lighter meats. If you can use cheese or eggs as replacements, even better - but easy on the portions because of the fat and cholesterol.

I certainly wouldn't recommend going from carnivore to vegan in one fell swoop as most vegan meat replacements will, well, probably taste terrible to you - they did to me anyway. Our tastes buds and stomachs need to be accustomed slowly, otherwise eating will become a horrible experience and you'll likely feel hungry a lot.

Aim to replace red meat nearly totally with poultry or fish within a month or two of starting. During that process, try to eat free range poultry if possible; mainly for the humanitarian aspects; even though that's a tricky one as well as chickens that have lived in true free range conditions aren't necessarily slaughtered using "best practices" to ensure the animal suffers as little as possible; so this is an aspect you may wish to research further. If you find yourself with heavy duty meat cravings and there's not a chicken to be seen, try satisfying it with cheese or (free range) eggs.

I think after weaning yourself off red meat for the most part, you'll then then find mock meat and other vegan replacements more tasty and satisfying and you may even decide to move further along the road to vegetarianism or veganism. I can't offer much advice past this as that's where I'm still at now.

As for me, eh.. you never know. I have been known to eat the odd tofu dish from time to time without gagging, I'm now eating and enjoying brown rice instead of white (something I thought could never happen) and white bread has been forsaken mostly in favor of wholemeal bread. I do believe these changes in tastes are partly due to reducing red meat consumption dramatically. I've also come across some tasty mock meat products. Just by replacing meat based hamburger products with a mock meat equivalent, that's shaved about 6 kilos (about 13 pounds) of meat consumption from my diet a year. Not much in itself, but a replacement here and a reduction there all adds up.

Giving up red meat for health reasons was never on the cards for me, but after learning more about the environmental issues; I simply couldn't ignore it any longer.

Normal medical disclaimers apply; consult your doctor first, blah blah blah :).


 
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Michael Bloch
Green Living Tips.com
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Comments
  • Comment #1 (Posted by Linda)

    Great article! For anyone looking at going vegan I would recommend going to http://www.veganforum.com for lots of support, friendship and great recipes as well as any kind of advice or back up information you could want.
     
  • Comment #2 (Posted by Jen)

    Thanks for delivering without preaching.
     
  • Comment #3 (Posted by newbroom)

    I was linked to your site through a friend at Newsvine.com after reading comments on an op/ed written by Thomas Friedman (NYT)....anyway...I am surprised at your confessed lack of sophistication re: meat...and applaud your candor...more people reading about people *awakening* may inspire a confidence to explore healthy choices. If you have not read this: http://tinyurl.com/vr8vn, it is something to consider....I just found it yesterday, and I think it provides motivation.
     
  • Comment #4 (Posted by Michael - Green Living Tips)

    Newbroom, thanks for your compliment/admonishment ;). Thanks also for the link to that article - unfortunately the URL was so long it played havoc with the way the site displays, so I've used the TinyURL service to shorten it - the link will still go to the same article "Boss Hog", published on Rolling Stone
     
  • Comment #5 (Posted by Alyssa)

    I think you'll find, with more research, that eating fish is also very detrimental to the environment. Normally we wouldn't think of the oceans, but they are deeply disturbed by fish consumption. Also, there is little that supports the idea that eating meat or even any animal products is necessary for a human being to live. The only studies that support that idea are either not scientific, don't consider all aspects of people's lives, or are payed for by the National Dairy Council or meat industries. Other than that, I hope that more people make the connection between food choice and environment.
     
  • Comment #6 (Posted by Gary)

    Anyone considering reducing meat (and dairy) intake should take a look at Colin Campbells "China Study". It is mostly concerned with health aspects but if we all do as he suggests, (eating a whole foods plant based diet) it would have major environmental benefits as a by product of looking after ourselves.
    Gary.
     
  • Comment #7 (Posted by beaton2313)

    After reading the article that newbroom mentions, I will never!!! eat anything made by Smithfield Foods again. Just thinking of all the drugs they pump into the pigs makes me ill, not to mention the lagoons full of noxious pollutants. I wonder if Paula Deen really knows what she's promoting. ;)
     
  • Comment #8 (Posted by Gayle Fleming)

    I was a vegetarian for 30+ years. I became a vegetarian primarily because of the dangers of eating meat that was filled with hormones and antibiotics. I didn't know about inhumane treatment or environmental problems. About two years ago I started to eat poultry and seafood. I still don't eat red meat. Even though there is organic, humanely treated beef, I still feel uncomfortable eating beef. Regarding substitutes I recommend Boca Burgers--especially Flamed Grilled when the beef urge is great. There are great breakfast links and faux sausage also made by Boca. Soyboy puts out great flavored tofu in 3 flavors: Caribbean (my favorite), Smoked and Asian. In general I still eat very little animal protein.
     
  • Comment #9 (Posted by Liza)

    We are lucky to have local organic food delivery service in our city. The company (www.greenling.com) gets all of their produce, meat and dairy from locally owned, sustainably run farms. Even if the produce is not certified as organic, it is all by local farmers, trying to farm in the most environmentally responsible way.

    I feel much more comfortable eating grass fed, pasture raised, hormone and antibiotic free meat that I can get from this service than I do eating products from factory farms. I feel that looking for local meat (and produce!) sources really reduces the impact your consumption has on the environment.
     
  • Comment #10 (Posted by Mackenzie)

    Get a copy of "Diet for a Small Planet" (the 20 year edition). The first half is on the environmental and humanitarian issues surrounding big agriculture. The second half is a vegetarian cookbook.

    For the record, I've been vegetarian for 2.5 years (was pescatarian for 2 years before that) and am now mostly vegan.
     
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