Livestock's Long Shadow

A recent report by the UN and a story in the NY Times raise some issues about food. As a triathlete, food is very important to me (eating is commonly known as "the fourth sport"). As an environmentalist, I now know to take it seriously because of the UN Report "Livestock's Long Shadow." The takeaway message from this report is that you can reduce your carbon footprint more by going vegetarian than by switching to a Prius.

The argument goes as follows: getting your calories from meat is much more energy intensive than getting the same number of calories from plants. Because animals need to breathe, move a little, chat, or whatever else they do to pass the time while they get fattened and prepare to meat their maker, they are inefficient converters of plants into protein. After you consider all the methane released in cow farts, the energy it takes to fatten a cow, move it to the slaughterhouse, cut out the bones and fat and skin, package the meat, and get it to the grocery store, you've released 10 times as many greenhouse gasses as if you'd just eaten the corn yourself and skipped the middle-pig.

The NY Times article doesn't touch energy issues, it addresses health. In notes the twin key trends over the last 30 years: 1) people have become increasingly health- and diet-conscious, leading to a proliferation of health foods and nutritional products and 2) people have become less healthy, more prone to diabetes, fatter, more oft-stricken by heart attacks. The recommendations made are essentially to eat less, eat unprocessed food (produce), and eat less meat.

If you aren't yet concerned about eating meet, check out the webiste www.goveg.com, which, while a little heavy-handed, may give you second-thoughts next time you buy a sausage.

Finally, I'd like to argue the 80% case: even meat lovers can stand to eat less meat. The average American diet includes far more protein than is necessary or healthy. So if going "whole hog" is too much to ask (it is for me), try to become an 80% vegetarian. Or any percent vegetarian. Every so often, try to order something without meat when you would have otherwise gotten meat.