If you eat meat, are you an environmentalist?
UK's Lord Stern, whose 2006 report set out the consequences and costs of various levels of global warming, has now called for humans to stop eating meat. His reasoning is that our farm animals, especially cows and pigs, expel methane, which is 23 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, making meat-production account for 18 percent of all carbon emissions. He says that it will become as socially unacceptable to eat meat as it is to drink and drive.
So, this begs the question, can meateaters be environmentalists?
From a purely 'let's get down to basics' factual view, the answer is no. In order for a cow to grow and survive, it needs grass/feed and water. If you added up the amount of water used in showering for six months, that would be the amount of water used to create one 16-ounce steak. Puts meat production in a new perspective, doesn't it?
Forget about methane and cow farts eating away at the ozone layer for a second, and really just think about the amount of land and water used to create and support the meat industry. It's mind boggling when so many areas of the world are in code-red critical drought.
Now some of my eco-minded friends (ok, most), are sheepishly reading on right now waiting for the loophole. To date, I haven't found one. Seriously, I have looked for merits. From environmental issues, to health issues, I can't find any redeeming qualities about eating flesh.
Ok, I said flesh, which is inflammatory to meat-eaters. However, my own journey into becoming a partial vegetarian is because I had a close-encounter of the fleshy kind.
I am a pescatarian. I very rarely eat fresh fish (only when fresh is available, and from a local source), and I eat dairy (ok, just really good cheese now, as I am hip to soy milk), and if eggs were used in something I'm eating, I won't freak out. I'm not going to make an omelette anytime soon though.
My meat-eating friends decry, "But I need meat! I tried going vegetarian and my Doctor said I need protein. I was getting sick. I was weak. I was...." blah blah, you've lost me by now. This means, you're doing it wrong.
My meat eating days came to a screeching halt in 1991. While at college for my Nutritional Science degree, I had to take a course called Meats. Yep, just meats. Our instructor informed us that we would be killing a cow the next day, so be prepared. Wear old clothing, shoes. As a life long animal-lover, I of course didn't go. I took a zero credit for that day. I heard the stun-gun shot to the cow's head was horrific, and many of my classmates are probably still having nightmares over it. The day after the deadly deed had been done, the gameplan was to chop the dead cow into 'meat cuts' and dole out to the food system at school.
This is where I had a harsh lesson in the American food system. We actually cut up steaks, and made the 'dorm' hamburgers. Lymph nodes with pus, handfuls of fat, and more fat, and mystery veins, all got piled into the grinder. Our instructor ENCOURAGED us to throw these things in (even though we had just carefully cut these disgusting things out.). "It's all legal!! Throw 'em in!"
Did I mention our instructor was a former USDA meat inspector?
That was it folks. The smell of blood, the reality of a dead cow, the lifeless pounds of flesh in my hands made me realize that I did not want to be a part of this process anymore. Ever.
People who hunt for their food, clean it and then eat it, have this raw relationship with food, and that is a healthy thing and is low impact. It's called taking responsibility for what you put in your mouth.
However, the mass production of a product that is face-less to 99.99% of consumers is now out of control, and taking a toll on our environment. Consumers blindly eat meat that has been pumped with antibiotics, and play Russian Roulette with e-coli infected meat constantly.
Meat is so overproduced, it's actually cheaper than vegetarian food. When I go out to a restaurant, why is a meat hamburger more expensive than a veggie burger?
It's because meat is CHEAPER and less valuable. Scary, isn't it..and our mass dependency on meat is the equivalent of a drug addiction. People are addicted to the fat and the high amount of salt used in preparation. Not the protein. Not the 'mysterious' benefits.
Over the years, there have been other perks in my dietary change. For one, I can pet a cow on the head, look into it's soft-brown eyes, and not feel guilty. I don't crave it, because after you don't eat it for a year or two, meat smells bad. It's smooth sailing after that. I also feel like mother's earth teacher's pet. I have been told that a vegetarian driving a huge SUV will still have a lower carbon footprint, than a meat eater. Cool.
I've been a lacto (ok, good cheese) vegetarian for 19 years now. That's a lot of cow lives saves, many, many acres of land not used, and tens of thousands of gallons of water not wasted.
Getting back to Lord Stern's proclammation of 'eating meat is as bad as drunk driving'...is it that bad? No. The action of one person eating meat right now will not risk the life of another, like a drunk driver would. However, decisions to eat meat as a daily habit will eventually deplete our planet's resources and we have no reset button.
