April 1st, 2009
“Food from the root is better for you than food from the hoof.” — Dr. Jay Adlersberg, Health and Medical reporter at WABC-TV
Even a cattle rancher probably wouldn’t deny that if people cut out even some meat from their diet they’d not only be healthier but they’d also be saving money as well as helping save the planet.
You don’t need to consider cutting out meat altogether, just a day or two a week.
Most of us have no idea of the mammoth-sized carbon footprint cattle leave on the earth. The United Nations’ 2006 FAO report states: “if every American gave up meat 1 day a week it would save almost 100 megatons of greenhouse emissions, or 90 million plane tickets from New York to Los Angeles.”
Even though these figures are difficult to comprehend, they illustrate the enormity of cattle’s carbon footprint.
Methane gas is a potent greenhouse gas 24 times more potent than carbon dioxide; can you guess which gas a cow gives off when they pass gas, excrete waste and burp? Methane gas. Foodreference.com says 15 – 20% of global methane emissions come from livestock (mainly cows, chickens and pigs). And if that isn’t a large enough cattle carbon footprint for you consider this from the USDA: growing crops to feed farmed animals requires 80% of our agricultural land and half — that’s half — of our water supply.
Imagine the results if that land and water were used for growing fruit and vegetables.
Cut meat from your diet and you also inevitably save money. Everything you replace the meat with is less expensive: beans, lentils and other foods. The savings can be passed on to purchase better, healthier foods like organic fruit and vegetables. Garrett Glaser has been a vegan for 5 years; a career in TV news had taken their toll on his body and his health. If you eliminate meat for just a couple of days “you will feel lighter and food will taste better,” he says
Sarah Pike was raised in Maine on an organic farm. She owns and runs Good Tastes Kitchen in Newburyport, Mass. She offers freshly-prepared foods as well as a growing meal-shipping business. Although she has some meat and poultry dishes on the menu, she says “Our black bean burger is a big hit with my husband, a self-described carnivore, and beans are very economical. My food cost to produce (a baked corn, bean, spices and breadcrumbs dish) is much less than when we source all-grass-fed beef from Vermont. Yet taste is never sacrificed. We have a lot of customers … looking for vegetarian options.”
Pike is featured in the April 2009 issue of Working Mothers magazine as one of the nation’s outstanding “Eco-Mompreneurs” (working mother with her own business).
Let’s look at the cost of meat: Steaks can easily run you $10 a pound; gourmet sausage, pork chops, chicken — all can run $15-$20 for a family dinner cooked at home.
And by the time these items reach your table they have consumed massive amounts of feed and water, emitted methane gas and we haven’t mentioned the energy it took to send it to you.
There are many Internet sites that emphasize the “no meat” program including meatlessmonday.com, Frances Lappé’s smallplanet.org and the United Nations food websites.
- Meatless Monday puts forward the concept that Monday, being the first day of the week, is the ideal day to leave meat off your menu. The meatlessmonday website is part of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Eaters’ Digest is their email newsletter. The meatlessmonday website highlights that meat is high in saturated fat, which can contribute to heart disease, diabetes, stroke and breast cancer. As soon as a patient is diagnosed with a heart or blood-related issue, cutting back on meat or doing away with it altogether is one of the first dietary topics a doctor will suggest.
- Smallplanet.org is the website of social change activist and author Frances Lappé. She was among the first to note that the eight essential amino acids found in meat are also present to various extents in a range of food plants, again underscoring the fact that money saved by not buying meat can be spent on healthier and fresher organic fruits and vegetables. In her bestseller, Diet for a Small Planet, Lappé wrote, “…one way to reduce our exposure (to pesticides farmers spray on their land) is to limit our intake of meat, poultry, fish and fats.”
According to Lappé, what farmers feed their cattle and poultry adds proportionately more weight to them than they give back as meat. She too endorses Meatless Monday (”or Tuesday or Wednesday, etc.”) and advocates ‘Live la Vida Loca(l)”. It’s better for Planet Earth, which can feed more when its less strained by livestock production.
Glaser says that he substitutes texturized vegetable protein for meat in his spaghetti sauce, and “nobody ever knows the difference.” He goes on to say that meatless dishes can easily be jazzed up by using any of the myriad spices now available. “My sense of taste has accelerated by eliminating meat from my diet.” And Garrett says he definitely saves money by not buying cheese, milk and eggs. Organic growers in his Hudson Valley neighborhood have come up with a wide variety of fresh vegetables and he has lost unwanted and unhealthy weight. “I now know I’ll live longer and better, so there is no downside to not eating meat and poultry.”
To underscore that thought, on March 24, 2009, the National Cancer Institute published its findings from a study on the health impact on humans. Researchers there concluded that “People who eat the most red meat and the most processed meat have the highest overall risk of death from all causes, including heart disease and cancer.”
Sure, many vegetarians and even some vegans will tell you they love the smell of steak on the grill or they miss the crunch of a strip of bacon. Eliminate meat and poultry one day at a time, substituting beans and lentils and see how you feel.
