By Christopher Peake

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.

When it comes to ensuring that sustainable development lives up to its potential for creating environmental, economic and social gains, the global reduction of food and food-related waste represents an enormous opportunity. For reference, the EPA estimates that 12% of municipal solid waste, or 30 million tons, is food scraps. This is enough to feed the entire population of Canada.

Frankly, it’s fairly easy to reduce food waste:

1. Start by developing weekly meal plans. Create the shopping list you need to prepare these meals, and stick to it when you get to the store.

2. Think of leftovers as ingredients for future meals and alter you planning accordingly. Today’s grilled chicken is tomorrow’s chili, chicken salad, lunch meat, etc.

3. If you want your kids to eat new things, try before you buy. Have them taste a particular food when you go out to eat, or when visiting family and friends. That way, you’ll know ahead of time if that cauliflower will go “down the hatch” rather than down the disposal.

4. Food that stays on the platter can live to see another day, while food that stays on the plate becomes garbage. Serve and take smaller portions and have your family ask for seconds if still hungry. This is especially important for teenagers, whose mouths tend to be much larger than their stomachs.

5. Speaking of teenagers, help them avoid pre-meal snacking. Doing so will make sure that they eat what’s on their plates, rather than pushing them back at you while muttering “I’m not hungry.”

6. If you buy perishable items such as meat or cheese in bulk, break down into portions and freeze what you don’t plan on using immediately. Label items with product descriptions and today’s date, and use in the order of being stored.

7. Bringing home leftovers? Label with today’s date and description. Eat quickly, starting with the oldest items.

8. Got a fast food fix? Resist the temptation to super-size if possible. You’ll reduce food waste, your spending, and probably your waistline.

9. Fresh is great, if you’re going to eat it all. Otherwise, portion-controlled packages for items like salads, carrots, pineapple, and peas may be a better bet economically and environmentally.

10. Avoid “Manager’s Specials” on perishable foods, unless you plan on using them immediately. Meats, fruits and vegetables are deep-discounted to move them out of the store before they expire. Unless you use it now, today’s bargain will be tomorrow’s trash.

Bob Lilienfeld is editor of The ULS (Use Less Stuff) Report, a newsletter aimed at helping people conserve resources and reduce waste. He is a regular commentator on NPR’s The Environment Report, and co-author of the book Use Less Stuff: Environmental Solutions for Who We Really Are.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Related stories:

• Food Indulgence in America: How attitudes weigh us down
• Food waste in America, a growing concern

Oh for the days when all we had to worry about was a little pesticide residue on our apples. This past week brought two reminders that what we don’t know is in our food can hurt us.

The peanut butter snack recalls continued flying off the conveyor belt, noteworthy for the sheer number of products potentially tainted with salmonella – more than 400 at last count. All that contamination from one little ole peanut processing plant in Georgia. Best to heed the advice of the Food and Drug Administration’s Dr. Stephen Sundlof, “If you don’t know the source of the food that contains peanuts, don’t eat it.” At the same time, the FDA has declared that “national name brand peanut butter” sold in jars at retail has not been contaminated.

We also learned last week that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), that controversial, cheap and ubiquitous sweetener might contain more than just the empty calories blamed for our flourishing flab. A study by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) reported finding traces of mercury in 17 of 55 tested foods made with HFCS.

How’d it get there? Researchers blamed HFCS factories that employ an outdated process involving mercury.

The FDA said the mercury was not a problem because the study measured total mercury and didn’t break out methylmercury, the form found in fish and absorbed by the human body, from other forms not so easily absorbed.

Furthermore, the findings show miniscule amounts, a few parts per trillion (ppt) — akin to a drop in 20 Olympic-size swimming pools, according to one report in the Minneapolis StarTribune.

But the researchers, from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis, defended their work, reported in Not So Sweet: Missing Mercury and High Fructose Corn Syrup. They say that mercury is so toxic, even trace amounts should not be tolerated in foods, and that the government should push the factories still using mercury to modernize.

Most U.S. HFCS plants, some 90 percent, use a non-mercury process, noted lead researcher Dr. David Wallinga, which shows that mercury contamination is avoidable. But four plants in the U.S. and many more around the globe use mercury in the production caustic soda, which is then used to make HFCS. (The “missing mercury” of the study’s title refers to mercury that cannot be accounted at HFCS plants, indicating it must be seeping into the HFCS and/or the environment. A second, peer-reviewed study released this week had tested the HFCS itself and found several samples to be tainted with mercury.)

The list of 17 food items that tested positive for mercury – albeit tiny amounts – is distressing.

It includes many foods you’ve come to love and trust, like Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup, Hunt’s Tomato Ketchup, Manwich Gold Sloppy Joe,  Nutri-Grain Strawberry Cereal Bars and Frosted Blueberry Pop Tarts (we always knew those were of dubious nutritional value, but this is ridiculous).

Wallinga told us that he doesn’t blame the food producers because they, like the public, probably didn’t realize that the HFCS was tainted with mercury.

Food manufacturers responded to the study with skepticism, questioning whether the minute amounts of mercury found merited concern. Con-Agra, maker of the ketchup, said consumers issued a statement saying consumers would have to eat “more than 100 pounds of ketchup each day” to exceed the government’s threshold for unsafe exposure.

Still, Wallinga thinks consumers should call manufacturers of the mercury-containing foods to ask about their HFCS suppliers. “You should be worried that we’re finding it in food, even at these levels, because mercury is so toxic and because we eat so much high fructose corn syrup. I mean one in 10 calories in the U.S. (consumed are from HFCS),” he said.

Even if the implicated HFCS foods turn out to be quite safe — and their makers insist they are — the mercury study, coming on the heels of the peanut butter debacle, surely shows that we need more transparency, modernization and oversight of our big industrialized food chain.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Last year may have been the Year of the Frog, but it appears that twelve months of focus on amphibian-threatening disease haven’t eased one threat to Kermit’s cousins: Human beings may simply gobble the survivors all up.

Researchers at the University of Adelaide in South Australia say that frogs are in danger of extinction partly because of human consumption; they say over-harvesting — coupled with more significant natural threats currently endangering wild frog populations, like “disease, habitat loss, and climate change” — are putting frogs on track to the kind of dwindling populations seen in certain kinds of fish.

It isn’t only the snail-eating French whose appetites threaten frogs. Associate Professor Corey Bradshaw, part of the Adelaide team, notes that they’re eaten around the world, particularly in Asia, and that in Europe even school cafeterias have been known to serve frog legs. The study asserts that human consumption has now reached the point at which “at least 200 million and maybe over 1 billion” frogs are consumed every year.

The scientists are urging governments to require certification of frog harvests, so the frog trade can move to more sustainable models than the year-round pattern that has developed. Farming frogs specifically for human consumption, they’ve noted, would be better than going after already-threatened wild populations.

Those of us who don’t live in frog-chomping regions but want to do our part might take a look at our article from last year about making frogs and other slimy critters at home in your yard.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Ever on the look out for signs of the times, we noticed the other day that “Waste News,” a trade publication covering the waste, salvage and recycling industries, has changed its name to “Waste & Recycling News“.

While we’ll miss the unintentional double entendre of the previous name, we welcome the signal that the world can’t consider its waste to be just waste anymore. Today, “scrap” or recyclables — stuff that could be re-crafted into something new or turned into biofuel or compost or PETE plastic parkas — is the new waste. This is a good thing.

And while we’re thinking about tossing less, let’s also consider our food and how much we well-fed Americans send to the waste bin — nearly 100 billion pounds of food annually, according to one report.

In Paula Minahan’s story, Food Indulgence in America: How Attitudes Weigh Us Down, professors who’ve studied the issue point out that Americans willingness to waste and penchant for filling plates to brimming is draining resources, and stretching waistbands.

You’ve no doubt heard about the problem of obesity in America. This story takes a step back and looks at how our cravings and sense of entitlement need to be unwound before we can free ourselves from this epidemic of overeating.

This is a story freighted with emotional issues. But it’s also one of those win-win green ideas: Watch your waste (and your waist) and you’re stepping more lightly on the planet while improving your health.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Piles of cracked and broken shells. Gnawed bones pushed aside. Remnants of what tempted with shameless excess. And in the background, a young Army recruit observes, “This is what we fight for, you know. Not so you can waste food, but so you can have plenty.”

It’s just another day at one of Sin City’s copious casino buffets as depicted in the award-winning documentary, Buffet: All You Can Eat Las Vegas. The film, shown on PBS and at indie festivals nationwide, is MIT cultural anthropology professor and filmmaker Dr. Natasha Dow Schüll’s sometimes humorous, often outrageous look at American indulgence.

“Las Vegas is a great exemplification of things that are shared, that are afoot in American culture in a very extreme way,” says Schüll. “All over America, the buffet amplifies things endemic to our society. It doesn’t surprise me this kind of waste, which is celebrated as a public ritual at the buffet, is carrying over to the more private domain of the household. It’s very OK to throw out food.”

And throw it out we do. As reported in “Food Waste in America, A Growing Concern,” 96 billion pounds of food – or 27% of the 356 billion pounds of edible food available – is squandered every year in the U.S. And the price tag on this flagrant wastefulness? A staggering $130 billion plus annually.

But as the economy continues its free fall, more companies, food service establishments and individuals are reexamining their impact on the environment. We’re beginning to get it: The United States is united with a global community with finite resources and an ever-burgeoning population. What once seemed abundant, shrinks daily. Curbing consumption and waste is mandatory.

Truth be known, however, what we don’t waste, we’re downing in mega amounts. And the statistics – and U.S. waistlines – prove it:

• The prevalence of obesity among adults has doubled since 1976, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Today, says nonprofit Trust for America’s Health, two-thirds of American adults age 20 or older are obese or overweight.

• Broken down by number, that equates to 127 million overweight adults, another 60 million who are obese and 9 million extremely obese. Add to that, 25 million children already obese, overweight or at risk of being overweight. That’s nearly one out of three kids.

While some dispute the notion obesity is an epidemic, there’s no doubt our habits of indulgence are running amok. Costing billions in food waste and disposal, billions more in medical-related problems and fueling a $40-billion-per-year diet industry. Damaging our planet, our bodies and our health.

Our Civic Duty
There’s a kind of human delight in excess and waste, enabled and amplified by fiscal and cultural attitudes prevalent in the “Land of Plenty.” And plenty is revealed in Schüll’s exploration into the American buffet.

“The entire buffet experience – much of which has to do with gluttony and throwing away – is what you’re purchasing,” says Schüll. “It’s almost like purchasing the right and the experience to be wasteful. It’s expected and normalized behavior; there are no social structures in place that frown upon leaving food on your plate. That’s what you’re doing at a buffet. That’s why people get so giddy with it.

As more and more individuals and groups set out to re-introduce gardens to urban areas — often citing WWII’s “Victory Gardens” as proof that a large percentage of our food can come from our back yards and vacant lots — the Detroit-headquartered Urban Farming wants to push edible plants into new spaces — like walls.

The Urban Farming Food Chain is a “vertical farming” project that retrofits the sides of buildings with irrigated panels capable of growing all sorts of produce. Intent on making this food useful instead of a mere eco-novelty, the group has put its first four installations in Los Angeles locations where fresh, healthy food can be scarce: places like Skid Row, for instance.

“These are in protected/courtyard locations,” program developer Joyce Lapinsky clarifies.

Though the group first targeted purely public spaces, she says, “once we realized that the vegetable/fruit plants would grow out approximately one foot/foot and a half from the wall panels, it was clear to us that we wouldn’t likely find appropriate locations in the environments that we wanted. It would have required us to have unrealistic and inconsiderate expectations of the people we wanted to serve.” Lapinsky explains that, in areas with large homeless populations, you can’t really ask people “Please don’t lean on the wall,” or “Please don’t sit on the sidewalk.”

What you can ask is that those who benefit from a project like this learn how to keep it going. So while “anyone can in fact go up and pull a fruit/vegetable off of the wall” in these four test sites, local residents are expected to take organizers’ expertise (and the pre-grown plant panels, which are organically cultivated at Cal Poly’s Sustainable Agriculture Resource Consortium) and learn how to implement it as a group.

As a story in the Los Angeles Times pointed out in August, formerly homeless people on Skid Row had seen mixed results with their own earlier attempts at farming; but Lapinsky says that these walls of food “have fared very well.”

People from around the country have contacted Urban Farming about the project, she adds, “and we’re hopeful that with our efforts to highlight vertical farming that people will do this in their communities, whether as an Urban Farming partner and ‘link’ in the Urban Farming Food Chain, or on their own.”

Copyright © 2008 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media