Photo and quote via Queenofheartss: “This is how you traditionally hack up a cow. Think about it.”
MEAT OF THE MATTER
Eating meat spews out more air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions than driving cars. In fact, cutting meat out helps more than switching to a Toyota Prius or eating locally. Always remember however that supporting local farmers who farm without chemicals, drugs and hormones helps to support people in your local community by providing jobs while cutting down on water and air pollution. Alas lots of people like eating too much meat as we’ve mentioned in a previous post.
WHY IS MEAT SO BAD?
Why is eating meat so bad? It’s completely senseless to feed animals and then feed people when you could just feed people straight out. Then you have to worry about where to put all that “poo-poo” and “cow gas”.
Gut Check: Here’s the Meat of the Problem – washingtonpost.com: “According to a 2006 United Nations report, livestock accounts for 18 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Some of meat’s contribution to climate change is intuitive. It’s more energy efficient to grow grain and feed it to people than it is to grow grain and turn it into feed that we give to calves until they become adults that we then slaughter to feed to people. Some of the contribution is gross. ‘Manure lagoons,’ for instance, is the oddly evocative name for the acres of animal excrement that sit in the sun steaming nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. And some of it would make Bart Simpson chuckle. Cow gas — interestingly, it’s mainly burps, not farts — is a real player.”
HOW CAN FOODCYCLES HELP?
Photo via Zenith Vegetarian
Part of FoodCycles mission is to teach people to grow their own food especially fresh fruits and vegetables. Past research has shown that people who grow their own food will eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. Who can beat the taste of a freshly grown tomato or cucumber from their yard after all?
Of course, FoodCycles also grows and sells fresh fruits and vegetables from the city farm. So you get the best of many worlds – you learn to grow food and inspire yourself to eat less meat, you drive less (FoodCycles is easily reached by bus 106, 108, 84 from Downsview Station) and you still eat local, fresh, chemical free food. How can you go wrong with that?
RESOURCES
Health Benefits of Urban Agriculture
Top Paper in Environmental Policy: Eat locally, or eat differently?
Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s important to keep in mind the ‘manufacturing’ process conventional meat is produced with, and clearly it is too energy intensive to be anything close to sustainable. It’s a far cry from the meat of ruminants, cows, goats, sheep etc, that are raised with intensive grazing methods. Using these methods of keeping a high density of animals in an area of pasture that they can eat in a day and then moving them, can increase the carbon matter in the soil at a high rate and could be a significant part of the solution to climate change, nutrition and feeding 6+ billion people well.
World wide the amount of carbon – organic matter has declined significantly with modern farming methods. This has caused a significant amount of carbon emissions as well as a decrease in the fertility of our soils lessening yields per acre and decreasing ability of the soil to produce healthy food. With intensively managed livestock we could heal much of the soils increasing crop yields, nutrient content of food and sequester carbon rapidly into a semi-stable (so long as the land is sustainably farmed) carbon sink. So for sure, industrial farming of livestock produces tonnes of carbon but that doesn’t mean that all livestock production methods are net carbon emitters. Eating intensively raised grass fed sheep, beef and goat in minimal amounts could be doing the Earth a big favour! Awesome link for further reading:
http://www.holisticmanagement.org/n9/about/carbon.php
[Translate]
Your post should clearly state that you are talking about ‘industrial forced confinement feedlot’ meat. With that stated, then I agree with your analysis.
The local bison and elk that I eat have not been fed grains, corn, or any other commercial feed. They eat only grass from the pasture and are not confined, not fed antibiotics, or any other wastes such as chicken manure and feathers. People can’t eat grass! These animals convert grass into food for us. The manure goes back into the pasture naturally and keeps the soil healthy. I may be wrong but without force feeding grains/corn, I also don’t think the animals fart excessive methane.
Ethical meat eaters also eat plants, both fruit and vegetables. Humans are omnivorous and a strictly vege diet is unnatural and potentially unhealthy. Let’s balance our food intake and stop demonizing meat eaters.
[Translate]
btw, that photo of the female human marked up with beef cuts may not support your thesis. Just looking at it made me want to take out a rump roast and bite it!
[Translate]
Al,
You’re of course totally right. And yes people can’t eat just grass or veggies. What this is pointing at is the need to not each as much “factory farmed, cage ridden meat” and eat more grass fed beef. Eat less of a bad thing and eat more of a good thing.
[Translate]