The cost of eating meat

Michael Pollan is right about so many things, like telling Oprah that cutting back on meat is one of the best moves to green our planet. He was also right when he said that understanding the latest dietary study findings can be confusing. But once in a while there’s health news that tell it simply like it is.

That’s the case with the recent New York Times article summing up the environmental and health costs tied to eating red meat regularly:

“The new findings suggest that over the course of a decade, the deaths of one million men and perhaps half a million women could be prevented just by eating less red and processed meats” in the age group studied.

Dr. Popkin, the MD associated with the findings, suggests, “eating a hamburger only once or twice a week instead of every day, a small steak once a week instead of every other day, and a hot dog every month and a half instead of once a week.”

I’m no MD, but I say skip the hot dogs altogether. If you love them that much, why not eat try tofu dogs? Better yet, how about tempeh? Commonly eaten in Indonesia, it’s high in B vitamins, protein, healthy bacteria and doesn’t contain mysterious sources of processed meat.

On a different note, here’s the part on environmental damage:

“Anyone who worries about global well-being has yet another reason to consume less red meat. Dr. Popkin, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina, said that a reduced dependence on livestock for food could help to save the planet from the ravaging effects of environmental pollution, global warming and the depletion of potable water. In the United States, livestock production accounts for 55 percent of the erosion process, 37 percent of pesticides applied, 50 percent of antibiotics consumed, and a third of total discharge of nitrogen and phosphorus to surface water.”

To many of us concerned with global waming, the environmental cost of eating meat isn’t news. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Report compares industrial livestock production to driving in their 1996 report:

“The livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent – 18 percent – than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation.”

So it doesn’t matter why, but by reducing the amount of meat in your diet you’re already doing a favor to yourself, to animals, and to our environmental resources. Meat should be treated as a luxury. Mark Bittman put it well in another NY Times article last year: “See meat as a treasure, and things change.”