There is a big push going on in the world today for cutting meat and animal products out of the human diet in order to help save the world. And this push is not misplaced. Meat and dairy production accounts for half the of global greenhouse gas emissions (This includes the emissions from the livestock themselves, the emissions from farming the food to feed the livestock, and the emissions from transportation involved). Cutting this one thing out of the world would have a real impact on the rate of climate change.
Meat production also uses an astounding amount of water and agricultural crop space. Around 2,300 trillion tons of water goes toward raising meat animals every year. 50% of all community water, and 70% of agricultural land in the USA goes to this. Image how much more food security there would be if even half of this went toward growing fruits, vegetables, and grains instead. Plus clearcutting land for animal agriculture is responsible for about 80% of deforestation in the rainforest.
With stats like this it is no wonder that there is a push for simply removing the problem from the world.
But, completely eliminating all animal products from our diets is a daunting thought for many people. One that not everyone agrees with. And many people feel that it is too hard, so instead choose to make no changes. That doesn’t help anything. So, there is another way to help with the problem, yet not become vegan.
The Problem(s) Explained
There is one aspect of the livestock problem that is generally overlooked in the push for removing meat and dairy from the human diet.
And that is how that livestock is raised.
The vast majority of meat and dairy animals are raised in meat lots. Which are essentially tiny paddocks or cages with way too many animals crammed into them. They spend their entire lives standing in their own filth with not a blade of grass in sight. Needing all their food and water to be trucked in. The living conditions these animals live in alone is enough reason to stop this type of production.
But it is, in truth, this ‘meat-lot’ style of raising livestock the causes almost all of the greenhouse emissions associated with meat production.
The ground the animals live in is essentially dead, and as such it releases huge amounts of carbon into the air (living soil stores carbon in large quantities). And in addition to that, the animals digestion produces a lot of methane, which is also a greenhouse gas, and all of that goes directly into the atmosphere. And, because that isn’t enough emissions, a huge percentage (70% in the USA) of all agricultural land goes toward growing crops to truck in for these animals to eat. And most of those crops are grown the conventional way, which is also a huge source of atmospheric carbon along with pesticides, and fertilizers.
So it is a double problem, carbon from the soil and methane from the animals themselves, and all the emissions and pollution from growing food for these animals. All contributing directly to greenhouse emissions.
And the other problem with all of this meat production is simply the quantity of it. People eat way too much meat. And that needs to be greatly reduced if we are going to stop global warming. Veganism and vegetarianism are, of course, applaudable solutions to the to-much-meat problem. But they aren’t the only solutions. Simply reducing the amount of meat consumed per person goes a long way toward the solution. There is even a name for this approach, it is called the Flexitarian Diet. More about that here.
The Alternative
There is a different style of farming that is gaining traction today, it is known as regenerative farming. (If you want to read the details about how regenerative farming works, click here.) But the short description is: this farming practice that puts the soil first. Healthy soil isn’t just carbon neutral, it is carbon negative. And livestock raised on healthy soil actually help to reduce greenhouse emissions, regardless of the methane produced by those animals.
Large herbivores are part of healthy grassland ecosystems naturally. Bison and Elk in North America, Zebra and Gazelle in Africa, and so on. Herbivores keep the grasses low and keep trees and brush from taking over, their hooves aerate the ground, and there feces fertilize it. They are supposed to be there. Cows and other livestock can play the same role in domestic agriculture.
~Did you know that most fruits and vegetables we eat today have between 20-50% less nutrients in them than the vegetables we ate 40 years ago? Yet most of those vegetables are significantly larger than they were in the past. This is due to the conventional style of farming leaching the soil and therefore leaching our food of nutrients.~
But back to the meat production problem.
So the animals in meat lots contribute to greenhouse emission, and the land used to grow their food contributes even more because it isn’t healthy. Then that land requires heavy chemical use to make up for the unhealthy soil. Which makes the soil even less healthy. Which then needs more chemicals… It is a viscous, and highly destructive, cycle that works a lot like a drug addiction. The first time is amazing, the second time is good, the third time is ok, but then you need more and more to achieve even just the ok level.
But, regenerative farming, which puts the livestock and the croplands back together, absorbs carbons, and actually helps reverse climate change. (This is like the drug rehab.) Why put all those resources into growing food for animals, when the animals could just live directly with their food?
If the world could make the shift completely away from conventional meat and dairy production, and switch to regenerative, we could make a huge impact on climate change. And do it without eliminating meat and dairy from our diets.
Your Role in This
So how does your diet play into all of this?
You get to choose where your food comes from. And how much you eat. If you buy conventionally raised meat, you are contributing to the problem. If you eat meat three meals a day, you are contributing to the problem. We live in a supply and demand world. If the people demand low quality but large quantities of conventional meat, the farmers will supply it. But if the people demand smaller quantities but higher quality regeneratively farmed meat, the farmers will make the switch to supply that instead. This is how you can help.
Eat less meat. We simply don’t need meat three meals a day, we don’t even need meat every day. But eating it a few times a week is perfectly fine if the meat comes from the right source.
So the next time you head to the grocery store, or start planning your next weeks worth of meals, think about this. Less meat, but better meat. It matters.
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