Here are some points to make about Will We Still Eat Meat? (Time, Nov. 8):
- The Worldwatch Institute has been predicting doomsday food scenarios since 1974 and has yet to be correct about any of them.
- Ed Ayres represents the environmental branch of the food police. Even though consumers know what they like and what they want (beef demand is up) the food police want people to adopt their functional, joyless view of food. The Time article predicts a future where meat should have no place in the diet. But nothing could be further from the truth. According to a report published this summer by the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST), animal agriculture is essential to ensure an adequate global food supply. Perhaps most importantly, animal agriculture contributes to food security in developing countries.
- According to the CAST report, the biological value of protein in foods from animals is about 1.4 times that of foods from plants. Thus, diverting grains from animal production to direct human consumption would, in the long term, result in little increase in total food protein and would decrease average dietary quality and diversity.
- A vegan diet is an incomplete diet. The USDA's Food Guide Pyramid includes a variety of foods for a very good reason: our bodies need a variety of nutrients. Cutting out groups of foods means cutting out nutrients. Beef and other meats are a rich source of zinc, iron, protein and B vitamins such as thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, B6 and especially B12 which cannot be obtained from plant foods.
- Many people -- including Ed Ayres -- believe that Americans over-consume meat. This just isn't true. Americans on average consume 1.8 ounces of beef per day, and average 6.4 ounces per day of all foods from the Meat Group. This amount fits in the range recommended in the U.S. Dietary Guidelines and Food Guide Pyramid. In fact, meat is the only food group eaten in recommended amounts.
- A recent scientific paper published in the June 28 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine reported on a long-term clinical study of cholesterol-lowering diets conducted by the Chicago Center for Clinical Research, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Minnesota. The study found that lean beef was as effective as chicken or fish in diets designed to lower cholesterol.
- A strategy already under way by the EPA and USDA is requiring operators of beef cattle, dairy cattle, hog and poultry facilities to implement manure management plans. Many states already have manure management strategies. The EPA and USDA estimate that 95 percent of all farms meet the water pollution and public health risk-reduction-requirements without mandatory effort.
- Properly handled manure is not waste, but a natural, biodegradable fertilizer.
- Agriculture in total accounts for 50 percent of all water consumed in the U.S. According to a University of California at Davis analysis, total livestock production accounts for just over 11 percent of all water use in the U.S. This includes the water used to produce crops fed to livestock, as well as direct livestock consumption. (Beef cattle production accounts for just over 5% of all water use in the U.S.) Water for cattle production is not "used up." It quickly recycles as part of nature's hydrological cycle.
- Growing the grain, vegetables and fruit we consume may use relatively few raw materials, but putting these foods into edible forms actually uses MORE raw materials than meat production. Calorie for calorie, a British study shows that producing meat uses far less energy than producing fruit or vegetables. A recent study by the Centre for Energy and Environment at the University of Exeter examined the energy used to get food from farm to table. Beef, chicken and lamb all required less use of resources than vegetables, fresh fruit and white fish. The study accounted for meat's efficient rating by noting that it is not highly processed, provides a lot of calories and is often grown locally.
- Rainforests aren't cut to pasture cattle, simply because cattle don't generate more income than trees. Timbering has been the leading cause of forest clearing on a worldwide basis. In the poorer tropical countries, rainforest land has been cleared because the governments encouraged peasants to practice subsistence agriculture and grow crops.
- In the African Sahel, livestock production is not only an important source of protein, it's probably the main source of everything else including milk. The land is just too dry and nutrient poor to grow grains efficiently. Yet, livestock very efficiently harvest the sun's energy by converting low protein grains (and available grasses) into efficiently useable protein by humans. If Ayres tried to convince Malians to stop their cattle and goat production, they'd eat him. It might be helpful if he went over there for a sight visit. He might come back with a different perspective.
- Poverty is the biggest cause of deforestation. Ayers should take a trip down the road from the capital of Honduras out to the banana plantations. He would go through mountains that are essentially nude of trees. No big business interests here. Its all the squatters living along the side of the roads that also use the forests (i.e., former forests) for their spare livelihood. It's hard to appreciate the magnitude of the problem without seeing it first hand. Costa Rica has lots of forests. But Costa Ricans are well educated and much richer. (Gee, the richer you are the more forests you have; works in the U.S. too!!)
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