Does That Carbon Dioxide Come With That Shake?

A little over a year and a half ago, I began to cut out as many animal products as possible from my diet. It wasn’t difficult, given that I’ve never really been too carnivorous to start, so going from the occasional piece of chicken or turkey to something vegetable-based wasn’t an extreme jump. Today, a periodic glass of skim milk is the extent of my close-but-not-really-vegetarian diet.

It hasn’t gone unnoticed, and I’ve come to accept my status as a local novelty, considering that the locals eat any and all things processed, refined, hydrogenated, instant, and drenched with high fructose corn syrup. Red meat, pork, and poultry are things that are “supposed to” be eaten at lunch and dinner; breakfast—if one chooses to eat it—should be purchased at McDonald’s and be some version of a McMuffin.

Fortunately, to date I have yet to have my patriotism called into question, but I won’t be shocked if it happens. (I say this having heard a comment made on a television show—which escapes me at the moment—in which a man said, “People who don’t eat meat ain’t American.” I’m not sure if that implies that having a low IQ makes one more American, but it got my attention. A few months later I heard yet another person bring national pride into the topic of diet when he proclaimed that “real” Americans eat fast-food because fast-food is “American.” Seriously, people, what the hell does “American” even mean anymore?)

This morning I came across a news story that makes me wonder if people will soon begin to eat like me, not because they want to, but rather because they’ll be forced to.

Is this in the name of health? One might think so, given the number of studies suggesting that vast amounts of red meat aren’t healthy. But this might actually happen in an effort to help curb global warming.

The news article, which refers to hamburgers as “the Hummers of food,” states:

When it comes to global warming, hamburgers are the Hummers of food, scientists say.

Simply switching from steak to salad could cut as much carbon as leaving the car at home a couple days a week.

That’s because beef is such an incredibly inefficient food to produce and cows release so much harmful methane into the atmosphere, said Nathan Pelletier of Dalhousie University in Canada.

Pelletier is one of a growing number of scientists studying the environmental costs of food from field to plate.

By looking at everything from how much grain a cow eats before it is ready for slaughter to the emissions released by manure, they are getting a clearer idea of the true costs of food.

The livestock sector is estimated to account for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and beef is the biggest culprit.

Even though beef only accounts for 30 percent of meat consumption in the developed world it's responsible for 78 percent of the emissions, Pelletier said Sunday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

That’s because a single kilogram of beef produces 16 kilograms carbon dioxide equivalent emissions: four times higher than pork and more than ten times as much as a kilogram of poultry, Pelletier said.

If people were to simply switch from beef to chicken, emissions would be cut by 70 percent, Pelletier said.

Another part of the problem is people are eating far more meat than they need to.

“Meat once was a luxury in our diet,” Pelletier said. “We used to eat it once a week. Now we eat it every day.”

If meat consumption in the developed world was cut from the current level of about 90 kilograms a year to the recommended level of 53 kilograms a year, livestock related emissions would fall by 44 percent.

“Given the projected doubling of (global) meat production by 2050, we’re going to have to cut our emissions by half just to maintain current levels,” Pelletier said.

“Technical improvements are not going to get us there.”

That’s why changing the kinds of food people eat is so important, said Chris Weber, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania.

Food is the third largest contributor to the average US household's carbon footprint after driving and utilities, and in Europe - where people drive less and have smaller homes - it has an even greater impact.

“Food is of particular importance to a consumer’s impact because it's a daily choice that is, at least in theory, easy to change,” Weber said.

“You make your choice every day about what to eat, but once you have a house and a car you’re locked into that for a while.”

The average US household contributes about five tons of carbon dioxide a year by driving and about 3.5 tons of equivalent emissions with what they eat, he said.

“Switching to no red meat and no dairy products is the equivalent of (cutting out) 8,100 miles driven in a car...that gets 25 miles to the gallon,” Weber said in an interview following the symposium.

Buying local meat and produce will not have nearly the same effect, he cautioned.

That’s because only five percent of the emissions related to food come from transporting food to market.

“You can have a much bigger impact by shifting just one day a week from meat and dairy to anything else than going local every day of the year,” Weber said.

Call me Orwellian, but several things that were brought up in this article lead me to think that this is opening the door for something as extreme as rationed and federally-regulated meat consumption in the name of saving the planet. Consider:

• Just switching from meat to salad would help the planet. If people don’t do it voluntarily, though, what might the other solutions be?

• People are eating more meat than they need to. This is something with which I’ll no doubt agree, and to be honest, I think that people eat more food in general than they need to. But, since they’re eating more than necessary, perhaps it’s time that we consider more regulation of how much food—red meat or otherwise—that is consumed.

• If red meat consumption dropped from 90 kilograms a year to 53 kilograms, emissions would fall by 44 percent. Lowering emissions is very important, isn’t it? We might need more oversight on who eats what.

• Meat production is projected to double by 2050, and “we’re going to have to cut our emissions by half just to maintain current levels.” But what if we don’t do it voluntarily? The only way to deal with it would be for a crackdown on eating habits.

• “Technical improvements are not going to get us there.” If this is the case, we’ll need to look beyond technology and go right for legislation.

• Professor Chris Weber says that changing the kinds of food people eat is important. What happens if they don’t want to change those foods? Hmm...we might have no choice but to look at laws which say that we must change what we eat.

My concern isn’t with what would be eaten, but with how we might go about dealing with these “Hummers of food.” Since I was a teenager I routinely had comments made about what I ate, and in particular how my eating habits were “wrong” or “unhealthy” because I didn’t eat red meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I grew tired of the authoritarian attitudes of my carnivorous peers very quickly.

Because of this, I couldn’t imagine resorting to shoving my own eating habits down the throats of others while defending it by saying that I’m doing it for the planet.

Obviously it doesn’t say that this would happen in the news story, but given our penchant for legislation of this, that, and everything else—not to mention regulation coming by way of an incremental approach—I can easily see people making the argument for increased federal monitoring of what we eat, how we eat it, and how much we eat.

But maybe if we put the regulation in a nice package and call it a “value meal,” we’ll have people lining up in droves.

Reference

“Hamburgers are the Hummers of Food in Global Warming.” Breitbart.com. 16 Feb. 2009.

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