Foods For A Diet: Environmental

Showing posts with label Environmental. Show all posts

Sunday, June 2, 2013

The Real Environmental Impact of Red Meat: Part 2

104632697 In my previous article on the environmental impact of red meat, I explained how grazing livestock can be an environmentally friendly farming technique, helping to remove carbon from the atmosphere and consume less water resources than has been estimated.

While all large-scale food production, even organic food, has some level of impact on the environment, it’s clear that red meat has borne the brunt of most claims of negative environmental impact. The major claim I want to address today is the claim that grazing livestock leads to soil erosion and desertification, which is far from the truth. In fact, grazing cattle could even be a factor that restores the environment if used intelligently and responsibly.

Could eating grass-fed meat actually help save the environment?

I’m sure many of you have already heard Allan Savory’s TED talk on the subject, but if you haven’t, it’s worth a listen. He argues that despite the popular assertion that livestock cause desertification, cattle and other livestock can actually reverse desertification when their grazing patterns are managed closely. He goes so far as to say that livestock may actually be our best hope for restoring land that is currently unusable. He has spent quite a few years in Africa testing different grazing methods, and has achieved some impressive results. In his talk, he shows pictures of land that used to be barren and infertile, but has been completely restored using intensive grazing methods.

As you can imagine, his claims are highly controversial, and there’s no clear consensus in the literature about whether livestock are detrimental or helpful to the land. Some studies seem to corroborate Savory’s claims; for example, this study found that a specific grazing pattern increased the water content of the soil. However, there are other studies that show no benefits whatsoever from intensive grazing, and some even show harm. But this really shouldn’t surprise us; it’s illogical to assume that the methods used to restore land in Africa will also work in every other part of the world. Climates are different, soil is different, plants are different, and the type of livestock is different, so what works well in one area might not work in another area. The good news is that, as Savory’s talk shows us, livestock aren’t always harmful to the land, and can even be highly beneficial when managed responsibly. But we can’t say that livestock is always helpful, either. This highlights yet again the importance of finding a farmer you trust, because a responsible farmer will know how to manage their livestock in a way that preserves the land.

I’ve hinted at this throughout the post, but I want to directly address the difference in environmental impact between grass-fed and grain-fed red meat. Believe it or not, it’s controversial as to whether or not pasture-raised animals are better for the environment. In fact, many researchers have argued that grass-fed livestock is far worse for the environment! They claim that because it takes longer for animals to mature on pasture than in a feedlot, they consume more resources over their lifespan, making them a bigger burden on the environment. Ruminants on pasture also produce more methane than ruminants on concentrate because of the higher fiber content of their food. (9)

However, most of these researchers haven’t considered the big picture. As I mentioned earlier, cattle on pasture can be carbon negative by enhancing carbon sequestration, while cows cooped up in a building are completely detached from the natural carbon cycle. Pastured cattle are also friendlier to water resources, as we saw by the comparison in water use between mostly pastured cattle in Australia and mostly grain-fed cattle in the US. Further, it’s important to consider the other environmental hazards of feedlots, including pollution from manure, antibiotics, and pesticides. Researchers that look at the big picture find that when all factors accounted for, pastured cattle are much more environmentally friendly than their feedlot counterparts. (10) (11) (12) So, if you weren’t already convinced, this is another great reason to choose grass-fed beef when possible!

It’s safe to say that ruminants, especially when raised on natural pasture, are not nearly as harmful to the environment as they’re made out to be by the media and conventional wisdom. They don’t use inordinate amounts of water, and although they do produce methane, they also remove carbon from the environment through grazing and can be carbon negative under the right circumstances. And although irresponsible grazing can lead to desertification in some circumstances, the proper management of livestock can actually enhance the health of the land.

As I’ve said many times before, it’s important to purchase red meat from a farmer you trust when at all possible. It’s evident that responsibly raised, grass-fed animals are kinder to the environment than those raised in a feedlot, not to mention that the animal itself has a better life. But I’d also encourage you to keep things in perspective. Red meat might not be the most ‘environmentally friendly’ food out there, but I highly doubt it’s the worst. But even if red meat were as terrible for the environment as conventional wisdom claims it is, please remember that eating isn’t the only activity you do that impacts the environment. Yes, livestock produces a lot of methane. You know what else produces a lot of methane? Landfills. (And wetlands and rice paddies, interestingly enough.) Food waste is also a pretty big problem. Some researchers attribute 25% of total freshwater use and about 300 million barrels of oil per year to food waste. (13) Now, I’m not telling you this so you can try to calculate how many cans you’d need to recycle to ‘make up for’ the environmental impact of your 6oz grass-fed steak. I just think it’s important that we don’t forget all the other things we can do to help the environment that don’t require eliminating an excellent source of nutrition from our diet.

Now I’d like to hear from you. Did any of this surprise you? Have you ever changed your eating habits to be more environmentally friendly? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Tagged as: beef, desert, environment, erosion, grass-fed, grazing, livestock, meat

I hate spam too. Your email is safe with me.

Follow Chris Online:

Discover your own ideal diet & end confusion about what to eat forever.

Learn More healthy Baby Code icon

Boost fertility naturally & promote lifelong health for you & your baby.

Learn More Personal Paleo Launchpad icon

Personalized online portal with easy-to-use tools, expert advice, and the support of a passionate, intelligent community.

Learn More Paleologix icon

Break through the energy swings, digestive upset, and obstacles of adopting a Paleo diet.

Learn More

View the original article here

Friday, May 31, 2013

The Real Environmental Impact of Red Meat: Part 1

155240298 After reading my recent articles about red meat, I hope none of you are concerned that eating it will negatively impact your health. But I realize that nutrition is only one of the factors that motivate people to limit or eliminate red meat consumption; one of the primary reasons many go vegetarian is their concern about environmental impact.

We’ve all heard the claims that red meat production is harmful to the environment, so in this two-part series, I’d like to address some of those concerns. In many ways, the environment is as complex as the human body, so measuring the impact of meat production isn’t clear-cut. But at the very least, I hope to shed some light on the topic, dispel some common myths, and put the issue in perspective.

Is eating red meat really more harmful to the environment than eating a vegetarian diet?

A commonly cited statistic is that cows produce more greenhouse gases than all the world’s transportation combined, or 18% of all greenhouse gases. This statistic originated from a report by the UN Food and Agriculture Association called Livestock’s Long Shadow, and has since been cited frequently in the media and elsewhere as a reason to stop eating red meat. If you think that figure sounds unbelievable, you’re right; it turns out that the researchers were quite biased in their calculations, resulting in numbers that were skewed. One of the authors of the report even admitted later that it wasn’t a fair comparison. A more accurate analysis of the data resulted in a much more respectable estimate: that cattle contribute less than 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. (1)

However, even the revised figure doesn’t take into account that grazing livestock can actually help remove carbon from the atmosphere. (2) Grasslands are capable of sequestering more carbon than any other ecosystem, and livestock can enhance the incorporation of carbon into the plants and soil. (3) One study showed that grazing cattle can also reduce the land’s natural emissions of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that environmentalists agree is more damaging than carbon dioxide. (4) Some research shows that when cattle are raised on natural pasture with no additional fertilizer or supplemental feed, their ability to enhance carbon sequestration actually outweighs their greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, under the right circumstances, cows are carbon negative!

Another common argument against red meat production is that it supposedly uses way more than its fair share of water. Graphics like this are often used to display how water-intensive red meat is compared with other foods. But are these figures accurate? Consider that previous studies have come up with water usage figures anywhere from 209 L/kg of beef to 105,400 L/kg of beef. (5) That’s a huge difference! When there’s that much variation, it usually pays to look a little deeper into the research to see what’s going on.

One reason for this variation is simply location. Water usage is going to be very different, say, for a feedlot in the US than for a pastoralist in Australia. But another reason is that researchers don’t always agree on how to classify ‘water use,’ and this creates some serious methodological inconsistencies in the literature.

Feed production is the most water-intensive part of raising livestock for red meat, whether the feed is grain, soy, or forage-based. (6) Some of this water comes from natural rainfall, while some is supplied through various irrigation methods. The problem is that many researchers don’t distinguish between rainfall and other forms of water use. This means that a large portion of the water attributed to red meat production is simply rain that falls on the fields or pasture used to feed the livestock.

Although measuring in this way does give an accurate depiction of the sheer amount of water that’s necessary to produce red meat, it gives little to no indication of how environmentally friendly red meat production is. It doesn’t make sense to say that raising cows on non-irrigated pasture drains water resources, when the only water being used is natural rainfall. Even feed crops often receive much of their water through rainfall, and it just isn’t logical to classify that in the same way as, say, drawing water from a nearby reservoir for irrigation.

Luckily, some researchers from Australia thought the same thing, so they did their own analysis. (7) They measured the actual water usage of three different production systems in southern Australia over the course of two years. They classified ‘water use’ as water that was “removed from the course it would take in the absence of production or degraded in quality by the production system.” Thus, under their calculations, things like rainfall and evaporation weren’t counted towards the total ‘water footprint’ of beef unless the water quality was somehow reduced when it reentered the water cycle. To me, this approach gives a much more accurate picture of the impact red meat production has on water resources.

The researchers analyzed a small organic beef supplier, a larger supplier where the animals spend part of their time in a feedlot, and a mid-sized sheep meat supplier. For the systems without a feedlot, they came up with a range of 18-214 L/kg of meat, depending on the year and whether they were measuring water use based on input amount or output quality. For the feedlot system, they came up with a range of 34-540 L/kg. Compared to earlier estimates of 15,000 L/kg and beyond, these new estimates are tiny! However, these results can only be generalized to southern Australian production systems, and systems in the US tend to be more irrigation-intensive.

For a US-specific estimate, we can look at an older study on the average water required for beef production in the US. (8) This study was based on national government statistics as opposed to actual water usage measurements from individual production systems, but they classified ‘water use’ in a similar manner to the previous study by excluding rain and only counting the water needed for irrigation, drinking, and processing. They came up with 3,682 L/kg of meat, which is significantly higher than the Australian estimate. This reflects the higher use of concentrate-based feeding in the US, which usually requires more irrigation than natural pasture. However, this estimate is still much lower than some of the most commonly cited numbers, and demonstrates that red meat isn’t singlehandedly draining the world’s freshwater resources.

In the second article of this two-part series, I’ll discuss the claim that grazing livestock leads to soil erosion and desertification, as well as the different environmental impacts of grass-fed versus grain-fed meat.

Tagged as: diet, environment, health, impact, paleo, red meat, vegetarian