Meat Conscious
I love meat. It’s an unwavering love that runs deep through the heart of my stomach. Whether it’s beef, chicken, pork, or lamb, I want it all. I love a big, fat burger with all the toppings that drips juice (of holy water as I like to call it) down your hand upon each bite. I love a perfectly cooked medium rare steak with just the right amount of char. I love a tender lamb lollipop that never lets my taste buds down with its intense, unique flavor. I could go on for hours, but I will spare you before you begin to drool on the keyboard as I may or may not have already done.
Now that you know how deep my love of meat runs, you will understand how much it pains me to say WE MUST STOP. Not completely, but to a large extent, we must stop producing and consuming the amount of meat we do. As our current food system already struggles to maintain the world’s constantly growing population, the world’s meat demand is simply unsustainable.
Where We Are
Three million years ago, our ancestors were the Australopithecus, a group that lived in the prehistoric African forest and ate fruits, leaves, larvae, and bugs. The adaption of large teeth, powerful jaws, and oversized guts were necessary for the coarse, fibrous plant matter that was hard to chew and even harder to digest. One million years later came the Homo Erectus as climate change forced our ancestors out of the trees and into a new food strategy. Still somewhat of an omnivore, Erectus now used crude weapons to hunt rodents, reptiles, and even small deer. All creatures develop feeding strategies that target the most calories for the least effort. With fewer plant calories available it was only natural to turn to animal food, which give a far greater caloric return on investment than plants do and are easier to digest. The real significance of this change stemmed not from the quantity of calories meat supplied, but the quality. Meat is the ideal building block for meat, so as our ancestors ate more meat, their bodies grew larger and their brains were more developed; brain size nearly tripled and body size nearly doubled.
Currently nearly 42 kilograms of meat is produced per person worldwide, but meat consumption varies by region and socioeconomic status. In the developing world, people eat about 30 kilograms of meat a year. The United States has just 4.5% of the world’s population, but estimates about 15% of global meat consumption. Americans consume about 33 grams of meat a day, which equates to three quarter-pound hamburgers. In developing countries, meat consumption totals to only 80 grams a day. Many believe certain countries, such as India, do not consume meat for cultural and religious reasons, but this is an ignorant assumption. A majority of countries have lower meat consumption rates due to economic issues and the fact that they simply cannot afford it. As the world GDP rises, this is quickly changing.
Food security is a rising problem even for developed nations. By eating less meat, resources such as agriculture would free up and good farmland would increase to feed billions of hungry people. The consumption of animal protein, such as meat, milk, and eggs, grows consistently each year at an alarming rate. Poorer nations are becoming richer and shifting their diets to include these more expensive products. This may seem like a positive note, but animals are resource intensive. While animals consume directly or indirectly up to 80% of the world’s agricultural land, they only supply 15% of all calories. Globally, livestock produces 37% of the world’s methane and more than 55% of the agriculture sector’s emissions come from the rearing of livestock.
McDonald’s is the largest purchaser of ground beef in the United States and they want their meat to taste the same everywhere. This means that even if you are not eating at a fast food restaurant, you may still be eating meat produced by this system. Similarly, the ground beef commonly found at your local grocery store is a mixture of thousands of different cows. This makes the likelihood of contamination and disease far higher.
Where We Want to Be
People are constantly on the look to spend less money. A simple solution to this is meatless meals, which not only saves dollars, but calories and fat as well. A plant-based diet emphasizes fruits and vegetables, grains, beans, legumes, nuts, vitamins, fiber, and other nutrients. Vegetarians generally eat fewer calories and fat, weigh less, and have a lower risk of heart disease. A National Cancer Institute study of 500,000 people found that those who ate 4 ounces or more of red meat daily were 30 percent more likely to die of any cause during a 10-year period than those who consumed less. This study extends to sausage, lunchmeats, and other processed meats as well. Generally poultry and fish have a lower risk of death.
In saying that, most people are wary on the idea of cutting out meat from their lives because it may require more planning to find sources of protein, it may not be worth it, or they just simply like meat far too much to quit. I fully respect all those concerns because I have experienced them as well. In regards to the first issue, protein is an easy source to find in foods that are healthier and just as tasty or better than Based on a 2,000-calorie diet, most adults need about 50 to 175 grams of protein a day. The Dietary Guidelines for American recommends choosing a variety of protein foods, which may include eggs, beans and peas, soy products, and unsalted nuts and seeds. The fats in meat, poultry and eggs are considered solid fats, while fats in seafood, nuts and seeds are considered oils. Guidelines suggest replacing proteins that are higher in solid fats with choices that are lower in solid fats and calories.
Cutting meat consumption is as easy as “Meatless Mondays” in the household. In May 2009, the city council of Ghent, Belgium proclaimed that the citizens should avoid eating meat on Thursdays. Around the same time, Baltimore became the first city to serve only vegetarian meals once a week in public schools.
However, figuring out the full impact of meat consumption on global food security goes beyond simply forgoing that extra pork chop at dinner. Certain computer systems track and calculate how buying decisions multiple across the farming systems, global supply chains, and food markets. Specifically, the IMPACT model, developed in 1998, looked at what may happen in 2020 if rich nations cut half their meat consumption to what it stood at in 1993. Research showed that as meat demand fell, prices declined and meat became more affordable, which consequently led to an increase of 13% in per capita meat consumption for developing countries. This led to a “meat equity” that provided more substantial nutrition for these poorer nations; however, the poor did not necessarily get much more grain, their largest source of calories. Cereal consumption rose by only 1.5%, enough grain for 3.6 million malnourished children, but far from the amount of grain needed to make a sufficient impact of food security.
This issue stems from another reoccurring problem I discussed in my last post, grain-fed livestock. When farmers produce less meat, corn and soy demand drops and grain becomes more affordable. For certain countries such as Africa this is great news, but many countries do not eat corn, but rather rice and wheat. You may wonder why farmers do not switch to growing wheat then, but those same underlying factors come back into play. Climate, soil, and water availability limit a farmer’s ability to easily switch crops.
The foundation of all meat consumption problems stems from the consumer; it always comes back to the people, their habits, their behavior, and their choice. Persuading people to change is a reoccurring struggle for the world and it may take many solutions to make it happen. One stair is to tie taxes to meat’s carbon footprint. This means the tax on beef could total higher than that of chicken or fish, but it is based on the idea of more grain for those further down the food chain. The next stair deals with the removal of subsidies for meat producers. For example, a beef exporter indirectly subsidizes meat consumption by not charging consumers for the farmland or natural resources destroyed by ranching. Lastly, large campaigns directed at consumers that bring together big names on the political and celebrity front should emphasize the health benefits of reducing calories and animal fats. Disease prevention and health care costs are some of the leading concerns of the public, so why not play off these issues to build support on such a vital, overlooked problem.
Cutting meat consumption is a small solution and contribution to the world’s overall food dilemma, but it is one of the many necessary steps required to make positive headway.
Sources
McCarthy, Kerry. “We need to eat less meat – and the G8 should say so.” News Statesman, 14 June 2013. Web. 1 Nov. 2013. <http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/06/we-need-eat-less-meat-and-g8-should-say-so>.
Rayner, Jay. “Should we all eat less meat?” The Guardian. The Observer, 8 June 2013. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/08/should-we-eat-less-meat>.
Stokstad, Erik. “Could less Meat Mean More Food?” Science 327.5967 (2010): 810-811. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. <http://www.sciencemag.org.proxy.libraries.smu.edu/content/327/5967/810.full>.
Bodden Bites 
Good article – food is definitely an important part of a balanced diet!