A Beefy Problem
Did you know that, on average, beef requires 20 times more land and produces 20 times more greenhouse gases than basic plant proteins? Or the fact that widespread adoption of a vegetarian diet would reduce emission by about 63%? Also, livestock farming contributes more emission than all emission from all transport in the world. Now you may wonder, how does this affect us?
Increasing temperatures, ice caps and glaciers melting, extreme weather events (hurricanes, tsunamis, forest fires) and animals changing migration patterns are just one of the many issues that we have been facing and have to continue to face as global warming continues being a major threat to us all. Consuming meat is a major contributor to global warming.
How Does Eating Meat Lead to Global Warming?
As ridiculous as it may sound, eating your daily serving of meat has larger effects on the planet than we may realise. When we consume and demand for meat regularly, we are generating a demand for more land to be dedicated to rearing livestock and fodder crops. In order for this demanded land to be obtained, deforestation needs to take place. Fodder crops are crops that are cultivated to feed animals so that they reach the market weight and be sold, such as corn and wheat. By clearing the forests, farmers can meet the increasing demand for meat.
Trees are vital to assist us in absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen back into the atmosphere. However, as forests dwindle due to deforestation, a large portion of carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere and contributes to global warming.
Another negative effect of animal agriculture would be the production of greenhouse gases. This is due to ruminant animals such as cattle that produce methane. This gas is about 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the Earth, on a 100-year timescale, and more than 80 times more powerful over 20 years.
What Can You Do?
1) Change Your Diet
Consuming less red meat (beef, lamb and pork) and dairy products (milk, butter and cheese) will help to significantly reduce your climate footprint as less meat needs to be produced. You don’t necessarily have to go vegan (despite that being the most environmentally friendly option), you just need to consume more plant-based foods and less meat. Try making delicious vegetarian dishes such as Vegetable Lasagna or Roasted Cauliflower and Lentil Tacos and you’ll soon change your mind about meat!
2) Buy Pasture-raised Meats
The meat consumed in Singapore is produced from animals that had a ‘grain-based feed’ rather than vegetation from pastures. This diet provides them with the carbohydrates and protein necessary to bring them quickly to market weight. This affects the environment as deforestation needs to take place to obtain the land needed to harvest the grain, due to its increase in demand. Purchasing from these types of suppliers is avoidable if you are willing to do the research. Look out for the pasture-raised meats and how it was manufactured (text at the back of the packaging states it most of the time) before making your purchase. When producing pasture-raised meat, farmers use the field, livestock and waste management methods to reduce emission from the animals’ manure. Moreover, pasture-raised meat is also good for the animals’ well-being as they have widely varied diets (grass and other forage) which makes them generally healthier and under less stress than those raised in confinement.
3) Raise Awareness
Talk to others about how eating meat affects the Earth. This tends to be an action that is often brushed under the rug as people are generally more reluctant to change a diet they are so accustomed to. If more people start talking about the connection between eating meat and how it is destroying our environment, more people will have a change in perspective on how they view meat consumption. It might also push them to adopt a lifestyle where they consume less meat, be vegetarian, or even be vegan! Therefore, talking more about it to your friends, families, students, employees, etc. is important and necessary for change to occur!
What Other Benefits Are Gained From Eating Less Meat?
1) Health Benefits
Consuming meat affects our health negatively, particularly red and processed meat. According to Harvard Medical School, they claim that there has been consistent evidence across different studies that the consumption of such meat is associated with health problems such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and premature death. Moreover, these livestock consume up to 70% of the world’s antibiotics, which then increases the amount of antibiotic resistance in humans. Antibiotic resistance is when bacteria (germs) are able to survive or grow despite the use of an antibiotic that was previously able to stop them. Edible animals can carry bacteria that can make people ill. When animals are given antibiotics, resistant bacteria in their intestines can continue to survive and grow. This leads to an ineffectiveness in curing human diseases, which has made antibiotic resistance one of the most disturbing health emergencies. Therefore, reducing the consumption of meat will reduce the pervasiveness of these potential health problems!
2) Animal Welfare
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Animals are alive too. Every year, we consume more than 58 billion animals worldwide. When produced for meat, an animal is raised only as food for others instead of it having a life of its own. Throughout their extremely short lifespan, the animals are confined to narrow cages, often restrained and subjected to mutilations (beaks, tails and wings clipped, castrations carried out without anaesthetic, etc.). Extreme measures (e.g. chickens being made to spend their lives warehoused in overcrowded massive sheds where dim, constant lighting keeps them continuously eating to pursue higher efficiency and productivity) are taken to make them breed at a rapid pace which results in many fowl gaining so much of weight to the point where they collapse under their own weight. Taking all these factors into consideration will make you look at that chicken wing, steak or bacon differently. Decreasing our meat consumption will indeed boost animal welfare.
With the limited time we have, reducing the massive amount of emission may seem impossible. Many of these factors are indeed scary, but can’t be changed without your help. However, if every one of us does our part to reduce our contribution to global warming and moderate our eating habits, we could build a fairer world together. We will then see a difference that will benefit us and the future generations to come!