Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler

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Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler By MARK BITTMAN
A SEA change in the consumption of a resource that Americans takefor granted may be in store — something cheap, plentiful, widelyenjoyed and a part of daily life. And it isn’t oil.
It’s meat.
The two commodities share a great deal: Like oil, meat is subsidizedby the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to acceleratingdemand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends priceshigher. Finally — like oil — meat is something people are encouraged toconsume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial productionincreases, and becomes increasingly visible.
Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged bygrowing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confinedanimal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consumeenormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generatesignificant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts ofcorn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to thedestruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.
Just this week, the president of Brazil announced emergency measuresto halt the burning and cutting of the country’s rain forests for cropand grazing land. In the last five months alone, the government says,1,250 square miles were lost.
The world’s total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007,it was estimated to be 284 million tons. Per capita consumption hasmore than doubled over that period. (In the developing world, it rosetwice as fast, doubling in the last 20 years.) World meat consumptionis expected to double again by 2050, which one expert, HenningSteinfeld of the United Nations, says is resulting in a “relentless growth in livestock production.”
Americans eat about the same amount of meat as we have for sometime, about eight ounces a day, roughly twice the global average. Atabout 5 percent of the world’s population, we “process” (that is, growand kill) nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent of theworld’s total.
Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word “raising” when applied toanimals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it’s a challengeto enumerate them all. But consider: an estimated 30 percent of theearth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestockproduction, according to the United Nation’s Food and AgricultureOrganization, which also estimates that livestock production generatesnearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more thantransportation.
To put the energy-using demand of meat production intoeasy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the BardCenter, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics atthe University of Chicago,calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — aCamry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius. Similarly, a study last yearby the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japanestimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalentamount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20days.
Grain, meat and even energy are roped together in a way that couldhave dire results. More meat means a corresponding increase in demandfor feed, especially corn and soy, which some experts say willcontribute to higher prices.
This will be inconvenient for citizens of wealthier nations, but itcould have tragic consequences for those of poorer ones, especially ifhigher prices for feed divert production away from food crops. Thedemand for ethanol is already pushing up prices, and explains, in part,the 40 percent rise last year in the food price index calculated by theUnited Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization.
Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition,the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs andchickens. This despite the inherent inefficiencies: about two to fivetimes more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption, according to Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University. It is as much as 10 times more in the case of grain-fed beef in the United States.
The environmental impact of growing so much grain for animal feed isprofound. Agriculture in the United States — much of which now servesthe demand for meat — contributes to nearly three-quarters of allwater-quality problems in the nation’s rivers and streams, according tothe Environmental Protection Agency.
Because the stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain,cattle raised industrially thrive only in the sense that they gainweight quickly. This dietmade it possible to remove cattle from their natural environment andencourage the efficiency of mass confinement and slaughter. But itcauses enough health problems that administration of antibioticsis routine, so much so that it can result in antibiotic-resistantbacteria that threaten the usefulness of medicines that treat people.
Those grain-fed animals, in turn, are contributing to healthproblems among the world’s wealthier citizens — heart disease, sometypes of cancer, diabetes.The argument that meat provides useful protein makes sense, if thequantities are small. But the “you gotta eat meat” claim collapses atAmerican levels. Even if the amount of meat we eat weren’t harmful,it’s way more than enough.
Americans are downing close to 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fishper capita per year (dairy and eggs are separate, and hardlyinsignificant), an increase of 50 pounds per person from 50 years ago.We each consume something like 110 grams of protein a day, about twicethe federal government’s recommended allowance; of that, about 75 gramscome from animal protein. (The recommended level is itself consideredby many dietary experts to be higher than it needs to be.) It’s likelythat most of us would do just fine on around 30 grams of protein a day,virtually all of it from plant sources.
What can be done? There’s no simple answer. Better waste management,for one. Eliminating subsidies would also help; the United Nationsestimates that they account for 31 percent of global farm income.Improved farming practices would help, too. Mark W. Rosegrant, directorof environment and production technology at the nonprofit InternationalFood Policy Research Institute, says, “There should be investment inlivestock breeding and management, to reduce the footprint needed toproduce any given level of meat.”
Then there’s technology. Israel and Korea are among the countriesexperimenting with using animal waste to generate electricity. Some ofthe biggest hog operations in the United States are working, with somesuccess, to turn manure into fuel.
Longer term, it no longer seems lunacy to believe in the possibilityof “meat without feet” — meat produced in vitro, by growing animalcells in a super-rich nutrient environment before being furthermanipulated into burgers and steaks.
Another suggestion is a return to grazing beef, a very realalternative as long as you accept the psychologically difficult andpolitically unpopular notion of eating less of it. That’s becausegrazing could never produce as many cattle as feedlots do. Still, said Michael Pollan,author of the recent book “In Defense of Food,” “In places where youcan’t grow grain, fattening cows on grass is always going to make moresense.”
But pigs and chickens, which convert grain to meat far moreefficiently than beef, are increasingly the meats of choice forproducers, accounting for 70 percent of total meat production, withindustrialized systems producing half that pork and three-quarters ofthe chicken.
Once, these animals were raised locally (even many New Yorkersremember the pigs of Secaucus), reducing transportation costs andallowing their manure to be spread on nearby fields. Now hog productionfacilities that resemble prisons more than farms are hundreds of milesfrom major population centers, and their manure “lagoons” pollutestreams and groundwater. (In Iowa alone, hog factories and farmsproduce more than 50 million tons of excrement annually.)
These problems originated here, but are no longer limited to theUnited States. While the domestic demand for meat has leveled off, theindustrial production of livestock is growing more than twice as fastas land-based methods, according to the United Nations.
Perhaps the best hope for change lies in consumers’ becoming awareof the true costs of industrial meat production. “When you look atenvironmental problems in the U.S.,” says Professor Eshel, “nearly allof them have their source in food production and in particular meatproduction. And factory farming is ‘optimal’ only as long as degradingwaterways is free. If dumping this stuff becomes costly — even if itsimply carries a non-zero price tag — the entire structure of foodproduction will change dramatically.”
Animal welfare may not yet be a major concern, but as the horrors ofraising meat in confinement become known, more animal lovers may startto react. And would the world not be a better place were some of thegrain we use to grow meat directed instead to feed our fellow humanbeings?
Real prices of beef, pork and poultry have held steady, perhaps evendecreased, for 40 years or more (in part because of grain subsidies),though we’re beginning to see them increase now. But many experts,including Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George MasonUniversity, say they don’t believe meat prices will rise high enough toaffect demand in the United States.
“I just don’t think we can count on market prices to reduce our meatconsumption,” he said. “There may be a temporary spike in food prices,but it will almost certainly be reversed and then some. But if all theburden is put on eaters, that’s not a tragic state of affairs.”
If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change,starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encouragethe simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.
Mr. Rosegrant of the food policy research institute says he foresees“a stronger public relations campaign in the reduction of meatconsumption — one like that around cigarettes — emphasizing personal health, compassion for animals, and doing good for the poor and the planet.”
It wouldn’t surprise Professor Eshel if all of this had a realimpact. “The good of people’s bodies and the good of the planet aremore or less perfectly aligned,” he said.
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, in itsdetailed 2006 study of the impact of meat consumption on the planet,“Livestock’s Long Shadow,” made a similar point: “There are reasons foroptimism that the conflicting demands for animal products andenvironmental services can be reconciled. Both demands are exerted bythe same group of people ... the relatively affluent, middle- tohigh-income class, which is no longer confined to industrializedcountries. ... This group of consumers is probably ready to use itsgrowing voice to exert pressure for change and may be willing to absorbthe inevitable price increases.”
In fact, Americans are already buying more environmentally friendlyproducts, choosing more sustainably produced meat, eggs and dairy. Thenumber of farmers’ markets has more than doubled in the last 10 yearsor so, and it has escaped no one’s notice that the organic food market is growing fast. These all represent products that are more expensive but of higher quality.
If those trends continue, meat may become a treat rather than aroutine. It won’t be uncommon, but just as surely as the S.U.V. willyield to the hybrid, the half-pound-a-day meat era will end.
Maybe that’s not such a big deal. “Who said people had to eat meat three times a day?” asked Mr. Pollan.
Mark Bittman, who writes the Minimalist column in the Dining In and Dining Out sections, is the author of “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian,” which was published last year. He is not a vegetarian.