Besides finally getting around to starting this blog, my other new year’s resolution was to become a vegetarian. It hasn’t been very successful. I think I lasted three weeks. It’s very difficult when your parents keep reminding you how they grew up without meat (and they insist that is why they are shorter) and how they had to eat crickets (protein) while the country was getting over the war. Plus, a great deal of traditional Korean dishes include meat… especially some of my favorite soups. Oh, thinking about suhl lung tang or sam gae tang makes me long for meat again. Also, did I mention I’m from Texas? The medium-rare in this area isn’t rare enough for me.
However, this is an article from the nytimes that my friend Greg sent to encourage me to get back on the veggie wagon: eat less meat
Two especially poignant lines from the article:
-“To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius. Similarly, a study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days. “
-“When you look at environmental problems in the U.S.,” says Professor Eshel, “nearly all of them have their source in food production and in particular meat production. And factory farming is ‘optimal’ only as long as degrading waterways is free. If dumping this stuff becomes costly — even if it simply carries a non-zero price tag — the entire structure of food production will change dramatically.”
Why become a Vegetarian? –In Simple Terms:
The environmental reason: The livestock pollutes our water (seen the Simpson movie anyone?) and produces a gross amount of GHG.
“An estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation…Agriculture in the United States — much of which now serves the demand for meat — contributes to nearly three-quarters of all water-quality problems in the nation’s rivers and streams, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.” †
The human justice/poverty reason:
Rising food prices for the poorest while GHG’s from the livestock continue to increase global temperatures, which will have the most impact on the world’s developing nations – plus, in terms of hunger issues- meat is inefficient.
“More meat means a corresponding increase in demand for feed, especially corn and soy, which some experts say will contribute to higher prices. This will be inconvenient for citizens of wealthier nations, but it could have tragic consequences for those of poorer ones, especially if higher prices for feed divert production away from food crops. The demand for ethanol is already pushing up prices, and explains, in part, the 40 percent rise last year in the food price index calculated by the United 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 and chickens. This despite the inherent inefficiencies: about two to five times 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.” †
The human health reason:
Obesity and all those chronic diseases that are our ‘nation’s leading killers’. Plus, potential antiobiotic-resistancy.
“Because the stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain, cattle raised industrially thrive only in the sense that they gain weight quickly. This diet made it possible to remove cattle from their natural environment and encourage the efficiency of mass confinement and slaughter. But it causes enough health problems that administration of antibiotics is routine, so much so that it can result in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten the usefulness of medicines that treat people. Those grain-fed animals, in turn, are contributing to health problems among the world’s wealthier citizens — heart disease, some types of cancer, diabetes. The argument that meat provides useful protein makes sense, if the quantities are small.” †
So what will I do?
I will eat less meat – it will become a treat.
Perhaps once a month? Yes, that’s good – now I need to learn how to cook my favorite Korean dishes in meatless form.
-greenDCgirl
† Bittman, Mark. Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler. The New York Times. 27 January 2008.
