Remember my to-read list from December? I’m still getting through it. It’s difficult to stay on course when — no, not exams — so many other great books get in the way. For example, earlier during the week, I was reading 4 books simultaneously, including Food and Society: A Sociological Approach, by William C. Whit.

From a nutritional perspective, meat is infamous for “its lack of fibre, its fat and cholesterol content, and (lately) its embodiment of growth  hormones, antibiotics, animal drugs, and the other chemicals from the grains cows eat.”

The above factors aside, many other questions arise as to whether it is ethical for human beings to consume meat. Like most ethical questions, it is difficult to provide a clear answer. Consider the following points from William Whit:

World Hunger

It takes 9 – 16 pounds of grain to produce a single pound of beef, which makes meat the most wasteful of protein resources. By cycling grain through livestock, 96% of its calories, 100% of its fibre, and 100% of its carbohydrates are wasted. Putting things into perspective, the world’s cattle, alone, consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric need of 8.7 billion people — nearly double the entire population of the planet. Unfortunately, in the world economic system, food is sold to the highest financial bidder. It is not uncommon for developing countries with starving people to export food. For example, 75% of children under five years of age in Guatemala are undernourished, yet every year the country exports 40 million pounds of meat to the United States.

Water Contamination

Meat production causes documented harm to a number of different areas of our planet. Water is becoming increasingly rare in many parts of the world, yet water is needed both to grow the food for beef and to wash away their excrement. To produce a single pound of meat takes an average of 2500 gallons of water — as much as a typical family uses for all its combined household purposes in a month. A meat eater’s day of food requires 4000 gallons of water, while that a of vegan’s requires 300 gallons.

Water contamination by animal excrement is another major issue. Because animals in feed lots produce so much in one place, the groundwater often gets contaminated. One cow produces as much waste as 16 humans. With 20000 animals in a typical industrial setting, the problem is equal to a city of 320000 people. The meat industry accounts for more than three times as much harmful organic waste water pollution as the rest of America’s industries combined. This organic waste is rich in nitrogen, which often runs into bodies of water that eventually collect in the ocean. As a result, large algae booms often emerge, depleting the water of oxygen. This effectively forms dead zones in oceans, which affects the global carbon cycle and contributes to climate change.

Forest Depletion

In developing countries, the potential medical and nutritive value of rain forests in being lost to grazing land for beef. Costa Rica is a typical example of a country where this is a common practice. Because the owners of beef herds can make more monkey razing forest for grazing land, they choose to grow and export this beef to the American fast-food industry. This takes land away from substantive production and allows more exploitation of workers. Even in America, for each acre of forest that is cleared to make room for parking lots, roads, houses…etc., seven acres of forest are converted into land for grazing livestock and/or growing livestock feed.

Concluding Thoughts

We have already briefly discussed the impact of meat production on the changing climate. Another thought to ponder on: the world’s 1 – 3 billion cattle annually release 70 million tons of methane gas, making up one-fifth of all green-house gasses.

We have not discussed the ethics of raising and killing animals in the industrialised setting since our focus was on the lesser-publicised sociological consequences. However, one can question the welfare of animals through examining the raising of veal, as an example

Calves, at birth, are immediately separated from their mothers, put in small stalls, and fed an unnatural liquid diet without iron (forcing them to become anaemic).  They are kept in complete darkness (except for two daily feedings), and many go completely blind. They are fed chemicals so that when they reach 350 – 400 pounds they can be slaughtered. All this for the “taste” of veal eaters.

Are we any closer to answer whether eating meat is ethical?

My friends, you decide. Scientia potentia est.