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.
I wouldn’t say whether this is an argument to if eating meat is ethical, moreso an argument to say that commercial meat farms are unethical…
But if commercial meat farming is arguably unethical, then would eating meat that comes from such means and supporting such corporate practises be ethical?
I’m glad you brought this up. Previously I’ve taken part in organizing several events where the food served was strictly vegetarian/vegan. Very few people are aware of the negative externalities imposed on the environment while we eat meat. However, given that it’s difficult to change the way we live and that it’s nearly impossible to change farming practices, a good way to start is to serve only vegetarian food at large events/conferences where many people gather for just one or two meals.
That’s a great idea. Perhaps that’s something worth looking into for the likes of SLC and CLASS. Great way to raise awareness and be somewhat sustainable at the same time. I wonder whether such a menu would be more expensive?
On the contrary, vegetarian food is in general the less expensive option, not to mention the generally healthier and more sustainable option as well.
That said, and the ethical issues of killing animals for human consumption aside, I think there definitely are ways to raise beef or dairy cattle and other animals in ways that do not harm the environment and that may in fact be beneficial for it. The problem is that raising animals by these holistic, non-industrialized, in-tune-with-nature methods requires knowing an awful lot about the land, requires looking at the quantity/productivity bottom line from a different perspective, and requires the reintegration of species that have been long separated and unable to work symbiotically since the advent of industrial agriculture and the introduction of monocultures, feed lots and battery cages. For the consumer today, this means that it can be really, really hard if not impossible to find animal protein that was raised in an ecologically-neutral or ecologically-positive manner. And that, again, is without even considering the ethics of killing for food.
I think it’s important to also remember that a lot of plant-based foods available today are far from being ecologically-neutral.
I highly recommend checking out the films Food Inc., Fresh, and The Age of Stupid, as well as the books Fast Food Nation and Mad Cowboy.
Great Article!!!
lol you edited my comment =.=”
haha no wonder: it says “your comment is awaiting moderation”. This is one of the reasons why I don’t do commenting.
I will bet this message will be deleted too.
Yay for censorship?
It’s not quite so simple, I think. For one thing, are you suggesting no meat at all? What about meat products? No eggs or milk?
These are substantial sources of protein, which can be obtained in other ways, but not as readily or easily.
Besides, most people, especially in places like the US, have the option of buying grass-fed, free-range, etc. Which is fine. But making the entire industry free-range and grass-fed and what not is no small undertaking. It would, frankly, cost billions of dollars.
And even if that worked in the US, who’s to say it would happen in other places? Do you think China would follow suit? They would probably continue doing what they’re doing now, however ethical or not it is.
It is definitely true that production of meat is less energy-efficient compared to plants.
One thing to change is our eating habits – we don’t really need meat every meal. But no matter how our diets are changed, we can’t reduce that amount to zero; meat has many nutrients that we need, that we can’t efficiently uptake from other sources.
So the problem, fundamentally, is overpopulation. If everyone on earth ate their healthy share of everything, we probably wouldn’t have enough. And as North Americans, our “healthy share” is nowhere near our comfortable living conditions.
I guess meat production is not only more costly in terms of energy usage, but more importantly, it is a huge ecological burden to the planet. Aside from that, the growth hormones, pesticides, antibiotics, LDL cholesterol are not doing much good to our health, either.
I agree that it would be more challenging to prepare a nutritious diet without consuming any meat, but this is where the importance of finding a balance comes in. Some vegetarians consume milk, eggs, or seafood. Others use supplements. I’m sure Lizzy (above) is more knowledgeable about this subject. For now, I’m slowly converting myself to become a part-time vegetarian: I’m reducing meat intake (especially beef) while increasing vegetables, complex carbohydrates, etc. I don’t foresee myself entirely abandoning meat in the short-run.
Overpopulation is a problem for many things
Wouldn’t it be rather subjective to define what a “healthy share” is? One might argue that a healthy share is achieved when global hunger is eliminated, when children in impoverished countries have enough food to survive and live a normal life. One might also argue that a healthy share is achieved when the obesity epidemic that’s sweeping much of the developed world is eliminated, when heart disease and stroke are no longer the leading causes of death.
This is jumping on a tangent, but I think North Americans would benefit from some caloric restriction.
Hey! Good to see you are doing well.
I’ve been trying to keep my updates regularly and more formal but haven’t been able to do that.
Hoping to formalize the page a bit better and organize it. In time I suppose. : )
On a side note. If we gave potatoes feelings. We’d ban the cooking of potatoes wouldn’t we.
Sort of reminds me of the whole AI-Sentient robot debate. Similar scenarios.
But anyways, as I did not fully read the article yet I will find the time to do so. : )