Meat and Me, Part 3: What About the Planet? Whereas once I thought it was perfectly possible and preferable to feed the world on plants (‘About 85 percent of the world’s soybean crop is processed into meal and vegetable oil, and virtually all of that meal is used in animal feed,’ says a vegan website gentleworld.org/as-we-soy-so-shall-we-reap/), I now realise that this is a modern ideology that is not realistic and doesn’t link at all with the diet that we evolved to eat. I’m not sure what the correct figures are for soy and corn used for livestock - another statistic is ‘47% of soy and 60% of corn produced in the US [are] consumed by livestock’ sustainabletable.org/260/animal-feed#gsc.tab=0. We shouldn’t be feeding soya or corn to animals. Most of those animals should be pasture raised, and that is possible if holistic farming methods are followed (see this short video by Allan Savory: youtube/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI). The involvement of huge corporations in the US, especially Monsanto, which owns all the GMO seed for soya, corn and cotton, and the wheat corporations such as General Mills, ensures that those foods will be grown in large quantities and a market will exist for their sale, come what may. Pleading with the world to stop feeding corn or soya to cattle will not change the quantity of corn and soya that is grown on a huge scale in the US particularly. Those crops are also used for biofuels as well as appearing in all kinds of foods. Look at high-fructose corn syrup, for example, which was devised specifically to use up the large quantity of corn that is grown in the US, because corn is a subsidised crop there. Corn appears in a vase array of products - not always edible - and in different guises such as maltodextrin, monosodium glutamate (MSG), brown sugar, fruit juice concentrate, unmodified starch (see a list here cornallergens/list/corn-allergen-list.php). It’s no more extreme or fanciful a suggestion that we can feed the world on properly raised animals than it is to suggest feeding the world on plant foods, although the former is our natural diet. To obtain sufficient protein, minerals and vitamins from a non-animal-produce diet it is necessary to eat a large amount of plant matter, whereas a small amount of meat or fish daily may be all that is necessary, plus plant foods, of course. What is more, in the not-so-distant past we ate all parts of the animal (from nose to tail). Today we generally aim for the lean cuts of meat. Those other parts, usually as offal, are high in nutrients. If we eat more of the animal there is less waste. Of course, feeding our pets is one of the main uses of those less-popular animal parts, but that is yet another debate altogether about environmental issues and pets, which is not relevant here. The food system in the US is in a dire state. Several staples are genetically modified (GMO) and much of the meat is produced in huge factory farms - called CAFOs - where cattle stand knee deep in mud and excrement, which carries a particularly deadly strain of the bacterium E. coli. This bacterium remains on the carcass when the meat is slaughtered, infecting the meat, and it has caused deaths in the US. Those cattle, if released into their natural surroundings, would lose 80% of the E. coli within five days, according to the film Food Inc., but the companies raising cattle in CAFOs use technological means instead. One way is that the meat for burgers is dried, cleansed using chemicals and sold as a powder for reconstituting. This is how around 80% of all burgers are made in the US. Soya is another subsidised crop in the US (it is now very difficult to buy any non-GMO soya) and it has been promoted as the perfect protein food to give livestock. It is neither natural nor ideal in any form, but it is sold to countries around the world. Those countries may have a policy not to grow GMO foods on their land but they are feeding their stock with GMO soya. When we eat those foods we are indirectly eating GMO soya, which has not been proven to be safe for human consumption. When there are huge fields where one kind of annual is grown - such as wheat - this monoculture destroys environments. A world fed largely on vegetable foods would need larger areas devoted to such monoculture. Without the manure from herding animals the soil would further deteriorate and require more in the way of chemical fertilisers, in spite of vegans’ oft-repeated suggestions that green manures are all that are needed to revitalise the soil. The point is that it is natural to have herding animals and they rejuvenate the soil. Their manure helps carbon dioxide be drawn into the soil and there is no dangerous animal slurry that can pollute rivers and infect crops with bacteria. The rise of the need for factory farming is complex but was first encouraged by the fast-food chain McDonalds, which wanted its meat (beef and poultry) to be exactly the same for all its outlets in the US. To find out more, see the documentary Food Inc. Because corn and soya are subsidised, it is generaly seen as more economical to raise animals fed on these foods than for them to be free-range, but such methods of farming have a cost to the environment and the health of people. In reality though, neither my hope for sustainable and compassionate animal farming nor the vegetarian’s ideal scenario of us all living on plants is likely to happen. The corporations involved in the US, especially, are powerful and will not change the way they farm or the quantity of crops they grow unless there is a very good financial reason to do so. In the UK, fortunately, we do have more grass-fed beef and lamb available and we can more easily make the choice to eat organic or local food that is grown without chemicals (it may not necessarily be certified organic if you buy from a very small local producer, but that may make it cheaper and it will mostly likely be as good). All we can do as individuals is aim to eat food that is healthy and home prepared. My diet now contains more meat and I try to eat food that is sustainably and locally produced where possible. We also grow a few of our own vegetables.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 10:24:02 +0000
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