A Dietary Debeefing: 7 Reasons to Lose Your Appetite for Cow

I was a lousy vegetarian.

Though I enjoyed being able to look a cow straight in the eye, the truth is I missed burgers. And steak. And, occasionally, roast beef.

But, hard as it may be to believe, it isn’t our gas-guzzlers that are the biggest climate culprits, it’s the gas emitters. As in cow burps and farts.

Giggle away, but this is really no laughing matter.

Those cows you imagine blissfully munching on grass in some idyllic field is more fantasy than reality. Most cows live their lives in feedlots — where they’re crammed into tiny pens and fattened up through force feeding of grain, primarily corn. Forget that evolution created cattle that easily digest grass, modern agriculture demands feed that is cheap and calorie-rich, the better to plump up for slaughter.

Even before I understood the environmental impact of large-scale beef production, it was the notion of these crowded cows that drove me to eschew meat. I hated being complicit in their fate.

But in case you haven’t yet lost your burger-lust, consider these facts about the eco-impact of eating meat:

• Close to a third of the world’s ice-free land is used for raising cattle, to feed global demand for beef, a demand that is increasing as developing countries are growing economically.

• The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization revealed that the greenhouse gases released from cattle (largely in the form of methane and nitrous oxide, both considerably more potent greenhouse gases than the more frequently cited CO2) is responsible for 18 percent of the world’s GHG emissions. All forms of transport combined account for 13 percent (and no, that is not an implicit endorsement of Hummers).

• Up to 10 times more grain is required to produce the same calories through livestock as through direct consumption of grain. In other words, we could feed considerably more the planet’s 800 million hungry if we used the grain to feed people, not cows.

• Producing 8 oz. of beef requires 25,000 liters of water. The EPA estimates that disposal of livestock waste has polluted 27,000 miles of rivers.

• In Central America, 40 percent of the rainforest has been cut down mostly to create land for beef production.

• The American way to “grow” meat leads to a protein source that is considerably less healthy, leading many to diabetes, obesity and heart disease.

• Because the health of the animals is so compromised by their grain-diets and close quarters, routine administration of antibiotics is leading to antibiotic-resistant bacteria in humans.

It’s enough to make me lose my appetite for beef. Almost. Turns out there is another way to beef up our meals, without the attendant environmental costs.
Kim Wiley of Larga Vista Ranch, a farmer of grassfed cattle recently contacted me to offer up an alternative:

There is a whole other world of grass-based animal husbandry that is actually good for the environment… [it’s] amazing grass-based farming is in terms of large amount of food raised on a small amount of land (careful rotational grazing of many species,) how it builds soil, and is the best carbon sink there is!

I do now obtain my family’s meat from a local farmer who raises grassfed cows. Animals that are raised on their natural feed are also more nutrient rich for us and more easily digested by us. And even my cynical husband admits that the beef tastes better. For many people just getting their feet wet in the “green” waters, the distinctions can be confusing. However, it’s worth noting that there are alternatives to becoming a vegetarian for those carnivores loath to give up their burgers … even one day a week.