Why is it important to reduce meat consumption in 2020+?
1. On average it requires ~15,000L of water and 25Kg of grain to form 1 Kg of beef.
2. 26% of the world's arable land space is used for livestock grazing and a further 33% is cleared for croplands to feed that livestock. Meat is actually the most inefficient way of feeding populations.
Only a fraction of the nutrients is passed on from fodder plants to the livestock and an even smaller fraction from the meat to us. Statistically, the globe could feed up to 3.5 billion more people if we consumed just the fodder we feed to our livestock, still leaving us with 26% of the world's arable land space to produce even more crops!
3. Today's meat industry is responsible for around 15% of greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans. This is comparable to the amount released by our transportation sector (all the buses, cars, planes, boats and trucks combined).
4. One of the main ways in which the livestock sector contributes to climate change is through deforestation carried out for the expansion of pastureland and arable land used to grow feed crops.
5. The livestock sector is also a significant source of other greenhouse gases (not just carbon dioxide). For example, ruminant animals like cattle release methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas about 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The livestock sector is responsible for around 37% of human-caused methane emissions, and about 65% of human nitrous oxide emissions (mainly from manure), globally (UN FAO).
2. 26% of the world's arable land space is used for livestock grazing and a further 33% is cleared for croplands to feed that livestock. Meat is actually the most inefficient way of feeding populations.
Only a fraction of the nutrients is passed on from fodder plants to the livestock and an even smaller fraction from the meat to us. Statistically, the globe could feed up to 3.5 billion more people if we consumed just the fodder we feed to our livestock, still leaving us with 26% of the world's arable land space to produce even more crops!
3. Today's meat industry is responsible for around 15% of greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans. This is comparable to the amount released by our transportation sector (all the buses, cars, planes, boats and trucks combined).
4. One of the main ways in which the livestock sector contributes to climate change is through deforestation carried out for the expansion of pastureland and arable land used to grow feed crops.
5. The livestock sector is also a significant source of other greenhouse gases (not just carbon dioxide). For example, ruminant animals like cattle release methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas about 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The livestock sector is responsible for around 37% of human-caused methane emissions, and about 65% of human nitrous oxide emissions (mainly from manure), globally (UN FAO).
If you love meat but want to be more sustainable - that's great, you can already make a difference by following these easy steps:
1. Try and set a target for a meat-free day each week
2. Go for chicken, pork and fish rather than lamb or beef. 3. Enjoy your steak, but, if you can, make it something special again! 4. If you are having meat for dinner, why not go for a meat-free lunch? 5. Stay away from unhealthy processed foods, not only do they have the highest impact on the Earth's resources to produce, but fast-food companies' heavy focus on meat doesn’t replicate the diversity of foods that our ancestors ate. |
Is meat unhealthy?
As omnivores, humans evolved to obtain most of their energy and materials from the three main macronutrients: fats, carbohydrates and proteins for three main reasons:
1. For energy. 2. To aquire materials to fabricate our cells. 3. To obtain special molecules that our body cannot produce by themselves. Proteins are the most important resource for repairing and replenishing our cell structures. Vitamins and minerals are the 'special molecules' that our bodies require to drive metabolic processes, with meat providing nearly all the essential amino acids and lots of minerals (such as iron & zinc) and vitamins (some of which are barely found in plant produce alone, e.g. B12). |
However, in the developed world we overconsume meat. Like anything, meat is not unhealthy unless overconsumed, which we do! For instance, the average meat consumed per person in the UK is roughly double the world average! As an average daily consumption, it is around 226g of meat per day. The government recommends eating no more than 70g of red/processed meat (~a couple of slices of bacon a day) and don’t specify a limit on white meat but, according to Public Health England’s new Eatwell guide, they say that protein-rich foods (beans, pulses, fish, eggs, meat and other non-dairy sources of proteins) should make up no more than 12% of the of total intake per day (Public Health England, 2016b).
Most public health agencies suggest cutting down meat consumption to 500g per week and avoiding processed meat as much as possible. As a species we are consuming far more meat per day than our bodies evolved to do so. |
Recent studies confirm older findings that, although humans have eaten red meat for two million years, heavy consumption increases 'atherosclerosis' and cancer in most populations. The culprit isn’t just saturated fat or cholesterol. Our gut bacteria digest a nutrient in meat called L-carnitine, which boosts artery-clogging plaque. Research also has shown that the human immune system attacks a sugar in red meat that’s called Neu5Gc, causing an inflammation which is low level in the young but eventually could cause cancer.