Earth Day - Saving the Planet One Bite at a Time

When we hear about the environment most people don't immediately think about how the food we eat may contribute to serious environmental concerns like global warming, land and water pollution, soil erosion or rainforest and wilderness destruction.

In fact, more and more experts are finding (including studies done by the United Nations) that a meat-based diet actually has a direct and often devastating impact on the environment compared to a vegetarian diet. Many people scoff at such a suggestion and it still hasn't been taken seriously in the mainstream media. It's an idea that most people have a really hard time wrapping their heads around, but it's not really that unbelievable.

It's true that most of us are disconnected from where our food comes from and how it is produced. We just need to try and imagine the sheer scale of animal agriculture today to understand how that poses a threat to the earth's air, land, and water. Not only are millions of animals confined on huge factory farms where their waste contaminates the ground water (remember Ontario's Walkerton?), but vast tracts of land are required to graze cattle and to grow feed crops which results in pollution, soil erosion and habitat destruction and other devastating impacts.

Here are some eye-popping facts:

It actually takes 7 times less land to feed a vegetarian compared to a meat-eater. What a difference in footprint size! In Canadian terms, a meat consumer requires 3.5 acres of land while only a half acre is required to feed a vegetarian. Livestock production currently accounts for 30 percent of the entire land surface of the planet.

In Canada, 77% of cereal crops grown are directly fed to livestock, not people! I was shocked to learn about this and have never been able to look at the "corn belt" in the Ottawa area the same again. Most of this corn won't end up on anyone's table as corn on the cob...it may end up as feed for livestock and most of the energy it provides will be used up by the animals producing motion, or it will be excreted or discarded as a waste product.

Since animals are inefficient calorie converters, far more caloric and protein content is fed to the animals than is returned to your plate in a serving of meat. The monoculture crops grown for animal feed are treated with polluting chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides which otherwise wouldn't be applied if the land was allowed to return to wilderness.

Oh, and here's a rather unappetizing statistic...farm animals produce about 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population of the United States. The runoff from factory farms pollutes rivers and lakes more than all other industrial uses combined!

Rainforests, considered to be the "lungs" of the earth, are still being cut down to make way for feed cropland and for grazing cattle. The thin layer of delicate forest topsoil soon becomes degraded due to overgrazing, compaction and soil erosion due to livestock activity. In 2007 alone, 785 species were driven to extinction due to habitat destruction.

Livestock production also uses a tremendous volume of water, mostly for the irrigation of feed crops. For example, it takes 7000 litres of water to produce 100 grams of beef while it takes only 550 litres of water to produce enough flour for a loaf of bread.

And did you know that global warming isn't only caused by vehicle emissions? A full 18% of total globally-released greenhouse gases known to cause climate change derives from the meat production industry. A recent United Nations report found that the meat industry causes more global warming through emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide than all forms of transportation combined. University of Chicago researchers found that switching to a vegan diet is 50 percent more effective than switching from a regular car to a hybrid in terms of reducing global warming!

The good news is that vegetarian and vegan cuisine has come a long way from the "granola" days of tofu, hummus and steamed veggies. There's no excuse for anyone to say that vegetarian food is bland or boring anymore!! No longer is gourmet food limited to meat-based plates. Healthful, delicious and beautifully presented veggie offerings have become commonplace at most restaurants.

Vegetarian and vegan cookbooks abound with easy to make gourmet-style recipes using everyday ingredients for the home cook.

Replacing a few meals a week with vegetarian/vegan options is easy and delicious and just think what you'll be doing to help the planet.

Happy Earth Day and may Earth Day be Everyday!! Here's to the greening of your kitchens!

Sources:
Toronto Vegetarian Association; Eating for the Earth

Peta; Vegetarian Starter Kit

ArkII; The Activist: Vegans Lead the Way on Earth Day!

Toronto Vegetarian Association; Meat Production's Environmental Toll

Food Choices and Global Warming

So, here's a cool idea...how to fight global warming at dinner!? A study was released in early 2008 that suggested that substituting chicken, fish or vegetables for red meat can actually help combat climate change...something that most vegetarians are already aware of. Although the study didn't extend the conclusion to vegetarianism, the same can generally be said for substituting a vegetable-based diet for meat, chicken and fish.

Glad to see the studies are finally catching up to what we herbivores have been aware of since Frances Moore Lappe published her groundbreaking book Diet for a Small Planet in 1971. Although this work is best known for it's (since recanted and de-emphasized) theory of protein combining, it also brought to light the many environmental issues and inefficiencies associated with using animals to obtain calories.

The study, reported in the May 15 issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology, claims that putting these foods on the dinner table does more to reduce carbon emissions than eating locally grown food. While locally grown food in general does require less fuel for shipping to the store, the study actually compared greenhouse gas emissions from food production to those of transportation. The study found that food production accounts for 83 percent of the average US household's greenhouse-gas burden while transportation accounts for only 11 percent. Shifting to a less greenhouse-gas intensive diet, for example, by eating more vegetables and less meat, chicken or fish, can be an effective way to lower your food-related climate footprint. The researchers wrote that "shifting less than one day per week's worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more greenhouse-gas reduction than buying all locally sourced food."

We can all do our bit to help reduce global warming, just by making positive and compassionate changes to our diet--reducing our intake of meat, chicken, and fish even just one day a week, one meal at a time.