Earth-friendly eating

NUTRISPEAK by Vesanto Melina MS, RD

• When people consider going green, their focus is often on buying a vehicle that guzzles less gas, riding their bike more or eating local. Yet we hear from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN that livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions – more than all forms of transportation combined. How can this be? Can the belching and flatulence of cows really be that bad? Experts such as Goodland and Anhang for Worldwatch find the “food animal” contribution to be even greater – 51% of greenhouse gas emissions. Thus the factors that make our meat, poultry and dairy-centred diets so damaging to our planet’s future invite our attention.

Here is how it works:
Cow burps and farts do play a role, but that’s just part of the story. When we clear forests for “food animals,” run farm machinery, bring in feed and transport animals and butchered pieces, CO2 is released at each step. It takes about 15 pounds of feed to make one pound of beef, six pounds per pound of pork and five pounds per pound of chicken. Even a “local and free range” animal had fodder that was delivered by truck, and the animal was driven to a licensed slaughterhouse.
Fertilizers for the massive quantities of fodder generate nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the global warming impact of CO2.
Manure, an essential by-product of animal (including organic) agriculture, releases methane, with global warming effects 23 times greater than CO2.
Within the category of food production, 44% of greenhouse gas emissions are CO2, 32% are nitrous oxide, 23% are methane, with the latter two most strongly linked to the red meat and dairy industries (1% are other gases).
Considering all that fodder, it takes considerably more water to produce a pound of beef, compared with a pound of grain or legumes used in a plant-based diet.
A farm with 2,500 dairy cows produces as much waste as a city of 411,000 people. Human waste must be treated before finding its way into our water systems, but no such requirements exist for animal waste, so waterways end up contaminated with bacteria, antibiotics and more. Agricultural hormone use is linked with hormone-related human cancers and agricultural antibiotic use is linked with new strains of deadly and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
The environmental impact of various diets has been assessed using European software SimaPro (www.pre-sustainability.com). This program takes into account land, water and energy use and also release of waste. The table below, based on FAO data, compares the environmental impact of diets of different types and regions with a non-vegetarian plan that is well balanced according to national Dietary Guidelines (DG) and is given a reference value of 1. The non-vegetarian DG plan includes plenty of plant foods. The vegan pattern, also well balanced according to DG, has a far lower environmental impact (0.22) and typical North American eating patterns have over 4 times the negative environmental impact (4.07).

It seems you can reduce your carbon footprint more effectively by eating 100 percent vegan one day a week than by eating 100 percent local seven days a week.

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Vesanto Melina is a local registered dietitian and co-author of bestselling nutrition books including Becoming Raw. Contact info: 604-882-6782, vesanto.melina@gmail.com,
www.nutrispeak.com, www.facebook.com/Nutrispeak