Hamburgers are the Hummers of Food in Global Warming: Scientists

[babylonsister]

Hamburgers are the Hummers of Food in Global Warming: Scientists


CHICAGO - When it comes to global warming, hamburgers are the Hummers of food, scientists say.


A giant hamburger is assembled at a Virginia restaurant. (AFP photo)
Simply switching from steak to salad could cut as much carbon as leaving the car at home a couple days a week.

That's because beef is such an incredibly inefficient food to produce and cows release so much harmful methane into the atmosphere, said Nathan Pelletier of Dalhousie University in Canada.

Pelletier is one of a growing number of scientists studying the environmental costs of food from field to plate.

By looking at everything from how much grain a cow eats before it is ready for slaughter to the emissions released by manure, they are getting a clearer idea of the true costs of food.

The livestock sector is estimated to account for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and beef is the biggest culprit.


more...

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/02/16-1

[ensho]

1. having one meatless day a wk. would be a start

nt

[Nihil]

41. The "start" is about all I've managed ...

... I can keep one meatless day per week without a problem but it's only
in the Summer (fresh salads!) that I can get it any higher on any regular
basis ... still, every bit helps ...
:shrug:

[jobycom]

2. Uh-oh. A shot has been fired across the bow of the USS Carnivore!!

I honor your courage.

[stuntcat]

4. for realz

it's funny how personal this issue is for people, especially when eating less meat is healthier.

[Beaverhausen]

8. I know- people just don't want to hear fact one about how bad meat eating is for us and the planet

I've been hamburger-free for longer than I can remember!

[jobycom]

9. Funny, isn't it? People will boycott Walmart, vandalize Hummers, bash the pharmcos

but ask them to cut back on meat--an industry as bad and as Republican, if not more so, than the others listed--and you get called names and punched in the virtual face.

[noamnety]

3. k&r

I was appalled at the DU response to a proposal to switch school lunches to vegetarian meals.
(and by response I mean ad hominid attacks to the group that proposed it while refusing to address the underlying issue)

We can't afford to have that sort of knee-jerk reaction to criticisms of our lifestyles, when those lifestyles are using up limited resources in irresponsible and frightening ways.

[stuntcat]

5. I saw that thread

The PETA hate-fest. Even Democrats love a good pile-on :eyes:

All schools should have great vegetarian options for lunch, for the health benefits at least.
I guess people can't imagine how this could have any impact on the childhood obesity stats.

[CrispyQ]

6. For a progressive board, the general attitude toward vegetarianism is not at all progressive.

:eyes:

[jobycom]

11. To be fair, it's better here than in the general population.

Or at least, that's what I've found.

[AndyTiedye]

24. Vegetarian Meals Prepared by the Folks Who Cooked My School Lunches — A SCARY Thought!

Vegetables were fresh out of the can into the pan, and onto our plates. Yech.
The canned spinach was particularly revolting (and I love fresh spinach).
If they went vegetarian they'd have given us a whole plate of that stuff :scared:

[noamnety]

26. I fully support a ban

on canned spinach. I love fresh spinach - there's some in my fridge right now - but the canned stuff tastes like a mixture of soap & sweat to me.

Jamie Oliver was running a food revolution in school lunches in England ... when I was involved in a school lunch program, I got some good ideas from his forums. http://www.jamieoliver.com/forum/viewforum.php?id=14 I don't recall if they were doing vegetarian fare or not - and certainly not vegan, but the emphasis was on healthy and FRESH ingredients without preservatives. That needs to be the foundation of any school lunch program.

[AwakeAtLast]

36. I missed that thread

But I'm guessing some of them saw in their minds, like I did, the same lack of quality and tastelessness that is school lunch in most areas - except in vegetarian form. I wouldn't be opposed to it if the schools would take the time to actually make the meals, not open a box.

[msongs]

7. "Diet for a small Planet" had this pegged 36 years ago -->

Cows are an extremely inefficient food source and huge amounts of waste are generated growing feed lot cows. For each pound of edible beef, huge amounts of water and nutrients are needed, something like 19 to one per unit of usable beef. The planet would be better off just eating the original food sources (grains) directly and bypass converting grain to beef


http://www.amazon.com/Small-Planet-Frances-Moore-Lappe/dp/0345373669/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234804572&sr=8-1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_for_a_Small_Planet

Msongs

[Juche]

10. Changing a cows diet can stop methane production

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/07/garlic-may-stop.html

http://www.smh.com.au/news/unusual-tales/hold-it-how-to-stop-cow-gas/2008/01/22/1200764221842.html

Doing that is more realistic than asking everyone to become vegetarian. Also, when we get hydroponic meat that will solve the methane problem. Hydroponic meat could also solve the problem of protein deficiency, which affects about a half billion people and makes people more likely to suffer from diseases.

Realistically, that is the most likely path to fix agriculture's role in global warming. Change cow diets so they produce less methane and wait about 10 years until hydroponic meats are available for $0.25 a pound.

Personally I don't mind hummers or meat. If you want to drive a hummer powered by hydrogen and eat a hydroponic burger have at it.

[jobycom]

19. Plants are still a better source of protein than meat.

Meat is harder to digest and creates more health risks. As for ten years down the road seeing hydroponic meat, that sounds a lot like the Republican claims that ten years down the road we'll have a petro-free car. They've been saying that for 40 years or more, and it's always an excuse to put off changes.

The problem with meat goes beyond methane production. It takes more grain to feed one cow than to feed a much larger number of people. That grain is usually processed with petroleum-run equipment and treated with pesticides that pollute the environment and burn resources to make. It is more efficient to feed people the grain than the beef.

And historically, no society has ever consumed as much meat as we do. For most of human existence, most diets have been 90% vegetarian, and those based primarily on animal flesh--sea cultures who eat seafood, peripatetic tribes like the Mongols who ate their herds--consumed fractions of the meat most Americans consume. Most of the people who make up America come from low meat-consumption heritages--Europeans, especially. Our diets have moved so far beyond what evolution made our bodies to eat that we are suffering obesity and chronic diseases at plague-like levels, even while modern medicine is prolonging our lifespan and reducing early mortality.

In many cultures where farming isn't as corporate as ours, animals are raised on land that cannot be farmed, and are fed by-products of human food production (corn husks, wheat chaff, etc), as well as grass and vegetations that humans don't eat. In those cases meat production is far less destructive, maybe even beneficial. But what we do here is unhealthy, unproductive, destructive, typically selfish, and unnecessary.

When they develop hydroponic meats and actually convince NASCAR Bob to grill that instead of a once-living cow, we can revise those claims. But what I've read of it, that's much more than ten years from now, if it ever comes to pass. It sounds more like the 50s promises of flying cars than like an actual eventuality.

Having said all that, I don't really care what others eat, and I'm not in favor of any laws trying to control diets. But admitting the true costs could help us to find solutions or inspire us to make changes that improve not just our own health, but the lives of the rest of the world that lives in our factory run-off.

Just my opinions.

[dana_b]

28. good ideas however doing that AND cutting back on

beef consumption (no, I don't mean going completely vegetarian), would be even better for people's health and the environment.

[Juche]

31. True

[sellitman]

12. I believe anyone with that many DU Hearts!!!!!

Hi Sis!

[MrPerson]

13. Is pizza OK? *crosses fingers*

[dana_b]

34. garden pizza!

forget the pepperoni, sausage, etc. :-(

[billyoc]

14. Anything THAT delicious has got to be bad.

:evilgrin:

[navarth]

15. You would think that the immorality of murdering innocent animals would be enough...

but it isn't. Failing that, one ight think that the effects on the environment, the cutting down of rain forest to make room for more 'food animals' would make people think about it. But people have a peculiar set of blinders about this issue. I know I did, until I couldn't stand it anymore and up and quit one day.

Full disclosure: I REALLY MISS HAMBURGERS. If there's a heaven, it's a place where I can eat all the hamburgers I want, and no innocent animal gets murdered so I can have it.

But this ain't heaven. I remember how upset my hunting friends were with me when I quit eating meat. The bullshit I had to listen to about going against my basic nature, etc. What Ever.

[Froward69]

16. What of Buffalo Burgers?

far healthier, and a native species. no additional water or special care needed to raise. Just wide open spaces, as Buffalo do not heed any fence.

[Muttocracy]

38. isn't it bizarre how much effort went into replacing native bison with cows?

[elocs]

17. I've heard it said that hamburger is fat disguised as meat.

People love and crave fat, except when it obviously looks like fat.

[ananda]

18. This is bullshit.

The primary cause of catastrophic climate
change and pollution is humans, in the
thrall of the corporate machine.

Oil companies like Exxon-Mobile, anc
corporate machine-think have manipulated
people into the consumption mindset and
into using cars to achieve a place in the
world that allows them to continue
consuming.

[jobycom]

20. You'd have to include the Beef Council up there with Exxon-Mobile.

They have such control over Republicans that they have passed laws limiting free speech (remember the Texas laws that allowed Oprah to be sued?), have gotten editors fired for even mentioning vegetarianism, have gotten harmful products like BGH passed through the FDA...

If you oppose big oil but not the Beef Council, you're not paying attention. Eating beef is as destructive as driving your car to work, and the above study isn't the first to prove that.

[Beaverhausen]

21. yes, humans doing stupid things like eating meat and feeding cows the wrong diet

Did you even read the link? Didn't think so...

[flvegan]

37. How so?

Humans, being that single species that demands beef in the grocery to eat? So yeah, this is part of the primary cause.

Thanks for backing the OP up.

[kestrel91316]

22. I'm not giving up my measly 3 or 4 burgers a year.

[navarth]

23. That's not many burgers.

If the entire operation was cut down to size, there would be less damage.

[dana_b]

27. no need to!

Moderation is the key, right? However you are definitely the exception. A lot of Americns looooove their beef and damn if they are going to cut back. However that's all they need to do and it would help them and the environment.

[AndyTiedye]

25. So Feed the Cows Grass

People can't eat grass.

[noamnety]

29. Not a solution.

"In fact, one of the main causes of rainforest destruction in Central and South America is cattle ranching. Cattle ranchers slash and burn the rainforest to make room for cattle pastures. First, the ranchers cut down the trees and set the forest on fire. Then they plant grass and bring in cows to feed on the grass. When the cows are grown, they are slaughtered and turned into cheap beef. The beef is used in fast-food hamburgers, frozen meat products, and canned pet food.

It takes a lot of rainforest land, water, and energy to make a fast-food hamburger. As a matter of fact, fifty-five square feet of rainforest is destroyed for every quarter pound hamburger that comes from a cleared rainforest. "

http://ran.org/new/kidscorner/about_rainforests/factsheets/facts_about_beef/

[Kali]

35. We don't eat much rainforest beef in this country.

And there is no reason to. Plenty of forage here and like the poster pointed out - WE can't eat grass. Ruminants like cattle can. Eating beef, properly raised on range or pasture is actually eating low on the food chain and it is delicious, healthy, and environmentally enhancing rather than harmful.

[sellitman]

30. They still drink water & fart methane gas.

Everyone who can't stop eating beef should make it a rare (pardon the pun) exception.

[AndyTiedye]

33. They'd Fart Less on Grass

which is their natural diet.

[The2ndWheel]

32. Stop confining the rest of life into the narrow requirements of a single species

on an ever increasing scale.

Not as easy a solution as saying hamburgers are bad though.

[excess_3]

39. the poor don't deserve to eat meat

(sarcasm)

or to have cars
or electricity
etc

'''''''''''''''''''''
Yah, dat will be good politics

[AndyTiedye]

40. ..

[One_Life_To_Give]

42. Emissions of 1 acre grassland with and without a cow?

Seems to me the real question is not what the Cow explicetly produces. But what the effect is upon the emissions of the environment in which it lives.

[tom_paine]

43. Yep. And yet we still eat'em by the billions, anyway. And so do I.

Hi, I'm tom_paine, and I'm a meataholic.

It may sound like I am being facetious, but I am not.

Me and 280,000,000 other Americans.

It's a tough habit to kick, or even modulate. At this point, I'd be happy with that, certainly in terms of better health.

[Karenina]

45. Of late, I save the drippings of slab o' meat

soak a slab ' tofu in them, which is then baked or fried, satisfy my craving while changing my fare.

[K8-EEE]

44. "Simply switching from steak to salad...."

The few times I've attempted to start Meatless Monday threads here, it's amazing the veggetarian haters that come out flame throwing at the very suggestion of ONE VEGETARIAN MEAL A WEEK!!! And that's on DU for Christ's sake.

Really it's a subject on which people are not AT ALL rational. They luvs them some dead cow.

[Greyskye]

46. I haven't eaten a hamburger in over 20 years.

And I haven't missed 'em for a second. Of course, I didn't eat them that often before that either, despite my first job in high school being at Burger King.

I just got on Facebook a couple weeks ago to connect with old friends. My buddies from high school some 30 years ago almost all look 20 years older than I do. Coincidence? :shrug: