Observations, predictions, and solutions
“We are made wise not by the recollection of our past but by the responsibility of our future”
—George Bernard Shaw
ALTHOUGH GLOBAL DEPLETION has occurred in many areas and in a devastating manner, there is hope—but certain things must change. Addressing complex issues such as our food choices must immediately happen on many levels. There must be enhanced awareness and vision, proper prioritization, subsequent implementation, and dissemination of truth to everyone involved as progress occurs. Before we can chart a better course, we should first examine how we arrived at this point … the path we took to get here.
Collectively, we choose food that is unhealthy for us and for our planet. There are a number of reasons for this unfortunate situation, including:
• Clear suppression of information
• Misplaced trust for guidance
• Misleading food choice education by the USDA and the meat and dairy industries
• Government subsidies for animal products
• Lack of establishment and implementation of an ecotax, reflecting a true price
• Complex combination of psychological, cultural, social, and political interactions
There is very little awareness that your food choices have a profoundly detrimental effect on our planet. However, it should be common knowledge that, much like smoking cigarettes, eating meat is not healthy for you. Strangely, consumption continues, so there must be something missing in this scenario. Let’s look once again at what a few of the major health organizations say about the consumption of meat and dairy products and the effect it has on your health:
• The American Dietetic Association states: “It is the position of the ADA that vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.”143
• The American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund call for “a plant-based diet rich in a variety of vegetables, fruits, and legumes and limiting red meat consumption, if red meat is eaten at all.”144 145
• The American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health call for a diet based on a variety of plant foods, including grain products, vegetables, and fruits to reduce risk of major chronic diseases.146
These are all purposeful, visible organizations with a clear message regarding food choices, so this begs the question: Why do people continue to eat meat? My experience has shown that individuals will fall into one of the following categories:
• Burger, Fries, and a Side of Disease: You are quite aware of this information and have made a decision to significantly increase the probability of developing cancer, heart disease, diverticulosis, gallstones, kidney disease, and diabetes, and will spend most of your time in physician offices and hospitals, and buying medications, like the majority of Americans do.
• I am Superman: You are aware of this information and the connection but believe it will never happen to you, even though statistics show it happens to the vast majority of everyone who consumes animal products.
• Need My Protein: You really are completely unaware that there is anything wrong with eating meat and may think it is actually healthy for you. If you are in this group, you are part of a large number of people who are hearing, seeing, and reading only what the various aspects of our culture want you to know, in order to perpetuate the belief that those products are healthy.
This third group exists due to a rather complex intertwining of cultural, political, economic, and media factors that, when combined, does an excellent job of not allowing the average person to become aware of pertinent facts. Even if you had these enlightening facts in hand, there is then difficulty in feeling comfortable with taking the proper course of action, due to certain social and cultural implications. Unfortunately, this is the situation that affects the majority of Americans. And therein lies the problem.
For instance, we respect, almost to the point of reverence, our physicians, dieticians, and hospitals—the keepers of our health. Because of this, we have come to rely solely on them for guidance when we become ill or injured. This is perfectly fine in certain circumstances, but it also places these professionals in a counseling position regarding disease prevention and nutrition. Now, this is where problems occur.
First is the dichotomy of their education and cultural influences, relative to the position of guidance in which we place them. Physicians are trained in medicine; they are medical doctors (MDs). As such, they are trained in diagnosing and treating various disease states, primarily with a pharmacological solution—which drug will manage which condition. The primary focus of their education was not in prevention, nutrition, or diet and exercise counseling, nor was it in ecology issues, to be able to determine what is in the best interest of our planet. Medical schools do not require their students to take nutrition courses beyond one semester—and it is an elective in most schools. It is quite easy to see why most Americans feel it is healthy to eat meat and animal products in general, because their physicians mistakenly think that it is fine.
Today, it is standard procedure for heart surgeons and cardiologists to prescribe medications and perform bypass surgery without mentioning that prevention or treatment could be best managed by switching to a completely plant-based diet. This happens despite current knowledge that supports this recommendation. Similarly, those suffering from colon, rectal, pancreatic, or prostate cancers are treated with extensive, life-changing surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation. Oncologists and surgeons seldom mandate a plant-based diet. I have witnessed countless patients, immediately following massive surgeries to remove cancer of the colon, who are told they can eat whatever they would like. There is no mention of statistics or current medical knowledge that eating animal products most likely contributed to the development of the cancer; no mention that eating animal products will significantly increase the risk that more cancer will develop. (This applies to many other types of cancer as well.)
Dieticians are equally, if not more, at fault. As hospitals become more occupationally specialized with those in decision-making capacities, dieticians play a much larger role than they did even twenty years ago. Hospital administrative personnel place dieticians in supervisory roles, with meal planning for the entire hospital. Physicians rely on dieticians to formulate meal strategies and guide pre- and post-surgical patients on food choices that are in their best interest. Unfortunately, nearly 100 percent of the dieticians I have come in contact with over the past thirty-five years either have no knowledge of the health benefits of a plant-based diet or are still in denial that meat and animal products are factually unhealthy for anyone to consume.
Since 2003, the year in which the American Dietetic Association printed its position statement that highlighted the many advantages of a vegetarian diet, I have yet to meet even one dietician who uses this information as a basis for meal planning for her patients, despite its obviously being in the patients’ best interest. Maybe dieticians have not read their own position statement, which was reaffirmed and reprinted in 2009. More than once, I have visited a patient, one or two days out of surgery in which the colon and rectum were removed, and witnessed the physician and dietician allowing or even directing the patient to eat hot dogs. It is easy to see why we continue to think that eating meat is healthy.
I personally know many pediatricians who continue to provide the nutritional guidance that milk and dairy products are healthy—I am sure this applies to the vast majority of pediatricians. Not only do they allow their young patients to consume milk, but they most likely promote its use for their own family members. This occurs despite the fact that the American Pediatric Association has recently stated that milk and dairy products should not be given to children, as they are a recognized source of allergens and contaminants, such as hormones, antibiotics, and pesticides. Dairy products also cause colic and chronic constipation. Additionally, some studies have now linked milk consumption to children’s developing type I diabetes.147
With health professionals continuing to advocate the consumption of meat and dairy products, true wellness for us and for our planet will be impossible to achieve. This brings light to the fact that we have a system of suppressed information and a misplaced trust in individuals and institutions that provide inaccurate and misleading information. All this needs to change in order for progress to occur.
The mismanagement of information or outright ignorance of reality regarding our food choices and the toll that it takes on our environment is the reason why we are at the point we are today. Still, one simple illustration has yet to be made: have you actually raised a cow on your own property? Not too many of us can say that they have. If you have and really understood what you were doing and your full spectrum of options for food, I do not believe you would ever continue the practice. Why? Because that cow would drink forty times more water than you do, eat thousands of dollars worth of food that could have been used in one form or another for you, use all your land, and create urine, feces, and flatulence that is overwhelming. Then there is the killing process, which will consume additional water and energy, just to get a few parts of the cow to your table to eat, which is not healthy for you, despite the effort. Now, think about this on a scale of 70 billion animals in one year alone.
Another large reason for our current state is because of the education process imposed on us by the meat and dairy industry, with their massive multibillion-dollar advertising campaigns, lobbying, and political efforts. They infuse us with thoughts that their food is healthy for us, and of course, there is no mention of what they are doing behind the scenes to our planet. For every minute that we are exposed to a purported health benefit of an animal product, we should be equally exposed to the ill effects those same products have on us and our planet—how much water, land, energy, and resources it took and the pollution created to get it to you. And we should be equally enlightened to all the benefits of a plant-based diet for our health as well.
Misleading advertisements abound. The origin of our Food Pyramid was nearly a hundred years ago, with the USDA Food Guidelines in 1916, which promoted meat and dairy products at the center of every meal, in order to obtain the proper nutrition.148 These guidelines and subsequent Food Pyramid served—and still serve—as the Holy Grail for our country’s school systems and families with regard to food choices. Influenced heavily by the egg, milk, and meat producers, the USDA has misdirected the public without much challenge for all these years, by falsely promoting animal products as being necessary for good health. The USDA and Food Pyramid still promote meat and dairy items, with dairy as high as “five servings needed daily for teenagers and pregnant women,” despite the fact that milk and meat products are the largest sources of saturated fat and cholesterol in children’s diets, according to the National Institute of Child Health and Development.149
The USDA and its guidelines influence much of the world in terms of food choices, and it still dictates what 17 million food-stamp recipients can eat and what foods can be offered through the National School Lunch and Breakfast Program. No wonder animal products continue to be consumed; no wonder we are in the worst overall global health we have ever been in. A newer Food Pyramid, with suggested revisions established by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, places animal products, such as meat, dairy, and fish in the proper location—off the pyramid entirely.150 Even so, the Dairy Council continues to heavily advertise with campaigns such as the milk mustache worn by recognized celebrities and announcing that milk is good for strong bones and preventing osteoporosis. Now, they even have one that declares milk will help you lose weight. Again, nowhere is there equal information for the consumer regarding the evidence that milk promotes various disease states, has unhealthy contaminants, is devoid of certain important nutrients, and that there is a heavy burden on our environment with every drop created.151
Another reason we are at this point with our food choices is that there are subsidies paid to the meat, dairy, and fishing industries to help support them, regardless of demand. This economic assistance is quite disparate in the sense that there are no subsidies of a similar nature for plants grown directly for our consumption. So, although there are really no logical arguments for the continued use of animal products as food, our government has created a shield of sorts for the meat and dairy industries, particularly as it relates to normal economic or market fluctuations. In 1933, the USDA created the Commodities Credit Corporation (CCC) and began giving direct price supports to dairy production and de facto supports to the meat industry in the form of feed grain price assistance.152 This has allowed our government to keep the industry in an artificial sense of security and viability and immune to any downturns due to market pricing or demand. For instance, in 1998 USDA Secretary Dan Glickman bought up at least $250 million worth of beef, chicken, dairy, eggs, fish, lamb, and pork that could not be sold in an already flooded market.153 This kept an artificial money supply flowing back to the meat and dairy industry that helped to perpetuate production of their animal products without true market or public demand. These goods were destined to be dumped into public feeding troughs such as the National School Lunch Program.154
Subsidies are even created for the livestock industry for the use of water that promotes overuse of our water supply and without proper taxation. Water use has been cost-free with western cattle ranches that enjoyed access to streams and rivers that have now dried up altogether, due to overgrazing, soil erosion, desertification, and general overuse. The government has essentially encouraged pumping more and more water from underground aquifers, as well as further freshwater depletion, by creating tax deductions for sinking wells and purchasing drilling equipment. It has sponsored more than thirty-two irrigation projects in seventeen western states. In all, more than half the cost of providing irrigation facilities in the United States has been borne by the federal government, which has subsidized ranchers and farmers from public funds.155 As stated by Cornell University economist David Fields: “Reports by the Water Resources Council, Rand Corporation, and the General Accounting Office made it clear that irrigation water subsidies to livestock producers are economically counterproductive … current water use practices now threaten to undermine the economies of every state in the region.”156
One of the primary reasons we are seeing depletion of our oceans and its marine life is the irrational subsidies on a global basis that is given to the fishing industry. The global fishing industry is now receiving an estimated $34 billion annually, in the form of financial assistance, marketing support, modernization programs, storage infrastructure improvements, boat construction, and buy-back incentives, foreign access agreements, and massive tax exemptions.157 Total world subsidies for fuel alone are currently at $6 billion, which continues to support the industry’s overfishing methods.158 As stated recently by the World Trade Organization, “Eliminating capacity-enhancing fisheries subsidies is the largest single action that can be taken to address global overfishing.159 These subsidies create strong economic incentives to overfish.” As previously noted, 70 percent of the world’s fish species are either fully exploited or depleted, with areas of the ocean having become essentially wastelands and with ecosystems lost. Fishing fleets worldwide are estimated at 250 times more than what is needed to carry out sustainable fishing.160 Government subsidies have been linked to illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing and provide the support for large, distant water fleets to fish around the world.161 Analysis of high-seas trawling, which the United Nations has called to be significantly restricted due to its destructiveness, has found that these fleets would not be profitable without the large subsidies they are handed. With elimination of all subsidies given to the global fishing industry, in combination with less demand by the consumer, the largest component of unnecessary destruction and depletion of our oceans would be eliminated.
There are so many more examples of this, where the meat, fishing, and dairy industries put pressure on the government to continue price supports and purchase programs, while false profit margins are used to fuel their massive advertisement campaigns, nutritional education of the general public and school systems, and political lobbying actions to ensure that benefits continue. This is an insidious cycle, which obviously needs to be broken to allow proper development of a national health and nutrition program, whereby growers of nutritious and sustainable organic food products, such as grains, fruits, and vegetables, are assisted for their efforts. Accompanying this, educational programs can then be implemented so that proper and accurate nutrition information is disseminated to the public and the school systems.
Importantly, another reason that we are at this serious point with global depletion from our unhealthy food choices is the issue of proper pricing. To date, there has been no accountability for a reflection of the true price of a particular food item, to get it from point A to point B. While I have addressed the clear global depletion that occurs with our choices of various animal products used for food, none of them carries the true cost of producing that item. What do I mean by “true cost”? Let’s take a closer look at that quarter-pound burger you bought for lunch.
You may have paid $3.39 for it. The true cost of the bun, condiments, and plant portions may have been around $0.30, and the quarter-pound of hamburger, as it is called, has a true cost of … what? It requires fifty-five square feet of rainforest to produce that much meat, so what is the cost of the rainforest loss and all the vegetation, oxygen, and carbon dioxide disruption, as well as the biodiversity lost with it, and why wasn’t that accounted for in the $3.39? In many cases, it requires over 1,200 gallons of water to produce just one-quarter pound of edible muscle tissue on a cow. If that water came from a source such as the Ogallala aquifer, which much of your meat does, it will never be replaced in our lifetime, so what is the real cost of that 1,200 gallons that you just used? These examples and questions raise the all-too-important issue that our environment and natural resources have been used as if there is no cost, when there obviously is.
As we have seen, there is irreversible depletion with the production of the meat you just chose to eat. All of the resources on earth that comprise our various ecosystems and environment belong to earth and its inhabitants, collectively. As such, it is our duty to act as stewards, leaving the earth in similar or better shape when we pass it on to the next generation. Therefore, our resources should be viewed in a less narrow-minded perspective. These resources are not free and should have some form of an ecotax affixed. If such a tax existed, then it would affect your burger purchase in the following ways:
There would be a true cost established, whereby the retailer (in this case, McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, etc.) and producers would have to pay for the resources that were used in producing that burger—pay for the water used, pay for the rainforest destroyed, pay for the oxygen lost by the vegetation cut down or used, pay for the carbon dioxide it produced in the vegetation loss, and pay for the global-warming gases (methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide) produced in the raising and slaughtering of the cow needed. Because some of these things are irreplaceable in our lifetime, it would be difficult to estimate the true ecotax, but somewhere in the thousands of dollars would not be out of line for replacing a five-hundred-year-old section of Amazonian rainforest.
Once this ecotax is established and implemented, the obvious effect would be that the only thing that meat and dairy industries could afford to produce—or that you could afford to eat—would be the plant-based portion (lettuce, tomato, condiments, pickle, bun) of that quarter-pounder sandwich. This would set into motion the quickest recovery route to a healthy planet.
Finally, a very complex intertwining of psychological, social, political, and economic issues has been created by the factors mentioned above. These issues affect most individuals as they make food choices on a daily basis. As discussed, there are political and economic issues at play with corporate forces that affect policies, distortion of public information, and even pricing of food. From a psychological and social perspective, it is generally very difficult for most individuals to eat only plant-based foods, due to lack of availability and various constraints placed by parents and friends and within social groups. It becomes just too much of a hassle to ask your friend, colleague, or waiter to not have any animal products in or near the food you are eating. Also, it cannot be cooked in the same pan or touch the same area that meat, fish, or dairy has touched, and so on. Although quite true and consistent, you suddenly become the outcast.
Now that we have a better understanding of which factors led us to the point where we are today, it should be easier to identify calculated predictions as well as further exploring solutions. Production of meat and dairy is expected to double in the next ten years, rising from 229 million tons to 465 million tons.162 Our planet simply cannot sustain this because it cannot sustain our current levels of raising animals for food. There are two principal ways we can move forward with our food choices regarding animal products and global depletion. First, we can evolve to the point of not eating them by correcting the issues presented earlier in this chapter. Second, we can move forward with legal coercion, because, most likely, the first avenue is idealistic and with the potential of excessive delay. We will reach a point in time where legislation will be forced to enact sanctions that make it illegal to eat meat more than once a week and then, ultimately, at all. This may seem a radical thought at first, but when we reach the point of urgency, it will be one of the necessary corrective measures.
The end result is necessary to halt the global depletion that is currently out of control with our food choices. I call it the “K-Pax” theory. In the 2001 movie K-Pax, Kevin Spacey plays a visitor from another planet, one that is vastly more developed and advanced than Earth. There are many subtle references throughout the movie that indicate that his character and all individuals on his planet are vegetarians and do not eat any animal products. It is clearly implied that as a civilization evolves, it must become vegetarian in order to survive and become advanced. Although this was simply a movie, it is intellectually on target, which is why Einstein pondered the thought frequently and arrived at the very same conclusion: “Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
The first way of change through evolution involves correction of all the reasons of why we are here to begin with. Opening the pathways of communication regarding the reality of food choices would be a start. Those who have platforms in the media—celebrities, authors, talk show hosts, and politicians—all must assume a higher level of awareness and then convey the realities to their audiences. Information regarding the benefits of a plant-based diet to our health and that of our planet must be made available to everyone and repeated on a daily basis in the media. Likewise, the ill effects to our health of consuming animal products and the devastating effects it has on our environment must be made available to the public and reinforced just as often. Only accurate, unbiased information must be free-flowing and disseminated to everyone.
There must be a balancing or equating of the reliance we place on health professionals with their level of knowledge regarding our food choices. In other words, if physicians or dieticians are to remain in a position of counseling other humans as to nutrition and food choices, then they must fully understand and be able to communicate the realities of such decisions. Physicians must be required to complete, in either graduate or post-graduate studies, courses on food choices as they relate to our health and the health of our planet. Similarly, dieticians must reread, fully understand, and be able to fully communicate portions of their own position statement on vegetarian diets and the health benefits to their patients. They must do the same with the ill effects that animal products have on our planet—anything less is malpractice. Blood-letting was a common practice for physicians in medieval times, but they would certainly lose their license if they performed that practice today. It is time to move forward with guidance with regard to unhealthy food practices as well.
Government involvement with subsidies and assistance programs for the meat, fish, and dairy industries must come to a halt. If financial support is given to any agricultural industry, it should be to all those crops grown in organic fashion for us to consume. Our government should also be involved in supervising the establishment of proper food education in our school systems, from kindergarten through high school. This could begin by removing all milk and dairy advertisements, and replacing the antiquated and misleading Food Pyramid and food guidelines as established by the USDA with some form of a new pyramid that reflects the revisions established by the PCRM. Promotion should be allowed only for those food choices that are factually healthy for us and for our planet.
There is a perception that our natural resources have no monetary value attached so they can easily be used to create short-term gains by logging forests, misuse of water, wasting land, killing marine wildlife, and polluting. At some point in time, just prior to the enactment of laws against consuming meat, we will need to place an economic value on these resources that have been used so heavily but so freely by the livestock and fishing industries. Specifically, an ecotax, or price, as proposed earlier, should be established and attached to each and every resource that is destroyed or used during the animal-for-food production process. That means that every bit of land, water, and resource used; pollution created; fish species caught inadvertently or that has become endangered; and ancient tree that is cut in the rainforest must be accounted for. Most rainforest trees are over one hundred years old and come with endemic species and diverse ecosystems that are lost as well. What should that price be? And with water, what dollar amount should be placed on the billions of gallons used by the livestock industry, especially when it is from glacier water that could be used by humans directly and that is not readily renewable? When the fishing industry clears a seamount or other area of the ocean of marine life that eliminates communities and destroys the complex ecosystems that have been in place for hundreds of years, what should they pay? Although these resources are essentially priceless and irreplaceable in our lifetime, there must be a form of ecotax in the thousands of dollars for their use, in order to encourage more accountable and sustainable ecological practices.
If I intentionally drove my car off the road and through someone’s front yard, destroying every plant, animal, and structure they owned, shouldn’t I be responsible for at least paying the cost to replace those items lost? In actuality, it should be my duty to completely restore everything, alive or otherwise, back to its original condition and to do so immediately. That should be the case with the fishing and livestock industries. It is unacceptable—economically, philosophically, or otherwise—for a business to use any resource at will and to wipe out species of plants or animals.
The United Nations Committee on Livestock, Environment, and Agricultural Development has stated: “Ultimately, reaching a sustainable balance of demand for livestock and the capacity of ecosystems to provide goods and services in the future will require adequate pricing of natural resources.” An ecotax should be levied upon all those that take or destroy our planet’s resources, and in turn, this tax should be translated into the final asking price of the product.
In addition to the ecotax, there is reasonable justification to go one step farther by imposing a health-risk tax. This would be the cost a business would have to pay to produce and offer for sale any food item that is associated with a risk for developing chronic disease. Recent estimates place our health care cost burden per year, due to various food choices, at over $100 billion.163 Because all animal products contribute to the risk of developing the four most prevalent chronic disease conditions, it makes sense that those businesses that offer these food items should help pay for the medical and hospital bills to which it contributes. It is very well documented that the Tarahumara Indians, Seventh-Day Adventists, and other groups of individuals who have eaten only plant-based foods their entire lives do not suffer from adult onset diabetes, triple bypass heart surgery, or colon cancer. Obviously, if all food items made from animal products carried with them this proposed health-risk tax, which is a true reflection of the economic damage created, no one could afford to produce or buy them. This would then help solve the global depletion problem and also vastly improve our health care system, by stimulating less costly health insurance to the consumers who subscribe to consistent, enlightened food choices. It would solve many issues that we, as a civilization, have failed thus far to properly address.
Education must take place in other countries as well. Initial emphasis should be placed on those countries where demand for meat is escalating and also in those countries where indiscriminate destruction of resources occur to support demand for livestock or fish products. A change in demand for animal products is most dramatic in Asia, where consumption of livestock products by humans has increased by 140 percent.164 Although strong cultural hurdles exist, education of these people to the detrimental effects that animal products have on our planet and to their own health should be the starting point. Equally challenging but necessary is the education of native people in rainforests, where clear-cut logging and erosive, non-sustainable agricultural techniques occur at rampant rates to support the livestock industry and the Western demand for meat. It is mandatory that they understand that the rainforests are invaluable as one of the earth’s treasures and, as such, are certainly worth much more economically to them, long-term, by keeping them intact and protected. Global and local education for rainforest economics must be established. It must be understood, for instance, that rainforest land that is converted to cattle operations yields $60 per acre to the landowner for harvested timber, and then the land is worth $400 per acre.165 However, this same land can produce more than $2,400 per acre if the naturally growing fruits, flowers, and medicinal plants are harvested in a renewable and sustainable manner.166 Land used in this fashion would be worth substantially more than $2,400 per acre, if it were also used for ecotourism. This could easily be accomplished by combining preservation, sustainable harvesting, and education with controlled tourism. It is vital for local societies to recognize and understand the greater value of natural ecosystems for retaining biodiversity. This would then serve as the impetus toward adequate policy enactment and ultimate preservation, rather than continued destruction.
Once these things are in place, evolution to a more enlightened and healthier route is possible. However, the reality is that this process would require an elongated period of time, during which we would witness continued depletion. Because further global depletion of some category could be devastating, legislation—or a combination of the two—would be the more predictable approach.
So, yes, legislation that bars the raising of animals for food and eating of meat will happen, because it is inevitable that resources such as water, land, food, and energy will be depleted from raising livestock and harvesting fish, to the point where our lives will be affected on a daily basis. Water may very well be the first resource to be affected.
As an example, more than half of the available freshwater supply in the United States is used to grow feed for livestock. Because of this and the fact that this water is nonrenewable, water tables in the Midwest and Great Plains are quickly being depleted, while surface water in the western states is running on borrowed time. Shortages are beginning to occur and will become commonplace, especially in western states. Although consumers in all of these states have been forced occasionally to ration water, they have not been told that the reason they are running out of water for showering or drinking is because most of it has been or is being pumped off for livestock—to grow their feed, for them to drink, or in the slaughtering process.
Soon, a city or municipality somewhere will find itself with a water shortage that cannot be blamed solely on drought. Beyond the narrow view of enforcing rationing, policy-makers for that area will be forced to take a closer look at just where all the water is going. This will inevitably reveal that the vast majority of the water is going to livestock, which then will lead to exposing the reality of our food choices and the true impact on our planet.
Laws may be enacted initially that ensure less use of animals for food, as it would be asking too much of our population to eliminate it entirely. Eventually, however, we will come to the conclusion that only food of plant-based origin can be allowed. Even though this is needed right now, it may take years for the proper wheels to be set in motion for accomplishment.
When logically discussing solutions to the global depletion situation, there are always questions posed by those concerned about the effect these solutions would have on various aspects of life, especially with the point that everyone should just stop eating meat, effective today. The three concerns that are the most common are:
1. What happens to all the animals that are currently being raised for meat if we just stop eating them?
2. What would happen to all those people who make their income by doing something with the livestock or fishing industry? It would be devastating economically.
3. Why can’t we just produce and eat organic, grass-fed (pastured) livestock, because isn’t this method sustainable?
Regarding the first concern—what happens to all the animals?—a phased-in scenario would occur. There is no likelihood whatsoever that everyone in the world would stop eating meat on one given day. Therefore, a steady decrease in demand would result in steadily fewer and fewer animals raised and fish caught or farmed, until we would be at zero production, which would equate to a near zero environmental footprint from a food production standpoint, with the establishment of sustainable systems.
With regard to the second concern—what would happen to all the people who make their income …?—this is no different than what has happened with changes over time in technology or with our economy forcing industries that have operated for over one hundred years to either adapt by reinventing themselves or terminate. This would not be the first time it has happened, as we have seen this with countless industries. Most recently, microfiche, various filing systems, and the typewriting businesses had to move over with the advent of computers, and the newspaper industry had to close numerous companies that had been in business since the 1800s, due to advancement of media and advertisement mechanisms like the Internet. This is called progress. And it would be called proper progress if these newer industries also cleaned up our planet.
The third concern requires a more in-depth response. Let us consider sustainability as it relates to our food choices. What is it? And exactly who is it that determines what human practices are sustainable? Along my many journeys, I have found that most often, those who use the term “sustainable” are those who truly do not know what is sustainable and, more important, what is not. They simply are not aware of all the variables that need to be factored in when determining true sustainability. It’s extremely unfortunate that these same individuals or institutions are placed in a position where public opinion is influenced; even policy-making is based on their opinions. Many examples of this are found routinely in the United States and around the world.
One such example involves the policies with regard to whale killing adopted by a few Caribbean islands. In 2008, St. Lucia was one of six islands that voted to lift the 1986 International Whaling Commission (IWC) ban on hunting whales, which essentially allows Japan to use St. Lucia’s surrounding waters to kill whales again commercially or for “scientific research” purposes. In exchange for the use of their waters, Japan subsidizes St. Lucia and five other Caribbean island countries by funneling in $100 million to the economies of these island nations.167 Japan, Norway, and Iceland now kill collectively three thousand whales annually.168 Most are still slaughtered by using the painful and inhumane penthrite grenade harpoon technique developed in the 1800s, which is an important topic of discussion in and of itself. During my last conversation with officials of St. Lucia, I asked how they could possibly allow hunting in their waters of these very intelligent, sensitive, and social beings, and I encouraged the officials instead to further invest in the growth of whale watching and ecotourism. Chief Fisheries Officer of St. Lucia, Ignatius Jean, responded with hostility, stating, “We allow harvesting of whales in a sustainable manner … and both industries [whale killing and whale watching] can coexist in our waters.” This is an interesting statement from the one person who influences the policies made to allow the taking of another life off the shores of the island, as no one actually knows the real population numbers of sperm whales.169 Nor does anyone know the sperm whales’ social, feeding, breeding and migratory traditions that have been established for thousands of years.170 We will not realize that this hunting practice is not sustainable until the whales are all gone, as has happened with many other whales and other species. Additionally, how sensible is it to think that a highly intelligent and acutely sensitive creature like the sperm whale would feel comfortable and cooperative with whale-watching boats nearby on any given afternoon, when that same morning its entire pod was attacked and its mate was viciously killed right next to him by a Japanese whale-hunting boat. The reason many whales have become extinct and others are now endangered is because those individuals who influence public opinion or decisions and policies on sustainable practices actually do not have all the answers and thereby miscalculate. In the case of species such as the whale, it is a double miscalculation that results in not only loss of strict numbers but also in the individual act of allowing humans to take the life of another living, peaceful, and innocent being. I believe the rule to follow is that nature has a balancing equation of its own that we humans are incapable of fully comprehending, and that whenever we get involved in this equation by creating subtractions (of land, animals, or other resources), it most likely will generate an irreversible imbalance somewhere—whether or not we are capable of measuring this imbalance. With whales, as with our inanimate resources, even baseline projections of availability are disputable, let alone all those tangible and intangible variables that our human interferences affect along the way.
As it becomes more apparent that our current method of producing livestock is unhealthy for one reason or another, the attention will be turned invariably toward grass-fed, “organic,” or essentially pastured animal production. This is already justified as being the healthy alternative to our current practices, as it is purported to be “fully sustainable.” Again, who is in the supervisory position to proclaim that this would be sustainable and thereby will misdirect public perception? Why is this endorsed by highly publicized and influential individuals?
This thinking is wrought with many misconceptions that can, for the most part, be grouped as follows:
• That killing and eating any animal is healthier for us than eating plant-based foods, whether or not those animals have eaten pasture
• That somehow transferring the production of animals for food to another mode can be accomplished in a fully sustainable fashion, meaning without the loss of land, water, air quality, or any other resource
Let’s look more closely at these misconceptions. The small local farm and grass-fed livestock movement is quickly gaining momentum, in part because of the promotion by various organizations and authors and lecturers, such as Michael Pollan, Mark Bittman, Joel Salatin, and Jonathan Safran Foer. On its surface, this movement appears to be a remedy for much of what they convey as a concern for a healthier diet. After all, modifying our demand for meat to be raised in small farms and on pasture, according to them, accomplishes many things:
• Creates a more “sustainable” way for this type of food to be produced
• Less contribution to pollution
• Provides a “healthier” type of meat
• Breaks down the economic monopoly of our current large agro-businesses in support of the local and small farmer
• Establishes a more humane way for animals to be still used for food
Growing food on a small farm was partially sustainable a hundred years ago—“partially” because at that time, we really did not have a precise method of evaluating the exact effect this style of farming had on individual ecosystems throughout the world. And certainly, eating quantities of animal products was most likely not sustainable to people’s health. My grandparents and great-grandparents lived and “sustained” themselves on a small farm. They grew just enough food, some of it animals, to eat off of their own land—as did 37 percent of the U.S. population in 1910, and as did 80 percent of the population in 1870. Today, less than 2 percent garner their income from agriculture, yet the vast majority of our food (84 percent of the total value of food production per year) is now produced by large agro-businesses, which comprise 12 percent of all farming operations in the U.S. (Economic Information Bulletin # EIB-66, 72 pp, July 2010).
On the surface, then, transforming our current agro-business systems to be more local small-farm–oriented is on the right track for many reasons—but not if these systems include raising animals for food. Reduction of the waste (fossil fuel, time, money, etc.) that occurs in transportation, processing, and packaging could be accomplished by becoming more local farm-dependent. Local, small, family farms would also benefit economically, especially if governmental incentives were provided for them. But these incentives should be provided only if they produce food that is the most sustainable for our planet—which would have to be plant-based foods. Raising pastured livestock may seem to be sustainable locally regarding use of resources, but upon closer examination, it is not. And certainly it is not sustainable on a global scale, where more and more people will need to be fed with less land and fewer of our natural resources. Additionally, it is not sustainable for our own health.
Upon closer examination, we can see exactly how grass-fed livestock would affect each of the various areas of global depletion. Land use would simply increase dramatically. We already know how inefficiently we currently use land to raise livestock. And regardless of whether we use mob grazing, juvenile grass growth rotational pasturing, or any other technique to improve land quality while raising grass-fed livestock, it would still require between two and twenty acres of land to support the growth of one cow, depending on which area of the country or world is involved.171 I found these figures consistent, whether discussing the topic with the more than thirty experts I contacted in agricultural academic institutions or with the many farmers who have been working with grass-fed livestock for the past few decades. Now, on a global scale we will need to multiply the two to twenty acres per cow times the billion that are currently raised in CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations, or factory farms), and you will quickly see that there is not enough land on earth—or even two earths—to support this. It would require well beyond the 30 percent of all the land mass on earth that livestock are using now.
In the United States alone, there are 98 million cattle per year raised for eventual slaughter.172 Additionally, there are 70 million pigs raised each year for slaughter, and while no objective studies have shown how many acres of land are needed to allow the growth of one pig, a fair assumption would be five to fifteen acres.173 And since those proponents of grass-fed cows are concerned about keeping their animals “happy,” we should indeed include pigs in any of the discussions related to the continual and supposedly sustainable practice of producing only pasture-fed animals. Pigs actually enjoy walks, foraging as they go, and can use all fifteen acres quite easily for feeding, as well as adequate movement. Most would not be aware of this because, unfortunately, most pigs are never allowed the freedom of pasture.
So, let’s just do some simple math here. With just the cows and pigs we currently raise to eat each year, placing them all in “fully sustainable” pastured conditions at the appropriate acreage per animal would require 2,520,000,000 acres of land, just in the United States alone (that’s 168 million pigs and cows combined, multiplied times an average of fifteen acres per animal required to sustain it). To put this into clear perspective, it’s interesting to note that the United States only has 2,260,994,361 total land acres in its entire mass.174 You can see it is more than absurd, just from a land-use basis only, to presume that somehow eating all pasture-produced meat is even remotely “sustainable.” To be consistent, as well as fair to other animals, we can’t omit the raising on pasture of the 250 million turkeys, seven million sheep, and eight billion chickens that we consume each year, which would obviously require even more land than has been used in our calculations for cows and pigs.175 This merely points out the land-mass use requirements. It is not just the quantity, however, but also the quality of land that is heavily impacted by grazing animals. There would be continued and extensive habitat loss, with its subsequent effect on loss of biodiversity and minimizing of oxygen production/carbon dioxide sequestration because of the continued loss of forests. All of this would simply exacerbate our world hunger issues, because land use inefficiencies will continue. In a grass-fed livestock scenario, only a few hundred pounds per acre of animal tissue would be produced, instead of thousands of pounds per acre of plant-based foods, which have more health benefits for us as well.
Whenever any discussion is undertaken regarding sustainable food production operations, let alone “fully sustainable,” there must be inclusion of the measurable effects they would have on our water and air quality. The move to pasture-fed cows would, if anything, simply increase the methane production per cow, as it generally requires the rumen bacteria to work longer to digest grass, in order to produce the same energy content found in grain. Some researchers have found, for instance, that greenhouse gas production is 50-60 percent higher in grass-fed beef.176 We must also remember that when discussing cattle, each animal, when grass-fed, will need to live an additional twelve to thirteen months beyond the ten to twelve months that is considered routine when grain-fed. That means every cow that is producing 50–60 percent more methane will be doing so over twice as long a period. Additionally, every one of the billions of animals raised for us to eat each year, grass-fed or not, also will use oxygen and produce CO2 as part of their normal respiration process. Knowing livestock’s current contribution to our global warming concerns and our need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, continued raising of animals in a grass-fed manner is not healthy or sustainable for our atmosphere.
Those who support continued but pastured livestock use also are completely overlooking the use of water that is still needed by these animals. Remember, the water currently used to support our livestock industry is not sustainable—why would that change with animals raised more on pasture? It would not. There is still the enormous drain on our water supply by the slaughtering and transfer processes requiring as much as another 400 to 500 gallons per cow. And the proponents of this must think that the animals, if free-ranging, will mysteriously not need to drink the same outrageous thousands of gallons of water per animal per year. If anything, the amount would most likely be increased because of the higher activity level of each cow or pig, and they may need to live longer to achieve the appropriate weight gain prior to slaughter. All of this water will need to come from somewhere—aquifers or surface water (lakes, ponds, rivers, streams). Whether the animals are grass-fed or not, this is water that could be used directly for human consumption or to much more efficiently produce plant-based foods. We have seen that it requires up to 5,000 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef (650–1000 gallons per burger). If this figure is adjusted to reflect pasture only that is being fed to the livestock, it will still require 21,000–22,000 gallons over a 24-month period to raise just one cow. That amount of water is the equivalent of a person taking a five-minute shower each and every day for 6.7 years. So, raising grass fed livestock really is not sustainable from a water-usage standpoint.
Then there is the question of how “sustainable” eating grass fed livestock is on our own health. There will be the same overall lack of sustainability or effect on depletion of our own health as we have already seen, despite the myths that have been generated about grass-fed beef. When you hear or read that “grass-fed beef is healthy,” it is, in reality, being compared to grain-fed beef, which is not at all healthy to consume. Grass-fed beef has detectable amounts of beta-carotene, slightly less saturated fat, and slightly more vitamin A and E than its grain-fed counterpart. It will, in most cases, have fewer hormones and lower pesticide and herbicide content. All grass fed beef, however, will still contain unwanted high levels of cholesterol, higher than needed levels of saturated fat, and less than one-sixtieth the amount of beta-carotene as most plants, as well as containing cancer-causing agents such as heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, protein that has been implicated in numerous disease states and the five leading causes of cancer, minimal vitamins, no fiber, and no phytonutrients or antioxidants to speak of, particularly when comparing it to nearly all plants used as food.
Many of individuals who exhort the virtues of grass-fed livestock make comparisons between our health now and that of our predecessors, who ate food that was not industrialized. So, when looking back to the beginning of the previous century, we might be able to learn just how “sustainable” consuming pasture-fed animals was.
It is true that back in 1900 to 1910, individuals in the United States were eating grass-fed cattle and other types of animals that were not grain-fed. Yearly consumption of meat was 143 pounds per person, but that did not reflect eating poultry or fish because record-keeping for that form of food was vague at best (USDA). Beef accounted for 41 percent of all meat consumed, compared to less than 30 percent as it is today (USDA). It is safe to say that a hundred years ago, individuals in the United States ate their fair share of meat—nearly as much as we eat today—and it was grass-fed. Even though this was long before the commercialization of food, the leading cause of death back then was coronary heart disease, just as it is today—from eating too much saturated fat and cholesterol from all the animal products, and not enough fiber or phytonutrients that can only be found in plants (The Leading Causes of Death 1908–1910, CDC). The only difference was that in 1910, people died at an average age of forty-eight to fifty-one because they did not have all the stents, triple and quadruple bypass surgical procedures, and medications that we have now, which allow us to live another forty years. In fact, the only reason cancers were number eight on the list of most common mortality in 1910, instead of number two as it is today, was because the average age of death was forty-eight for men and fifty-one for women—they simply did not live long enough to develop all the cancers we see today, many of which (including the five most common malignancies) are related to eating animal products. Certainly from a health-risk standpoint, raising and eating grass-fed livestock is not sustainable at all.
Entertainers, policy-makers, or well-known authors may enjoy feeling as if they are authorities on this subject and therefore promote the continued use of raising animals for our food consumption, but the reality is that raising cows, pigs, or any other animals for slaughter and use for our food is not sustainable at all. Pasture-fed, organic, grass-fed, or whatever else you would like to call it is simply not healthy for anything or anyone involved.
The concept of migrating toward grass-fed livestock is understandable, in that it is much easier for the general public to accept—much easier than the more obvious evolutionary move away from eating animals altogether.
Even though I have presented a comprehensive view of global depletion that is occurring due to our food choices, it is important also to give you an example of what I think is sustainable.
Let’s create an exercise using a parcel of land as a model, which can then be extrapolated to include all land used for agricultural purposes on our planet, give or take a few variables, depending on the degree of complexity for this exercise.
The best way to do this is to begin by giving each of you a parcel of land that consists of two acres. You can do whatever you would like with it but in the context that it must be used to grow food. Many of you would want to plant pasture grass and then use your two acres to raise livestock, because after all, it’s supposed to be very sustainable—and you may still feel the need to eat meat. You could raise one pasture-fed cow on those two acres, and even throw in a few chickens. Your two acres might be enough land in some areas of the country, but in others, you might need to borrow another few acres from your neighbor, just to support that one cow. You will need to supplement the cow with feed and hay over the winter months—where does that come from? Also, remember this cow will need to drink twenty to thirty gallons of water each and every day, and then you’ll need to slaughter it, using hundreds of gallons of water in the process. At the end of the two years required for growth, you will be left with about 480 pounds of what some people would call edible muscle tissue—essentially whatever is left over for you that was cut off of the cow’s body to consume as food.
Or, alternatively, you could forego the cow/livestock method and use your two acres to grow varieties of plant-based foods; there are many. Take kale, for example. Stated as one of the primary “power foods” on our planet by a number of food and nutrition experts, this plant delivers more nutrients per calorie than any other food. Kale has antioxidants, and among its many micro- and macronutrients, it has a large amount of vitamins K and C and potassium. This plant food has more than sixty times the amount of beta-carotene than grass-fed beef. Kale has at least forty-five different phytonutrients, each of which has been shown to increase immune response, reduce the likelihood of developing cancer, and provide anti-inflammatory properties. Kale also has a perfect ratio of omega-3 fatty acids, and it has fiber, something no grass-fed livestock can provide.
Looking at land use efficiencies and sustainability of resources, one acre will produce, on average, 10,000 pounds of kale in one year, with no (or minimal) water needed during growth, and no water during the “slaughtering” (harvesting) process. Kale will actually continue to grow through extremes of temperatures from minus-5 degrees through 105 degrees F., and after you pick the leaves, it grows new ones. Also, no pathogens, such as H1N1, E. coli, salmonella, Campylobacter, etc., will ever grow on these plants—as long as there are no livestock farms nearby.
Remember, you have one other acre left over, so my suggestion is to plant a grain, such as quinoa, which is another powerful food that can be grown quite sustainably, yielding 5,000 pounds per acre and providing a gluten-free source of 18 percent protein with a balanced amino acid profile and 14 percent fiber—quite healthy.
So there you have it. With the first method, you have used your two acres of land to create 480 pounds of animal products used as food, but it is a type of protein still implicated in numerous disease states, and along the way you have produced tons of methane and CO2, and used, at the least, 15,000–20,000 gallons of water.
Or instead, if you used your two acres to grow plants, such as kale and quinoa, you have produced at least 30,000 pounds of food over a two-year period that required no water and caused no greenhouse gas emissions. And the food you ended up with is infinitely healthier for you and for our planet.
To conclude this exercise, I have a novel idea. Grow only plant-based foods, such as kale and quinoa (although there are many other plants) on your two acres, instead of using the land to support one grass-fed cow. Then feed yourself and your family—you could even feed your neighbors’ families. But then look at all that leftover kale and quinoa, and take just a moment to box up some of the remaining thousands of pounds of surplus food that you grew, and ship it to all the starving children in Ethiopia. That is my definition of sustainable.
I hope you now have a better understanding of the immense effect your food choices have on the health of our planet. So where do we go from here? What can you do, as an individual, as a consumer? First, you must take yourself, your health, and the health of your planet more seriously. It is not enough to think only about the type of car you need to drive to use less gas, or to change to energy-efficient light bulbs. These are important, but you must look way beyond global warming toward global depletion. Understand and have it clearly imprinted that the choices you make for food to eat today—every meal, every day—had to come from somewhere other than just your grocery store. Ask yourself what resources it took; what was sacrificed to get it to you. Ask yourself about the true cost of that food—what was depleted in its production process?
It is my hope that this book serves as a platform of food-choice enlightenment from which you will keep your awareness antenna up and open for expansion of knowledge, based on accurate and unadulterated information. With a newfound awareness, you can use common sense and make a clear decision to commit to do the right thing regarding food choices—do not go halfway. I like to refer to Tony Horton, creator of the P90X fitness protocol, who continually motivates his audience to “bring it” and “don’t just kinda do it.” Sure, deciding to not eat meat once a week or only when not with friends is a step in the right direction. But if you take this halfway approach, here’s what you are really doing: you are saying, “I read Dr. Oppenlander’s book and now realize that eating meat is contributing to global depletion. Therefore, I will do the right thing and eat plant-based foods a couple of times a week to feel good about myself, and then I will continue contributing to global depletion on every other day.” Please remember that with every bite you take of any animal product, some serious form of global depletion took place, and something had to be sacrificed. There really is no room to go halfway or to “just kinda do it.”
Millions of people are influenced by a few who advocate not only eating grass-fed livestock but also that we approach our food choices from other less-than-sustainable concepts. I have a better approach. For instance, instead of “voting with our forks,” which we have actually been doing for the past fifty years—and look where it has gotten us—we should actually vote with our minds first; then, let our forks follow. Also, it is not so wise to eat only foods that your great-grandmother would recognize, because she ate cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens, lamb, and other unhealthy foods obtained from animal parts—not such a good idea.
If you go to the farmer’s market, choose plant-based foods. Let the local farmers that you support know you want organically produced food and nothing that came from raising animals, because that uses too much land and water, and affects our atmosphere and our health.
Now for the most important modification of what you hear from many sources: the “go meatless on Monday” campaign. Good; that’s terrific. Now you will be contributing to global warming, pollution, and global depletion of our planet’s resources on only six days of the week instead of seven. You will be contributing to our national health-care cost crisis to the tune of $140 billion per year, instead of $143–160 billion, and you will be reducing your likelihood of contracting any one of the five leading causes of cancer to only 50 percent, instead of a 58 percent higher risk than if you ate all plant-based foods. Also, by only eating meat six days of the week, your risk of succumbing to coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, diabetes, or any of a number of other diseases might be reduced by a very small amount, but it is still significant.
The point is clear: If you do not eat meat on just one day per week, it is certainly better than eating it every day—but not much better, and you are not doing nearly enough. Eating animals is a choice, not a physiological mandate; there is no reason to eat them. Therefore, there is no reason to produce them, particularly knowing how detrimental this practice is to our health and the health of our planet—as well as knowing the benefits of plant-based foods. So, there is no reason whatsoever to advocate going “meatless” on Monday. My strong recommendation is that we do not eat “only foods our great-grandmother would eat”; that we vote with our minds and with a new awareness; and that we go meatless every day.
Regarding food choices, continue to enlighten yourself; open up and enhance your level of consciousness. Break away from those cultural and media marketing constraints. Do the right thing and commit. Be absolutely consistent with following through, and then feel great about what you are doing. Your body, mind, and spirit will be in a better place—and so will our planet.