Time to Act: Episode 4 (bye bye cows)

Apparently, you are what you eat. Which makes me a bowl of oats, soya milk and banana. No idea if that is good or bad!

Daft phrases aside, what we eat has a major impact – not just on us personally (which I appreciate is what that phrase is getting at), but also on the world around us. The global food system accounts for 26% of global GHG emissions. Producing food also takes up nearly half of the available land on Earth (as visualised below – this land used to be forest and grassland). It has huge implications and therefore is an area where individual change can have a major impact. ?

In a slight diversion from previous formats, I’m going to deliver the punchline first – we need to eat less meat (beef in particular). This is the single biggest way to reduce a plethora of negative personal and planetary impacts. A lot of people may focus on eating seasonally, or buying local – both of which are important on lots of levels – but are like shouting into the wind in comparison to the enormous impact that eating meat has. Transportation accounts for around 6% of food emissions (it varies hugely by food type, but not more than 10%). For beef, it is less than 1%. We are talking “tip of the iceberg” stuff here. If you want to make a real change, you need to reduce meat intake. Reduce, not eliminate. I mean, eliminate if you can, but for most, that isn’t realistic.

I’ll revisit that in a bit more detail, and also talk about other ways to reduce impact (spoiler alert – wasting less, eating less, eating seasonally and choosing organic / sustainably reared) – but first, let’s get into some data.

I do love talking ‘carbon’ so we’ll begin there. The chart below tells you everything you need to know. There is a lot in here, so key points:

• Beef produces more than twice the emissions of the next ‘worst offender’
• 1kg of tofu produces 44x less GHG emissions than 1kg of beef (from a beef herd)
• Staggeringly, beef emissions drop by nearly 66% if we eat an ex-dairy cow rather than a dedicated cow for consumption
• Chocolate and coffee are the worst ‘plant-based’ offenders – primarily due to deforestation, fertiliser use and energy-intensive processing

From a pure carbon perspective, we could make an enormous difference by just switching away from beef to another meat. But moving from meat to plant-based is a big step again.

From a global perspective, having a high emitting food product wouldn’t be bad if we didn’t consume much of it. Unfortunately, that isn’t ‘beef’. We consume ~74 million tonnes per year (about 1/5th of all meat consumed) and Earth is home to over 1 billion cows. Why are cows (and other ruminants) so bad? In essence, they are walking fermentation machines. As they break down their food, they produce methane – lots of it. This is then “burped” (and farted) out into the atmosphere. Methane is bad. Like, really bad. Its warming effect is 80x worse than carbon dioxide, though it is shorter lived.

Meat particularly beef and lamb, are really inefficient sources of food. It isn’t just the carbon impact – there is a large impact on the land itself. Partly driven by space to ‘house’ the animal, but also from growing crops to feed it (for every 100 calories of edible crops fed to animals, we get 17-30 calories out as produce). ?The world’s ever-growing demand for meat (partly driven by rising living standards and wealth) is one of the biggest drivers of rainforest deforestation. ~66% of deforestation in Brazil and Argentina occurs to make space for cows and to grow soy – to feed animals across the world.

When we look holistically at ‘carbon’ from food, we get the picture below. At first glance, you might think “animal-related produce isn’t that much of the emissions”. Unfortunately, the 52% directly attributable to livestock (compared to 35% for crops) only accounts for ~7% of total food mass. Put another way, every 1% of animal-based food mass, contributes 7.5% of the GHG emissions. For crops, every 1% gives 0.38% GHG. Switching to plant-based diets therefore has enormous potential benefit for the planet.

In all this focus on emissions, I’ve perhaps overlooked what many will feel is the most important aspect of meat production – how we treat the animal. And unfortunately, in the vast majority of cases the answer is "abysmally". Getting precise global data points around this is hard – but the data that is available provides a worrying picture. 99.97% of chickens and turkeys, 98% of egg laying hens, 98% of pigs and 70% of cows are intensively reared in the US.

Let’s explore what 'intensively reared' looks like for a chicken in the EU (similar applies to other animals). First off, they will be killed after 6 weeks (in the wild, they’d live for 6 years). So, a short life – which given the incredible suffering, is probably a good thing. They are fed excessively so they reach their growth weight quickly. This leads to them spending most their life lying down as their legs can’t support their own weight (most suffer leg disorders). This limits natural behaviours – like walking, pecking perching. Not that there is much space for that – each chicken is given the space equivalent to a sheet of A4 paper to live in. The entire environment is stressful – no space, over-fouled, sometimes unable to easily reach water. To top it off, before they are killed they are deprived of food for hours. Millions die from heart attacks and many die en route to slaughter. ?The process of being killed isn’t great either – hung by their legs (while still conscious), dipped into an electrified water bath and then their throats are cut. This latter part is pretty common however they are reared, however, we can at least give all animals a decent life.

As you might imagine, standards vary across the world and much of the meat that is consumed will come from animals living in even worse conditions (if you can imagine it). I often reflect and think “what gives us the right”? Why do we collectively think it is acceptable to treat living creatures this way? You can argue about sentience all you like – but we cannot deny that animals feel pain and form emotional bonds. Ripping a calf away from its mother after 24 hours (which is what happens to allow milk production) has a huge emotional impact on both parent and child. We really need to take a step back and think about what we do as a human race and collectively decide whether this is really the world we want to live in. A legacy of environmental destruction, inequality and animal cruelty.

Of course, we don’t do this purely to be cruel – we do it because it is cheap. Which has the benefit of making meat accessible to many. I don’t want to live in a world where meat is only available to the rich – as was the case not that long ago. However, there has to be another way to achieve this – although I acknowledge that most would be impossible in our capitalist system. For those that can afford to, picking free range, organic or “ethically reared” meat is what we should do. If it doesn’t say that on the label, then you are buying the intensive and poorly treated stuff.

I’ve gone on about this for a while, but I really think it is important to understand the impact of the choices we make. I should also stress that meat provides a lot of benefits – pound for pound, it is far richer in many key nutrients (fat, protein, iron to name a few). I am not suggesting that everyone should go vegan (though the planet would be delighted if we did). For some, a vegan diet simply won’t work – there are certainly cases of people becoming very ill when they’ve tried. Though for most, it is of course perfectly safe. I do think we should stop vilifying vegans though. I couldn’t do it – I just can’t bring myself to ditch cheese (I also occasionally eat fish). But what I have is the deepest respect for vegans. They are making sacrifices that I can’t bring myself to make, and I ultimately benefit from that. We should be thanking them. Thanking them for their sacrifice – not vilifying them for daring to go against societal norms and incredible industry pressure (the meat industry is a cartel of brutal lobbying in the same way as the oil and gas industry). If they make you feel guilty, then good. We should all feel guilty and use that guilt to make things better rather than accepting the crap we get shovelled from a broken system every day.

And breathe. You can probably tell that this one gets me emotive – and I make no apology for that. Once the veil of ignorance is removed, we need to step up and make a difference. Let’s talk then to what that looks like.

• Waste less – in all my focus on meat, I didn’t spend long exploring this. But we can make a massive difference here. Globally, 33% of all food produced goes to waste. One third. It is staggering. Getting on top of this would have a massive positive impact. In my view, the key way to do this is through proper meal planning. We use an app called Paprika3. This has all our recipes on it and we then pick what to make each week. It then loads all the stuff needed into a shopping list, we cross check that against what we already have, and off we go. We also shop predominantly outside of supermarkets, so are able to buy exactly the quantity we need. This reduces the amount of food that goes ‘off’ before we eat it. By no means perfect, but we’ve definitely reduced waste. My other tip would be to avoid offers. These seem to make economic sense, but only if none of it is wasted. If you only need one thing, don’t take two because the second is 50% off. If you chuck it in the bin, then you’ve just paid 1.5x the price for the single thing you wanted. These offers aren’t in your interest – they are in the supermarkets interest to get you to spend more money, often on things you don’t need.
• Follow a more heavily plant-based diet – not sure if I’ve mentioned this already…? Start by understanding how many meat / animal-based meals you eat a week. Then see how many you can swap out for a plant-based meal. Even reducing 1 meal a week will make a difference. Following a predominantly plant-based diet can also have major health benefits (reduces risk of a vast plethora of diseases - heart attacks, strokes, cancer). Eating more plant-based is easier than ever to do – there is a huge variety of plant-based recipe books now and the food is genuinely tasty. Vegetarian/vegan options are also extensively covered in restaurants. ‘Swapping out’ is also possible – Quorn mince for example. In many cases where you would do this, you won’t notice much of a difference in taste. A spag bol is all about the sauce. Even a burger is mainly about the toppings, sauces and cheese. I think most would be hard pressed to notice that the ‘meat’ has changed. Try it and see. Of course, swapping out other animal-based products, like milk and butter, are also beneficial. There are a plethora of milk options available, all of which are better for the planet than actual milk (although almond milk has its own problems). Oat is the best for the planet, then soya (just make sure it doesn’t come from a country with rainforests). It undoubtedly tastes different and can take some getting used to. But I now find drinking normal milk really hard – it is overly sweet and creamy. I’m reliably informed that oat milk in coffee is far better than milk (this is from a regular milk drinker). Give it a go.
• Reduce red meat – if you struggle to do the above, can you change the type of meat you are eating? If your diet is heavy in beef and lamb, can you swap some of these for pork, poultry or fish?
• Buy regeneratively farmed / ethically sourced meat – for those that can afford it, going free range and organic is a big step in reducing animal suffering. A step beyond is buying meat that comes from a regenerative farm or otherwise ethically reared. These have a big focus on animal welfare but also use the animals to support wider eco-system developments. Cattle can help trap carbon in the soil and their manure can be used to regenerate soil (rather than using fertilisers and such). You can learn more here: https://regenerativefoodandfarming.co.uk/
• Consume less – this is a core principle in general for life, and very applicable to food. In the UK, we are suffering from an ‘obesity epidemic’. 25.9% of all adults are estimated to be obese with a further 37.9% overweight. So over 60% of us have a BMI outside of a healthy range. News flash – with a couple of minor medical related exceptions, if you are overweight, it is because you take-in too many calories. This could be due to the volume of food being eaten or what you are eating. For everyone though, we should focus on eating what we need and fundamentally reducing the demand on food production.
• Eat seasonally and reduce distance travelled – perhaps not as big an impact as the things mentioned earlier, but still really important. The key is avoiding food that is air-freighted. This can be hard to understand as it won’t say on the packet. Consider how far the goods have come (it will say the country of origin) and the perishability of the goods. Things like berries and such have a really short shelf live so are more likely to be air-freighted. Equally, there is a benefit to supporting your local food producing communities, which goes hand-in-hand with seasonal / low distance consumption. Buying local doesn’t meant popping to the Tesco around the corner! Go to independent shops – this might cost more, but the money goes into a business in your local area and supports the local economy thrive. Far better than just lining shareholder pockets.
• Consider what you eat and how it was made – I’ve not spent long on many of the negative impacts that agricultural practices have on the planet. Soil degradation, water usage and polluted rivers being key aspects. Going organic can have a big impact on many of these things. Fertilisers and pesticides have a devastating impact on wildlife, insects, soil and water health. They are mainly made from ammonia which also has a big GHG impact. Avoiding these as much as possible will only benefit the environment. Equally, there are many ingredients in food which are particularly bad. For example, Palm Oil. Which is a wonder product with incredible yields. Unfortunately, it is grown by first clearing rainforests. It is in almost everything (lip-stick to chocolate) and can be hard to avoid. But lots of companies do – just read the label. Note – supermarket own brand stuff is always full of it. Why? It is cheap!

I’m conscious I’ve waded into a pretty emotive topic fitted with steel capped boots. We can all make such a massive difference here. On the planet, on the health of our rivers, on the welfare of animals, on the working conditions and livelihood of people in the supply chain and on our own health. What we put in our body matters and we need to think far harder about this.

Next week I’m going to do something a little different and do some retrospective scene setting. I often make the assumption that everyone knows what we are heading towards if we don’t change – then realise the danger in assumptions! Thanks for reading and catch you next time.