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VIEW: Beef for a veggie diet —Q Isa Daudpota

Meat-eating is an unsustainable luxury. Far better then that in this season of grace and magnanimity we work towards a transformation of our diet. Sustainable eating habits require switching largely to non-animal foods, which would make the national diet affordable and healthy

The post-World War II period has seen striking breakthroughs in our understanding of food choices and health. We have learnt that high consumption of animal protein causes health problems and has serious environmental impact: red and organ-meat is now known to be harmful largely due to its cholesterol-raising properties.

Despite these new insights our schools in the 50s or 60s did not teach any of this. In fact there was no link shown between what one eats and the health issues other than very commonsensical precautions about the need for washing food and boiling water. The connection with the environment came later as a global awakening. This, too, is yet to be taught and discussed in our classrooms.

Moreover, most customers are ignorant of the economic impact of global meat consumption. Or, even if they are aware, they choose to neglect it. Most of those who can afford meat have come to see it as the main course of their meals, a pleasurable essential.

Now for the startling facts that might jolt us into action...

Contemplate the waste: 16 kg of grain are needed to produce just 1 kg of meat. That’s not all. This wasteful transformation causes a huge loss of nutrients, including 90 percent protein and 99 percent carbohydrates. In addition, only a small portion of the body of the slaughtered animal consists of meat — just 35 percent of a cow is edible. In total, approximately half of the global grain produce is fed to animals so that some of us can eat their meat.

Although meat consumption in industrial countries has decreased over the years, consumption globally has continued to climb. To meet the increased demand, meat production has more than doubled since 1970. In 2004, over 250 million tons of meat was produced worldwide. The enormous cost of this to the environment has not been given the attention deserved.

Consider the impact on land and water usage and on greenhouse emissions. One kg of meat takes the same amount of land to produce as 200 kg of tomato or 160 kg of potatoes in the same period. About 65 percent of all agricultural land is used to keep livestock and produce animal feed. In the USA, 0.23 million sq km of land is taken up with production of hay for farm animals, and only 16 thousand sq km (7 percent) are used for growing plant food for humans. Meat consumption damages rainforests, so essential to maintain the oxygen balance in the atmosphere: 40 percent of all rainforests in Central America have been cleared within the last 40 years, mainly to gain land for grazing and the cultivation of fodder.

Roughly one-fifth of the world’s land area is used for grazing, which is twice that for growing crops. In the natural state grasslands are healthy ecosystems supporting a diverse range of plants, birds, rodents and wild grazing animals. These areas are often unsuitable for cultivation, but with care they can generally be used sustainably for livestock grazing. Cattle, sheep and goat are ruminants and they fare best on a diet of grass. In Pakistan, animal production is largely on the use of rangelands; very little cereals are fed to the animals. It is 3 percent of all cereal production; in comparison, India uses half of that. The USA uses over 69 percent (so 23 times higher than Pakistan). Given our high population growth, and an increasing demand for meat, it will be difficult to enhance livestock production from overgrazed rangelands.

Overgrazing leads to additional problems. For example, it has led to perennial grasses becoming stressed, allowing annual weeds and scrubs to proliferate. The new weeds lack extensive root systems to guard soil against erosion. As the diversity of plant species is lost, wildlife also declines. About 10 percent of the world’s fertile land suffers from moderate to extreme degradation. Overgrazing by livestock and current farming practices are the principal causes of this degradation.

The impact on water usage is no less. Consider an average household — it needs around 2-5 litres of water for drinking, and 100-500 litres for everything else (showering and washing). This dwarfs in comparison with 2000-5000 litres needed each day for the production of foodstuff for an average family. So the high use of water in producing food is central to consideration of sustainable food supplies. But the amount of water used depends largely on the type of nutrition. Worldwide, approximately 1,200 cubic metre of water are required per person per year for the production of foodstuff. In the poorest regions, where the people cannot afford animal produce the amount of water needed is around 600 cubic meter. In the USA and Europe it is 1800 cubic metres.

A realistic comparison of common diets shows how water usage differs with kinds of diet. For a diet consisting of 80 percent plant-based food and 20 percent meat (even though in industrial countries meat proportion is 30-35 percent) 1300 cubic metres are required per person per year, while a vegetarian diet requires only about half as much.

Today, when there is a growing fear of the greenhouse effect causing steep rise in global temperature and consequent melting of icecaps resulting in great global catastrophes, the role of diet in this crisis is overlooked. Up until now, traffic and industry have been held almost exclusively responsible for the greenhouse effect. According to the head of Wuppertal Institute of Climate, Environment and Energy in Germany, contribution of cattle breeding is about the same as that for all automobile traffic, if we take into consideration the clearing of forests for cattle and for fodder.

The greenhouse effect is caused by three gases: methane, carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide, among other things. All three gases originate through animal husbandry on a large scale. The 1.3 million heads cattle kept worldwide (and the consumers of their meat) alone are responsible for 12 percent annual methane gas emissions. Breeding of livestock creates over 110 million tons of methane annually. This is even more critical when one consider that one molecule of methane contributes 25 times more to greenhouse effect than one molecule of carbon dioxide (the main by-product of autos).

Here we have not even touched on the damaging health effects of a meat diet from humans absorbing the antibiotics used to keep cattle healthy, and the hormones used for enhancing cattle weight.

All this seems a very unappetising plateful of facts, all calling for a complete overhaul of our dietary habits and basing it on non-animal produce.

These days streets are festooned with banners of organisations — from NGOs and charitable hospitals to religious organisations and fundamentalist groups — all wanting you to give them the skins of slaughtered animals that will become available on Eid ul Azha. Cattle and goats are now being sold through web advertisement. In fact, what prompted me to write this piece was a web ad that showed different types of goat and sheep with weight and price — average rate Rs300 per kg! That’s nearly 10 percent of an average worker’s monthly salary!

Meat-eating is a luxury that is clearly not sustainable. Far better then that in this season of grace and magnanimity we work towards a transformation of our diet. Sustainable eating habits require switching largely to non-animal foods, which would make the national diet affordable and healthy. This will give all Pakistanis a balanced diet throughout the year.

The writer is an Islamabad-based physicist with a great and growing interest in environment

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