Good food, good meat. Good God, let’s eat… and then go to the hospital! Photo: Shutterstock
Two nights ago, I had a big slab of meat for dinner. It was delicious. A tri-tip roast that I overcooked slightly–still rare enough for the plate to have a puddle red on the plate beneath–and covered in horseradish. It was eaten outside with friends and a bottle of average red wine, which is, perhaps, the best way to eat any meal. I could eat a plate full of dog shit and enjoy it, as long as I ate it outside with friends and a bottle of average red wine. Meat, though, is horrible–at least in the way we (the vast majority of us, at least) eat it. And it’s becoming more and more obvious just how bad it is.
A few days ago, we published something by the esteemed Jack Manoogian called Here’s a Company Growing Real Meat From Stem Cells. A few days later, it became apparent that that story held a lot of interest for a lot of people. I think, if memory serves correctly, that it was the most clicked on story we’ve had so far this year–interesting, since surfing is our bread and butter (or meat and potatoes). So during the course of the meal, in between bites of cow, I started thinking about just how bad that roast actually was. Then, another few days later, the Washington Post published a in-depth piece simply called Meat is Horrible. Now, this is a big subject, so let me hammer off a few quick points before I get into the meat (yup, I did it) of the subject.
Hunting: Hunting is good. Large scale cattle ranches are bad. Not trophy hunting. That’s bad, and trophy hunters are pieces of shit. Hunting for food takes one animal and feeds a family for months. Cattle ranches kill thousands, waste tons, and are not only cruel, but produce vast quantities of really, really unhealthy meat. If you eat meat and you like animals, you should be pro-hunting. Otherwise, you should stop eating meat. If nothing else, hunting makes you aware of the fact that a steak was once a living, breathing thing.
Vegan/vegetarianism: I couldn’t care less what you eat, but it’s my belief that we evolved to eat meat. Look at your teeth. Them are some meat chompers. But again, what you eat isn’t any of my business… just as what I eat isn’t any of yours (you hear that, angry vegans?).
Climate change: It’s happening. We have a hand in it. Yes, it has happened in the past, and yes, it’s nature, but there is absolute, concrete proof that we’re helping it along at a very alarming pace. So unless you’re a scientist who has been studying it for years and has somehow come up with something different than every other respected researcher in the world, stop saying “blah blah blah Al Gore blah blah hoax blah blah libtard.”
According to Nature (the publication, not actual nature), our demand for meat is playing a large part in global warming. “By 2050, scientists forecast that emissions from agriculture alone will account for how much carbon dioxide the world can use to avoid catastrophic global warming,” reads the Washington Post article. “It already accounts for one-third of emissions today — and half of that comes from livestock.”
Just last month, in fact, the UN announced that they recommend a meat tax, just like there is on cigarettes and alcohol in many parts of the world (getting drunk in Canada costs twice as much as it does in the States!). In doing so, less people would buy it, demand would drop, and with it, production. Which would be a good thing, all things considered. Aside from the very real health risks of eating lots of hormone-laden meat, the meat industry is an environmental disaster. A few cows and a farm with some crops that are rotated is great for the earth. A giant, desolate cattle ranch that stretches as far as the eye can see is bad for it.
According to the Washington Post, in the US, the agriculture industry takes up a staggering 80% of water usage. While everyone is sitting around in California freaking out about almonds, meat overall is by far the thirstiest product–and cows are in the lead. While nuts do need more water than chicken and pork, cows make up for it.
Credit: Washington Post
Even China is opening its eyes. Remember the whole one-child policy? That was in response to overpopulation. And as messed up as that whole situation was, they’re starting to realize that, holy shit, raising a shit-ton of meat takes up a lot of resources and is generally very bad for everything. China eats a quarter of the world’s meat, which is crazy, considering they’re about a seventh of the world’s population. The Chinese government came out last week and recommended that their citizens eat half as much meat in an effort to improve public health.
Eating lots of red meat is bad for you. You know that. On average, one American eats 120 pounds of meat in a year. That’s like eating one entire Mila Kunis or a slightly malnourished St. Bernard per year. Climate change campaigners are ecstatic about China’s recommendation, for obvious reasons.
It seems relatively simple: we ought to be eating the way we evolved to eat. Before we could drive to a grocery store and load our plastic bags with cherry-red ground beef (do you really think it’s that color?), we had to actually go out and find food. Picking an apple off a tree is a lot easier than hunting a wild boar, so it stands to reason that we ate more apples that pork. Yes, that’s a very simplified example, but you get the idea.
So what would happen if the world’s population simply stopped eating so much meat? A LOT, at least according to this graph.
Credit: Washington Post
It’s a strange thing, the meat industry. Although it’s widely known that it has a hand in climate change, it’s more considered a health risk than an environmental one. And to be sure, it is both. A lot of Americans are big and fat and unhealthy, full of garbage and fast food, vomiting out massive amounts of filth and vacuuming up incredible amounts of fat-filled, cancerous food. It’s almost impossible to escape, and the health industry is making a mint off it. You’ve heard you should eat less red meat, but what would happen financially if we all actually DID it? Simply by trading in some (not all) of your meat for something else (say, vegetables, for instance), the world could save an estimated $730 billion on health care alone.
Credit: Washington Post
So here’s the deal: no one is saying you have to go vegan and start being a self-righteous prick about it. What they are saying though, is that the meat industry isn’t just killing the very sensitive environmental balance between greens and meats, but it’s killing us, too. So remember all those times your mum told you to eat your vegetables? She was smarter than she knew.
