Think before you meat

Published 12:20 pm Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Food writer Mark Bittman shared his views over the weekend in a New York Times piece called “Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler.”

Though much of what he says has been said before — decades ago, really — he puts into striking present-day clarity the environmental costs of eating meat, and not just red meat, but also poultry and swine — oh, sweet, delicious swine — too.

We Americans are apparently eating more than our fair share, no matter what food-pyramid scheme you choose to believe:

Americans are downing close to 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish per capita per year (dairy and eggs are separate, and hardly insignificant), an increase of 50 pounds per person from 50 years ago. We each consume something like 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the federal government’s recommended allowance; of that, about 75 grams come from animal protein. (The recommended level is itself considered by many dietary experts to be higher than it needs to be.) It’s likely that most of us would do just fine on around 30 grams of protein a day, virtually all of it from plant sources.

Bittman, who sounds like a vegetarian but isn’t, has good news about the matter, however:

“Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally — like oil — meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible.”

Read the entire text and explore photos and interactive graphics here, where you’ll find that U.S. livestock produces an estimated 900 million tons of waste every year, about 3 tons of manure for every American.

Yum.